Giles Fraser (hero of the Occupy movement at St Paul’s Cathedral for resigning as Dean rather than be party to a police operation against the protesters), argues in an article in The Guardian today, that ISIS’s slaughter of whole minority communities in Iraq and Syria should be recognised as genocide so that, perhaps, one day some of them will be held accountable to the International Court. I agree. Fraser suggests that the Tories are forcing their MPs to vote against recognition of genocide because Turkey is being friendly, helping us to solve the refugee crisis by deporting Syrians back to Syria. For Turkey is sensitive to any talk of genocide – it’s too close to home, too much part of its history – and Cameron doesn’t want to offend his new best friend. We should, says Fraser, be braver than that.
But let’s not talk only about ISIS. With the news today of still more people drowned in the Mediterranean, it is clear that  the EU states are failing in their duty to protect refugees, contrary to the Refugee Convention. They should have to answer for that. And shouldn’t EU states themselves be dragged to the International Court for the agreement which allows Turkey to send Syrians packing back to where they will be killed? I’m not an expert in tricky legalistic language, but that kind of sounds like collaborating in genocide to me, as does our conniving with Turkey in its slaughter of the Kurds. Shouldn’t we be done for all of it? Or change our ways? And if we don’t, let’s not pretend to be surprised if ISIS continues to gain ground. After all, we created them and we sustain them.