It in fact does not require extreme violence. For instance: the Indian Boarding School programs of the early 20th century didn't involve extreme violence (ostensibly, they didn't involve any more coercive force than any other mandatory schooling program; of course, in reality, that wasn't at all true) and didn't have as an organizing goal the death of students/inmates. At the same time, the program was clearly genocidal, and would have fit the UN convention: it was a systemic program undertaken with a goal of destroying an ethnic group, using one of the explicit actions (e) of Article II of the charter.

At the same time: I don't think it's that straightforward to dismiss concerns about "decolonization", especially not with a simple link to Wikipedia. That decolonization could represent programs known to their authors as means of eradicating Jewish people (and, in particular, the plurality Mizrahim population of Israel) is not a fever dream. That doesn't make it true, but it's not a facially invalid concern.

That advocates of "decolonization" widely responded to the October 7th Hamas Al Aqsa Flood attacks with "decolonization is not a metaphor" does your "fever dream" arguments no favors; those attacks were overtly, expressly genocidal.

Musk didn't say some radicals used the term as a euphemism for genocide. He said "Yes, “decolonization” necessarily implies a Jewish genocide". He didn't say it was banned in that context, he said it would result in suspension period, because again "decolonization necessarily implies a Jewish genocide"

Lots of terms have been used as euphemism for lots of things. It makes no sense to declare a word used in many contexts now means only this one thing, because one group of people used it this way. As I said in another thread I'm against allowing people to hide behind euphemism and dog whistles, by all means if someone is talking about decolonization of Israel, take action! But claiming this is the only meaning and a blanket ban is nonsense.

I don't much care. You made two claims I felt worth rebutting: that genocide was in practice always extremely violent, and that decolonization could be genocidal only in fever dreams.

I stand corrected on the first. As usual, people's creativity for doing awful things exceeds my imagination, and, on reflection, I can think of a few other historical programs that indeed should be called genocidal, but one would be hard-pressed to call them violent.

The second, "that decolonization could be genocidal only in fever dreams." is not what I said. I can also think of a few instances of decolonization in history that certainly pushed those boundaries. What I said was that the word decolonization does not inherently mean genocide, much less specifically Jewish genocide, and the belief that it does is a Musk fever dream. I also acknowledge that it would have been clearer if I had clarified that some (Hamas, their supporters) are using it that way and that emotional language, as usual, does little to add to a conversation.

Don't let me sound like I think Elon Musk is coherent. We might not actually disagree about anything here, including Musk. It seems pretty clear what he's referring to when he uses the term "decolonization", but Musk unreasonably flattening a term for his own convenience would be unsurprising.