A Genocide Foretold

1. Gaza's Genocide: A Foretold Culmination of Settler-Colonialism

The genocide in Gaza is the culmination of a process. It is not an act.

Historical context. The current devastation in Gaza is not an isolated event but the predictable outcome of Israel's decades-long settler-colonial project, aimed at dispossessing Palestinians of their land. This process, rooted in the 1948 Nakba and 1967 occupation, has systematically sought to eradicate Palestinian presence and identity. Israeli leaders, from its inception, have openly discussed the need to subjugate and remove Palestinians to establish a Jewish state, often masking these intentions with euphemisms.

Territorial expansion. The ambition for a "Greater Israel," consolidating Jewish sovereignty over all of historic Palestine, has been a consistent goal, viewing Palestinian self-determination as a security threat. This has led to:

• Increased Israeli colonies from 128 to 358 since the Oslo Accords.
• Settler population growth from 256,400 to 714,600.
• The 2018 Nation State Law asserting exclusive Jewish sovereignty and prioritizing "Jewish settlement."
• Prime Minister Netanyahu's public display of a map erasing occupied Palestinian territory.

Accelerated destruction. The events of October 7, 2023, provided the impetus to accelerate this long-standing goal, leading to the calculated destruction of Gaza. High-ranking Israeli officials continue to encourage the erasure and dispossession of Palestinians, setting new thresholds for acceptable violence against civilians. This systematic violence, including mass displacement and the rendering of Gaza "unfit for human life," is a means to achieve full Israeli colonization.

2. The "Big Lie" and Dehumanization as Tools of Erasure

Israel plays linguistic tricks to deny anyone in Gaza the status of civilians or any building—including mosques, churches, hospitals, and schools—protected status.

Systematic deception. Israel employs a "Big Lie" strategy, akin to totalitarian regimes, to invert truth and justify its actions, routinely painting a picture for the outside world that is diametrically opposed to reality. This involves:

• Branding all Palestinians as responsible for October 7 or as human shields for Hamas.
• Claiming all structures, including hospitals and schools, are legitimate targets due to alleged Hamas ties.
• Dismissing civilian casualties as "caught in crossfire" or "surgical strikes."

Dehumanizing rhetoric. Israeli leaders consistently use dehumanizing language, referring to Palestinians as "human animals" or "new Nazis," to justify extreme violence and erase their humanity. This rhetoric:

• Feeds racism among supporters and terror among victims.
• Presents the conflict as a clash of civilizations, portraying Israelis as civilized and Palestinians as barbaric.
• Allows for the "normalization" of exterminatory violence, making mass slaughter seem "justified and moral."

Eradicating identity. The ultimate goal is not just physical destruction but the erasure of Palestinian identity and the very idea of Palestine. This "politicide" denies their historical connection to the land, making it easier to justify their displacement and subjugation. The Big Lie, by destroying shared history and truth, reduces all problems to the brutal language of violence, ensuring that oppressed people will respond in kind.

3. Western Complicity: The US as Israel's Enabler

Israel, without the United States, would probably not exist.

Unwavering support. The United States has provided Israel with a sustained life-support system, making its existence and actions possible. This alliance, which began with US recognition eleven minutes after Israel's founding in 1948, has deepened over decades, despite strategic blunders and Israeli attacks on US assets. The US has given Israel:

• Over $140 billion in direct economic and military assistance.
• Annual direct assistance exceeding $3 billion, roughly one-fifth of the US foreign aid budget.
• Access to sophisticated weapons systems and intelligence denied to NATO allies.

Political manipulation. The powerful Israel lobby in the US has merged Israeli and American foreign policy in the Middle East, ensuring unwavering political support. This lobby:

• Funds politicians favorable to Israel and aggressively campaigns against those who defend Palestinian rights.
• Successfully purged the State Department of Arab experts.
• Spends millions to crush the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Global consequences. This one-sided relationship has unraveled US foreign policy in the Middle East, leading to disastrous interventions like the Iraq War and escalating regional tensions. The US has vetoed over half of all UN Security Council resolutions critical of Israel, effectively granting it impunity from international law. This complicity means that when the ICJ rules against Israel, countries like the US will be recognized as accomplices to genocide.

4. The Human Cost: Stories of Unspeakable Suffering

“I still live in Gaza,” Atef tells me later. “I am not out.”

Personal trauma. The genocide inflicts profound and lasting trauma on individuals, leaving indelible scars that transcend physical wounds. Atef Abu Saif, a novelist, recounts his eighty-five days enduring the nightmare in Gaza, where his son Yasser still hears bombing and sees corpses, refusing red meat because it reminds him of human flesh. This psychological burden is a primary commodity imparted by colonizers to the colonized.

