05/08/2025

Some Reflections on the Genocide of the Palestinian People

The Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip, launched at the end of 2023 under the pretext of “retaliation” for Hamas’s cruel assault, marked a qualitative leap in the Middle East conflict. It signaled the transition to the extermination phase of a genocidal social practice—a stage that had existed as a possibility for decades but had been contained by the lack of consensus within Israeli society and the fear of possible international intervention if it were carried out.

These constraints were shattered in the 2023 attack. Back in 2009, in response to the events of “Black January,” also in Gaza, I wrote in Archivos del Presente that the various stages of a genocidal social practice (stigmatization, harassment, isolation, systematic weakening) had already been developed, but that extermination still faced obstacles to its implementation.

These obstacles had nothing to do with the government establishment’s intent, but rather with the two factors mentioned above: lack of consensus in Israeli society and lack of backing from “international allies.”

However, even in 2009, it was clear that these constraints were fragile. That article ended by stating that “if we are willing to learn anything from history, our response must be urgent to redirect this conflict, to avoid the genocidal possibility, and not allow, in turn, the manicheisms and simplifications to use this tragedy as an excuse to revive the old scourge of antisemitism.”

More than fifteen years later, we can say we have learned nothing. The genocide of the Palestinian people is unfolding before our eyes in the most harrowing display of its extermination phase: even with dozens of children dying each week from hunger, as occurred in the Jewish ghettos of Central Europe. In parallel, antisemitism is rising at a vertiginous pace, foreshadowing troubling scenarios in the present and future—not only for the State of Israel but for the entire Jewish people.

What happened in these fifteen years?

Neo-fascist Right-Wing Movements as a Break in the Status Quo

Although Netanyahu first came to power in Israel in 1996, the radical turn of his government was a gradual process. It was linked not only to the slow but persistent transformation of Israel’s hegemonic right wing (the old Likud) but also to the rise and growth of far-right formations that, through various coalition governments, pushed policies toward increasingly extremist positions—constructing the myth of a “Greater Israel” and dehumanizing the Palestinian people in religious, biological, or political terms.

The inauguration of Donald Trump in the United States in 2025 also marked a shift in the willingness and/or ability to place limits on the actions of the Israeli government.

The Inconsistencies of the “International Community”

The strengthening of these right-wing movements (centered in the United States, with branches in other countries—including Milei’s Argentina) resulted in the collapse of the already limited pressure capacities of international bodies, whether the UN’s special representatives, genocide prevention offices, the International Criminal Court, etc. Given the veto power in the Security Council, the U.S. blockade and the growing delegitimization of human rights by the new right have combined with the weakness of a bureaucracy that has almost never demanded autonomy from hegemonic powers and has failed repeatedly in the face of genocidal processes, from Sri Lanka or Myanmar to Colombia.

The Pogrom of October 7

The most decisive turning point toward extermination came from the consequences of the pogrom carried out by Hamas on October 7, 2023. The villages attacked were not occupied territories and were home to many members of organizations in solidarity with the Palestinian people. The assault broke the backbone of civil society’s capacity to resist the transition to extermination. The choice of the area to attack and the high level of cruelty produced a psychic and social shock not only among government supporters but also among many of its staunchest critics. The most negative emotions were amplified by the crisis caused by the most severe attack in Israeli history. The specters of Nazi annihilation (skillfully invoked by the Israeli establishment but naturally present in every Jewish person) inevitably resurfaced in a context of baby abductions and murders, rapes, and the perverse glorification of cruelty. Many of the Israelis most supportive of the Palestinian cause saw family and friends die in a manner unseen since World War II.

Nevertheless, many Israeli organizations have resisted from the start of the offensive on Gaza (including some relatives of hostages held by Hamas, despite the latent risk of being disadvantaged in release negotiations). Many others have begun to react to the flood of images of famine or the destruction of Gaza’s buildings and healthcare infrastructure in recent weeks. But the period of shock was shrewdly used by Netanyahu’s government to push the situation to a near point of no return in a context where the capacity for reaction was diminished.

The Traps of Complexity

The particular complexity of the Middle East conflict (its transformation over time, the tragic convergence of two peoples whose suffering stemmed from different causes and moments but who could never grasp the other’s fears, the specificity of Islamist fundamentalist organizations such as Hamas, the rise of a religious and fundamentalist Zionist right wing in Israel, the indiscriminate use of terrorism by various actors) has fostered sophisticated forms of denialism and legitimations of the massacre across the West—while also reviving the antisemitic imagery of the 19th and 20th centuries worldwide.

Simplifications and manicheisms push discourse easily into the realm of stereotypes. On one side, dehumanizing the Palestinian population and justifying the “need” for its annihilation under the argument that “there’s no one to negotiate with.” On the other, conflating the Jewish people, the State of Israel, and Netanyahu’s government, returning to myths that cast Jews as representatives of evil, equating Zionism with contemporary Israeli neo-fascism, or even attacking members of Jewish diaspora communities worldwide. Antisemitic acts are growing at breakneck speed, but at the same time, persecution is also increasing against those who denounce the Palestinian massacre—confusing real and existing antisemitism with any criticism of the Israeli government. The denunciation of genocide in Gaza is not distinguished from the repetition of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

It is not easy to imagine what can be done in this context. Growing sectors of Israeli society are emerging from the shock and, particularly in recent months, protests have increased—joining those who reacted from the very first day (university rectors, scholars of genocide studies, various political organizations).

Internationally, some states have tried to play a different role, from South Africa’s early submission to the International Criminal Court to the responses of many European governments recognizing the Palestinian state.

But clearly, this is not enough. The more advanced a genocide becomes, the harder it is to dismantle its structures and prevent its completion.

Hence the urgency of appealing to our creativity in developing any strategy that might block or interrupt the continuation of the massacre and help resume peace negotiations aimed at reestablishing the conditions for coexistence between both peoples in the land they share.

Daniel Feierstein is Director of the Center for Genocide Studies – UNTREF/CONICET.