In July 1995, 8,372 Bosnian Muslim men and boys who had sought refuge in the UN safe area of Srebrenica were murdered by Bosnian Serb forces; thousands of women and girls suffered rape and sexual abuse and other forms of torture. In 2007, this was recognised by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) as a genocide. 11 July is recognised as Srebrenica Memorial Day, and this year marks 30 years since the genocide.
Genocide does not spring out of nowhere, it does not happen overnight. We teach our children about the conditions leading up to the Holocaust. Thanks to the work of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and others, there are clear timelines leading up to the Srebrenica genocide. Organisations such as Remembering Srebrenica point to Gregory Stanton’s The Ten Stages of Genocide, showing how genocides occur in 10 stages that are “predictable but not inexorable” and that they are therefore preventable. The stages are non-linear and frequently interlinked.
So 30 years on, and using the same criteria, how much have we learned?
Stage 1: Classification:
The differences between people are not respected. There is a division of ‘us’ and ‘them’ which can be carried out using stereotypes, or by excluding people who are perceived to be different.
“The Palestinians’ connection to the Land of Israel is nothing compared to the 4,000 year connection that the Jewish people have with the land.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, July 2019
During the rule of Josip Broz Tito, the concept of Brotherhood and Unity was largely successful in creating a “Yugoslav” identity. However, after his death in 1980, the area became increasingly divided along ethnic and religious lines: Bosniaks (Muslims), Croats (Catholics), and Serbs (Orthodox Christians). During the breakup of Yugoslavia, this classification intensified, with Bosniaks being viewed as “the other.” Serb nationalists portrayed Bosniaks as a threat to the ethnic purity of a Serb homeland. The classification had begun.
Israeli politicians and their supporters repeatedly claim that the land is theirs by a god-given right, and that by extension no other people have the right to it. Despite numerous UN resolutions, Israel continues to occupy areas of the West Bank, and since October 2023, the settlements have expanded at an ever-greater rate, accompanied by increasing levels of settler violence. The increasing use of the biblical terms Judea and Samaria to describe the West Bank emphasises the idea that the land is for the people of Israel, and not for the “others.”
Stage 2: Symbolisation:
This is a visual manifestation of hatred. People are made to stand out from others with certain colours or symbolic articles of clothing. Symbols were created to distinguish the classified people from the rest of the society. Some types of symbols were colours, patches, or even clothes.
“We give names or other symbols to the classifications … and apply the symbols to members of groups … When combined with hatred, symbols may be forced upon unwilling members of pariah groups … To combat symbolization, hate symbols can be legally forbidden (swastikas) as can hate speech. Group marking … can be outlawed … The problem is that legal limitations will fail if unsupported by popular cultural enforcement”
Edwin Black, US historian and journalist
On May 31, 1992, the Bosnian Serb authorities in Prijedor issued a decree for all non-Serbs to mark their houses with white flags or sheets and to wear a white armband if they left home.
This was the first day of a campaign of extermination that resulted in executions, concentration camps, mass rapes and the ultimate removal of more than 94% of Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats from the territory of the Prijedor municipality.
“Tool of control”: The colour-coded Israeli ID system for Palestinians
After the Six Day War, the Israeli military declared the occupied territories to be closed areas, meaning it was mandatory for Palestinian residents to obtain permits to enter or leave. Since then, Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip have green IDs – generally issued once they turn 16 – while Palestinians in East Jerusalem and Israel have blue IDs. The cards affect everything from freedom of movement to family unity.
Stage 3: Discrimination:
A dominant group uses the law, political power and custom to refuse the rights of other groups. The immobilised group may not be given complete civil rights or citizenship.
“When I look at Basel, I see my brother, but we are unequal. We live in a regime where I am free under civilian law. Basel is under military laws that destroy his life and he cannot control.”
Israeli filmmaker Yuval Abraham, co-director with Basel Adra of the 2024 film No Other Land
The Srebrenica genocide had its roots in ethnic and religious discrimination. Muslims were targeted simply because they were Muslims. And this happened with the complicity of a passive international community which knew what was happening but chose to look away.
The Serb-controlled government in Republika Srpska enacted discriminatory laws and policies that marginalized non-Serbs, especially Bosniaks. Muslim communities were excluded from political representation and public resources, and subjected to forced displacement.
Groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have long described Israel’s regime as a form of apartheid. In the West Bank, East Jerusalem and elsewhere, Palestinians face legal discrimination in land ownership, freedom of movement, access to resources, and political participation. Under the controversial E-1 plan, which will see illegal settlements built all around East Jerusalem, the northern and southern parts of the West Bank will be cut off from each other, thus making the viability of a Palestinian state more remote.
Routes around the area include roads separated by an 8-metre high wall – one side for Israelis, one side for Palestinians, earning it the nickname “the apartheid road.”
In March 2025, the Israeli security cabinet approved the construction of a Palestinian-only bypass road around Jerusalem – a road that former Defence Minister Naftali Bennett described as a “sovereignty road” when announcing the plans in 2020.
Gaza has been under blockade since 2007, with the Israeli authorities controlling access and the passage of aid and other resources. Since October 2023, it has become the centre of one of the worst humanitarian crises of our age. Gaza has changed from being an open-air prison to being a killing field.
Stage 4: Dehumanisation:
The humanity of one group is refuted by the other. Members of it are likened to vermin or diseases and hate propaganda operates to slander the victim group.
“It was genetically deformed material that embraced Islam. And now, of course, with each successive generation it simply becomes concentrated. It gets worse and worse. It simply expresses itself and dictates their style of thinking, which is rooted in their genes. And through the centuries, the genes degraded further.”
Biljana Plavšić, former president of Republika Srpska, convicted of crimes against humanity in 2003.
The Srebrenica genocide began with constant nationalist propaganda from party-controlled media channels demonizing the Bosnian Muslim population.
Radovan Karadžić, president of the self-declared autonomous Republika Srpska who was convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes made it clear that Bosnian Muslims were filth, spawn of Ottoman occupiers, traitors who sold the ancestral faith, and vermin that needed to be annihilated.
In October 2023, then-Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant ordered a “complete siege” of the Gaza strip. “There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed.” “We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.”
Stage 5: Organisation:
Genocides are always planned. It is usually run by the state which often uses militias to relieve it of its state responsibility. Often, organisation is informal and dispersed, such as terrorist groups. Special army units are sometimes trained, and plans are devised for genocidal murders.
“It’s colonialism 101: create anarchy, and then use it as proof that the colonised cannot govern themselves. In Gaza, Israel isn’t just trying to defeat Hamas. It’s trying to destroy any future in which Palestinians might govern their own society.”
Ahmed Najar, journalist
Serbian paramilitary units, such as the Scorpions and “Arkan’s Tigers”, were founded as early as 1990. These militias played a key role in the fighting throughout the war. Direct video evidence presented to the ICTY showed members of the Scorpions unit executing six young Bosnian Muslim men, whilst filming it.
Imperial powers have a long history of funding militias to further their geopolitical or financial agenda. Perhaps the most infamous case is that of the US funding the mujahideen to counter the threat of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, leading to the formation and rise of Al Qaeda.
Israel both funded and allowed funding for Hamas for many years to weaken the Palestinian cause. As Benjamin Netanyahu explained to Israeli journalist Dan Margalit in 2012: “it was important to keep Hamas strong, as a counterweight to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.” Margalit, in an interview, said that Mr. Netanyahu told him that having two strong rivals, including Hamas, would “lessen pressure on him to negotiate toward a Palestinian state.”
More recently, Israel has been funding criminal gangs in Gaza. It has emerged that Israeli intelligence agency Shin Bet has been transferring weapons to a militia whose leaders are linked to ISIS. Since October 2023 the Israeli government had repeatedly told the world that Hamas were stealing aid from ordinary Gazans; it in fact appears that Israeli-sponsored militia were to blame.
Stage 6: Polarisation:
Propaganda begins to be spread by hate groups. Groups are driven apart by extremists. Hate groups disseminate dividing propaganda. Laws may ban intermarriage or social cohesion. Extremism terrorism targets moderates from the perpetrator’s own group who are the most able to obstruct genocide and are therefore the first to be detained and killed.
