Summary
Moses’s concept, from his The Problems of Genocide: Permanent Security and the Language of Transgression: extreme responses by states to security threats, enacted in the name of self-defense, targeting entire civilian populations under the logic of ensuring terrorists and insurgents can never again represent a threat — a project that seeks to avert future threats by anticipating them today (More than Genocide, lines 139, 187).
Details
- Civilian destruction tends to be greatest when security retaliation reaches this level (line 139). Present instances Moses gives: Putin’s reasoning on Ukraine, Myanmar’s 2017 expulsion of the Rohingya, and China’s mass incarceration of Uyghurs (line 139).
- States, on Moses’s account, wrote the 1948 Genocide Convention so it would not inhibit permanent security: “states would not permit the UNGC to inhibit their right to pursue permanent security, whether against internal or external enemies” (line 169); “It protects the perpetrators: states that seek permanent security.” (line 179)
- Israel’s Gaza campaign after October 7 is presented as the crystallization of an attempt at a permanent security solution — destroying Hamas and corralling or expelling Gaza’s population (lines 151-155) — succeeding the attrition strategy of Mowing the Grass (line 149).
- The closing condition: “Unless the conditions of permanent insecurity are confronted, permanent security aspirations and practices will haunt Palestinians and Israelis.” (line 185)
Related pages
More than Genocide, A. Dirk Moses, Genocide, Genocide Convention, Iron wall, Mowing the Grass