'Say no genocide': discursive constructions of violence and identities around Gaza

From online flame wars, to hostile responses to international university protests, to contested legal cases at the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice, it is clear that there is a profound breakdown on consensual understanding of what is taking place in "the Middle East". This analysis argues that rather than focusing only on the veracity of specific events, there is value in analysing the ongoing catastrophe in Gaza in terms of how competing discursive constructions of violence and opposing subject positions are being created, the technologies through which these are mediated, and the interests which they serve. The phrase 'say no to genocide' can be understood in three different ways: to resist the current genocide in Gaza; to resist a historical recurrence of the Holocaust; and to denounce the use of the term 'genocide' to refer to the unfolding situation in Palestine. The work here is to analyse how streams of competing digital accounts are not simply aggregations of information, but are better understood as shaped by the technological systems through which they are distributed, and the meaning they are given by already established narratives. They further both construct and reflect incompatible subject positions linked to deeper historical processes. Here the analysis attends to both the systems of power in which these interpellations occur and the intergenerational trauma, ranging from colonisation to the Holocaust, which invests them with affect. This helps to account for the seeming intractability of the conflict and radical incommensurability of the accounts offered, while suggesting a set of problems to be solved before peace and social justice can be achieved.<p></p>