Original article (in Slovenian) was published on 29/10/2025; Author: Antun Katalenić
Courts established by the United Nations have so far issued convictions for genocide in Rwanda, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Cambodia.
Delo columnist Janez Markeš said on the current affairs TV show Politično s Tanjo Gobec on 12 October that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was accused of committing the second genocide and the – or the first – genocide since the Second World War.
He made this statement while commenting on this year’s selection of candidates for the Nobel Peace Prize. Netanyahu had proposed that U.S. President Donald Trump receive the award.
Since the Second World War, courts established by the United Nations have issued genocide convictions in three cases.
The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda defined as genocide the killing of between 800,000 and one million members of the Tutsi ethnic group and moderate Hutus, carried out by Hutu extremists between April and July 1994.
Ratko Mladić, then commander of the main staff of the Army of Republika Srpska, and Radovan Karadžić, then president of that Bosnian-Herzegovinian entity, were sentenced by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia to life imprisonment for crimes including the genocide of more than 8,000 Bosniaks in Srebrenica in July 1995.
The Tribunal for Cambodia, established by the country’s authorities in cooperation with the United Nations, classified as genocide the mass killings carried out between 1975 and 1979 by members of the then-ruling Communist Party, the Khmer Rouge.
On 7 October 2023, Israel launched a military offensive in the Gaza Strip in response to an incursion by armed groups from Gaza, a Palestinian enclave under Israeli blockade. On 21 November of the same year, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu on reasonable suspicion of responsibility for war crimes in Gaza. He was not charged with the crime of genocide in that proceeding.
On 29 December 2023, South Africa initiated proceedings against Israel before the International Court of Justice, accusing it of violating the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
An independent United Nations commission on human rights stated in a report published on September 16 this year that “Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces have the genocidal intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”
In response to our inquiry, Markeš described his statement as a slip of the tongue, explaining that he should have said “this is at least the fourth genocide since the Second World War.”
We characterize Markeš’s claim that Netanyahu is accused of committing the first genocide since the Second World War as a reckless mistake, since the author of the statement clarified that he made a mistake.
