Death and Exile: An Israeli Genocide in Gaza

An analysis of intent and action in the Israeli war in Gaza

Last week, the Washington Post published a column asserting that the war in Gaza had crossed the boundaries from normal armed conflict, with all of its attendant evils, into the realm of genocide. This is an opinion I happen to share, for reasons that I will explain below.

During war, civilians are frequently killed, and critical infrastructure sustaining life is destroyed. Israel was obviously going to retaliate to the October 7 attacks, as any state would. Retaliation itself does not constitute a legal or moral transgression, even if it results in death and destruction that harms the innocent. But this war, which has now entered its twentieth month, has long since transformed from a project of retaliation against Hamas, or even regime change in the Gaza Strip, into a systematic program aimed at eliminating the Palestinian population, through direct killings, excess mortality, and forced expulsion from their territory.

We are witnessing a genocide aimed at eradicating the Palestinian nation itself through a mixture of death and exile. Rather than being concealed, this intent is being proudly proclaimed by its perpetrators. Unlike many other armed conflicts, whose legacy may eventually be overcome by future generations, I believe that this genocide, which takes place upon a sensitive civilizational fault line, will instead be remembered as a historical turning point in the postwar period, as well as in Israel’s relations with the surrounding region and world.

Death and Exile

During its wars in Iraq and Syria, the U.S. military at times inflicted severe destruction on urban areas, including in attacks that killed many civilians. In an even more infamous historical example, during the closing days of World War II, nuclear weapons were employed by the Truman administration against Imperial Japan, in attacks that annihilated the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, along with tens of thousands of their residents.

As terrible of those events were, they did not qualify as genocide. The U.S. goal in the wars in Iraq and Syria was never described by its leaders as destroying those populations, driving them from permanently from their homes, or eradicating their sovereignty. However misguided, or even immoral, the aim of the U.S. government was to change the political regime in these countries, or, in the case of the destruction of cities like Mosul and Raqqa, to shore up the existing central government and restore its sovereignty.

Likewise, as great as American enmity towards Japan may have been, and as brutally as the conflict was conducted on both sides, the ultimate goal of the U.S. war was to impose a new, friendly regime under Japanese control in Tokyo. The Truman administration indeed emphasized this repeatedly both before and after the war was completed. As much as they were angered by the conflict, which the Japanese had initiated, Americans at no time aimed to empty the island of Japan of its population through a mixture of death and exile, such that American religious extremists could come and settle upon the ruins.

That is why even the fiercest opponents or critics of those wars never levelled the accusation of genocide. Simply put, no U.S. actions or statements ever indicated that they were aiming to literally to eliminate Syrians, Iraqis, or the Japanese as a nation.

But that is what the Israelis are doing. It can be inferred from their actions, currently focused on “concentrating” the population (their word) into zones of control from which they can be attrited through violence, disease, hunger, and ultimately, expulsion. But also because their most senior leaders are stating it openly on a regular basis.

I will leave aside the avalanche of regular statements from senior IDF officers and soldiers on social media discussing their actions and intentions in Gaza, often in gruesome detail. Instead I will focus exclusively on how Israeli political officials and cabinet ministers responsible for prosecuting the war are describing their intent:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking at the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Security Committee on May 11: "The Gazans we remove will not return. They won't be there. We will control the place. There is no other war target. Any other target is just bluff."

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, speaking at a settlement policy conference in the West Bank on May 6: “The Gazan citizens will be concentrated in the south. They will be totally despairing, understanding that there is no hope and nothing to look for in Gaza, and will be looking for relocation to begin a new life in other places.”

Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi at a public rally on May 14: “In order to preserve the security achievements for which so many of our troops gave up their lives for, we must settle Gaza, with security forces and with settlers.”

Speaking on February 6, Defense Minister Israel Katz ordered the IDF to prepare, “a courageous plan, which could enable a wide swath of the population in Gaza to leave to various places around the world.”

These are merely a few statements from the past weeks and months. I could continue compiling such comments almost indefinitely, going back to the early days of the war, but I will leave such tasks to the legal clerks at the International Court of Justice. Suffice to say it is clear that the statements establish an intent by Israel to liquidate the Palestinian population of Gaza without distinction, and then replace them with a new Israeli population.

“Severe epidemics…will bring victory closer.”

This effort at annihilating the Palestinians is already much further advanced than most people are aware. Over the course of the war, my colleagues and I have spent much time interviewing people in the Gaza Strip, including foreign medical experts, in part to try and assess the all-cause mortality from the conflict. Prior to the war, the population of Gaza was around 2.1 million people. You should expect that population figure to be far lower if and when foreign journalists are eventually allowed back into the territory.

