For over a year, I refused to ascribe Israel’s war against Hamas and the reign of horror it is inflicting on the Palestinians in Gaza as genocide, but now I feel shaken to the core by what I am witnessing.
If what I see is not genocide, then I do not know what is.
Last year, I attended the Mailman School of Public Health graduation ceremony at Columbia University. The student selected to deliver a speech on behalf of the student body was an Arab woman. First, she spoke about her experience at the university as a student, but then shifted to the war in Gaza. During her speech, she invoked the word ‘genocide’ several times, about Israel’s atrocious activities and onslaught on Gaza.
At the time, I was enraged, thinking that although Israel has committed many crimes in its execution of war against Hamas, it did not rise to the level of genocide. But over the last few months, as I was looking at the unfolding horror that’s taking place in Gaza—the mass destruction of infrastructure, the indiscriminate killing of men, women, and children, the clear revenge and retribution that’s been undertaken by Israeli soldiers, the starvation to which the entire community been subjected to—I could not but come to the dreadfully sad conclusion that what Israel is committing is nothing but genocide.
Indeed, how do you explain the deaths of nearly 54,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women, children, and the elderly? How do you define the deliberate destruction of hospitals, clinics, schools, and whole neighborhoods with thousands buried under the rubble, left to rot? How do you describe the many Israeli soldiers who boast about the number of Palestinians they have killed? And how do you label a government that cheered its intended goal of demolishing, decimating, and dismantling whatever was left standing in Gaza?
As I kept listening and watching the unfolding horror day in and day out, I could not stop weeping for what has evolved in front of my eyes–indeed, in front of the eyes of the whole world. But then, hardly anything has happened to end this ongoing travesty. The war continues, the slaughter continues, starvation continues, destruction continues, revenge and retribution continue, making inhumanity and brutality the order of the day.
Yes, I cried with real tears, asking:
Where are all these Israelis who have been demonstrating day in and day out to release the remaining 59 hostages, but never raise their voices to stop the killing of 54,000 Palestinians?
Where are the rabbis who praise God for being the chosen? I wonder, has God chosen the Jews to maim, to mutilate, to massacre, and to kill?
Does the Israel that was created on the ashes of the Jews who perished in the Holocaust now have the moral justification to perpetrate genocide against innocent men, women, and children?
Where are the opposition parties in Israel, who have been paralyzed and remain comfortably numb? Why aren’t they screaming, shouting, and protesting against an evil government that is destroying the very moral foundation of a country that sacrificed its soul on the altar of the vilest government in Israel’s history?
Where are the academics, professors, and students that should uphold high moral ground? Why have they buried their voices among the thousands of Palestinians buried with no trace?
And what happened to the so-called ‘most moral army in the world,’ the Israel Defense Forces, that took pride in defending their country only to turn out to become the most depraved force, committing crimes of unspeakable cruelty, ruthlessness and savagery? They are fighting under the false banner of saving the country from a mortal enemy when, in fact, they are destroying Israel from within, leaving it searching for salvation for generations to come.
I was raised by parents who instilled in me the meaning of caring and compassion, lending a helping hand to people in need, sharing my food with the hungry, and learning never to hate others or hold others in disdain. I have held these values from the time I was a little boy to this day, recognizing that these are the ideals that have sustained me in times of loss, in times of suffering, in times of sorrow, in times of hope, and in times of anguish, never knowing what tomorrow will hold.
One day, I asked my mother, ‘Mother, what shall I do with people who hate me and want to harm me only because of who I am?’ She pondered for a second, and then said, ‘My son, if a beast comes to hurt you, defend yourself, but never, never become like one. Because if you did, you would have lost your humanity, and you will have little left to live for.’ And, after another brief pause, she told me: ‘Remember, son, an eye for an eye leaves us all blind.’
So many Israelis have told me to my face that we should kill every Palestinian child in Gaza because once they grow up, they will become terrorists bent on terrorizing us for as long as they live, and we should kill them all to prevent that future. How sick and deranged and demented these people are. Has it occurred to them that what Israel is doing to the Palestinians today is nurturing the next generation of Palestinians to become terrorists because they have nothing left to lose, and avenging what has befallen their people is the only reason they want to live?
Israel has lost its Jewish values, its conscience, its morals, its sense of order, and its very reason for being. Hamas’ savage attack on Israel is unconscionable and unacceptable. Still, the Israeli reaction to the Hamas massacre reminded me precisely of what my mother taught me from day one: if a beast comes to hurt you, never become one, because you will have nothing left to live for.
When this ugly war comes to an end, Israel will never be the same. It has stigmatized itself for generations to come, it has inflicted irreparable damage to world Jewry, it has intensified the rise of antisemitism to new heights, it has betrayed everything that its founders stood for.
And above all else, it has lost its soul, and may never find its way back from the abyss.