When an international group of genocide scholars issued a resolution Sunday saying that the Israeli military’s nearly two-year offensive in Gaza meets the definition of genocide, the denial from the Israeli government was swift and full of indignation. It called the finding “disgraceful” and said it was the latest in a “campaign of lies” against Israel.
In its news coverage of the resolution, which was approved by 86 percent of the group’s members, the Washington Post noted with bitter irony that genocide had only been defined as a crime in the aftermath of the Nazis’ systematic murder of European Jews during what became known as the Holocaust. Some defenders of Israel have expressed outrage that a people that was victimized by the German campaign could be tarred with the same brush.
An unfortunate but central lesson of the moral catastrophe that is Gaza today is that no matter how great the atrocities it has suffered in the past, no group is immune from committing—or being called to account for—the worst sorts of crimes of its own in the future. The unspeakable suffering of the Palestinian population of Gaza is stark enough by itself. But there is something that makes the ongoing crisis even more horrible: the tragic and increasingly common echoes that it offers up of historic Jewish persecution.
Before I come to these echoes, though, there are some things I must say. First is that in a column like this, one doesn’t necessarily expect to change many minds. By now, the lines of condemnation and justification that separate too many people on the topic of Israel and Gaza are dug like deep furrows. Second is the unavoidable fact that this crisis was kicked off by an atrocity of its own, Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that targeted and slaughtered civilians and took many hostages.
This predicate, however, does not serve as justification for the seemingly indiscriminate violence that Israel has inflicted on Gaza’s residents ever since. Nor was that horrible date the beginning of the long-running tragedy linking Israelis and Palestinians. Never has war been waged between these two parties as equals, but over the decades, each side has racked up its atrocities and acts of inhumanity toward the other.
Now, it is precisely in an appeal to mutual humanity that whatever slim hopes there are for an end to the death and devastation that Israel has visited upon Gaza and the possibility of future retaliations may lie. This is more than a long shot, but in the face of what has been happening in Gaza recently, I must wonder how Israelis can look upon the scenes from that territory and not be reminded of the mass crime and injustice that Jews suffered at the hands of the Nazis. Yes, many of the circumstances are different. That is practically a rule of history. But suffering on this scale is universalizing in nature.
Think of the starvation that Israel has imposed on Palestinians in an internationally recognized famine. Look at the children in Gaza who have been reduced to skeletal forms, and recall the images of the Jewish survivors, all but wasted away, who were liberated from German concentration camps at the end of World War II.
Look at the vast scenes of devastation of the physical landscape of urban Gaza, gray, flattened, and bombed to rubble, and recall the razing of Jewish ghettos by the Nazis. Imagine the plight of residents of Gaza repeatedly forced to gather their scant belongings and trek by foot, parched and famished, in search of the barest shelter, as they have been forcibly relocated from one part of the territory to another.
Think of the cruel deaths of those Palestinians who have been gunned down by Israeli soldiers while approaching the food distribution centers rendered unnecessarily scarce by Israel’s cessation of aid delivery by the United Nations. Some of these horrible deaths have even been inflicted by airstrike. Recall the executions and mass graves that were the common lot of Jews and other victims of both the Nazis and Soviets some 80 years ago.
Reflect on the way that Israel has largely closed Gaza off to international journalists since the very start of this conflict and remember what was once called the “Big Lie,” or Germany’s determined wartime efforts to falsify and distort information and thereby control history.
Think, finally, about the persistent hints emanating from the Israeli cabinet about plans to occupy Gaza or annex it outright, with some reports even speculating about future real estate development—not for Palestinians, but for affluent Israelis and others. Then remember that Lebensraum, or the search for new living space for Germans, was a principal motive for war invoked by the Nazis, and one pursued through the deportation of their victims.
Many supporters of Israel will no doubt be shocked by these parallels, which I take no pleasure in raising. But now is the moment to hold a well-polished mirror up to this country, which has long-standing pretensions of being a democratic member of the West.
Tight Israeli control over press access to Gaza has served many ends, both international and domestic. In the case of the latter, it has helped minimize the flow of information to the Israeli public about the scale of the human and physical catastrophe inflicted on Palestinians there and has thereby facilitated denialism.
Albeit still limited, there are signs, though, that an awareness of the moral calamity of Gaza is spreading. Tensions have risen in Israel in recent days amid mounting protests against the conflict. It is not unusual that Israelis are preoccupied by the fate of the remaining hostages held by Hamas, which has been the focus of most of the public’s attention. Yet there are growing signs that the country has been experiencing difficulty calling up reservists for deployment in Gaza, and retired Israeli officers have also made statements that are critical of Israel’s campaign there.
What is largely missing so far—and badly needed—is a resounding recognition among Israelis of the humanity of Gaza’s Palestinian population, along with their fundamental human rights. These must include exemption from the kind of collective punishment implicit in a war campaign that kills women and children in such large numbers and still justifies most every casualty by reflexively invoking Hamas.
An end to this conflict is a question of moral urgency. Yes, Israel’s hostages must be freed, but Palestinians must also be accorded a right to a secure life in their own land. This is no reward for the crimes by Hamas on Oct. 7. It is only a basic matter of justice. More than that, though, it is the only way this book of epic tragedies can be closed.