Ever since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war, the word “genocide” has been tossed around like a political football. Notably, the U.N.’s International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled in January that South Africa’s charge that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza was “plausible” and that Israel must take actions to ensure they are not “deliberately inflicting on [Palestinians in Gaza] conditions of life calculated to bring about [their] physical destruction in whole or in part.”
Meanwhile, back at United Nations headquarters in Turtle Bay, Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide Alice Wairimu Nderitu has likewise become something of a political football herself. A longtime human-rights advocate who has mediated, and resolved, identity conflicts all over the world, Nderitu put out a statement on October 15 in which she called for both the release of Israeli hostages and an immediate cease-fire, as well as “all possible measures to protect those who are most vulnerable.”
