In Gaza, a Genocide by Any Other Name
For more than 100 days, Israel has been relentlessly bombing, starving, dehumanizing, and denying aid to the people in the Gaza Strip. In terms of scale and proportionality, it’s one of the most brutal assaults in memory. It’s being done in broad daylight with funding from the American taxpayer and the full support of the American political and media class.
On January 11, South Africa presented a genocide case against Israel at the United Nations’ International Court of Justice at the Hague. Their case was persuasive, outlining a long list of war crimes and genocidal rhetoric from top Israeli officials.
Despite this flurry of negative attention, Israel has carried on undeterred and Western governments have maintained their support. America and the Biden Administration continue to fund the assault and have even supported it with direct military action.
The situation feels helpless. It’s a tragedy unfolding in real time, with live updates from victims and reporters. Every day brings a new horror, and the supposed moral arbiters of the free world are looking humanity in the eyes and saying, “We’re doing this, and there isn’t a thing you can do about it.”
The case against Israel
Whether Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute genocide is a matter of ongoing debate. The United Nations’ definition of genocide includes:
“…any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
a) Killing members of the group;
b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
The first three of these are almost a given. More than 25,000 people have been killed in Gaza since October 7 and another 58,000 have been injured. Around 70% of the dead are civilian women and children. On average, Israeli strikes kill one child in Gaza every 15 minutes. The actual numbers are believed to be much higher as bodies lie uncounted under the rubble. In a population of just 2.3 million, this equates to more than one out of every 100 people killed, and the numbers grow every day.
Among the victims have been United Nations officials and healthcare professionals. Entire families have been wiped out, including babies. Israel bombed a UN aid convoy and has slaughtered refugees fleeing along evacuation routes Israel itself ordered them to take. They’ve killed people waiting in line for humanitarian aid. They’ve shot shirtless people waving white flags who turned out to be their own hostages. And they’ve killed more than 110 journalists — more in three months than were killed in the entirety of World War II.
Israel’s wanton bombing campaign has annihilated schools, neighborhoods, homes, places of worship, UN compounds, and hospitals. They have alleged that these facilities are being used as secret bases by Hamas — but those claims have proven thin at best. By some estimates, half of all buildings in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed by Israeli shells. Some 1.9 million Gazans have been displaced, a staggering 85 percent of the region’s population.
The World Health Organization reports that virtually everyone in Gaza faces “crisis levels of hunger.” Facilities and infrastructure have been demolished. Diseases are running rampant amid the deplorable sanitation conditions, horrific overcrowding and lack of healthcare. The Israeli siege prevents Gazans from accessing goods, basic aid, electricity, and vital services. The UN’s Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Martin Griffiths, declared in a briefing to the Security Council that in Gaza, “Dignified human life is a near impossibility.”
In addition, Israel is waging a psychological war. A recent report shows that the IDF has desecrated 16 gravesites in Gaza, digging up bodies and smashing gravestones. They’ve stripped detained Gazans to their underwear and marched them through the streets. Israeli soldiers have posted videos to social media bragging about their murderous rampage or sadistically mocking the victims.
Devastation in Gaza is almost total. Everywhere is death, disease, starvation, and destruction.
But proving genocide requires proving intent. All this carnage could be, and often is, dismissed by Israel as collateral damage in a righteous war against Hamas. Even if everyone in Gaza winds up dead, that isn’t necessarily enough to convict Israel.
However, it isn’t hard to find high-level Israeli officials or their Western allies dehumanizing Gazans and making genocidal declarations. Here’s a small sampling:
- Defense Minister Yoav Gallant: “I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed… We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.”
- Israel President Isaac Herzog, implying everyone in Gaza shares culpability for the terror attack on October 7: “It is an entire nation out there that is responsible… It is not true this rhetoric about civilians not being aware, not involved.”
- Agriculture Minister Avi Dicther, referencing the 1948 Nakba in which 750,000 Palestinians were violently removed from their homes or killed to make way for the State of Israel’s founding: “We are now rolling out the Gaza Nakba… Gaza Nakba 2023. That’s how it’ll end.”
- Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, advocating the permanent removal of Gazans from their homes: “I welcome the initiative of the voluntary emigration of Gaza Arabs to countries around the world… The State of Israel will no longer be able to accept the existence of an independent entity in Gaza.”
