By Myra Murtaza NDU, Islamabad
Even when all that is required are words, many still fail to use them”.[1]
Who is entitled to empathy? And who is deprived of it? The clear Hierarchy of Victimization in the international community and the phrasing adopted to address or avoid the issue of Genocide in Gazailluminates the hidden power relations within.
Since 2023, the Gaza strip has witnessed mass civilian causalities and extreme violence targeted not just at civilians but libraries, schools,historical sites and hospitals aiming to erase not just a people but their roots and their future.
International Bodies like the UN commission in 2025 have concluded that Israeli actions meet four of the five genocidal criteria,[2]and UN reports,“reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating the commission of the crime of genocide…has been met.”[3]yet what is it exactly, aside from the factual reality, thatmakes the criteria of genocide fulfilled ‘enough’for it to be invoked, remains unasked.
Looking at the precedents further sharpens the contrast. in the 1990s U.S. Leaders statement in Rwanda’s case, “acts of genocide may have occurred”[4] to avoided any obligation to act, worried that failure to act after declaring the Rwandan genocide will hurt them politically.Similarly, the Bosnian massacre was only later legally declared to be a genocide, still unlike the atrocities in Congo and Namibia that remain unaddressed.
However, on the other handthe swiftness of the U.S. government in calling Russian invasion of Ukraine a ‘genocide’, to defend the robust aid provisions, shows that the term ‘genocide’ is often deeply tied with politics of language.
Reviewing the U.S. political discourse on Gaza, it is seen that the U.S. officials have openly rejected the genocide label for Gaza, framing the conflict in other terms. “We are not seeing any act that constitute a genocide”, as stated showcase U.S. Policy orientation, as evident through President Biden who instead used terms like “a tragic conflict” or “Humanitarian disaster,” often shifting the blame on Hamas for triggering the attacks.[5]
The Congress largely remains silent, and U.S. State departments often stress on determining the Israeli intent to fully or partially erase a people. Although PM Netanyahu, among other similar statements has explicitly linked Palestinians to Biblical Amalek people, which had to be ‘exterminated’.[6]Comparing the facts on ground with the horrifying statements made by Israeli officials the Israeli intention is clear.We seeU.S. asserting itself as the sole arbiter of what counts as genocide given its hegemonic discourse.
The Israeli efforts to stop UN bodies like UNRWA preventaccurate documentation and in time reporting. An action Israel seems capable of performing unlike other countries where UN bodies seem to be operating smoothly.
U.S. Media echoes most of the U.S. government’s language. Big outlets have overwhelmingly avoided use of legally charged terms like ‘genocide’, instead using ‘complex war’, ‘campaign’, or ‘military operation’. Palestinian suffering is repeatedly contextualized and de-emphasized by highlighting Israeli civilian causalities. A CNN study found that Palestinian men in particular were frequently omitted, through taglines like “most of the dead are women and children” theyimplicitly define men as militants or terrorists, normalizing their deaths.[7] Creating the necessary psychological distance to justify Palestinian killings.
A poststructuralist view highlights that media narratives as well as official statements are not neutral.
This is reflected in Donohue’s concept of the “Identity Trap”[8]originally used in the case for the Rwandan Genocide; to demonstrate the way linguistic conventions construct social identities (Us vs Them) that later normalize violence by elevating the speaker’s moral positions while belittling the targeted group.
In the case of U.S. this framework shows the constant refusal of the word “genocide”, is more of a discursive strategy than neutral legal assessment. Using ‘collateral damage’, or ‘crimes against humanity’ averts the formation of a victim identity that could potentially invoke the moral and legal actions required from the international community, in response to a genocide.
At the same time, Israel is framed a lawful and legitimate actor. By doing this the U.S. discourse actively snubs the linguistic signals activating the early warning systems that woulddemandinternational accountability.
Poststructuralism shows that the meaning of the word genocide is not fixed rather shaped by the dominant discourses, its label refused to Gaza constructs the Palestinians outside the category of victims whose loss demands intervention, Western political discourse alienates other perspective as ‘opinion’, and Empathy assigned to them by communities is uneven, media and official framing decide which lives count, their ‘Grievability’[9]or lack thereof.
Historically, theterm Genocide has a charge far beyond dictionary definition, it conjures the Holocaust and worst crimes, so its use in Gaza challenges deep-rooted western self-image of moral progress and righteousness.Therefore, the western powerful actors, and of course the U.S. subtly but steers away from it.
It is imperative to state that by the actively shaping its own and the Global discourse on the Palestinian situation, The U.S., is not neutral but complicit to the atrocities being committed in Gaza, even atthe linguistic level. This remains true evenif one were to ignore the overt and covert military, economic and diplomatic support extended to the Israeli government throughout thisordeal.
The conscious language choices of the U.S. discourse act a gatekeepers of meaning, shaping reality and its interpretation. Western coverage has essentially ‘dehumanized’ Palestinians by disregarding their lived experiences, reducing them to narrative, statistics and stereotypes. The framing helps maintain the status quo, then even mass killings are collateral damage, not intent of Genocide.
While the judicial process unfolds, the inability or rather the outright refusal to draw necessary historical and moral parallels in determining the gravity of the situation represents a great sociological and moral failure.
The central question, then,is not whether the genocide is occurring, but the extent of complicity of each state in its perpetuation. What’s required now is not passive observation but a willingness from the international community to name the violence truthfully and act upon its recognition.
[1]Plestia Alaqad, “The UN Called It Genocide in Gaza. Will Western Journalists Dare to?” The Objective, Commentary, September 30, 2025.https://objectivejournalism.org/2025/09/the-un-called-it-genocide-in-gaza-will-western-journalists-dare-to/
Plestia Alaqad, Palestinian Author and Journalist.
[2]Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), “Israel Has Committed Genocide in the Gaza Strip, UN Commission Finds,” press release, September 16, 2025, United Nations Human Rights Office, accessed December 19, 2025, https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/09/israel-has-committed-genocide-gaza-strip-un-commission-finds
[3]“Rights Expert Finds ‘Reasonable Grounds’ Genocide Is Being Committed in Gaza,” UN News, March 26, 2024, https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/03/1147976
[4]Azmi Bishara, “Denying Genocide through Terminological Hairsplitting,” Doha Institute of Graduate Studies, March 20, 2025, https://www.dohainstitute.org/en/ResearchAndStudies/Pages/denying-genocide-through-terminological-hairsplitting.aspx#
[5]Daphne Psaledakis and Simon Lewis, “US ‘Not Seeing Acts of Genocide’ in Gaza, State Dept Says,”Reuters, January 3, 2024, https://www.reuters.com/world/us-not-seeing-acts-genocide-gaza-state-dept-says-2024-01-03/
[6] Jennifer Da Veiga Rocha and Jade Assayag, “Why do Media Avoid Using ‘Genocide for Gaza?” LA Converse, December 8, 2025, https://www.laconverse.com/en/articles/why-do-media-avoid-using-genocide-for-gaza
[7]Noura El Masry, Zina Sawaf, Gretchen King, Sami Baroudi, “Gender hierarchies in reporting genocide: an analysis of the dehumanization of Palestinian men in Western media”, Communication, Culture and Critique, 2025;, tcaf032, https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcaf032
[8]William A. Donohue, “The Identity Trap: The Language of Genocide,”Journal of Language and Social Psychology 31, no. 1 (2012): 13–29, https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X11425033
[9]Sonja Haugaard Christensen, “Grievable Lives and the Western Gaze: A Lacanian-Butlerian Critique of Moral Inconsistency in Gaza and Ukraine”(PhilArchive, 2025), https://philarchive.org/rec/HAUGLA
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