We’re Glad to See You Use the G-Word, but Now You Must Act

The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention and Human Security does not have the language to describe the evil that is being committed against Palestinians in Gaza. Even the term genocide feels inadequate. Our hearts break for all the victims of this tremendous crime and preventable tragedy. There will never be sufficient justice for the victims. Each person who has been murdered is an irreplaceable treasure and a permanent loss for humankind.

We welcome the sudden about face among some scholars, NGOs, media outlets, and government officials in Europe, who are now ready to declare what is happening in Gaza a genocide or at least the crime against humanity of ‘extermination.’ It is beyond regretful that it took the situation reaching this level of extremity for so many to find the courage to speak out. The purpose of genocide prevention is to recognize the red flags of genocide – a self-radicalizing process with no internal limits – before it reaches this intensity.

While the correct time to act passed long ago, failure to act now will be perhaps the most egregious failure of humanity in the annals of human history. Every single leader – in the West and outside of it – who does not take action at this decisive moment will ensure for themselves a shameful legacy defined by cruelty and cowardice.

Given the sudden willingness among Western leaders to criticize Israel and, in some cases, even use the term genocide to describe the man-made famine Israel has created in Gaza, leaders must work immediately with Arab and Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East to bring Israel’s genocide to a halt, to end its current expansionism, to return Israel to its 1948 borders by dismantling the settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and to force Israel to undergo a process similar to denazification in Germany after 1945. Though denazification can hardly be called a success, it did impress upon several generations of Germans that they had lost the war, that they had acted in a criminal fashion, and that they needed to shift gears towards coexistence with the rest of humanity.

World leaders simply do not have any other choice but to confront Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Any choice other than decisive and immediate action will result in the full-scale extirpation of Palestinian life in Palestine as well as a rapid expansion of genocidal violence in the Middle East.

A coalition of states must immediately:

- End all shipments of arms and military aid to Israel, which should have been done long ago.
- Suspend diplomatic relationships with Israel and work to have Israel suspended from the United Nations as an apartheid state.
- With the involvement and consent of Palestine, create a multilateral force to restore peace that has a mandate to fight back if fired upon.
- Develop an ad-hoc international tribunal to try war criminals and genocidaires.

Once security has been restored for Palestinians and Israelis and a reconciliation process has been agreed upon, Palestinians, like other victims of genocide, will deserve a justice mechanism that centers them and their suffering and forces their tormentors to recognize wrongdoing and seek to repair it. This will be difficult in a society like Israel’s, where the vast majority of the population is so saturated by genocidal propaganda that they cannot see the monstrosity of what they have actively supported, but it is the only way forward.

Equally, the world must protect Jews and Israelis from vengeance once Israel has been forced to lay down its weapons and take responsibility for its crimes.

This may all seem impossible to Western leaders who are so used to blindly supporting Israel. But leaders around the world must turn towards effective and positive solutions to this longstanding conflict. Once one country breaks ranks and begins the courageous work of dismantling their support for this genocidal state, others will quickly join. The world simply needs one leader to pull on the string to begin unraveling the Gordian knot of colonialism, imperialism, Israeli supremacism, anti-Palestinian racism, and Islamophobia that has been standing in the way of a clear understanding of the facts on the ground and their implications.

We welcome that person of courage, whoever they may be.