The War in Gaza and Genocide of Palestinian People: Why Should Criminologists Be Engaged?

Abstract

The silence within the criminological community on the genocide of Palestinian people in Gaza, and the ongoing apartheid, land dispossession and other human rights abuses of Palestinians in the Occupied Territory of East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and in Israel, is pronounced. This article sets out to unpack why these events should be seen as core to the work we undertake within the discipline. The article argues that the events in Palestine (including Gaza and the Occupied Territory) cut across many matters of widespread importance to criminology including, child protection, corporate crime, disability justice, discrimination and violence against women; ecocide and environmental criminology; global criminology; human rights; Indigenous knowledges and justice; green criminology; media; policing; settler colonialism and coloniality; state crime; teaching and research in criminology; war crimes and youth justice. It is also argued that there are strong ethical values underpinning the urgency of taking a committed position, including a responsibility to oppose genocide and apartheid, to uphold the values of preserving human life in various cultural forms and the non-human environment that sustains life, and opposition to racism, discrimination and oppression in all its manifestations.