New evidence of human rights inconsistency by US officials
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says his government has determined that Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and its allied militias have committed genocide in the war against the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAR) which started in April 2023.
According to Al-Jazeera, Blinken attributed the decision to the "tens of thousands of dead, over 30 million people in need of humanitarian assistance, and 638,000 Sudanese experiencing the worst famine in Sudan's recent history."
Universal definition of genocide
Genocide is defined as acts that are meant "to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group" under the 1948 Genocide Convention.
According to the convention, those actions include: murdering group members; seriously injuring group members physically or psychologically; purposefully subjecting the group to living conditions that are intended to cause its physical destruction in whole or in part; enforcing laws meant to prevent births within the group; and forcibly moving group members' children to another group.
Blinken did make numerous references to the "ethnic" nature of what he described as the systematic murder of men and boys, including infants.
He also mentioned the RSF having "deliberately targeted women and girls from certain ethnic groups for rape and other forms of brutal sexual violence", all actions that rights groups and international actors have, on numerous occasions, accused Israel of.
The rape and sexual violence Blinken referred to as reasons to conclude the RSF is committing genocide have been repeatedly documented as weapons Israeli forces use against Palestinians.
Genocide by Israel, denial by America
While the US has continuously stood up for its ally, Israel has been accused of war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and genocide by a number of rights organizations and international actors.
US President Joe Biden called the International Criminal Court's war crimes arrest warrants against Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant "outrageous" in November 2024.
Other international measures aimed at stopping Israel's assault on Gaza have also drawn harsh criticism from the US.
The argument that Israel is carrying out genocide in Gaza was brought before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) by South Africa in December 2023 and since joined by more than 10 other states.
US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby claimed in January the case was “completely without any basis in fact whatsoever”.
The US has tried to reject the findings of Amnesty International which, in December, said Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, joining several other rights groups who had said the same.
There are multiple reports of ethnic cleansing, the use of starvation as a weapon of war, and the systematic rape, torture, and sexual abuse of Palestinians by Israeli forces, in addition to the 45,936 people Israel has killed in Gaza.