Unimaginable loss. The stories of individual suffering highlight the scale of the catastrophe:

• Amr Abdallah: A gifted 17-year-old student, killed by shrapnel after being displaced multiple times, his mother keening over his corpse.
• Refaat Alareer: A poet and professor, deliberately targeted and killed in an airstrike with his family, his poem "If I Must Die" becoming his last will.
• Fadi Baker: A human rights lawyer, shot, stripped, robbed, and subjected to severe torture, beatings, electrocution, and sexual assault in Israeli detention camps.
• Wissam: Atef's niece, who lost both legs and a hand in an airstrike, asking her uncle for a lethal injection to end her suffering.

Systematic destruction of life. Beyond individual deaths, Israel's actions systematically destroy the conditions for life, leading to:

• Over 42,000 reported deaths and 96,000 injuries, with 70% being women and children.
• Doctors amputating limbs without anesthesia.
• Over 180 women giving birth daily with little or no medical care.
• 90% of Palestinians suffering severe food insecurity, with children dying of starvation and diseases like polio emerging.

5. Palestinian Resistance: A Right to Fight for Dignity

The Palestinians, like all occupied people, have a right to armed resistance under international law.

Inherent right. Faced with decades of occupation, dispossession, and systematic violence, Palestinians, like all occupied peoples, possess an internationally recognized right to resist. This resistance, whether armed or non-violent, is a response to being trapped in a concentration camp, denied basic necessities, and subjected to constant slaughter. The October 7 attack, while condemned for its atrocities, is framed as an act of desperation by people driven mad by oppression.

Historical parallels. The author draws parallels between Palestinian resistance and other historical uprisings against oppression:

• Nat Turner Rebellion (1831): The largest slave rebellion in the US, driven by a desire for revenge and to force a moral crisis.
• John Brown: Hacked civilians to death, yet abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison refused to condemn him, understanding the rage born of slavery.
• Haitian War of Liberation, Mau Mau in Kenya, ANC in South Africa: All examples of occupied peoples resorting to violence against their oppressors.

Martyrs and movements. Resistance movements, including Hamas, are built on the blood of martyrs, ensuring a continual supply of fighters as Israel continues its attacks. While Israel may kill leaders, it only fuels the movement, as seen with Hezbollah in Lebanon. The refusal to submit, despite overwhelming odds, is an act of heroic endurance, affirming dignity and the will to live.

6. Israel's Global Export of Occupation Technology

Israel is the tenth biggest arms dealer on the planet and sells its technology and weapons to an estimated one hundred and thirty nations, including military dictatorships in Asia and Latin America.

Battle-tested on Palestinians. Israel's military, intelligence services, and arms industries use the captive Palestinian population in Gaza and the West Bank as a testing ground for advanced weaponry and surveillance technology. These "battle-tested" products are then sold globally, making Israel a major player in the international arms market. This includes:

• Drones, spyware (Pegasus), facial recognition software (Red Wolf), and biometric gathering infrastructure.
• Smart fences, experimental bombs, and AI-controlled machine guns.
• Skunk water, a putrid-smelling liquid perfected on Palestinians and later used by US police.

Global "Palestinianization." This export of occupation technology contributes to a "supranational corporate totalitarianism," where populations worldwide are monitored and controlled in ways previously unimaginable. The "Palestinianization" of global conflicts means:

• Israeli firms supply high-tech surveillance towers for the US-Mexico border.
• Frontex (EU border agency) uses Israeli drones to deter migrants in the Mediterranean.
• Israeli spyware is used by drug cartels and governments to target journalists and activists.

Profits from oppression. The close relationship between Israel's military-industrial complex and global security agencies ensures continued support for its genocidal campaign. This network, generating hundreds of billions annually, prioritizes profit and control over human rights, cementing oppressive systems worldwide.

7. The Moral Conscience: Student Protests and Self-Sacrifice

Student protesters across the country exhibit a moral and physical courage—many are facing suspension and expulsion—that shames every major institution in the country.

A new awakening. Student protests across the globe, particularly in US universities, represent a powerful moral counterpoint to the genocide in Gaza. These students, many of whom are Jewish, are risking their academic careers and personal safety to demand accountability from institutions complicit in the violence. They are the "nation's conscience," exposing the moral bankruptcy of ruling elites.

