In December 2023, just three months into Israel’s genocide on Gaza, Tzedek Chicago’s board released a public statement entitled, “In Gaza, Israel is Revealing the True Face of Zionism,” arguing that “ongoing Nakba is the essential context for understanding the horrifying violence of the past three months.” A year and a half later, these words are resonating with an even more powerful urgency. There is every indication that Israel is beginning the process of engineering the wholesale destruction of Gaza – and the Palestinians who live there – by any means necessary. 

We are now three months into Israel’s total blockade of food, fuel and humanitarian aid – and Gazans are gripped by an increasing famine. On May 4 it was reported by Gaza’s government media office that at least 57 Palestinians have already starved to death, more than 3,500 young children face imminent death from starvation, another 70,000 children are being hospitalized for severe malnutrition, and 1.1 million Palestinian children lack the minimum nutritional requirements for survival. Over 20 UN human rights experts have determined that Israel is wielding starvation as a weapon of war, concluding that “these acts, beyond constituting grave international crimes, follow alarming, documented patterns of genocidal conduct.”

At the same time, the Israeli military has been stepping up its bombing campaign, killing Palestinians at a higher rate than any point since the beginning of the genocide. As of this writing, Israel has killed 100 people in the past 24 hours in a series of bombings throughout northern Gaza. In footage taken by NBC News, the bodies of young children could be seen lying among the dead at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. 

There are ominous, compelling signs that we are indeed witnessing the end game of Israel’s Nakba in Gaza. On May 4, the Israeli government approved a military operation called “Gideon’s Chariots,” directing the Israeli army to seize complete control of the Gaza Strip and displace the entire population to a small area of land in the south. Though this was technically a leaked story, some Israeli politicians have been unabashed about the plan. Finance Minister Betzalel Smotrich put it very plainly: “Gaza will be entirely destroyed” as a result of an Israeli military victory, and that Palestinians will “start to leave in great numbers to third countries.”

On top of this news, this past Wednesday, Reuters recently reported that the US and Israel have discussed the possibility of Washington leading “a temporary post-war administration of Gaza.” According to five sources, there would be no set timeline for how long the US led administration would last. They compared the proposal to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq that Washington established in 2003, shortly after the US led invasion that toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein. As journalist/commentator Mehdi Hasan correctly pointed out in an interview today, the US’s administration of Iraq was an “absolute disaster.” As Hasan put it, “It increased sectarian tensions. It increased violence. It divided the country. It fomented more violent resistance.”

On May 15, the Palestinian people will observe Nakba Day, their collective observance of their dispossession and ethnic cleansing from their homes. For Palestinians this is not only an acknowledgement of an event that occurred in the past but a commemoration of an injustice that is still unfolding in real time. And yet the genocide in Gaza – as well as the ongoing ethnic cleansing of the West Bank – are completely absent from the mainstream press and international governmental concern. How long will the world allow this decades-long crime to continue? 

I can’t help but note that this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Acharei Mot (which means “after the death”) describes an elaborate sacrificial rite of collective atonement. As I read these words, it is so clear to me that our complicity in this ongoing sacrilege continues to deepen the longer we allow it to unfold. The news out of Gaza has long since receded into the background, even as the Palestinian people continue to cry out to the world.

As the 20 UN human rights experts wrote in their statement:

The world is watching. Will Member States live up to their obligations and intervene to stop the slaughter, hunger, and disease, and other war crimes and crimes against humanity that are perpetrated daily in complete impunity?

…The decision is stark: remain passive and witness the slaughter of innocents or take part in crafting a just resolution. The global conscience has awakened, if asserted – despite the moral abyss we are descending into – justice will ultimately prevail.

Ken Yehi Retzon – So may it be.