I grew up with the ghost of Black September whispering through every headline. I remember Yasser Arafat on television, keffiyeh draped just so, proclaiming resistance while bombs exploded in airport terminals and Olympic villages. The rise of the PLO painted Palestinians, in my young eyes, not as victims but as the provocateurs of bloodshed. I internalized the dominant American and Israeli narratives of the 1970s and 1980s: that the conflict was a matter of democratic Israel defending itself from a sea of Arab hostility, and that Palestinians had chosen terrorism over peace. I was taught — and I believed — that they were the instigators.

But belief is not truth, and time erodes certainty. Today, I find myself disturbed, even sickened, by what I see unfolding in Gaza. The Netanyahu government’s siege is not precision warfare — it is wholesale punishment. Entire city blocks are flattened. Children are buried in rubble. Electricity, water, and medicine are cut off in the name of national security. Is this still defense, or is it vengeance draped in the language of survival?

Netanyahu’s authoritarian shift — with his judicial overhaul, alignment with far-right settler extremists, and blatant manipulation of wartime fear — has obliterated any illusion of moral high ground. According to a January 2024 ruling from the International Court of Justice (ICJ), South Africa’s charge that Israel is plausibly committing genocide in Gaza is serious enough to warrant further investigation (ICJ, 2024). Meanwhile, Amnesty International has accused Israel of enforcing an apartheid system and committing war crimes through its blockade and bombardment of Gaza (Amnesty International, 2022).

Still, moral clarity does not come easily. Hamas is not innocent. It deliberately embeds itself in civilian infrastructure, launches rockets from crowded neighborhoods, and recruits child fighters. It is a terrorist group that invites civilian death and then weaponizes that suffering. So I must ask: are children still innocent if raised in a system that glorifies martyrdom? Yes — because international law demands we treat them as such, regardless of their environment (UN, 1948). But it complicates the narrative, and it gnaws at any simple sense of blame.

Is what Israel is doing genocide? Under the 1948 Genocide Convention, genocide includes “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group” (UN, 1948). Intent is key — and though the ICJ has not made a final ruling, the scale and language of Israeli leaders raise serious concern.

This conflict has broken my binary. I distrust Palestinian leadership, but I fear Netanyahu more. I believe Israel has a right to exist, but I no longer believe this is what defense looks like. And I don’t trust anyone who pretends the answer is easy.

Speaking honestly in a polarized world is dangerous. To say both sides bear responsibility is to invite attacks from both. But accountability isn’t about symmetry — it’s about truth. And the truth is, no child should die because of where they were born. That should still matter.

References

Amnesty International. (2022). Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians: Cruel system of domination and crime against humanity. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2022/02/israels-system-of-apartheid/

International Court of Justice. (2024). Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel). https://www.icj-cij.org/en/case/192

United Nations. (1948). Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.1_Convention%20on%20the%20Prevention%20and%20Punishment%20of%20the%20Crime%20of%20Genocide.pdf

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