On the Third Side – Saying the G Word

That moment when you know you said the G word, it slips, slides off your tongue, “Genocide” and nobody calls you on it. You were primed to dodge the slams, but everybody took it in stride. “Genocide.” Said it in the locker room at the pool. Not exactly my safe place for my sociopolitical inclinations. Yet somehow, I matter-of-factly integrated a statement about Israel, responsible for Genocide in Gaza. Not a twinge. Nobody. That moment when you think recognizing it might be seeping into the mainstream, or worse, that it’s becoming justifiable – categorized, qualified, as though modified by defense and methods.

Maybe it didn’t slip. Maybe I was testing the waters. A few days later, I considered telling a friend and refrained. In a candid conversation sharing experiences and family anecdotes since October 7, sharing concerns about US politics, she interjected that unlike me she has always had mixed feelings about a Palestinian state. My feelings supporting establishment of a Palestinian state remain intact, so I didn’t react. She is inclined to accept the idea despite fears and concerns. I think whatever conditions we might want in place we agree that without a Palestinian state there is no resolution to the conflict. We had other things to discuss and skipped discussion of the risks of a Palestinian state, and didn’t yet know what Trump had planned.

But on a tangent, only in my head, I asked if she would have to reconsider our friendship if I said Israel committed genocide. I didn’t verbalize it. I didn’t feel like arguing my position. Genocide does not have to be committed in the way Nazism worked in World War II concentration and death camps, and crematoriums, to be genocide. I want to believe the Jewish people could never conduct a Shoah.

Of course, I want to believe Jewish settlers in the West Bank never attack Palestinian villages, never burn Palestinians’ cars, shops, homes, children. I know otherwise. I want to believe the IDF prevents imminent settler attacks and interferes when they occur; that General Security Services and Israel’s Police find perpetrators and prosecute applying tactics and measures identical to those applied when a Palestinian attacks Jews. I know my friend would agree. But would she say, “genocide?” Would she agree that the government articulating its approach to Hamas, Gaza, and the Gazan people explicitly defines a genocidal strategy – that it tries to carry out?

There is a missing link. Governments send soldiers to execute policies. Israeli soldiers are defending Israel from Hamas threats, and circumstances arguably legitimated that. It’s just that genocidal policies emerge from ongoing warfare when demonization of all Gazans, labeling all Gazans, if not all Palestinians, as Hamas, is a practice legitimated by government ministers. Links of trauma.

Barbaric Hamas actions violating, raping, mutilating, murdering, and kidnapping on October 7 are unparalleled in cruelty and magnitude. Nothing justifies genocide in retaliation, nor this prolonged, devastating war. I understand Hamas wants to eliminate the State of Israel and the Jewish people. I understand the desire to eliminate Hamas, even if I understand it as an impossible feat, but a good excuse for unending war. I do not understand Israeli political leaders’ intent on eliminating the entire Palestinian people, and some Israeli politicians undeniably adhere to such doctrines.

While considering discussing with this friend, there’s a message from my niece that requires my response.  Apologetically cautious, she admitted to possibly being too analytical, but wanting to understand fully. She wants clarification about my recently writing, “Israel adopted and implemented a policy of genocide in Gaza.” She wanted to know if I would say Israel committed genocide.

I confirmed: if you implement such a policy, you commit it. I admitted it was just so painful to say that I evaded it, escaping into my fears, like vulnerability to attack by terrorists climbing over the wall from the West Bank. But my fears don’t change the reality of Israeli strategies – not those that failed on October 7 and not those seeking to annihilate the Palestinian people.

Two sides to every coin, and that third side, on the edge that rolls. And I roll and take the falls. I did not get slammed in the locker room for matter-of-factly referring to genocide by Israel in Gaza. I got called out by my sensitive, questioning niece when I didn’t say it.