Between Dissonance and Denial: The Gaza Genocide as a Test of Humanity

Genocide. Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. That now seems to be adequately proved and widely recognized by Holocaust and genocide scholars, The Lemkin Institute, Israeli human rights NGOs such as Physicians for Human Rights and B’Tselem, legal experts, academics, and laypeople. The official International Court of Justice (ICJ) verdict is predicted to be delivered in 2027, confirming that guilt, while other UN member states may join South Africa’s case, as Brazil recently did. Those supplying Israel with weapons may face charges of complicity with genocide. Not least, the Genocide Convention, and the ICJ preliminary “warning” instruct member states to uphold their legal obligations to prevent genocide, a stricture largely ignored since its publication one year ago. 

Behind the legalistic word salads are human beings; each one a chosen child of God. Each now either facing the very real possibility of death, as for the past two years, or having died in the living hell of modern warfare. Warfare forging new and unprecedented hells via AI and robotic drone delivery of mass death. Not so much dog eats dog, as dog eats dead Mankind. The imagination baulks at the dystopia, just an hour’s drive from where children play in the park next to my apartment as I write this, or where ordinary people walk their dogs in the cool evening air. We don’t hear the screams from here. Maybe soldiers hear them in their nightmares and wake up screaming too. Starving babies of Gaza are mute.

Yet, although dissonance has always been a central factor of life in Israel—the dissonance between Tel Aviv and the West Bank hinterland, or the dissonance between life in West Jerusalem and the misery of East Jerusalemites under harsh Israeli occupation—even as we are almost accustomed to such dissonance, the imagination reelingly confronts images of dead or dying babies. These images circle back to Jewish history (the Warsaw Ghetto, the Nazi camps that were liberated) and yet still we cannot fully comprehend or absorb them. Palestinian lives are once again rendered transparent, unless close relationships expose some of the agony via Signal, WhatsApp, telephone, or videos on platforms such as X, Tik-Tok, or Instagram. International journalists, two years on, are still barred from entry into Gaza.

The tide is turning. Yes. But not fast enough to save Gaza’s starving population, who need far more than just food; they need massive healthcare support, medication, and trained professionals, all deliberately, methodically erased by Israeli attacks as part of a long process that has now delivered its fatal, meticulously planned purpose. But the truth is coming out. The Israeli narrative under messianic figures such as Smotrich, Ben-Gvir, Strock et al. (not to mention Netanyahu and his ‘buddy in crime,’ Ron Dermer who was reportedly tasked with “thinning the population of Gaza”) to blame Hamas for everything and then some, is over. Whether you watch Yuval Noah Harari, Physicians for Human Rights Israel, or Lt. Col. (ret.) Anthony Aguilar, check the statistics of soldiers committing suicide weekly, or examine the eighty thousand Israelis who left the country last year alone. The picture is pretty clear; no hint that it’s a conspiracy theory or the knee-jerk response of politically invested interests, or trolls aiming to time-waste, to distort, and to distract. 

“They” still have power. “They” still control aid. “They” have worked over decades to control central levers of power. But the world knows. It can no longer continue to deny core principles such as self-determination. The past is horrific history that lives on in agony. How we, citizens of the world, address this man-made evil (2.1 million traumatized, homeless, starved human beings, as only one aspect) will be the generational judge and jury of our time.

Accountability and justice: commissions of inquiry. Will the impunity of generations finally end? Will the ongoing daily Nakba for Palestinians end? Will reparations be instituted for all who have lost lands, lives, loved ones, futures, dreams, hope, or faith in humanity? Will real change force the gears into revolution? The international community move beyond the comfort zone or realpolitik laws of the jungle that facilitate and deliver these levels of corruption under the rubric of ‘security’ or ‘self-defense’? And will we begin to connect ALL the dots (so that, for example climate crisis is addressed and military emissions halted?) Or, as now, shall we only witness an increasing focus on nuclear weaponry that hides under the rubric of ‘deterrence,’ as a means to mitigate the brazen, mafiosi lawlessness of Trump & Co.? As the world increasingly stands up to honor Palestine’s sumud, can it successfully save us all from ourselves?

Will the engineers of Gaza’s genocide, angels of death and hubris such as Ron Dermer, face war tribunals? And shall the theocratic cult that sees itself as a servant of God’s will, fulfilling redemption and revenge, ever reconnect with the spiritual values of Judaism, such as “treat the other as you would be treated,” in acknowledgement of our shared humanity, created equally in God’s image, sacred as life itself? The Golden Calf as our future? Or the sacrifice of Isaac, which Abraham dutifully contemplated? The mother who gave away her baby rather than allow it to be physically divided? Will we give, finally, yes Israelis? Or have we become habitually addicted to taking: to possessing, to coveting, to greedily hoarding, to blaming, to a mental state of blindness toward our neighbor, our cousins, our fellow Semites, whose institutionalized suffering the world (the international community) has largely ignored until now?

Are we up to learning the lessons, or doomed to continue repeating history, with the shoe now on the other foot? For yes, we are being tested in the court of world opinion, which sees the lack of empathy, the dehumanization, racism, and supremacy: the lust for land over love of life; the destruction of that land, whether through environmental degradation or military emissions and toxicity; tribalism and exceptionalism that resists intermarriage; fear that creates what we fear, and fears freedom; and a diminished love of life, or gratitude for its gift. A lack of integration or critical thinking, or obedience to our own holy books: “Seek peace and pursue it.” Or just the road to hell being paved with good intentions, that were mistakes, all. 

Affirmative action now predicates preferential treatment for Palestine and its people, not just equality, in the name of healing. After a century of being considered less, first by the British and now by Israelis, it is time for Palestine’s liberation and the freedom of a feminist vision of the future: peace, not apartheid, as a wise preacher once said. With Palestinians and Palestine leading us all back to a better state of our shared humanity.