No, this isn't the original source. The original source is Lemkin's book, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, which I couldn't read because I wasn't about to order an out of print book before writing an article. The link you've cited, which I did read, concerns itself with Lemkin's work in getting the crime of genoicde recognised by the UN. And yes, obviously the Nuremberg trials were more specifically about the Holocaust and a perfect application of the term he coined.

However, when he was actually coining the term, he used a case study of the Nazi occupation of Poland as his basis for the definition. As detailed here:

"During the war, Lemkin worked on the concept of genocide understood not yet as an element of a legal definition, but as a description of the historical phenomenon characterising the German occupation of Europe, with particular reference to the situation in occupied Poland.

Distinguishing eight genocidal techniques and citing examples of their application in Axis Rule in Occupied Europe: Laws of Occupation, Analysis of Government, Proposals for Redress (Foundations of the Laws of War), he wrote each time about the situation on Polish soil. For him, it was the territory of Poland that was the primary site of the application (practice) of genocidal techniques."

But yes, all of this is largely irrelevant. I mention both Polish and Jewish people because both of them were part not only of his identity, but clearly part of his work on the legal concept of genocide. Which is the claim I made in the article. I swear, I'm so bored of being told I don't know what I'm talking about by people who haven't done a tenth of my research.

There are of course, lots of things I don't know about. I'm quite happy to admit when I don't know something. But if I write it in an article, it means I've been very careful about making sure my facts are correct. And that means checking my sources. The thing is, every time I cite a source that's critical of Israel, someone pops up in my comments to tell me that source "doesn't like Jews." And every time I ask them who they’d recommend, every time I ask them for a source that reports diligently on Israel’s wrongdoings but won’t be dismissed as antisemitic, nothing but crickets.

In fact, it was you who claimed that "Amnesty International, HRW, and especially the UN" were "not trusted sources" when it comes to Israel. I asked you too if you could name a single organisation that's been critical of Israel that you would acknowledge as trustworthy. Still waiting.

My "assertions" about the IDF killing civilians are not assertions at all. They're matters of public record. In several cases, there's clear, uninterrupted video documenting them. And in the cases where there isn't, Israel has admitted to them. Also, please let me know where I put words in your mouth. I don't believe I did at all, but would happily apologise if I did.

But yes, you know what, I'm probably not quite the Steve you remember. I've spent a little over six months since we last spoke having my heart absolutely shattered by the inhumanity and brainless one-sidedness of people talking about this. The lies, the rampant, aggressive stupidity, the bigotry, the hand-waving about obvious atrocities and the sheer indifference to the horrific human cost of Netanyahu's brutality, brutality that has done literally nothing to help the hostages or secure peace for Israelis or Palestinians.

I'm not accusing you of all of this, of course. But there's been a veritable tsunami of it. And I’m tired.

Six months ago, I believed this was all just a mistake. The shock of October 7th was so fresh, the Israeli response was still relatively small and details were thin on the ground. It was always obvious to me that Hamas couldn’t be defeated by killing thousands of Palestinians, but I thought, "Give it time. People are grieving. They're scared. They want payback."

And I understood that. I thought, once people got a clear-eyed look at what was going on, once they'd had time to catch their breath and think, that however much they loved Israel, however righteously angry they remained with Hamas, they'd see that what Netanyahu and his extremists were doing in response was wrong. They'd see the unjustifiable-by-Hamas slaughter and theft the settlers are committing in the West Bank, they'd see how violently out of control the IDF are, they’d acknowledge, even grudginly, that recorded history didn’t begin on October 7th, and they’d wake up to the need for a just peace for Israelis and Palestinians.

But I've seen, month by month, conversation by conversation, that this isn't true for a startling number of people. That they will stoop to incredible depths minimise or justify the slaughter of children (or simply reveal that they don’t really care when those children are Palestinian). That they will endlessly deny or misrepresent well-documented facts. And when the evidence becomes undeniable, they will resort to name-calling and whataboutism and cynical claims of antisemitism. So yes, the disappointment of that has no doubt eroded some of my patience, as well as some of my faith in humanity.