Why has the US accused Sudanese militias of genocide but not Israel? | Politics News

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says his administration has determined that Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and its allied militias committed genocide in the war against the Sudan Armed Forces (SAR) that began in April 2023.

Blinken cited the reasons for the decision as “638,000 Sudanese are experiencing the worst famine in Sudan’s modern history, over 30 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance and tens of thousands are dead.”

While Blinken was harsh in his criticism of the RSF and its leader Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo, the US government continued to defend its ally Israel and its leader Benjamin Netanyahu against similar allegations of genocide.

Isn’t the definition of genocide generally accepted?

It is.

According to the 1948 Genocide Convention, genocide is acts aimed at “destroying, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.”

By convention, these acts are: killing members of the group; cause serious physical or mental harm to members of the group; to deliberately impose living conditions on the group that are likely to bring about its physical destruction, in whole or in part; the introduction of measures to prevent births within the group and the forcible transfer of children from the group to another group.

But Blinken did not refer to the Genocide Convention.

Why didn’t the US use the convention?

That is not clear.

Blinken made numerous allusions to the “ethnic” nature of what he described as the systematic murder of men and boys, including young children.

He also mentioned that RSF has “deliberately targeted women and girls from certain ethnic groups for rape and other forms of brutal sexual violence,” all acts that human rights groups and international actors have accused Israel of on numerous occasions.

The rape and sexual violence that Blinken cited as reasons for concluding that RSF is committing genocide have been repeatedly documented as weapons used by Israeli forces against Palestinians.

Didn’t the US say that Israel is not committing genocide?

It has.

So far, several human rights groups and international actors have accused Israel of war crimes, ethnic cleansing and genocide, while the US has consistently defended its ally.

In November 2024, US President Joe Biden rejected as “outrageous” the International Criminal Court’s issuance of war crimes arrest warrants against Netanyahu and his former defense minister Yoav Gallant.

The US was equally harsh on other international measures aimed at stopping Israel’s attack on Gaza.

The argument that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza was made by South Africa to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in December 2023 and has since been joined by more than ten other states.

John Kirby, spokesman for the US National Security Council, claimed in January that the case was “completely without any factual basis”.

The U.S. has sought to dismiss the findings of Amnesty International, which claimed in December that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, joining several other human rights groups that had said the same.

How extensive is the evidence that the US is rejecting?

Very.

In addition to the 45,936 people Israel killed in Gaza, there are numerous reports of ethnic cleansing, the use of starvation as a weapon of war, and systematic torture, sexual abuse and rape of Palestinians by Israeli forces.

In October, the US gave Israel a 30-day “ultimatum” that it must do more to allow humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, which was starving as Israel bombed it.

A month later, with famine looming in northern Gaza as a result of an Israeli “siege within a siege” and continued blockage of aid shipments, Secretary of State Blinken decided not to do anything outlined in his ultimatum to Israel.

But his government acknowledged that few, if any, of the ultimatum’s conditions for an increase in aid had been met.

What else has the US done?

In late December, the US went even further, reportedly ordering the retraction of a report that concluded that Israel’s siege of northern Gaza had led to the famine that aid groups had long warned about.

In July, even the Israeli authorities initially saw reason to investigate ten Israeli soldiers who were involved in the gang rape of Palestinian prisoners.

Still, the US appeared content to express “concern” over Israel’s behavior, using its UN Security Council veto four times to block calls for a ceasefire and taking no action against its ally.

Earlier this year, the Biden administration announced plans to sell an additional $8 billion in weapons to Israel.