Why Are We Witnessing a Genocide?

Famine is imminent, according to the UN in today’s newspaper. Famine is defined as “20% of households have an extreme lack of food, 30% of children have acute malnutrition and at least two adults and four children (per 10,000) die daily” for lack of food. To die of hunger is extremely painful, but small children who are starving do not have the energy to cry. To starve children is part of the plan to eradicate the Palestinian population in Gaza. How did the world let this happen? I think through a series of grotesque underestimates. First, Israel underestimated Hamas’ ability to strike a wound deep into Israel. Thus their Southern Command was not awake on October 7th; their soldiers were busy harassing Palestinians in the West Bank at hundreds of random checkpoints. Second, Hamas, eager to teach Israel a lesson that certain conditions were intolerable, underestimated the level of revenge and retaliation their action would provoke. They were used to being severely bombed after they fired rockets into Israel, but the bombs would stop eventually. They were also used to getting some results from taking hostages: for one Israeli soldier they got several hundred Palestinian political prisoners released from Israeli prisons. Third, Israel underestimated Hamas’ ability to maintain a military resistance in Gaza once Israel started a ground invasion. Palestinians do not want this war, but neither will they accept the conditions of subjugation imposed by Israel, especially since 2007. Fourth, Hamas underestimated Israel’s drive to complete a Zionist dream of having all of the land from the river to the sea be exclusively for a Jewish State. Thus Israel cannot accept a permanent ceasefire until they are sure they have gotten rid of all the Palestinian inhabitants on that land. In 1948 they accepted a ceasefire before achieving their goal, and have regretted it ever since. Fifth, Israel underestimates the Palestinian drive for self-determination, freedom from occupation, and return to their ancestral lands. As settler-colonizers, they must rule by force, and no people’s will tolerate their subjugation forever. So, that’s how we got here. What is the way out? Today’s Associated Press article also addressed this question, quoting the World Food program country director: “It is still possible to turn this around, but there will have to be a ceasefire, and there will have to be massive amounts of food aid to flow consistently, and people need to have access to clean water and health care.” Let’s look at this scenario. As said above, Israel will not agree to a ceasefire until they have accomplished their goal of ethnic cleansing, ie “getting rid of Hamas.” As for massive amounts of food aid, Israel has been blocking just such aid in order to starve the population, so why would they now agree to it? The same can be said of clean water and health care. These are life-saving measures, when the goal is to snuff out life. That is, if Israel is in charge of post-war Gaza. But, if Israel is not in charge, what nation or international entity will step up to deal with the almost total destruction of living spaces and provide anything life-saving in Gaza, when they have not done so yet? Will Palestinians be at the table? Will Hamas? it might be evident to anyone watching that Hamas has not been defeated by Israel’s powerful army and air force. I noted in the aforementioned newspaper article that it was a Hamas police officer who was coordinating the effective distribution of the arrival of the first food supplies to reach northern Gaza in 2 months. Finally, where do WE go from here? What is the responsibility of US citizens who oppose the genocide and want a future safe for all Palestinians and Israelis? (Because Israel cannot be safe as long as it continues to pursue settler colonial goals.) In the short term, we must get our government to stop funding and arming the genocide. This can only be accomplished when the U.S. thinks its own security requires it to change course. That doesn’t look likely at the moment, but there are forces at work in the world that make the future unpredictable: climate catastrophes, other wars which could become nuclear, resulting migrations of people seeking safety or food. We don’t know, but we must act in every way we can imagine to save Palestine, ourselves and our planet. March 19, 2024 Please submit responses via email: Sherrill.hogen@gmail.com