This chapter describes the author's responsibility—as the daughter of one of the pre-state Hagana soldiers who conquered Haifa. It discusses Yosef Nachmani, one of the architects of Jewish settler-colonialism in Palestine. The Salzberger family history shows how biographies often tell larger social stories. Benny Morris argues that Nachmani's story reveals Zionism's Janus face. The Palestinian story tells of Haifa gradually developing from a fishing village to a major seaport due to its strategic importance for both the British, who had a mandate to govern Palestine between 1919 and 1948, and the Zionists. The Israeli story narrates Haifa as a model of co-existence. It is believed that it was the legacy of the author's father as a migrant and his assigning the author the role of an oppositionist from a very young age that shaped his lifelong career of political dissent and solidarity with his Palestinian sisters and brothers.

This chapter considers the theme of responsibility to others on the basis of a critique of mutual recognition. It contests the belief that democracy is antithetical to colonialism and suggests that plurality is severely circumscribed by the ontological structure and the economic processes endemic to political participation. This chapter shows that the cognitive processes of mutual recognition serve to reinforce and perpetuate political structures predicated on private ownership, thereby radically curtailing the range of possible manifestations of alterity. It also explains that while democracy is embraced as the ground of plurality, it ties plurality to the level of identity, thereby obscuring the ontological sameness on which such plurality is predicated.

This introductory chapter first sets out the purpose of the book, which is to provide a critical analysis of the definitions of war crimes and crimes against humanity as construed in the Rome Statute and developed by the Elements of Crimes. It then discusses the origins of the International Criminal Court (ICC); default mental element for offences in the Rome Statute; and Article 21 of the Rome Statute, the law to be applied by the judges of the ICC when adjudicating cases and interpreting the definition of crimes. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.

This chapter examines the affective modalities of the dilemmas of democracy, focusing on the articulation of affect in current theoretical and popular reflections on the possibility of democracy. It analyses the conflicting affects of fear and love in the face of anti-Semitism in Poland in order to understand the crucial role that affect plays, both in xenophobic, ethno-nationalist attitudes, as well as in their proposed remedies. This chapter argues that democracy is founded not only a constitutive political paradox concerning the irreconcilability of individual freedom and collective equality but also on an affective paradox concerning the aporetic relationship between fear and love.

This chapter discusses Article 8(1) and Article 8(2) of the Rome Statue. The discussion of Article 8(1) covers jurisdiction in respect of war crimes and differentiation between international and non-international armed conflicts under the Rome Statute. The discussion of Article 8(2) covers Article 8(2)(a) Persons or property protected under the ‘grave breach’ provisions of the Geneva Conventions; Article 8(2)(a)(i) Wilful killing; Article 8(2)(a)(ii) Torture or inhuman treatment; Article 8(2)(a)(iii) Wilfully causing great suffering; Article 8(2)(a)(iv) Destruction and appropriation of property; Article 8(2)(a)(v) Compelling service in hostile forces; Article 8(2)(a)(vi) Denying a fair trial; Article 8(2)(a)(vii) Unlawful deportation or confinement; and Article 8(2)(a)(viii) Taking of hostages.

This chapter addresses the revisionist histories of the 1948 war, spearheaded in the 1980s by historians Benny Morris and Avi Shlaim, and political scientist Ilan Pappe. It places the Nakba accounts of the Israeli ‘new historians’ with Palestinian narrations of the Nakba. It then moves to literary forms of Israeli Nakba commemoration and discursive representation. It briefly describes some accounts of the Nakba in Israeli literary narratives, from the early 1948 generation melancholic writings to works by contemporary writers these narratives gave their Palestinian protagonists a voice. Pappe is exceptional among Israelis writing on the history of 1948 in reciprocating. The waves of Palestinian Nakba historiography are explored. Moreover, it explains Osmosis by Eshkol Nevo and La Maison Dajani by Alon Hilu. Yosefa Loshitzky's discussion of victimhood as the main component of Israeli identity focuses on melancholia.

This chapter discusses Article 8(2)(b) of the Rome Statute. It covers the origins and development of Article 8(2)(b)(i) Attacking civilians; Article 8(2)(b)(ii) Attacking civilian objects; Article 8(2)(b)(iii) Attacking personnel or objects involved in a humanitarian assistance or peacekeeping mission; Article 8(2)(b)(iv) Excessive incidental death, injury or damage; Article 8(2)(b)(v) Attacking undefended places; Article 8(2)(b)(vi) Killing or wounding a person hors de combat; Article 8(2)(b)(vii) Improper use of a flag of truce, of the flag or of the insignia and uniform of the enemy or of the United Nations, as well as of the distinctive emblems of the Geneva Conventions; Article 8(2)(b)(viii) Deportation or transfer of population; Article 8(2)(b)(ix) Attacking protected objects; Article 8(2)(b)(x) Mutilation or medical or scientific experimentation; Article 8(2)(b)(xi) Treacherously killing or wounding; Article 8(2)(b)(xii) Denying quarter; Article 8(2)(b)(xiii) Destroying or seizing the enemy's property; Article 8(2)(b)(xiv) Depriving nationals of the hostile party of rights or actions; Article 8(2)(b)(xv) Compelling participation in enemy military operations; Article 8(2)(b)(xvi) Pillaging; Article 8(2)(b)(xvii) Employing poison or poisoned weapons; Article 8(2)(b)(xviii) Employing prohibited gases, liquids, materials or devices; Article 8(2)(b)(xix) The use of expanding bullets; Article 8(2)(b)(xx) Employing weapons, projectiles or materials or methods of warfare to be listed in an annex to the Statute; Article 8(2)(b)(xxi) Committing outrages upon personal dignity; Article 8(2)(b)(xxii) Rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilisation, or sexual violence; Article 8(2)(b)(xxiii) Using protected persons as shields; Article 8(2)(b)(xxiv) Attacking objects or persons using the distinctive emblems of the Geneva Conventions; Article 8(2)(b)(xxv) Starvation as a method of warfare; and Article 8(2)(b)(xxvi) Using, conscripting or enlisting children.