Policide

Policide is a neologism used in political science to describe the intentional destruction of a city or nation.

Origin

Writer Michael Walzer credits the origin of the term "policide" (here, meaning the "destruction of a state's independence") to Abba Eban, Israel's foreign minister in 1967.cite book
last = Walzer
first = Michael
authorlink = Michael Walzer
title = Just and Unjust Wars
publisher = Basic Books
location = 2001-03-31
pages = 52
id = ISBN 0-465-03705-4
quote=... the destruction of a state's independence (a crime for which Abba Eban, Israel's foreign minister in 1967, suggested the term 'policide'), accessed 10-24-2006 through Google Books.]

Similarly, professor Steve J. Stern has adopted "policide" to mean the destruction of political life itself. Stern describes the term as an extension of a family of terms including "homicide", "patricide", "tyrannicide", "genocide", "democide", and "ethnocide". Stern uses the term "policide," rooted in the Greek term "polis" (πόλις) for "city-state" or "body politic," in order to describe what he characterizes as "a systematic project to destroy an entire way of doing and understanding politics and governance" in Chile under the governance of Augusto Pinochet.cite book
last = Stern
first = Steve J.
title = Remembering Pinochet's Chile
publisher = Duke University Press
location = 2004-09-30
pages = 32, 90, 101, 180-81
id = ISBN 0-8223-3354-6, accessed 10-24-2006 through Google Books.]

Popular usage

Policide is used with some regularity within political science, generally to refer to a policy of destruction that falls short of genocide or ethnocide, and may involve the destruction of a city or nation. For example:

* In "Writing Ground Zero", John Whittier Treat refers several times to the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as "policide."cite book
last = Treat
first = John Whittier
authorlink= John Whittier Treat
title = Writing Ground Zero
publisher = University of Chicago Press
date = 1996-05-01
pages = xii, 10, 38, 399
id = ISBN 0-226-81177-8, accessed through Google Books 10-24-2006]

* In "Circle of Goods," Tressa Lynn Berman describes United States policy towards Native Americans as a historical process shifting from ethnocide into "policide."cite book
last = Berman
first = Tressa Lynn
title = Circle of Goods
publisher = SUNY Press
date = 2003-01-01
pages = 65-66
id = ISBN 0-7914-5535-1, accessed through Google Books 10-24-2006]

* The term "policide" frequently arises with respect to the intention to eradicate the state of Israel. Yossi Beilin discusses Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's use of the term to describe the Palestine Liberation Organization's claim that it is dedicated to the ultimate destruction of the State of Israel.cite book
last = Beilin
first = Yossi
authorlink= Yossi Beilin
title = The Path to Geneva
publisher = RDV Books
date = 2004-05-01
pages = 56
id = ISBN 0-9719206-3-X, accessed through Google Books 10-24-2006] Netanyahu has continued to use the term in his writings and speeches, for example writing that "Arafat pursues a goal of 'policide' - the destruction of the Jewish state, by employing the means of suicide and mass terror" [ http://www.singerresidence.org/news_public_affairs/article.asp?key=3366 Netanyahu's article ] . The declared intention of Hamas [cite web|title=A viable Palestinian state...|publisher=Die Welt|url= http://www.welt.de/z/plog/blog.php/the_free_west/the_free_wests_weblog/2006/01/26/a_viable_palestinian_state| date=January 1, 2006|] , Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah [ [http://www.theage.com.au/text/articles/2006/07/14/1152637865649.html Little choice for a defiant Israel] , by Andrew Markus, The Age, July 15, 2006] [United Nations Document A/54/723 S/2000/55, citing Washington Post, 1 January 2000 [http://domino.un.org/unispal.NSF/fd807e46661e3689852570d00069e918/50862df07adbd884852569ad0054a527!OpenDocument Letter dated 25 January 2000 from the Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General] Accessed August 17, 2006] and Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad [ http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9823624/ MSNBC] is the destruction of Israel and this had led to claims that Arab/Muslim groups support the notion of policide regarding Israel. [ Aryeh Stav, Nativ Magazine, November 2003, [http://www.nativ.cc/nov03/tur.htm] he icon ]

ee also

*Murder
*Politicide
*Tyrannicide

References