Thoughts on the Second Anniversary of the Gaza Genocide

These remarks are excerpted from a talk given at Duke University on the second anniversary of the genocide.

It seems inevitable that October 7th will be remembered as the day of the Hamas attack. There is no question that the attack was traumatic for Israeli Jews, especially for those who lost loved ones or whose loved ones were taken hostage, and October 7th is etched in their memories as a day of horror and loss. Let us all do our part to help heal this trauma, because trauma that is not transformed is transmitted. At the same time, October 7th will be remembered as the beginning of the American-Israeli genocide against the 2.3 million people of the Gaza Strip, still ongoing. Today, with the names of thousands of martyrs written on the scroll unfurled before us, we are remembering two years of genocide.

Part of remembering two years of genocide is telling the truth about Israel. Israel is not a normal country. It is a rogue state. It has blatantly defied international law for 77 years. Israel steals Palestinian land, demolishes Palestinian homes, burns olive groves, commits the gravest of crimes against humanity – ethnic cleansing, apartheid, torture, and most recently an ongoing genocide, including a malicious campaign of starvation. Even as horrific as genocides are, Israel is hauling humanity into unprecedented regions of horror. Satellite images show whole cities where people once flourished flattened into grey nothingness. The explosive tonnage of Israel’s bombing campaign has exceeded all of WW II, the equivalent of 7 Hiroshimas. They’ve bombed and terrorized seven of their neighbors within the past year – Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Yemen, Qatar, Palestine, and Tunisia. They act with impunity. Israel has never been held accountable for their crimes against humanity. Bless the government of South Africa for bringing the case of Israel’s genocide to the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court.

Those who committed genocide, and are still carrying it out, very much hope we will forget. That we will become preoccupied with other things, with fresh crises and new challenges. That we will succumb to exhaustion and give in to despair. That we will leave the work of remembering to others. But if we forget, there will be no accountability. And if there is no accountability, it will surely happen again. Those who committed this evil – and those who actively supported it and benefited from it – will conclude that they can keep doing horrific things and there will be no price to pay.

I love the theme of your remembering – that every martyr is a universe…each of their lives was an entire universe of meaning and sacred, infinite worth, that their lives were not disposable. They are witnesses, witnesses to the savagery that took their lives. Our remembering keeps their witness alive. During this genocide, one of the spiritual disciplines I set for myself was to remember every day the names of 5 Gazans who were swept up in the genocide. It could have been others, but these were the ones who touched my heart at the time: Hind Rajab, the 5-yr- old girl murdered in her family’s car, Rafaat Alareer, the poet and English professor, Dr. Hussam Abu Sofia, the pediatrician and hospital director abducted and tortured in an Israeli prison, Shaban al-Dalou, the aspiring college student burned alive in a tent outside a hospital, next to his mother, and Wael al-Dalou, the Al Jazeera journalist who kept reporting even after hearing news that several members of his family had been killed in an Israeli air strike. Throughout the genocide I remembered them. I called them to mind. A very small thing, really. But it felt like a victory – I was able, in my small way, to deprive Israel of its genocidal intent to erase them.

We can refuse to forget them. We can insist that our nation confront its complicity in this madness. We can insist on accountability. We can repent. And most importantly, we can sow the memory of their lives as seeds….seeds for a better future for humanity.