Opinion | It's Not Just War. It's Genocide – and It's Being Done in Our Name

A journalist displays the executive summary of B'Tselem and PHRI's "Our Genocide" report at a press conference in Jerusalem, Monday.Credit: Maya Alleruzzo/AP

The time has come. It is no longer possible to beat around the bush and avoid answering the question. We can no longer hide, evade, mumble, mollify, and obscure. Nor can we hang on to legal sophistry about the "question of intent" or to wait for the ruling of the International Court of Justice in The Hague, which may only be handed down once it's too late.

It's already too late. That is why the time has come to call the horror by its name – and its full name is genocide, the extermination of a people. There is no other way to describe it. In front of our horrified eyes, Israel is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip. It did not begin now; it began in 1948. Now, however, sufficient evidence has accumulated to call the monstrous child in the Gaza Strip by its full name.

This is a moment of despair, but it is also liberating. We no longer need to avoid the truth. On Monday, in the basement of a hotel in East Jerusalem, two important Israeli human rights groups announced that the die was cast. B'Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights stated that they had reached the conclusion that Israel was committing genocide. They did so in front of dozens of journalists from all over the world and a shameful, sparse representation from the Israeli media.

Incomparably reliable and brave, they took a historic step. It was clear that their spokespeople didn't find it easy. The discomfort was in the conference room.

B'Tselem called its report "Our Genocide" – and it is genocide, and it is ours. The dramatic declaration was met in Israel with almost total disregard. But this, too, proves the severity of the situation. Genocide is almost always denied by those who carry it out.

The significance is severe. To live in a country whose soldiers are carrying out genocide is an indelible stain, a distorted face peering back in the mirror, a personal challenge for every Israeli. This term raises deep questions about the country and our part in the crime. It reminds us where we came from and raises tough questions about where we're going. The easiest thing now is the burden of proof. The legal corroboration may well come from The Hague, but the moral evidence is piling up every day.

For months, the very few in Israel who see in the Gaza Strip the question of intent have been suffering. Does Israel truly intend to commit genocide, or perhaps it has unintentionally caused the results? This question has become superfluous. It is not the amount of killing and destruction that has taken it off the agenda, but the systematic way they are carrying it out.

When you destroy 33 out of 35 hospitals – the intent is transparent, and the debate is over. When you systematically erase entire neighborhoods, villages and cities – the doubts as to your intentions have come to an end. When you kill dozens of people every day waiting in line for food – the method has been proven beyond any doubt. When you use starvation as a weapon – no question marks exist any longer.

Nothing is missing any longer to understand that what is happening in Gaza is not the collateral damage of an ugly war – it is the objective. The mass starvation, destruction and death are the goal, and from here the path to the conclusion is short: genocide.

Israel clearly intends to bring about the destruction of Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip, to turn it into an unlivable place. It intends to ethnically cleanse it, whether by genocide or population transfer – preferably both.

This doesn't mean the plot will succeed completely, but it is moving in the direction of this absolute solution. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the father of this plot and its chief executor, calls it by the name "total victory," and this victory is genocide and population transfer. Netanyahu and his government will not compromise on anything less. Meanwhile, the Jewish parties in the opposition have no one who really objects.

Israel no longer has anyone who will stop this march to genocide; there are only those who are ignoring it. As frightening as it may sound, the danger exists that it will not stop in Gaza. They have already set up the ideological and operational infrastructure for it in the West Bank. Israel's Arab citizens may very well be the next in line. There is no one to stop it, and we must stop it.