Genocide?

Is Israel committing genocide?

To begin with, I am answering as a Jew, who holds Israeli citizenship, and who has a complex relationship with Gaza. Unlike so many people I know, I've actually been to Gaza on numerous occasions, in two different capacities: I briefly dated a woman, who grew up in a Jewish settlement in Gaza, and whose parents still lived there at the time (the settlement was evacuated in 2005 as part of PM Ariel Sharon's disengagement plan), and I patrolled the Gaza Strip as part of my military service in the IDF. I also spent some time just visiting the area, which had (and probably still has) beautiful white beaches and some good fish restaurants overlooking the Mediterranean. It even had a zoo! So, let's talk Gaza.

Gaza was a hellhole. It was a tiny, over-populated little strip of land about twice the size of DC. It now has about 2 million people, almost all Muslim. There is a miniscule Christian population of just a few thousand people, and they have been discouraged from practicing their religion openly since Hamas came to power. In other words, don’t wear a crucifix if you know what’s good for you. Gaza was once more secular, but that’s not the case anymore. Most secular and moderate Muslims either fled after Hamas seized power in 2007.

Some background: President George W. Bush was pressuring Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to give up all the Occupied Territories, including East Jerusalem, in order to create a Palestinian state. Sharon got out of it by promising “Gaza first,” along with a small area in northern Samaria. The settler population was evacuated, and the settlements were torn down. I believe that was a big mistake. While I supported evacuating the settlements (almost 30% of the territory), the homes and infrastructure could have helped to alleviate overcrowding in the cities and especially in the refugee camps. At first, Gazans were allowed access to Israel to work, mostly in construction and agriculture. In the south, near Rafah, there was an airport. There were plans for a modern harbor and even a casino, though most of the economy was still based on agriculture (olives and citrus mainly) and money brought home by Gazans working in Israel. Hardly idyllic, but it was tenable, and there was hope for the future, though I doubt it would ever have become “the Singapore of the Mediterranean.”

All of that unraveled rather quickly. The Bush Administration also insisted on elections in Gaza, which Israel opposed, saying it was too early. One problem was the Gaza extremists, who worried that they would lose power. They were behind a series of deadly terrorist attacks in Israel, including bus bombings, so Israel responded the only way it knew how. It denied exit permits to Palestinians, particularly men in their teens to forties, since they were less likely to commit terrorist attacks, and it conducted pinpointed attacks on extremist targets, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Without money coming in, the economy was unviable. This had the opposite effect of what was planned. Whatever economy there was started to collapse, so people took to smuggling via tunnels to Egypt.

Since Hamas won the election against Fatah (PLO), it is worth saying a little about Hamas. Founded by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, they were opposed to Arafat’s peace accords with Israel, but they acted very cleverly. Rather than just fight, they implemented the dawah, an Islamic charitable system that cared for the basic needs of the poor. They set up soup kitchens, schools, kindergartens, clinics, vocational training centers, and more. People became reliant on Hamas, which did more for them than Fatah ever did. Fatah consisted of wealthier, more secular Palestinians, many of them who returned to Gaza after living in the Gulf, Tunisia, and Egypt, and who had no qualms about absconding with the millions of dollars being poured into the territory by the international community. Hamas, on the other hand, was very helpful to the vast majority of impoverished Gazans. They provided them with food and cared for their children. As a sidenote, Israel contributed to the effort to help Gazans under the theory that the people would not fight against them if they had their basic needs covered. So yes, in the early years, even Israel supported Hamas financially to some degree.

On a cynical note, they also had an ulterior motive. They were building up an army of supporters to fight Israel. One quick story: About 15 or so years ago, I worked on a documentary film called Precious Life about a woman, who lost three children to a genetic disorder. When the same disorder was diagnosed in her youngest child, an Israeli philanthropist and peace activist, who lost a son serving in Gaza, volunteered to pay for the expensive procedure to treat her son in Tel Aviv’s Tel HaShomer Hospital. Long story short, the mother then told the doctor that she wants her infant son to grow up to be a suicide bomber. The doctor didn’t take kindly to that. Finally, the director called the son of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh (since assassinated), who was at a fish restaurant on the beach, and told him the story. Haniyeh Junior said that the woman was crazy. The child survived. I am including a link to the film’s trailer:

Before that, in June 2007, tensions between Hamas and Fatah erupted into open fighting in Gaza. After a week of bloody fighting, Hamas took control of Gaza and effectively seceded from the West Bank-based Palestinian government. Fatah supporters fled for their lives, but not before a significant number was shot or thrown off rooftops. Before fleeing, Fatah blew up their headquarters in Gaza City, so that it wouldn’t fall into the hands of Hamas, but all their other bases and headquarters did.

Since then, there have been a series of brief but bloody wars between Israel and Hamas in 2008-2009 (“Cast Lead”), 2012 (“Pillar of Cloud”), 2014 (“Protective Edge”), 2019 (“Black Belt”), and the current war. All of them, except the current war, ended as a result of negotiations moderated by the U.S. and Egypt.

