When Hitler was beginning his extermination of European Jews, he had not yet committed genocide. But he was in the process of committing genocide. I don't always have time to choose my words with utmost care, but when I use words that are as emotionally loaded as the word genocide is, I do use them with utmost care. The distinction is important because when a government is embarking on a course of genocide, it is not too late to stop it. But if we don't recognize that it is an ongoing genocide, we might not take it as seriously as we ought to and need to, and we might not do what is needed to make it stop until it is too late, as we saw for instance, in Europe during WWII.

In some parts of occupied Palestine, there is an abundance of graffiti saying things like "Arabs to the gas chambers" and "Gass the Arabs" and "Kill all Arabs", frequently accompanied by a "Star of David". Although Palestinians request that this graffiti be removed, they have found that the only way to get the government to do anything about it is to paint a swastika nearby as well. Then the graffiti comes down very quickly. This is the same kind of environment in which genocides become reality - especially when the behavior in question has the tacit approval of the government that is in control of the area.

When a government starves a civilian population, one can't really say that a genocide has been committed while relatively few numbers of people have died. However, starving a civilian population is a genocidal policy, and therefore constitutes an ongoing genocide as long as that policy is in place.

I realize, however, that it is much more emotionally satisfying to say that my words are mealy mouthed and project onto my words some other meaning than the one I intended.