Report from the Besieged City

 The Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem published a report this morning—arguing; apparently for the first time; that the Israeli government's actions in Gaza and the West Bank now amount not only to war crimes—but to actual genocide. They lay out the evidence: the coordinated policy to bomb, displace, and starve Palestinian civilians; the systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure—including homes, hospitals, and the entire system of food production; the unprovoked killings at the Israeli aid distribution sites and the denial of aid through any alternative channels; and on; and on. 

Is this genocide? I don't know. At this point, I'm less interested in words than in deeds. The fact, whatever we call it, appears unmistakeable by now that Israel's conduct in Gaza (and, increasingly, the West Bank) has caused the systematic killing and displacement of innocent people. And the United States—our own government and our own tax dollars—are of course abetting this. 

The question—as with any mass atrocity—is why? Who wins from sowing the dragon's teeth of destruction and hate into the future—of forfeiting the world's sympathy? One motive is obviously revenge for the atrocities of October 7—the age-old human practice—across all human societies—of making the innocent suffer for the crimes of the guilty; of punishing the sons for the sins of the fathers. In this context, Israel's actions—intolerable and outrageous as they are—are also not quite unexpected; the United States might well do (and has done) the same thing in their shoes. 

But part of the explanation, I think, lies in the unique pattern of this conflict—the way that its repeated cycles of violence acquire a kind of self-perpetuating logic. The worse the crimes that Israel inflicts on Palestinian people, and vice versa, the more resentment it breeds; and the more impossible it becomes to each to imagine sharing existence with the other. 

Israel's occupation of the West Bank has now lasted for well over fifty years—approaching sixty. Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank live under effective Israeli state control, but have no rights of citizenship—the definition of apartheid. These policies inevitably breed hatred and rage; just as Hamas's terrorist attack on Israel and its taking of civilian hostages did as well. When either side kills or oppresses the innocent, it makes it psychologically all the harder for the other to contemplate meeting them half-way, or choosing to share existence on the same land. 

But if these are two peoples who cannot share existence—the logic of ethnic cleansing and genocide follows. Hamas embraced genocide as its explicit goal decades ago. One holds no brief for them; and one has no doubt that, if they attain state power across Palestine, they would seek to execute such a policy of mass murder. This knowledge that Hamas rule in all Palestine would mean disaster and death for Jewish Israelis makes it all the harder to contemplate the existence of a Palestinian state: suppose, after all, that such a state is created—and Hamas is elected to rule the next day? 

And yet—the more Israel oppresses and kills and brutalizes the people of Gaza—the more rage they produce in their victims, and thus—the more likely they make that outcome. It might be possible to prevent a Hamas takeover of a future Palestinian state. Doing so would require actual investment in building mutual goodwill. But the actions of both Hamas and Netanyahu over the past two years have made that appear impossible to many. And so, the dragon's teeth are sowed. 

thanks to the war we have raised a new species of children

our children don't like fairy tales they play at killing

awake and asleep they dream of soup of bread and bones

just like dogs and cats

as  Zbigniew Herbert wrote in "Report from the Besieged City" (Carpenter trans. throughout) 

(It's a classic poem, but one that only came to my attention recently. And its images cannot help but remind one of the crisis in Gaza—even though Herbert was writing in a quite different context. "[T]he siege has lasted a long time the enemies must take turns," he writes; "nothing unites them except the desire for our extermination." Or: "our / friends beyond the sea I know they sincerely sympathize / they send us flour lard sacks of comfort and good advice / they don't even know their fathers betrayed us [...] those struck by misfortune are always alone.")

The only way out of this death-spiral is to stop—just stop; declare a halt. Say: we arbitrarily declare this day the new starting point. Truth and reconciliation. Amnesty for all crimes and atrocities committed in the past. We will work with one another now to forgive and achieve peace. We will not exact revenge. We will not even exact "justice." We say—we will pull up stakes of our settlements in the West Bank and pull our troops out of Gaza and shake hands with what's left of the Palestinian Authority. I don't say this is easy or likely—but it's the only way to end the logic of retaliation. 

Except: not quite the only way. The other way is to carry out the logic of extermination to its utmost conclusion. To say: if we cannot share existence with this people—then this people must not exist. Genocide, in short. Or, at best, forced displacement and ethnic cleansing. This is what the Israeli government appears perilously close to embracing. Many far-right Israeli politicians have already called for as much. Trump endorsed it. The Israeli parliament recently took a vote that inches a step further toward outright annexation of the West Bank, bringing this horror one step closer to realization. 

That is indeed one way to solve the problem of a failure to share existence—to refuse to share it, and to blot the other party out of existence. And a growing body of voices in Israel and the American far-right and the apocalyptic evangelical Christian movement—the same voices who, like our current president, have toyed with the idea of simply moving all Palestinians out of the territory as a forced population transfer—seem to be indicating that this is indeed the solution they prefer. They think it's too late to be innocent—and so, one might as well carry the logic of guilt to its bitter end. 

"To which I suppose the only answer"—as Gore Vidal once wrote (in response to those Americans who say that our crimes around the world are justified, because it is not "possible to start from a place of innocence")—"is to say—Go! Plunge ever deeper, commit more crimes to erase those already committed, and repeat with Macbeth, 'I am in blood/Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more,/Returning were as tedious as go o'er.'"