The Gaza Ministry of Health, which has been much-maligned by online hasbara efforts, despite its death tolls being assessed by Israeli intelligence as generally accurate, only records deaths from direct trauma among people whose identities it can verify. The present official toll of roughly 52,000 dead thus does not account for tens of thousands more believed to be buried under the rubble (The Economist recently shared research suggesting that as many as 109,000 Palestinians have been killed as of this writing), as these people have neither been recovered by the morgue nor identified.

But, even more importantly, the MoH toll does not account at all for the huge numbers of deaths caused by disease, malnutrition, and other physical stress, including the deliberate denial of food, medicine, and destruction of water treatment facilities by the Israeli military. The denial of those foundations of life are the major engine of mass death in every genocide.

From the first days of the war, senior Israeli military advisors had specifically advised creating such conditions as a means of annihilating the Palestinians, including an author of the “Generals Plan,” retired Major General and Former Head of the Israeli National Security Council Giora Eiland, who wrote in the Hebrew-language edition of Yedioth Ahronoth: “The international community is warning us against a severe humanitarian disaster and severe epidemics. We must not shy away from this. After all, severe epidemics in the south of Gaza will bring victory closer.”

Eiland has gotten what he wanted. As a general rule, all-cause mortality often winds up being around 4 to 5 times the number of deaths by trauma in a conflict. These deaths are always considered part of the overall toll in the historical record of any genocide, where most people usually die due to lack of medical care, absence of food, or from the stress of being force-marched around constantly until they collapse, rather than being shot, stabbed, or bombed individually.

That is how most people perished in the Armenian genocide, as well as the early-20th century ethnic cleansings in the Balkans. Even Anne Frank ultimately died in a camp of typhus, though no one would claim that her death had not been intended by German policy.

A New Paradigm

As I’ve said many times, I’ve always supported a peaceful resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict for moral and pragmatic reasons. This has included respect for international law, skepticism of the actions of some of its opponents, and even sympathy with Israelis over the legacy of the Holocaust and exodus of Mizrahi Jews. I would go even further and say that I admire, and am even influenced by, many aspects of the Jewish intellectual tradition, which always led me to try and look beyond the maelstrom of present events, towards a future where a reconciliation and synthesis between Israel and the surrounding countries of the region could take place.

My long-term assessment is that such an outcome is no longer realistic. The genocide, as well as the millenarian hostility of the Israeli government towards its neighbors, including those who have tried to seek peace with it, have profoundly reshaped views of this subject. Barring an unlikely “regime change” in Israel, which would mean not merely a change of leadership via election, but deconstruction of the institutions responsible for the genocide, as well as a process of legal accountability for its perpetrators, I do not foresee an ultimate integration of Israel into the region, although tactical diplomatic agreements may be desirable and should be honored.

I condemned the killing of Israeli civilians on October 7 with utmost sincerity. But that has become an irrelevant side note to events at this point. Every perpetrator of genocide claimed to have been driven by compelling political or security concerns. The Herero Genocide in Namibia was preceded by a similar mass killing of German civilians. The Armenian and Bosnian genocides were also alleged by their perpetrators to have been forced by political and security necessity.

But morality and pragmatism now suggest that it is impossible to find compromise on this issue, nor to accept a long-term normalizaton of Israel in its current form. Lest one accuse me of singling Israel out, I held the same unwavering perspective about the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad after its crimes, and always maintained that the world could not accept its normalization after what it had done. After 14 years of steadfast opposition, the perseverance of Assad’s opponents eventually paid off when shifting conditions, unforeseen at the time, allowed that morally indefensible system to finally collapse.

I offer no predictions on how such a process will play out with Israel, though I am sure it will take much longer than 14 years. Israel has considerably more resources than the Assad regime to draw upon, as well as the option to use nuclear weapons if confronted directly. Despite that, I think that its long-term strategic picture is not good. The actions of the government have completely transformed the perceptions of even its most moderate and conciliatory neighbors. Within the U.S., views of Israel have become highly polarized, particularly among the young, in a manner that will make it difficult to ensure the high degree of political and military patronage necessary to maintain its state of permanent warfare.

This genocide has been a political and cultural turning point beyond which we cannot continue as before. I express that with resignation rather than satisfaction, as it means that many generations of suffering are ahead on all sides. Ultimately, the goal of Israel’s opponents must not be to replicate its crimes in Gaza and the West Bank, nor to indulge in nihilistic hatred for its own sake. People in the region and beyond should work to build connections with those Israelis who are committed opponents of their regime, and who are ready to cooperate in the generational task of building a new political architecture.

As painful as conditions are today, and as many years as it may take, I am actually optimistic about such a change ultimately occurring. Until then, we can only lament the fate of the people of Gaza, who livestreamed their own annihilation, but found no one who could do anything to rescue them from their fate.