“This is a war between the children of light and the children of darkness. We will not relent in our mission until the light overcomes the darkness”
Benjamin Netanyahu, November 2023
From as early as the 1980s, Serbian propaganda had started to become anti-Islamic in sentiment. Propaganda and misinformation was vital to the project of Greater Serbian nationalism, and was used extremely effectively to persuade ordinary Bosnian Serbs that they needed to ‘defend’ themselves against slaughter and rape from their Muslim neighbours, or from “Ustaše” (fascist) Croats. Dissenting journalists were removed from their posts-over 1,500 journalists were sacked in a single week in 1993.
The Israeli regime and its supporters have frequently compared Palestinians to the biblical enemy Amalek. The story of the Amalekites in the Bible includes a command to the Israelites to destroy them. This has been cited in submissions to the ICJ
“You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. And we do remember, and we are fighting”, Benjamin Netanyahu said in November 2023. “Our brave troops and combatants who are now in Gaza or around Gaza, and in all other regions in Israel, are joining this chain of Jewish heroes, a chain that has started 3,000 years ago from Joshua ben Nun, until the heroes of 1948, the Six-Day War, the ’73 October War and all other wars in this country.”
The Prime Minister was insistent that this was not a genocidal statement, claiming he was quoting from the book of Deuteronomy. Considering how the passage continues, the genocidal intent is laid out for all to see:
“When the Lord your God gives you rest from all the enemies around you in the land he is giving you to possess as an inheritance, you shall blot out the name of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!”
Stage 7: Preparation:
Perpetrators plan the genocide. Leaders of nations or perpetrator groups employ euphemisms to conceal their intentions, such as referring to their objectives as “ethnic cleansing”, “counter- terrorism” or “the final solution”. Such groups assemble armies, buy weapons and deliver special training to their troops and militias. They indoctrinate people with fear and suspicion of the victim group. Leaders of these factions propagate the belief that “if we don’t kill them, they will kill us”.
“Complete the physical separation of Srebrenica from Zepa as soon as possible, preventing even communication between individuals in the two enclaves. By planned and well-thought out combat operations, create an unbearable situation of total insecurity with no hope of further survival or life for the inhabitants of Srebrenica.”
Directive from Radovan Karadžić to the Army of Republika Srpska
Anti-Muslim propaganda was instrumental in persuading Bosnian Serbs to turn against their Bosniak neighbours.
Examples include the newspaper Večernje Novosti publishing a story of a Serbian child whose entire family was killed by Bosnian Muslims, illustrated by a picture of the grieving orphan. Except the picture was Uroš Predić’s 1888 painting Siroče (Orphan on mother’s grave)
Other stories include reports that Muslim doctors had been sterilizing Serbs, and that all Muslims had been given a list of Serbs to kill.
On the day the 3-year siege of Srebrenica ended, Ratko Mladić, General of the Bosnian Serb forces, justified what was to come in a letter:
“Crimes committed against the innocent [Serb] civilian population provoked the action by the [Army of Republika Srpska], which is aimed at neutralising Muslim terrorists.”
As early in the current onslaught as 7 October 2023, Benjamin Netanyahu was threatening to turn Gaza “into rubble;” there can be no doubt that this threat has been carried out. From the bombing of al-Ahli Arab Hospital 10 days into the war, hospitals, water and power infrastructure have been targeted, making the ordeal of standing up to attack nigh-on impossible
Forensic Architecture has documented a pattern in which civilians have been directed to move to certain areas by official evacuation orders, only for the Israeli military to attack those same areas shortly afterwards, either on the same day as the evacuation order, or the day after.
The language coming out of Israel for international consumption sounds eerily familiar to those of us who remember Rwanda and Srebrenica. Gazans are terrorists who must be destroyed before they destroy us. We are “draining the swamp.” Former Prime Minister Levi Eshkol’s description of “making the desert bloom” is repeated, suggesting that Palestinians are backward and incapable of supporting a civilisation without [civilised] Israeli intervention. Every hospital, every school, every mosque – every square metre of land, seemingly, covers a network of “terror tunnels” containing an inexhaustible supply of weapons and criminal masterminds. The massive civilian death toll is not because Israel is bombing a people into extinction, it is because Hamas uses civilians as human shields.
And this language has worked. Global media have followed the narrative: every mention of the death toll is caveated with the words “according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry,” regardless of the fact that organisations such as the UN and independent studies have found their figures to be consistently accurate. The silencing of dissent, the outlawing of resistance, the overt racism of crackdowns, all point to a world that has accepted Israel’s language. Instead of cultivating the ground to make the desert bloom, Israel has cultivated the ground for genocide.
