On Defying the Human Urge of Genocide

A real genocide in Gaza would be less than a day’s effort if Israel did not care about civilian life.

IDF generals in a meeting (photo: Israel Defense Forces/X)

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This is a guest essay written by Elissa Wald of Never Alone.

You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify.

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As uplifting as I try to be, I will be real here: These have been some very dark days.

But what has pulled me through it is reaching for perspective: Israel has suffered excruciating setbacks countless times in the past, even situations where it looked like all would surely be lost. And yet, kayn ahora, she always pulls through.

Consider this account, in “Hadassah” magazine, about the tail end of Israel’s war with Egypt in 1973, better known as the Yom Kippur War. The parallels to today are very striking:

On October 20th, U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger learned that the Arab members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries had imposed an oil embargo on the United States and other nations in retaliation for their support of Israel during the war. The CEOs of America’s oil companies informed him that while World War II rationing had reduced oil supplies to American consumers by six percent, the embargo threatened to reduce it by 18 percent.

The cease-fire was declared in the United Nations Security Council on October 22nd. Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir told her generals to ignore it and encircle the Egyptian Third Army. The Soviets were irate. Using unusually strong language, they warned ominously “of the gravest consequences” for Israel. They also hinted at sending in troops, and thereby sparked the most dangerous superpower confrontation since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Golda, a lioness in orthopedic shoes, dug in her heels and stood her ground.

During the many talks that ensued between the U.S. and Israel, Kissinger did everything he could to discourage Meir from standing strong.

The Egyptians were adamant that Israel had to pull back to the October 22nd cease-fire line and release the grip on their Third Army. Golda refused. Israeli soldiers would stay put. They would allow supply of the Egyptian army, but only if prisoners of war were exchanged. No withdrawal would take place without an agreement on Israel’s terms.

On November 3rd, Kissinger lost patience. “You will have a hell of a time,” he said, “explaining to the American people how we can have an oil shortage over the issue of your right to hold territory you took after the cease-fire.”

Washington had supplied practically all of Israel’s weapons for the war. An American air bridge had all but rescued the Jewish state. Kissinger now warned Golda that if fighting resumed, Israel could not count on further resupply. He also offered the opinion that there was “next to no chance” that the Egyptians would accept her proposal. Golda demanded that he march back to the U.S. State Department and present it anyway.

Within hours, the Yom Kippur War was over. Egypt had indeed conceded to Israel’s terms. The Jewish state won.

 I deeply believe Israel will prevail again, this time. But in the meantime we — her family — must stand fast in our support of her, our belief in her, our alignment with her.

Perspective has many facets. An Israeli named Adam Fisher posted the following account two days ago, and it really helped me to put the World Central Kitchen tragedy into the universal context of war everywhere. I have already touched on that, but the specific details of his example are especially apt:

For 30 minutes on Oct 3rd, 2015 an AC-130 gunship from the U.S. Air Force pummeled what it thought was a building that had been seized by Taliban fighters in the city of Kunduz. It was actually a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders and there were no Taliban fighters there. The hospital was on a military “no strike” list, and the air crew had observed the trauma center and personnel for 68 minutes prior to firing the 211 rounds.

Despite phone calls from within the hospital to halt the airstrike, the attack killed 42 people, including 14 staff and 24 patients. According to Doctors Without Borders, “Patients burned in their beds, medical staff were decapitated and lost limbs.”

The subsequent U.S. military investigation found that “human errors, fatigue, process and equipment failures were at fault.” In a statement the U.S. Central Command said, “These factors contributed to the ‘fog of war,’ which is the uncertainty often encountered during combat operations.” It was negligence, but unintentional and therefore not a war crime. Sixteen servicemen were disciplined but none were court-martialed.

I do not remember a global firestorm in response to this incident. I do not remember Americans or the world demanding en masse that the U.S. stop its war in Afghanistan. I do not remember phrases like “international fury” or “outraged and heartbroken” in the headlines — and a search of said headlines today reveals nothing of that nature.

I do not remember a single suggestion that the U.S. killed those doctors or patients deliberately, despite the many, many factors in place to protect the hospital that were violated by American forces.

If any one of my American friends sent money to Doctors Without Borders or some contribution to Afghan civilians, I do not remember that either.

Does anyone else?

Now there is widespread chatter that Israel will be forced to end its war on Hamas without accomplishing the terror group’s total destruction and without getting our hostages back.

I can only say that I hope with all my heart that this does not happen, and I do not believe it will.

America’s War on Terror in response to 9/11 — a single terror attack perpetrated by an enemy 7,000 miles away — lasted for 13 years.

The Washington Post reported last year that, while the final death count as a result of that war is yet to be determined, the total so far is 4.5 to 4.6 million and counting. Per the Watson Institute of International & Public Affairs at Brown University in a report updated this past August, more than 7.6 million children under the age of 5 are suffering from acute malnutrition in the wake of the carnage.

And let’s also remember that it took more than a decade for the U.S. to hunt down and kill Osama bin Laden.

American friends, did you ever discourage international artists from playing concerts in America in response to any of this? Did you feel unworthy of appearing in international conferences? Did you send a single dollar to any of the countries impacted in an attempt at reparations?

American friends, how the hell can you possibly feel superior to Israelis and entitled to bully your Jewish peers?

Here’s another point of perspective: Around 20 years ago, soon after it came out, I read a dense book titled “A Problem from Hell” by Samantha Power, who would later serve as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.

This book was a chronicle of major genocides during the 20th century. Besides the Holocaust, it delves into Turkey’s wholesale slaughter of Armenians, the Khmer Rouge’s widespread massacres in Cambodia, Saddam Hussein’s decimation of the Kurds in northern Iraq, the Hutu genocide perpetrated on Tutsis in Rwanda, and the Bosnian Serbs’ annihilation of non-Serbs in Kosovo.

It was an emotionally torturous book. I remember thinking that, while most of these genocides were smaller in scale than the Holocaust (though sometimes still in the millions), they were every bit as merciless and brutal. And these were just the most major genocides of the 20th century. There were dozens and dozens of others, as defined by the UN Convention on Genocide.

I remember thinking, as I read that book, that one could come away postulating that a tendency toward genocide is an integral part of the human condition, and no corner of the globe, no race or culture, is immune to it.

And that is why it remains so extraordinary to me that Israel has not gone there. For 75 years, she has endured countless terror attacks on her own soil and lost thousands of her own people to the struggle to contain an explicitly genocidal enemy without committing genocide herself.

Because she could. A real genocide in Gaza would be less than a day’s effort if Israel did not care about civilian life.

But she does, and I am proud and grateful that she does.

My family, we are not in control of what happens. We are only in control of our response to what happens. My progressive peers will never succeed in making me renounce the Jewish nation.

Israel is very far from perfect, but I know who she is, and I love who she is, and I will continue to stand with her with my head held high. I devoutly hope you all will stand with me.

Am Yisrael Chai.

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