As Genocide Expands, Silence is Abetment

Ben Gvir wears a noose pin on his lapel to signal his support for the bill. Photo via BBC 

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On March 30th, a law passed in Israel’s unicameral legislature, the Knesset, to allow the rapid execution of Palestinians convicted of terror. Israel’s courts have a conviction rate of 96% for Palestinians, compared to the 3% for Israeli settler violence. The first state since Nazi Germany to hold the death penalty for one ethnic group and not another, this law serves as an acceleration of a genocide 78 years running. 

In Israel’s ongoing attacks on Lebanon, lines for evacuation zones have been drawn on up to a fourth of the country, displacing over 2 million people. Israeli military has pressured the removal of Shiite Muslim communities throughout Lebanon, prohibiting their return and housing by Lebanese Christians and Druzes. Alongside extensive attacks on medical infrastructure, Israel has attacked targets beyond Hezbollah’s reach, further demonstrating the goal of this invasion is not the defeat of terror, but genocidal expansion. 

Israeli leadership in the Knesset commemorated the passing of the death penalty bill with champagne. Knesset member Limor Son Har Melech cried tears of joy, and has gone on record stating “There is no Jewish terrorist.” Member Ben Gvir produced a video in front of gallows at the Jerusalem Museum, stating that he’s “dying to execute Palestinian prisoners.”. This is not a bill of governance, it is an apparatus of genocide broadcasted worldwide. The American left has identified Netanyahu as a sole source of harm unto Israel’s neighbors, while the far-right leader is a dangerous extremist amplifying genocide, he is symptomatic of a culture and politics rotten to its core. 

Israeli society operates in the language of colonialism and genocide. There is no trace of it untouched by this. Legitimizing Israel means legitimizing the settler violence inflicted upon millions of Palestinians, it affirms an idea that any land or material resource can be taken if there is enough violence to assure it. This violence did not end in a move to modernity throughout the 20th century, it has continued for decades and is now broadcast live. Gaza is rubble and the West did nothing. 

This is not a genocide committed without American influence, our imperialism is laundered through Israel. Even on our campus: the burgeoning soldiers in ROTC, young centrists and conservatives, and the swathes of ignorant eyes all uphold these acts of violence. Pope Leo urged Israeli leadership to suspend the war, why does our Jesuit campus allow military recruiters to entrap young minds? There is a death of morality throughout the West, we have lived in the excess of the imperial core for centuries, the luxury of modernity for decades, and in this enclosed sphere have become blind to the atrocities wrought to preserve this way of life. 

As American citizens we are not innocent actors in these events, our lives have been carefully shaped by similar events past and continue to interact with countless spheres of geopolitics. A path to peace requires first that we know this, and second that we act on this. The underpinnings of maintaining these violent regimes are dependent on a veil of ignorance spread across the public. Our lives stand contrast to those of millions of individuals across the globe, the dominant messaging being that these people’s lives matter less than ours. Complacency comes when one is confronted with the violence of the world and their own life’s relation to it, and one chooses to remain oblivious to their role. Our government is committing and aiding violence across the Middle East in the name of our people, it is our duty to confront this fact and reconcile with the ramifications these actions have on us. 

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This article was edited by the FPR E-Board.