US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said his government has determined that Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and their allied militias committed genocide in the war against the Sudan Armed Forces (SAR) that began in April 2023 .
Blinken cited the “638,000 Sudanese experiencing the worst famine in Sudan’s recent history, more than 30 million people in need of humanitarian assistance, and tens of thousands of deaths” to justify this determination.
While Blinken was damning in his criticism of the RSF and its leader, Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo, the US administration continues to defend its ally Israel and its leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, against similar accusations of genocide .
Isn’t the definition of genocide universally accepted?
It is.
According to the 1948 Genocide Convention, genocide is an act aimed “at the destruction, in whole or in part, of a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.”
Under the convention, these acts are: killing members of the group; cause serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately subjecting the group to conditions of existence likely to result in its total or partial physical destruction; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group and forcibly transferring children from the group to another group.
But Blinken did not refer to the Genocide Convention.
Why didn’t the United States use the convention?
It’s not clear.
Blinken made numerous references to the “ethnic” nature of what he described as the systematic killing of men and boys, including infants.
He also mentioned that RSF had “deliberately targeted women and girls from certain ethnic groups for rape and other forms of brutal sexual violence”, actions that rights groups and international actors have, repeatedly accused Israel.
The rapes and sexual violence cited by Blinken to justify the conclusion that RSF is committing genocide have been repeatedly documented as weapons used by Israeli forces against Palestinians.
Hasn’t the United States declared that Israel is not committing genocide?
It is.
To date, several human rights groups and international actors have accused Israel of engaging in war crimes, ethnic cleansing and genocide, while the United States has consistently defended its ally.
In November 2024, US President Joe Biden called the International Criminal Court’s issuance of war crimes arrest warrants against Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant “scandalous”.
The United States has been equally scathing about other international actions aimed at stopping the Israeli attack on Gaza.
The argument that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza was brought to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) by South Africa in December 2023 and since joined by more than 10 other states.
US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said in January that the case was “completely without any basis in fact.”
The United States has attempted to reject the findings of Amnesty International, which in December declared Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, joining several other rights groups that had said the same thing.
How much evidence does the United States reject?
Very.
Added to the 45,936 people killed by Israel in Gaza are the numerous accounts of ethnic cleansing, the use of starvation as a weapon of war, as well as torture, sexual abuse and systematic rape of Palestinians by Israeli forces.
In October, the United States issued a 30-day “ultimatum” to Israel to do more to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, which was starving under Israeli bombardment.
A month later, with famine looming in northern Gaza due to an Israeli “siege within a siege” and the continued blockage of aid, Secretary of State Blinken chose to do nothing which was indicated in his ultimatum to Israel.
His administration, however, acknowledged that few, if any, of the ultimatum’s conditions for increased aid had been met.
What else has the United States done?
In late December, the United States went even further, apparently ordering the withdrawal of a report concluding that the Israeli siege of northern Gaza had led to the famine that aid agencies had long warned of.
In July, even Israeli authorities initially found reason to investigate 10 Israeli soldiers involved in the gang rape of Palestinian prisoners in custody.
Despite this, the United States appears content to express “concern” about Israel’s conduct, using its veto in the UN Security Council to block calls for a ceasefire four times. and taking no action against their ally.
Earlier this year, the Biden administration announced plans to sell an additional $8 billion worth of weapons to Israel.