The Israeli defense
The day after South Africa presented its genocide case, Israel dismissed the charges as “grossly distorted” and argued they have only acted in self-defense. They insisted they were fighting a war against Hamas, not the Palestinian people, and rejected calls to stop the assault. One common refrain from Israel supporters and Israel itself has been, “Israel has a right to defend itself” — and they claim everything they’ve done since October 7 has been to that end.
The decades-long story of Israeli occupation and violence in Gaza has been largely set aside in this discourse. It really shouldn’t be — it’s essential to understanding the current conflict.
In the current narrative, everything began on October 7, when Israel was attacked by armed members of Hamas, Gaza’s governing militia. The details of October 7 were horrific: Hamas stood accused of slaughtering civilians, taking hostages, committing mass rape, and decapitating babies. While some of the more sensational allegations are disputed, no one disputes that Hamas killed innocent Israelis.
But even if you treat October 7 as an out-of-the-blue terror attack, what the IDF is doing in Gaza goes far beyond self-defense. Hamas killed 1,139 people during its attack. Of these, 68% were civilians. Not only has Israel killed more than 20 times that number of Gazans, a greater proportion of them have been civilians. In other words, the Hamas attack was slightly more focused on military targets.
People who flippantly tout the self-defense argument either don’t understand the scale of destruction in Gaza or they’re trying to imply that Israel has a right to murder anyone it thinks might one day pose a problem — even if that person is only a child.
Israel and its defenders have also resorted to censorship and bringing up irrelevant counterpoints — for instance, suggesting that South Africa is acting as “the legal arm of the Hamas terror organization.” Even if that were true, it says nothing about the charges and the evidence.
Antisemitism and censorship
Another not-insignificant tactic of Israel defenders has been, unfortunately, to accuse opponents of antisemitism.
Much of the discussion conflates and confuses the State of Israel, the religion of Judaism, the Jewish people, and Zionism — the movement to establish and, nowadays, expand a homeland for Jews. Jumbling these concepts has the effect of turning criticism of any one of them into antisemitic criticism of them all. In supposing that Jews, Israel, and Zionism are inseparable from one another, even human rights advocacy on behalf of Palestinians becomes antisemitism.
This has led to the stigmatization and even criminalization of the phrase, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” Popular at demonstrations, the phrase refers to the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, which is currently shared by Israel and what’s left of Palestine. Propagandists are taking the most uncharitable possible interpretation of the slogan to smear protesters and college students worldwide as irredeemable, terror-supporting antisemites. Ironically, a pro-Israel variation of the phrase is used by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ruling Likud Party without mainstream controversy.
Censorship of phrases like “from the river to the sea” and “decolonization” is less about protecting everyday Jews from bigotry and more about discrediting criticism of Israel and its assault on Gaza. However, everyday Jews may actually be suffering because of it. Agencies worldwide have reported a rise in both antisemitic and Islamophobic hate crimes. It’s cowardly, disingenuous, and dangerous for Israel and its defenders to put the Jewish people between themselves and their accusers while they commit war crimes.
It’s also important to note that countless Jews have raised their voices, often quite bravely and at enormous personal risk, in opposition to Israel’s assault on Gaza. Here’s a sample:
- Ofer Cassif, a member of Israel’s legislative body Knesset, is risking expulsion for speaking out against the Gaza assault.
- The group Rabbis4Ceasefire has led marches and a prayer protest at the United Nations.
- Author and 87-year-old Holocaust survivor Marione Ingram called for a ceasefire and protested outside the White House.
- The Guardian reported on multiple Jewish groups that condemned the harsh treatment of Gazans by Israel.
- Norman Finkelstein, the son of two Holocaust survivors, is one of the planet’s most outspoken and well-informed critics of the war.
- Tal Mitnick, an 18-year-old conscientious objector in Israel, was jailed for refusing to take part in the Gaza genocide.
It’s deeply cynical and unfair to label criticism of Israel’s actions or support for Palestinians as antisemitic. It’s also deeply unfair to hold Israel’s actions and the statements of its politicians against the Jewish people. Antisemitism is an ancient blight on mankind that should be stamped out wherever it emerges. Opposition to violent military occupations is a proud tradition that should be celebrated wherever it emerges.
