https://www.dn.se/varlden/folkrattsprofessor-trump-har-underblast-folkmord-i-gaza/
International law professor: Trump has fuelled genocide in Gaza
Updated 2025-07-29 Published 2025-07-29
Mark Klamberg is a professor of international law at Stockholm University and author of a book about genocide that will be published by Fri Tanke this fall. Photo: Claudio Bresciani/TT
More and more voices are being raised to define what is happening in Gaza as genocide. One of these is international law professor Mark Klamberg.
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Mark Klamberg, professor of international law at Stockholm University, previously refused to call what is happening in Gaza a genocide. Now he has changed his mind.
What has changed?
– It is statements and rhetoric from the Israeli government that show what drives their policies and actions. From previously being about fighting Hamas and freeing hostages, there are now more and more statements from a wider circle in the Israeli government that are in practice about the forced displacement of the Palestinians, he tells DN.
According to Mark Klamberg, the famine and statements about displacement to other countries mean that he overall assesses what is happening as genocide.
– It does not require an intention to destroy all Palestinians for it to be a question of genocide. If the policy pursued by Israel reaches its logical end, the group of Palestinians will cease to exist in Gaza, says Mark Klamberg.
He believes that the ongoing genocide has been fueled by Trump's statements about turning Gaza into a tourist destination.
– This has made Netanyahu and the Israeli government perceive that they have been given the green light. After Netanyahu visited the White House and called Trump a visionary, the rhetoric has hardened from the entire Israeli side, says Mark Klamberg.
According to Klamberg, the definition of genocide is repeated in several places, first in the 1948 Genocide Convention and then in other legal sources, for example in the Statute of the International Criminal Court.
So what is genocide?
– This may include killing people in a protected group or imposing living conditions on them that cause them to be completely or partially destroyed as a group, such as starvation.
One requirement, however, is that the actions are carried out with the aim of completely or partially destroying the protected group.
– So there is both an objective and a subjective part of the definition, says Mark Klamberg.
And it is precisely the subjective part, the intention of the government, that can generally be the challenge when it comes to establishing genocide.
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson (M) does not want to call Israel's warfare in Gaza a genocide, but maintains in interviews with several media outlets that it is up to international courts to decide.
Should the government speak out instead of referring to international courts?
– International law is not just about punishing crimes in retrospect. There is also a proactive function. It is important that other countries act if a state violates international law. But I do not want to criticize the government too harshly. The government has turned up its criticism, and that must still be taken into account, says Mark Klamberg.
Facts: Genocide ConventionThe 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide is the first human rights treaty adopted by the UN General Assembly. It was created after World War II and the Holocaust, when Nazi Germany systematically killed more than six million Jews.
According to Article II of the Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group:
(a) Killing members of the group
(b) Causing serious physical or mental harm to members of the group
(c) Deliberately subjecting the group to conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction, in whole or in part
d) To introduce measures aimed at preventing children from being born within the group
(e) Forcibly transferring children from the group to another group
Source: UN
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