Why can’t Metsola get to use the word ‘genocide’ for what is happening in Gaza?
Palestinian children are being killed by design. But Roberta Metsola and Robert Abela know that once you acknowledge genocide, you have to respond to it. So they prefer ignoring the term
Why can’t Metsola get to use the word ‘genocide’ for what is happening in Gaza?
Watch this interview. The European Parliament president Roberta Metsola clearly steers clear from adopting the term suggested to her by interviewer Andrew Azzopardi that what is happening in Gaza is “genocide”. Instead she uses the word… “catastrophe”.
When you consult the OED on the meaning of the word catastrophe, there is something particular about the four definitions: they signal a finality, an outcome, an act of suddenness that has delivered a disaster. And that is hardly the case in the series of catastrophic events that have turned Gaza into a pile of rubble and the occupied people of Gaza into undernourished animals bereft of any hope to build a normal life any time soon.
But even without quibbling on the word itself, the reticence of Metsola to employ the word ‘genocide’ in the case of what Israel has perpetrated in Gaza, and her attempt to crowbar the 7th October Hamas murders and attacks as a kind of just casus belli for Israel’s murderous ethnic cleansing of the people in the Occupied Territories, is quite remarkable.
That she was among the first on the scene in Israel to extend a European blessing of Israel’s right to defend itself will always be part of her political legacy. But to refuse to consider the evidence of what has happened since then, as genocide, is shameful, and continues to confirm how much of our Maltese political class is beholden to the United States as well as Israel.
Here is the interview transcript:
There was recently a UN report that declared that Israel committed acts of genocide in Gaza… do you subscribe to this view?
“What I can say is that the situation in Gaza is catastrophic, and I saw it with my own eyes, as I can say that what happened on 7th October is catastrophic and must not happen again…”
Why are we speaking about that other thing?
“Because if you speak on one thing…”
Because it looks like we are trying to equivalate them… (the two events)
“Firstly you cannot… but you have to admit that what happened on 7th October can never take place again, ever and ever again. And in that same manner, I can tell you the reaction was disproportionate and that now there is a case at the ICJ as to whether this happened or not.”
[The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has yet to rule on a case brought by South Africa in December 2023 accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. In January 2024 it issued a ruling saying that Palestinians in Gaza had “plausible rights to protection from genocide” and set out provisional measures that Israel should follow to prevent genocide. There is no evidence that Israel has heeded this advice.]
So we need a case to determine this… but, this was genocide wasn’t it? When you are bombing humans…
“What I am saying is that what happened, was catastrophic.”
It is genocide…
“It is catastrophic…”
Because you have a systematic attack that is resulting in the elimination of a people…
“But you cannot justify that with what happened on the 7th October, so we get back in a…” [makes a twirling motion with hands and fades out]
So let’s say that, and call it a genocide…
“The situation is catastrophic and we must find a solution. And I hope that the ceasefire that President Biden started negotiating and now is being negotiated by President Trump, takes place, and stays in place.”
This portrayal simply distorts the reality of what Israel has committed, with carte blanche from the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and overall, the EU. And the continued use of the Hamas massacre of October 7th by those who refuse to call a genocide a genocide, is a misleading narrative that ignores the historical roots of Israeli apartheid policy and the imprisonment of Palestinians in Gaza, and their terrorisation in the West Bank.
“Genocide” legally requires evidence of “genocidal intent” (as set by the 1948 genocide convention) and is not a simple standard to prove, with debates as to whether prosecutors must establish a “pattern of conduct”, or whether the specific order to exterminate a people has to come explicitly from above (rather than just the fancy-free acts of genocide committed by the IDF…). The risk of sticking to a legally formalist definition is that we leave more room for Israel to make any form of mass violence or denial of the conditions that make basic living possible, easy to commit in the name of “defence against Hamas terror”.
But the public knows what is happening in Gaza. And people like Roberta Metsola and Robert Abela know that once you acknowledge genocide, once you name it, you must respond to it. But not acknowledging it, your response can be muted.
When Metsola calls this a ‘catastrophe’, and likewise when Maltese leaders like Robert Abela and Ian Borg do not denounce the genocide, it minimises both domestic audiences’ concern about what is happening in the Middle East; and public pressure on the EU to intervene in support of the Palestinian population, while retaining strong trade relations with the nuclear-armed Israel.
Like so many hollow statements from the Maltese political class, the inability to marry the words ‘genocide’ with ‘Israel’ (recently Prime Minister Robert Abela condemned the Israeli strikes on Gaza as “barbarous”) is part of the limp manner in which missives get issued on X, and allowed to die a natural death on social media.
If our political leaders truly believe in democracy and human rights, they must sanction the ethnic cleansing of Gazans and recognise the state of Palestine, because not only do these people have legitimate aspirations, but there are decades of profound grievances and brutal oppression that will not be going away any time soon. Malta’s reluctance to recognise Palestinian statehood stands in contrast to several European partners, including Ireland, Norway and Spain, who have moved forward with recognition; instead our island seemingly edges close to a Trump-lite line of messaging, simply conceding that it will recognise Palestine when “conditions allow” (March 2023).
Foreign minister Ian Borg’s response to the Israeli attacks which killed over 400 and wounded some 600 Palestinians, was even less vocal than Abela’s: no condemnation, simply saying the attacks should stop, and then called on Hamas to release all hostages and disarm, adding that it had “no role in any future governance of Gaza”.
Reminder: it is Israel that breaks the ceasefire, and it is Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu who is subject to an ICC arrest warrant for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Does he get to enjoy a future role in Middle East governance?
So when will our political leaders start calling this a genocide?
Israeli airstrikes on Gaza kill 400 Palestinians in March alone after the ceasefire is broken. 174 children are killed in the bombing.
A UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory report from 13 March found Israel “deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians as a group”, revealing Israel’s “systematic use of sexual, reproductive and other forms of gender-based violence since 7 October 2023”.
The deliberate destruction of Gaza’s main fertility clinic, Basma IVF clinic, which amounts to “a genocidal act under the Rome Statute and Genocide Convention”, done with the the intent to “destroy the Palestinians in Gaza as a group, in whole or in part, and that this is the only inference that could reasonably be drawn from the acts in question”.
Between 7 October 2023 and 15 January 2025, children made up at least 18,000 of the 46,707 Palestinians killed in Gaza, an underestimate when so many bodies remain buried under the rubble.
Most children are killed by direct military strikes. Israel dropped an estimated 85,000 tonnes of explosives on Gaza, and doctors reported evidence of children being killed in drone attacks and by snipers, including by shots to the head and chest.
On 2 March, Israel blocked the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza, using starvation and dehydration as military strategy. Unicef says 31% of children under two years of age are acutely malnourished.
And the destruction of hospitals leads to “indirect deaths” by communicable illness and noncommunicable conditions. Over 90% of children in Gaza are affected by infectious diseases.
Israel used the grotesquely named “Where’s Daddy?”, an AI system which tracks targets geographically so that they can be followed into their family residences before being attacked, to deliberately target Palestinians in their family homes.
Metsola and Abela are a bloody disgrace. They are both very cleaver in their choice of words, and steering away from using words like Genocide, lest they offend or rather go against the grain.
STAYING SILENT, MAKES YOU COMPLICIT.
Greeting from downunder.