BRENNAN: President Trump claims there's a genocide underway in South Africa. That's a legal determination. Are you trying to determine that now?
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 18, 2025
MARCO RUBIO: They can call it whatever they want, but these are people that on the basis of their race are having their properties… pic.twitter.com/sl0or0UaRB
At a news conference on May 12, President Trump contended
Because they're being killed and we don't want to see people
be killed. Now, South Africa leadership is coming to see me I understand
sometime next week and we're supposed to have a, I guess a G20 meeting there or
something, but we're having a G20 meeting. I don't know how we can go unless
that situation's taken care of, but it's a genocide that's taking place that
people don't want to write about, but it's a terrible thing that's taking
place. And farmers are being killed. They happen to be white, but whether
they're white or Black, it makes no difference to me, but white farmers are
being brutally killed and their land is being confiscated in South Africa and
the newspapers and the media, television media doesn't even talk about it.
However, as the BBC explained last week
None of South Africa's political parties - including those that represent Afrikaners and the white community in general - have claimed that there is a genocide in South Africa.
But such claims have been circulating among right-wing groups for many years and Trump also referred to a genocide during his first term.
The claims stem from attacks on white farmers, or misleading information circulated online.
In February, a South African judge dismissed the idea of a genocide as "clearly imagined" and "not real", when ruling in an inheritance case involving a wealthy benefactor's donation to white supremacist group Boerelegioen.
South Africa does not release crime figures based on race but the latest figures revealed that 6,953 people were murdered in the country between October and December 2024.
Of these, 12 were killed in farm attacks. Of the 12, one was a farmer, while five were farm dwellers and four were employees, who are likely to have been black.
You aren't surprised that Trump was lying- his lips were moving. However, his attitude deserves to be placed in context. Where "racist" is bandied about almost exclusively by the left and "socialist" (or "Marxist" or "communist") by the right, "genocide is becoming a bipartisan buzz word, and lie.
Even Amnesty International is confused. In December of 2924 it claimed Israel is committing a genocide in its "specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza. These acts include killings, causing serious bodily or mental harm and deliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring abut their physical destruction."
Yet, a month ago, John Spencer, chairperson of Urban Warfare Studies at West Point, and Arsen Ostrovsy wrote
The acts that could constitute genocide under the 1948 Genocide Convention include killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm; deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the groups physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births; and forcibly transferring children to another group. Crucially, however, these acts only amount to genocide when committed with the specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group as such.
None of Israel's actions meet this threshold. Israel targets Hamas- an armed terrorist entity that initiated the war with mass atrocities on October 7. The IDF issues evacuation warnings, facilitates humanitarian aid, and restricts military operations to lawful targets There is is no Israeli policy, order, or pattern of action that suggests an attempt to destroy the Palestinian people.
Earlier in the war against Hamas, Spencer had argued that Israel had attained "the gold standard" in harm mitigation. If once true, that appears no longer to be the case, though a closer approximation to reality than the claim it is practicing "genocide."
Nor is genocide taking place in South Africa, no matter the failings of the current government This has included confiscation of land from whites, under color of law, undertaken by President Cyril Ramaphosa of the African National Congress party.
Of course, motivations differ. The individuals and groups who have accused Israel of genocide the past two-and-a-half years typically believe what their rhetoric and are merely badly mistaken. By contrast, Donald Trump is either lying (knowingly stating a falsehood) or has a reckless disregard for the truth. Whether race or the influence of co-President Elon Musk, Trump is pursuing his own agenda for his own malicious reasons. It's a big difference with one commonality: abuse of the term "genocide." Responding to charges against Israel- but with more general application- the Florida Holocaust Museum recognized
Every time an unfounded accusation of genocide is leveled, the word loses some of its necessary gravity, making it harder to call out real genocides as they occur. Under the protesters' definition, every war could be labeled a genocide- at which point the word would no longer have meaning at all.
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