Acts of defiance. Students have engaged in various forms of non-violent resistance:

• Encampments: Setting up tents on campus to demand divestment from Israeli corporations and an end to military research.
• Hunger strikes: Abstaining from food and drink (except water) to highlight the famine in Gaza and pressure university administrations.
• Occupations: Taking over campus buildings, often leading to violent police crackdowns and mass arrests.

"Divine violence." Acts of extreme self-sacrifice, like Aaron Bushnell's self-immolation, are seen as "divine violence" – a radical rejection of complicity in genocide. Bushnell's act, like those of Buddhist monks in Vietnam or Mohamed Bouazizi in Tunisia, is a potent political message designed to shock and galvanize action, linking the sacred and the profane through sacrificial death. These acts become rallying points, inspiring others to defy corrupt systems.

8. The Erosion of Israel's Moral Foundation

Israel has been poisoned by the psychosis of permanent war.

Internal decay. The relentless pursuit of permanent war and occupation has deeply poisoned Israeli society, leading to a "psychosis of permanent war." This has resulted in:

• Sanctification of victimhood and a culture of anti-Arab and anti-Black racism.
• Indoctrination of children into military service from primary school.
• Suppression of dissent, with human rights campaigners, intellectuals, and journalists facing surveillance and arbitrary arrests.

Despotism and isolation. The author predicts that Israel's mass slaughter in Gaza will lead to its own moral and cultural atrophy, transforming it into a stagnant despotism dominated by religious fanatics and bigots. This will alienate younger generations of American Jews and cause its patron, the United States, to eventually distance itself. Israel will be revealed as the "ugly, repressive, hate-filled apartheid regime it always has been."

Loss of mystique. Nations need a mystique to survive, providing purpose and nobility. Israel's mystique, built on myths of courage and miraculous birth, is imploding as its actions are exposed as lies. This decay will lead to:

• Lassitude and apathy among its citizens.
• Inability to recruit collaborators like the Palestinian Authority.
• A terminal decline, as despotisms cannot exist indefinitely without a moral foundation.

9. The Weaponization of History: Holocaust and Anti-Semitism

The cynical weaponization of the Holocaust, including branding Palestinians as Nazis, has little efficacy when you carry out a live-streamed genocide against 2.3 million people trapped in a concentration camp.

Distorted narrative. Israel and its supporters cynically appropriate the Holocaust narrative, branding Palestinians as Nazis and critics of Israel as anti-Semites, to justify its repression and deflect criticism. This "Orwellian falsification of memory" attempts to:

• Sanctify Israel's actions by portraying it as an eternal victim.
• Silence dissent by equating criticism of Israeli policies with anti-Jewish hatred.
• Obscure the reality of a live-streamed genocide against an imprisoned population.

A tragic irony. The creation of Israel, partly as a response to the Holocaust, has led to a tragic irony where a people once in need of protection from genocide are now credibly accused of committing it. As Marek Edelman, a Warsaw Ghetto Uprising leader, stated, "To be a Jew means always being with the oppressed and never the oppressors." He condemned Zionism's appropriation of the Holocaust to justify Palestinian repression.

German complicity. Germany, in particular, has used its historical guilt over the Holocaust to justify unwavering support for Israel, including fast-tracking arms exports. This relationship, described as blackmail, prioritizes atonement to the "Jewish state" over the basic rights of Palestinians, effectively sidelining and forgetting their suffering. This "campaign against anti-Semitism" often champions white power and ignores the racism inherent in Israeli policies.

10. A Call to Action: Indifference is the Greatest Evil

The opposite of good is not evil, as Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel cautioned. The opposite of good is indifference.

Moral imperative. The genocide in Gaza demands an urgent moral response from the world. The passive observation of Israel's atrocities, funded and supported by Western powers, is a profound betrayal of humanity and international law. The author implores readers to recognize that indifference to suffering is the greatest evil, echoing the warnings of Holocaust survivors and scholars.

Consequences of inaction. The failure to act against the genocide will have dire consequences:

• History will judge those who stood by, just as it judges Nero's guests who watched human beings burn.
• The world's most important international court (ICJ) has found it "plausible" that Israel is committing genocide, making complicit nations accountable.
• The escalating savagery will produce new generations of enraged Palestinians, ensuring continued conflict.

Universal struggle. The Palestinian resistance is presented as a universal struggle for dignity, freedom, and independence, relevant to all who oppose settler-colonialism, Western imperialism, and militarism. The author warns that as climate change and resource scarcity intensify, genocide will become the norm, and "one day, we will all be Palestinians." The call to action is to sever all ties with the apartheid state, halt weapons shipments, and do everything in our power to end the slaughter, transforming indifference into active resistance.

Last updated: January 12, 2026