Genocide is a pattern, and Israel is in both chapters

IN July 1995, more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslims men were executed in Srebrenica by Bosnian Serb forces under the command of Ratko Mladic - a massacre declared genocide by international courts. The world stood by, hand-wringing, as blue-helmeted UN troops looked away while men and boys were systematically separated, shot and buried in mass graves.

Today, the same world watches in equal paralysis - and complicity - as Israel unleashes one of the deadliest military campaigns of the 21st century against Palestinians in Gaza.

Over 58,026 people have been killed, mostly women and children. The infrastructure of life - hospitals, schools, bakeries, water systems has been bombed into dust. This is not self-defence. This is deliberate, industrial-scale extermination of a trapped, colonised people.

But these two genocides, Srebrenica and Gaza, are not just morally comparable. They are historically connected.

A recent investigation by Al Jazeera, based on newly uncovered documents and eyewitness interviews, confirms that Israel supplied weapons and rocket systems to the Bosnian Serb army in the early 1990s. The same army that would go on to massacre thousands of Bosnian Muslims, rape thousands of women and ethnically cleanse entire towns.

This revelation is not just an indictment of Israel’s past. It is a warning about its present and its future.

Weapons for Genocide: Israel’s Role in Bosnia

The Al Jazeera investigation, corroborated by historical data and international records, details how Israel exported artillery shells, mortars and rockets to Serbian forces during the Bosnian War.

These transfers were not accidental. They were approved and coordinated at the highest levels of the Israeli state, facilitated in exchange for the evacuation of Jewish communities from the war zone.

In short, Israel made a calculated deal: in return for extracting a few hundred Jewish civilians, it armed the perpetrators of Europe’s worst genocide since the Holocaust.

These weapons were not symbolic. They were used to lay siege to Sarajevo, to shell Muslim enclaves and to massacre civilians in what was supposed to be a United Nations-protected zone. Israeli arms were complicit in the architecture of genocide in Bosnia.

And now, the same state stands accused at the International Court of Justice for committing genocide in Gaza - not just through bombing, but through starvation, mass displacement and indiscriminate killing.

Shared Blueprint: Bosnia and Gaza

The similarities between Bosnia and Gaza are not coincidental. They follow a well-documented genocidal playbook:

1. Dehumanisation of the Victim Group

In Bosnia, Serb propaganda portrayed Bosniaks as Ottoman invaders, terrorists and threats to Christian Europe. In Israel, Palestinians are routinely referred to as “human animals,” “snakes,” and “terror babies.” Israeli politicians invoke Biblical genocide, comparing Palestinians to Amalekites to justify their extermination.

2. Siege and Starvation

The Siege of Sarajevo lasted 1,425 days from 1992 to 1995 making it the longest siege in modern history. More than 11,000 civilians were killed amid relentless shelling and sniper fire by Bosnian Serb forces. Sarajevo was surrounded, starved and reduced to ruins while the world watched in silence.

Gaza has endured a systematic Israeli siege for over 17 years.

Since 2007, Israel has imposed a total blockade on the coastal strip - controlling all border crossings, airspace and maritime access. This blockade has crippled Gaza’s economy, restricted the flow of essential goods and left two million Palestinians in a permanent state of deprivation.

Now, under Israel’s ongoing genocidal campaign, food trucks are blocked, water infrastructure is destroyed and children are dying from dehydration and hunger. Even humanitarian aid convoys are bombed.

Famine is no longer a threat - it is a weapon of war.

3. Forced Transfers

Bosnian Muslims were pushed into shrinking enclaves - Srebrenica, Goražde - before being slaughtered. In Gaza, Palestinians are forced south, from north Gaza to Khan Younis, then to Rafah, then to the "humanitarian zones" in the desert. Israel uses “safe zones” as traps and then bombs them.

4. International Paralysis and Hypocrisy

The UN failed to prevent genocide in Srebrenica. In Gaza, the same failure is repeated. Western powers veto resolutions, justify Israeli brutality and supply bombs that shred Palestinian bodies. The same global north that sanctioned Serb war criminals now bankrolls Israeli crimes with impunity.

TOPSHOT - Palestinian casualties of an Israeli strike on an apartment at the Nuseirat refugee camp, receive care at Al-Awda hospital in the central Gaza Strip on July 19, 2025. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP)

The Myth of Israeli Moral Exceptionalism

For decades, Israel has framed itself as a moral nation, traumatised by the Holocaust, committed to democracy and merely “defending itself.” But this narrative is shattered by its own history.

A nation that arms genocidaires cannot claim moral innocence. A nation that builds an apartheid wall, bombs refugee camps and uses white phosphorus on children cannot hide behind its own historical suffering. The Holocaust is not a license to commit atrocities. It is not moral immunity.

And now the truth is clear: Israel was not just a bystander to genocide in Bosnia - it was an active participant. The same state now stands accused of enacting genocide in Gaza.

Naming the Crime

This is not a war. This is not a conflict. This is genocide.

International law defines genocide as acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. Israel’s actions in Gaza meet this threshold: the scale of killing, the targeting of civilian infrastructure, the public rhetoric and the genocidal intent expressed by its leaders all point in one direction.

The world’s refusal to call it genocide reflects its own moral failure, not a lack of evidence.

From Bosnia to Gaza: The Unbroken Chain of Complicity

The same weapons that massacred Bosniaks were provided by a state that now bombs Gaza. The same silence that enabled Srebrenica enables Rafah. The same diplomatic cowardice that failed Sarajevo now fails Khan Younis.

This is not about Israel alone. This is about the entire system of international impunity that protects genocidal states, as long as their victims are brown, Muslim, or colonised.

From Washington to Brussels to Tel Aviv, the machinery of denial continues. But the facts are no longer buried. The graves are fresh. The evidence is undeniable.

Conclusion: Never Again Means Nothing If We Let It Happen Again

“Never Again” has become a lie. It has become a slogan weaponised to protect the powerful while the oppressed are buried beneath rubble.

Bosnia was not an exception. Gaza is not an accident. They are consequences of global complicity, double standards and a refusal to hold powerful states accountable.

Let the Al Jazeera investigation stand as a document of historical truth.

Let the ruins of Gaza speak louder than the lies of those who still claim moral superiority while bathing in the blood of children.

And let the world finally understand: genocide does not start with gas chambers; it starts with silence.

True justice isn't choosing whose genocide matters more. It’s acknowledging them all, prosecuting them all, and preventing them all.

Revda Selver is Friends of Palestine Public Relation and Media Executive. The views expressed in this article are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Sinar Daily.