-OpEd-
BOGOTÁ — In keeping with the closely deliberated definition established by Raphael Lemkin, the Jewish scholar who coined it, I believe that the word “genocide” should be used with great caution.
That is because when we speak of real genocides, we are not simply referring to a massacre, however horrific, or atrocious war crimes that may involve hundreds of thousands of people. Genocide is a far more extensive, specific and malevolent plan. It is understood as the deliberate extermination of a nation, a specific ethnic group, which may include the destruction of its culture, language, institutions, religion, even its ability to survive economically. Genocide implies the desire and requisite actions to annihilate part or all of a particular people.
I am compelled to state here that I am not antisemitic. On the contrary, throughout my life I’ve considered myself rather philosemitic, having always deeply admiring the Jewish people, their religious and literary culture, their scientists, filmmakers, mathematicians, sociologists, scholars, businessmen, doctors, poets.
In a certain sense, I even consider myself a Zionist. Now let me explain.
Herzl’s idea
I believe Zionism is an idea derived directly from European Romanticism (so prone to defending national values), and developed as a reaction to the antisemitism of both Europeans and Arabs. In the wake of the expulsions, persecution and pogroms of Jews in different parts of Europe, one can at the very least understand Theodor Herzl’s idea in the 19th century of seeking out a place and founding a country from which Jews could not be expelled — and where they could not be exterminated. This was even more comprehensible after the Nazi Holocaust.
So I do believe Israel has the right to exist, at least on the terms granted and agreed upon by the United Nations in 1948.
Worldcrunch 🗞 Extra!
Know more • More than 100 aid agencies released a joint statement Wednesday to sound the alarm on the catastrophic humanitarian situation unfolding in Gaza, where Palestinians are suffering from “mass starvation” and “are trapped in a cycle of hope and heartbreak.”
On the same day, the Hamas-run health ministry in the enclave reported that ten people died from malnutrition within 24 hours, bringing the total number of deaths due to famine to 111, since the October 7 attacks in 2023.
Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer refuted claims that Israel is causing the famine, accusing Hamas of “trying to prevent the distribution of food” and of “looting aid trucks.” Mencer also blamed the UN for a “bottleneck” in the maintenance of the flow of aid, saying there are currently more than 700 aid trucks inside Gaza, waiting to be picked up by the UN.
— Anne-Sophie Goninet (read more about the Worldcrunch method here)
After the horrific attack of October 7, 2023, a veritable pogrom organized by the terrorist group Hamas and perpetrated against armed and unarmed Jews that left some 1,200 people dead (including numerous children, women and the elderly), and the kidnapping of some 200 hostages who were taken into Palestinian territories, it was understandable and certain that a violent reaction from Israel would not be long in coming.
More than just a war
Two things are incomprehensible: that Israel’s secret services (perhaps the best in the world) had not foreseen the attack, and that Hamas had not imagined the revenge to which they were exposing Palestinians with a terrorist action of this magnitude. Antisemites never condemned the attack, seeing it as no more than justified Palestinian revenge for the repeated humiliations their people had suffered at the hands of the Israeli army.
At first, after firmly condemning Hamas terrorism, I thought (and hoped) that Israel would restrict itself to pursuing the terrorist group and its Hezbollah allies, and focus on rescuing the hundreds of kidnapped people.
Trump’s carte blanche
In the early weeks and months of the war, I argued against those who said Israel was committing genocide. It seemed instead after some initial acts of excessive revenge, that it might be committing war crimes — but it still seemed short of pursuing a full-blown genocidal campaign. Again, the term genocide should not be used without careful consideration.
What Israel is waging in Gaza is no war of legitimate defense, but an operation of total extermination.
But with the passage of time, with the unconditional support and carte blanche that U.S. President Donald Trump has given to the war criminal, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, something has tipped.
With the unrelenting, mass extermination of Palestinians in Gaza, total destruction of its infrastructure, buildings, universities, schools, hospitals, refugee camps, etc., a death toll approaching 60,000 people, (the vast majority of whom are civilians, children, women and the elderly) millions displaced and the spread of what is essentially forced famine. It is increasingly clear that what Israel is waging in Gaza is no war of legitimate defense, but an operation of total extermination, a genocide against the Palestinians.