An Israeli writer and two of the country’s most prominent human rights organizations have declared that what is happening in Gaza is genocide. In crossing this threshold, the writer, the activists, and the West now face a dilemma born of a grim reality: what happens when genocide does not stop? How does one live with it?
By: Veton Surroi
1.
Last week, David Grossman shocked himself, the public, and the global diplomatic community. In the same week, France and the United Kingdom announced their intention to recognize the independent state of Palestine at the UN’s annual session. Canada and Finland soon joined in, with the list likely to grow through September. Meanwhile, Western diplomats issued increasingly severe condemnations of Israel’s actions. The tone was sharper than ever before. Even the move to recognize Palestine was unprecedented. And yet, none of it stopped the daily killings of Palestinians in Gaza or the West Bank. None of it fed the starving population of Gaza—where hunger has been deliberately manufactured by Israeli authorities as a weapon of war.
For over half a century now, Israel has grown used to rebukes and warnings from the West: criticism flows in, then fades, but on the ground, the facts remain—Palestinian living space shrinks while Israeli settlements expand. This reality is reinforced by the military aid Israel receives from the United States, its strategic partner in a region of vital geopolitical importance. For Israel, as long as that aid continues—$12.5 billion in military assistance between October 2023 and November 2024, according to Foreign Affairs—the calls for restraint and human rights carry little weight.
Israel, a heavily militarized state, founded on the codified notion that it is the national homeland for all Jews around the world (who can gain citizenship at any time), is largely indifferent to external political pressure. It has also remained mostly unfazed by internal dissent—particularly from leftist intellectuals like David Grossman. But perhaps last week marked a shift, when Grossman told La Repubblica, “With a broken heart, I must say that what is happening in Gaza is genocide.”
2.
Grossman was not alone. That same week, two of Israel’s most respected human rights organizations—B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights—published reports accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. A summary from Doctors Without Borders (MSF) reads:
“This is not a temporary crisis. It is a strategy to eliminate the conditions necessary for life. Even if Israel stopped its offensive today, the destruction it has caused ensures that preventable deaths—from hunger, infections, and chronic illness—will continue for years. This is not collateral damage. This is not an unintended side effect of war. This is the systematic creation of unlivable conditions. It is the denial of survival. It is genocide.”
This, in essence, is also the conclusion Grossman must have reached. The destruction is staggering: B’Tselem reports that Israel has displaced 9 out of 10 residents of Gaza, destroyed or damaged 92% of homes, and left over half a million children without schools or stability. Healthcare systems have collapsed—no dialysis, no maternal care, no cancer treatment, no diabetes management. Over 60,000 Palestinians are dead, 30% of them children, and images of starving babies surface daily.
This accumulation of horrors brings us to a point where silence becomes complicity. Grossman’s words are not simply dissent—they are a refusal to be complicit in genocide.
This could mark a turning point.
3.
Israel was built on a quiet consensus: that the Jewish national state is a sacred end, even if the means require occupying Palestinians or colonizing their land. Built on this premise, the state has developed immunity—both to external criticism from the West and to internal critiques. Any discussion of Palestinian rights has often been met with an unspoken Western response: Israel’s security comes first.
That consensus is now in question. The essential question being asked:
Is it acceptable for Israel’s security to be built on the physical erasure of another people?
This question is far more painful for Jews than for any other people—because, under Adolf Hitler, Jewish physical presence was labeled a threat to the German state. The genocide of Jews was justified as a matter of national security, embedded in a societal consensus of that era: that for Germany to survive, Jews had to be erased from its territory—wherever its borders lay.
Perhaps Grossman has come to the realization that this fate is now mirrored, unavoidably, in Gaza. But Israel was born with a different ethos—one built not on domination, but on survival with dignity. Still, through wars, compulsory military service, and an active reserve force, Grossman and other intellectuals have been part of the machinery that built and expanded this state. Grossman himself served in military intelligence; his son Uzi was killed in a tank during the Lebanon War.
David Grossman thus embodies a deep inner conflict shared by many in Israel: the tension between loyalty to the state—and the ideal of a Jewish homeland—and the ethical cost of maintaining and defending it. That cost now includes the admission that the state may be building—or justifying—its existence through genocide.
For Grossman, B’Tselem, and Physicians for Human Rights, this is a moral threshold. Once crossed, there is no return. A society capable of committing genocide cannot simply “move on” when the killing ends. These are problems that cannot be resolved through geopolitics (“Israel is an ally, even if it commits genocide”)—just as apartheid couldn’t be justified in South Africa, nor can genocide be washed away by declarations that Israel is “the only democracy in the region.”
Democracy and genocide do not coexist—unless, of course, one recalls Adolf Hitler, who rose to power in democratic elections and then used his mandate to orchestrate the annihilation of the Jews.
4.
The word genocide is a high threshold. Until now, it has largely been seen as a legal one—because the Genocide Convention hinges on intent. One must prove a deliberate purpose: the intent to kill, displace, or make life impossible for a people.
But Grossman and these two Israeli rights organizations have shifted that threshold—from a legal one to a moral one. And now, it rests on the ethical conscience of Israeli citizens:
If what is happening in Gaza is genocide—how can we live with it?
In the Balkans, Grossman would likely be labeled a traitor—for showing empathy toward those targeted by his own ethnic group. The same applies to Western powers: their stated intention to recognize Palestine hasn’t stopped the genocide—and likely won’t unless followed by real action. Grossman’s words, and the damning reports, might not be enough either.
And when that moment comes, the West will have to confront a far more painful dilemma:
Its own capacity to live with genocide.
For the children and people of Gaza, the question is one of physical survival.
For the West, it is the survival of its moral and ethical integrity.