Stage 8: Persecution:
If I must die,
you must live
to tell my story
…
If I must die
let it bring hope
let it be a tale
Refaat Alareer, targeted by Israeli airstrikes and killed December 2023
As early as August 1992, images from Omarska concentration camp in Prijedor shocked the international community. Survivors of Omarska, and concentration camps like it, tell of unimaginable conditions-starvation, beatings, interrogations, mass murder and sexual violence.
Biometric databases and widespread use of facial recognition software in Gaza indicate targeted persecution of Gazans, with certain groups particularly at risk:
- At least 1,400 healthcare workers have been killed in Gaza since October 2023
- At least 400 aid workers have been killed in Gaza since October 2023
- Around 200 journalists have been killed in Gaza since October 2023
- Thousands have been killed in airstrikes and attacks in Israeli-designated safe areas in Gaza since October 2023
In May 2025, Israel bombed Fahmi al-Jarjawi School. As with all schools in Gaza, it has not been open since 2023, but it had been serving as a shelter for around 100 civilians.
6-year-old Ward Khalil was filmed inside the burning school. Miraculously, she survived, though all her family were killed.
Stage 9: Extermination:
This stage begins and is very quickly identified as the mass murder legally called “genocide.” It is given the name “extermination” by the perpetrators because they do not believe their victims to be human. When backed by the state, the armed forces collude with the militias to conduct the killing.
“Others not lucky enough to survive the horrors of Omarska included Jasko, who loved motorcycles, and his friend Emir, a policeman, both from Kozarac. They were taken out one evening, stripped, and then beaten with iron rods. Two more prisoners were taken out and, with a knife at their throats, ordered to bite off the genitals of the two young men from Kozarac. As these two died an excruciatingly painful death, the camp resounded with frantic screams.”
Rezak Hukanović,The Tenth Circle Of Hell: A Memoir Of Life In The Death Camps Of Bosnia
The scene described by Hukanović goes beyond the mere taking of life in a genocide. The mutilation of genitalia symbolises the inability to reproduce, the end of the Bosniak line.
Sexual violence and rape were used extensively as weapons of genocide. Documentary photographer Nina Berman wrote of an 18-year-old Bosniak girl recovering after an abortion following multiple rapes:
“During her 10 weeks in captivity, she was burned with cigarette butts, cut with a razor, and constantly humiliated for being Muslim. She was raped 16 times, often at knife and gunpoint. She says they told her that, ‘there were too many Muslim people and a lot of Muslims were going to give birth to Serbian children.’”
Independent surveys suggest over 80,000 have been killed in Gaza since October 2023. We cannot know the actual total, as Israel does not allow independent agencies access to see the full scale of their crimes against humanity. And it is not just bombs that kill – the destruction of hospitals, the targeted attacks on healthcare workers, the destruction of sanitation, the lack of access to food and water are all killing countless people every day.
Recently, Israel and the US have imposed their own aid distribution network on Gaza, blocking the UN and other organisations from their work. The Orwellianly-named Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) forces people to queue in pens chillingly similar to images from history.
And when the desperate people are concentrated in one area, the soldiers and militia open fire. In GHF’s first month of operation, over 400 Palestinians were killed while waiting for aid. Testimony from Israeli soldiers describes arbitrary killing of civilians, or just to relieve the boredom: “I’m bored, so I shoot.”
In Gaza, it is not simply the extermination of people, but extermination of a people.
Prior to October 2023, literacy rates in Gaza were 96.8%. Since then, no schools have been open. A population that valued education is being left uneducated.
In the months following October 2023, Gaza’s 3 principal museums were damaged or destroyed by Israeli airstrikes. A history of cultures dating back millennia has been deliberately destroyed
In November 2023, The Gaza Archives were destroyed in an Israeli airstrike, wiping out records of Palestinian society dating back 150 years.
Around 80% of mosques in Gaza have been destroyed, along with several churches, as well as hundreds of imams and clerics.
For those Palestinians who survive the genocide, what will be left for them to return to?
Stage 10: Denial:
The perpetrators and/or later generations deny the existence of any crime.
