I often imagine what it might be like to go back in time and walk the streets of places like the American Deep South of the 1950s or Berlin of the late 1930s, to sit in diners or coffee shops and eavesdrop on conversations – not to judge, but to observe people blithely going about their daily lives as the most monstrous human suffering is happening just out of sight. And maybe to ask how they feel about it.
I can do that now. As I’ve written before, I live in Tel Aviv. I am raising two young daughters in a state that is committing genocide 70km from our home.
The recent UN-backed IPC report on humanitarian crises was stark. There is “a man-made famine in Gaza ... babies are dying of hunger, too weak to cry or eat”, it stated. About 130,000 children under five are at risk of death from malnutrition.
And yet life continues in Tel Aviv. I walk through the city, with its beautiful Bauhaus architecture and tree-lined avenues dotted with busy cafe terraces, and think about stopping at a stranger’s table to ask, “Excuse me, sorry to interrupt, but what do you think about Palestinian children dying of starvation from an Israeli-induced famine, an hour’s drive away?”
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I think about doing it in the gym too. The incongruity of looking at images of emaciated Palestinian children on my phone as Tel Avivians work out around me, pounding the treadmill to lose weight, is surreal.
[ UN inquiry finds Israel has committed genocide in GazaOpens in new window ]
These observations may seem crass. But I am not just a detached foreign reporter, I’m an Israeli dad; I live here. So I don’t ask. Perhaps not asking people about genocide is an act of self-preservation; maybe I’m not brave enough. I might come across as borderline unhinged to approach strangers and ask them these questions; journalistic vox pops have their time and place. So, I recently asked my Israeli in-laws instead.
On a recent Friday, after dinner, I posed a simple question. “What do you think about the images of famine coming from Gaza?”
My nephew paused and said, “It’s sad.” His wife said she didn’t want to discuss it.
The wife of another nephew became visibly emotional and angry. “They are calling it genocide; this is not genocide, five of my friends were killed on October 7th. If they want it to stop, they should release the hostages.” Referring to the October 7th terror attack, she said “they should have thought about it before they did it”.
My sister-in-law calmly added, “They elected Hamas; they should rise against them.”
Everybody else stayed silent.
What is remarkable about our family Shabbat dinners over the past year is that the war in Gaza is rarely discussed. The news channels are usually turned off. The 12-day war with Iran and the release of hostages were notable exceptions. This is just one family at one Shabbat dinner. But having observed and written about the war from Israel for two years, I believe this is common across much of “middle” Israel.
The political implications are depressing. Binyamin Netanyahu faces little pressure in Israel to change his approach in Gaza. The so-called anti-war days of rage and national protests held across Israel in the past month have come and gone with minimal effect. The recent attack on Hamas negotiators in Qatar is evidence of that.
Some may baulk at my use of “genocide”. The international legal definition is – unsurprisingly – complex.
“Genocide is a crime committed with the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, in whole or in part.” A lot hinges on just three of those words: “intent” and “in part”. Any act of destruction, killings or bombings deemed to be genocidal must not be the result of unintended consequences or secondary goals of war. A policy of starvation must be viewed as a goal in itself to destroy, not merely a negotiation tactic; the latter simply constitutes evidence of a war crime.
I’m not a lawyer. However, like millions of people worldwide, I have seen the disturbing and horrifying images from Gaza every day. I have also read statements from the Israeli president, prime minister, minister for defence and minister of finance.
It took a generation of Germans to acknowledge and openly discuss the truth of the Holocaust. I am not equating the industrial murder of six million Jews with the killing of 65,000 Palestinians. Genocides share many similarities, but also have clear differences.
[ Bernie Sanders becomes first US senator to say Israel committing genocide in GazaOpens in new window ]
Israeli Jews deeply struggle with the idea that the Jewish state could commit genocide, fearing that acknowledging this diminishes the unique history of the Shoah. For many, it remains extremely personal. An admission of genocide is seen as disrespecting parents and grandparents who were murdered or survived the Holocaust, undermining a past justification for the Jewish state and a moral foundation for its continued existence.
Perhaps it matters little to Palestinians in Gaza which word or phrase we Israelis use, be it genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity. They die. We quibble about what to call it.
But for Israelis, I believe having a conversation about genocide is necessary – if for no other reason than without it, we risk exposing our children to a monstrous lie in the decades to come. “We knew nothing about that.”
Paul Kearns is an Irish freelance journalist based in Tel Aviv
