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A Bosnian genocide survivor on Israel’s siege on Gaza

Genocide researcher Arnesa Buljušmić-Kustura describes the haunting parallels between the ethnic cleansing of her people and the plight of t

Analyst News

My initial reaction to seeing the destruction of Gaza — the videos of children being pulled out of rubble, the bodies of the dead — was that it reminded me so much of my own experience. It was hard for me these past two weeks to go to sleep and sleep through the night. I would dream of Gaza. I would dream of Sarajevo, I would dream of Visegrad, I would dream of Srebrenica. I was seeing it all play out and it was terrifying. So my initial reaction was: Dear God, this is going to be a genocide. We saw what happened on Oct. 7. The immediate reaction of Israeli politicians, government leaders and defense forces was to publicly and openly call for the destruction of Gaza. “We’re going to destroy them all.” “These are human animals.” “We’re cutting off food, electricity, water, aid.” That was the first red flag to me, when they said “we’re cutting everything off.” It instantly put me back to living in Sarajevo during the siege, when we were completely cut off from the world.  We had no way in or out. We were being bombarded every single day. There was not a day that they did not shell us, attack us with snipers, throwing grenades, bombs, whatever they could. There was not a single day where we were able to breathe. Knowing that the Palestinians in Gaza are going through this as well right now, it was difficult for me not to see those similarities instantly. What do you say when [Israel] cuts off their access to water, to electricity, to food, to aid, and then they bomb them? How do you not describe that as genocide? 

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It’s been horrific to see the levels of dehumanization. That they’re considered terrorists, that they’re all extremists, that they got what they deserve. That sort of rhetoric is so similar to the Serbian propaganda prior to the genocide. We were classified as terrorists. The Serb civilians were told, “If you don’t kill them, they’re going to kill you. They’re going to attack you.” Meanwhile, we had no plans of attacking. We wanted to live in peace with our neighbors, as we always had. We just wanted freedom, just like any other person wants. There wasn’t a systematic plan in place of the Bosniak Muslim population to ever attack any of its neighbors. But there was a systematic plan in place from Serb leadership to attack and exterminate the Bosniak Muslim population. In order for any government to to commit a genocide, it needs the enablement of the population. We’ve seen in the Holocaust that people stood by and stayed silent while Jews were taken off to concentration camps, while their properties were looted, while they were forcibly displaced and put in ghettos all over Europe. So, for any government to commit genocide, they have to push severe propaganda. It’s disinformation with the goal of making that population of people so fully dehumanized that when we start to bomb and kill and massacre them, the world just simply stands by, because to them these are not valuable lives. These are not human lives. They are animals to be exterminated, and if we don’t exterminate them, they’re going to attack all of us. They’re going to attack the sanctity of our life, of the way that we live our lives.

S.COUPS & HOSHI Holiday