Denial always follows a genocide and is a strong sign of further genocidal murders. Evidence is destroyed, mass graves bulldozed, investigators are demonised and removed. In denying their crimes, the perpetrators and their supporters will often flip the narrative to paint themselves as the victims, or they will accuse everyone who criticises or accuses them as the enemy.
There is little to add to the words and actions of the perpetrators of genocide when it comes to their lies, evasion and gaslighting. So to conclude, the war criminals, the butchers and their cheerleaders can take centre stage.
“All our activities were defence activities… There were standing orders, fire could only be returned in response to enemy fire. I know nobody gave orders to shoot civilians.”
Mile Sladoje, former Serb Commander, giving evidence in the defence of Ratko Mladić on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity
“The Srebrenica crime is a staged tragedy with an aim to satanize the Serbs.”
Milorad Dodik, President of Republika Srpska, 2018
“I claim here that the genocide was not committed. Every people need a myth. Muslims didn’t have it and they try to build a myth around Srebrenica.”
Milorad Dodik speaking in 2019
“This is all lies, you are all liars.”
Ratko Mladić, responding to being found guilty of crimes against humanity, 2019
“The massacre is a lie. It is propaganda to paint a bad picture of the Serbian people. The Muslims are lying; they are manipulating the numbers; they are exaggerating what happened. Far more Serbs died at Srebrenica than Muslims.”
Miloš Milovanović, former commander of paramilitary unit Serbian Guard and later politician for the Islamophobic Serb Democratic Party
“In an effort to bring the war to their customers, international magazines from Time to the Nouvel Observateur relentlessly portray the Serbs as evil and the Muslims as the usual good guy.”
Peter Handke, Nobel laureate, 1996
“The evidence for a massacre, certainly of one in which 8,000 men and boys were executed, has always been problematic, to say the least… The ‘Srebrenica massacre’ is the greatest triumph of propaganda to emerge from the Balkan wars… the link of this propaganda triumph to truth and justice is non-existent.”
Edward Herman, American economist and media critic, 2005
“This war is a war that is not only between Israel and Hamas. It’s a war that is intended, really, truly, to save Western civilisation, to save the values of Western civilisation. And if it weren’t for us, Europe would be next, and the United States follows.”
Israeli President Isaac Herzog, December 2023
“I would like to say a word about South Africa’s false accusation that Israel is committing genocide. No, South Africa, it is not we who have come to perpetrate genocide, it is Hamas. Hamas would kill us all if it only could.”
Benjamin Netanyahu, December 2023
“Do you know who the Palestinians are? I am Palestinian, My grandfather, a 13th-generation Jerusalemite, was Palestinian. The Palestinian people are an invention of less than a hundred years. Do they have a history, a culture? No, they do not. There are no Palestinians, there are just Arabs.”
Bezalel Smotrich, Israeli Minister of Finance, 2023
“UNRWA [United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East] have unfortunately proved themselves to be a front for Hamas.”
Israeli government spokesman David Mencer, October 2024
[The UN Human Rights Council is] “an antisemitic, rotten, terrorist-supporting and irrelevant body.”
Benjamin Netanyahu in response to a report highlighting Israel’s systematic use of sexual, reproductive and other forms of gender-based violence, March 2025
“I say to President Macron, prime minister Carney and prime minister Starmer, when mass murderers, rapists, baby killers and kidnappers thank you, you’re on the wrong side of justice.”
Benjamin Netanyahu responds to world leaders after they called for a halt to Israel’s military offensive and an end to restrictions on humanitarian aid in Gaza, May 2025
“The State of Israel absolutely rejects the contemptible blood libels that have been published in the Ha’aretz newspaper, according to which ‘IDF Soldiers Ordered to Shoot Deliberately at Unarmed Gazans Waiting for Humanitarian Aid.’
These are malicious falsehoods designed to defame the IDF, the most moral military in the world.”
Statement by Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz, June 2025
As Gregory Stanton points out, one of the purposes of the Ten Stages of Genocide is to “help us see when genocide is coming and what governments can do to prevent it.” As the world looked on and did nothing in Bosnia between 1992 and 1995, so the world looks on and does nothing in Gaza today. The Holocaust, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Rwanda, Darfur, Bosnia. After each of these we have thrown up our hands and cried “Never again!”
Yet here we are today, and “never again” feels as far away as it ever has. “Never again” is never.
Educators for a Free Palestine 
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