Israel’s genocidal co-defendant: The United States
For many Americans, the shame of this situation arises from our complicity in it. Aside from some occasional finger-wagging and suggestions that Israel ought to “be more careful” about killing so many children, the Biden Administration has been ironclad in its support of Israel since the assault on Gaza began.
Since the 1970s, the US has given Israel more than $130 billion in military aid. We have also funded Israel’s scientific and technological advancement and its economic growth. For the last 20 years, we have given Israel between $2.4 and $3.8 billion annually. After the Gaza assault started, President Biden pledged $14.3 billion in military aid to Israel and made it clear he would impose zero restrictions on how they chose to use all that weaponry. The US also provided the white phosphorous that Israel has allegedly used to commit war crimes and sold Israel $106 million of tank shells.
Now, the US is moving from arms dealer to active participant. Together with the UK and others, the US has been bombing the Houthis in Yemen. The Houthis are an Islamic militia that controls large parts of Yemen. They’d begun attacking commercial vessels in the Red Sea in an attempt to disrupt the shipment of supplies to Israel. Now, the US has effectively gone to war with one of the poorest nations on Earth to open shipping lanes for a country accused of genocide. Perversely, the Houthis are actually the ones acting in accordance with international law, which obligates states to “take measures to prevent and to punish the crime of genocide.” The international community is pleading for de-escalation as fighting threatens to extend throughout the Middle East and beyond.
The Biden Administration is also running diplomatic cover for Israel. The US has vetoed UN Security Council resolutions calling for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby called the South Africa genocide case “meritless, counterproductive, and completely without any basis in fact whatsoever.”
And Biden is doing all this at his own political peril. He’s about to have a rematch for the presidency against Donald Trump, who leads him in polls. Meanwhile Biden’s support among many of his core constituencies, especially young people and Muslim-Americans, has cratered since the Gaza assault began. There is zero reason to expect that Trump will offer any greater wisdom or morality on this issue, but voters can’t bring themselves to support the man they’ve nicknamed Genocide Joe.
Where do we go from here?
Whether you call it a war, an assault, or a genocide, what Israel is doing to Gaza can’t last forever. Soon there won’t be anything remaining of Gaza to attack. Without immense international pressure, applied swiftly, all that will be left is to write the history.
Netanyahu and his top officials are crystal clear. Their goal is “full Israeli security control over all the territory west of Jordan” — in other words, Israeli domination from the river to the sea. Netanyahu has flatly refused to consider a two-state solution, the long-sought resolution that would create two sovereign states, Israel and Palestine. Increasingly, it seems unlikely that there’ll even be a one-state solution — that is, a single state where Israelis and Palestinians coexist peacefully with shared, equal rights.
A judgment from the International Court of Justice could take years. Even if the court convicts Israel, it has no enforcement powers. The US can simply veto, as it has in the past, any Security Council resolution requesting that Israel stop its assault.
It’s never too late for peace. No matter how much damage has been done, it would be better if the fighting stopped. Anyone with any means at their disposal, whether it’s protests, letter-writing, petition-signing, boycotting, or even voting, can pressure their leaders to impose sanctions and diplomatic measures. Perhaps, with enough action from activists and the international community, the genocide can be stopped before it’s completed.
This article only catalogues evidence from more or less reputable news sites. Underneath all the lies, coverups, and sanitization there almost certainly lie even greater horrors. One day, Western institutions will have to pretend they didn’t know what was happening, pretend there weren’t countless videos of Palestinians clutching their dead and dying loved ones, pretend they weren’t warned by human rights organizations and journalists.
There’s no one left in Gaza who hasn’t been displaced, gone hungry, lost a relative, and/or been blown to bits. If that isn’t a genocide, it’s hard to know what is. The psychological toll has been profound and will last generations — if there are future generations left to feel it. Whoever does survive will harbor deep, long-lasting animosities for Israel and the US for the carnage visited on them. Many of them will likely respond to the violence they’ve experienced with violence of their own. They will never forgive us, because what we’ve done is unforgivable.
Whatever you call it, hardly anything on Earth today is as clear-cut and morally unambiguous as Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip. And the USA, President Biden, establishment Washington, and mainstream media are firmly on the wrong side of it.