Note that Bibi Netanyahu was prime minister for most of these wars, so let’s talk about him. Full disclosure: I hate; no, I loathe; no, I detest; no. I abhor the man. Really. He had been prime minister from 1996 to 1999, but he was finally thrown out by Ehud Barak. But Barak lasted just two years in office, while Netanyahu slowly crawled back to power. The big turn-about came in the 2008 election. His party, the Likud, was defeated by the Kadima party led by Tzipi Livni, a former Likud minister, who left the Likud with Ariel Sharon, when it refused to endorse the Gaza Disengagement plan. The election was tight, but Livni won. The problem was that she could not build a coalition. The Ultra-Orthodox parties made too many demands, and she finally told them NO!!! Netanyahu acquiesced to their demands, and took office. He has been in office ever since, except for a brief period when Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett shared the prime ministership, but that didn’t last. So, Netanyahu came back, promising everything to any party that supported him. This included the ultra-Orthodox and the far, far right i.e., Betzalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir.

Until then, Ben Gvir, who was a rabid racist, was persona non-grata in Israeli politics. Even Netanyahu wouldn’t meet with him, until he really needed him. And he really needed him, because only as prime minister could Netanyahu stay out of prison on corruption charges. Ben Gvir advocated for the “transfer” of Israel’s Arab population to God knows where and massive Jewish settlement in the West Bank and … yes … Gaza. Netanyahu had a choice: settle Gaza or go to prison. He chose to keep the war going in Gaza. (Personally, I hate Smotrich more. He once organized a protest against Jerusalem’s Gay Pride parade by marching down Jerusalem’s main street with barnyard animals in a “Bestiality Pride” parade.)

Even before October 7, hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to the streets every Saturday night to protest Netanyahu. The current Gaza War drew attention away from Netanyahu’s corruption. That helped him. The longer the fighting continued, the longer he was out of prison. I would contend that the war served his interests.

As for genocide, the October 7 attack resulted in a tectonic shift in Israeli politics. Until then, the idea of transfer was anathema to the overwhelming majority of Israelis, but this mini-genocidal pogrom of sorts targeting innocent civilians broke something in many Israelis. They were devastated, of course, but they were also angry. For years there had been talk of peace, but many concluded that the only thing to come of all that talk was 1,100+ innocent deaths. At the same time, many people felt that Netanyahu could have done more to end the war and get the hostages back, but he didn’t. For personal reasons, he preferred to wait for Trump to take office, rather than plan an end game to the war, and Trump played right into his hands. Suddenly, “Even the Americans support removing the Palestinians from Gaza,” became a mantra for angry people, looking for a solution, especially since it seemed as if Hamas was (and is) undefeatable.

Is expulsion genocide? Personally, I think it is a crime against humanity, and the perpetrators, aka plotters, need to be punished accordingly. [For the record, Crimes against Humanity are defined by AI as:

• Murder: Killing people,

• Extermination: Killing a large number of people,

• Enslavement: Forcibly taking people into servitude,

• Deportation: Forcibly removing people from their homes,

• Imprisonment: Violating international law by severely depriving people of their liberty,

• Torture: Causing serious physical or mental suffering,

• Sexual violence: Including rape, sexual slavery, forced pregnancy, and forced sterilization,

• Persecution: Targeting people based on their identity, such as their race, religion, or gender

• Enforced disappearance: Forcibly making people go missing

• Apartheid: A system of institutionalized discrimination

• Reproductive violence: Interfering with people's reproductive autonomy

• Other inhumane acts: Causing serious harm to people's physical or mental health.]

But is it genocide? On the face of it, this is a distinction without a difference. By my count, the current war involves at least nine of the 12 crimes listed above. But is it genocide, i.e., is it the coordinated killing of a clearly defined group? There certainly have been wanton mass killings and other inexcusable acts of violence. And even if the Hamas terrorists exploited their own people by hiding in schools and hospitals, that does not mean that schools and hospitals should be attacked. It’s okay to take a pawn in chess, but not in this Game of Life, where the pawns are really children and the infirm.

On the other hand, to the best of my knowledge, there is no official, coordinated plan to kill all Gazans. There has been no Wannsee Conference that we know of. There has been no Srebrenica massacre we know of. There are no radio stations calling to “Kill the cockroaches,” like we saw in Rwanda. I know this is a high bar, but genocide is such a terrible crime that it demands a high bar.

As such, I would say that Israel is committing crimes against humanity approaching genocide, but it hasn’t quite made it there yet. Could it? I don’t want to answer that. It is too horrifying to consider.

Is there a solution to all this? I don’t know, but we have to try and find one. Oddly enough, I draw my inspiration from Hamas, or at least Hamas in its early days. We have to stop the fighting and find a way to rebuild Gaza so that the people there have all their basic needs met and a chance to live their lives in dignity. Ironically, they need all the things that Musk and his mini-minions are stealing from us. They need food, shelter, healthcare, productive jobs, daycare, education, and vocational training. They need an airport and they need a harbor (and maybe even a casino). Most of all, they need hope. And they need to believe that freedom lies on the horizon. It is in Israel’s interest to pay for much of this, but it is also in the interest of the Arab World, the U.S., the EU, and any person or entity who cares about the future. And who cares about humanity.

Finally, at some point, there must be reconciliation among all the parties. This will take time, but I believe it can be modeled on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa or the Gacaca courts of Rwanda.

One last word: I wrote almost all of this from memory, so I apologize in advance if my historical timeline got a bit jumbled. If you are interested in learning a little bit more about the history of Hamas, read my unfinished Substack piece “Searching for the Muslim Brotherhood in Greeley, Colorado.”