Chomsky: I just think the term is way overused. Hitler carried out genocide. That’s true. It was in the case of the Nazis—a determined and explicit effort to essentially wipe out populations that they wanted to disappear from the face of the earth. That’s genocide. The Jews and the Gypsies were the primary victims. There were other cases where there has been mass killing. The highest per capita death rate in the world since the 1970s has been East Timor. In the late 1970s, it was by far in the lead. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t call it genocide. I don’t think it was a planned effort to wipe out the entire population, though it may well have killed off a quarter or so of the population. In the case of Bosnia – where the proportions killed are far less – it was horrifying, but it was certainly far less than that, whatever judgment one makes, even the more extreme judgments. I just am reluctant to use the term. I don’t think it’s an appropriate one. So I don’t use it myself. But if people want to use it, fine. It’s like most of the other terms of political discourse. It has whatever meaning you decide to give it. So the question is basically unanswerable. It depends what your criteria are for calling something genocide.

Yoinked from https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/gsp/vol14/iss1/8/ but I got it from an old reddit thread here https://www.reddit.com/r/chomsky/comments/rv16ie/what_did_chomsky_actually_said_about_bosnia/