Until now, I have tried to deflect and defend when challenged to call this genocide.
I have, however, been persuaded rationally by legal and scholarly arguments that international courts will one day find that Israel has broken the international genocide convention.
Based on the law as I read it, the Prime Minister and others in his government will have to answer for what they have done and will be held accountable. I know Jewish organizations and leaders will charge the courts with antisemitism. But the courts will simply be applying the law.
I believe the judgment of history will be more consequential than that of the courts, and that this government and these leaders will be remembered with revulsion for the horrors they’ve overseen.
But – worst of all – the stain of this abomination will forever be on the Jewish people because we have not stopped this. Far too many have been far too silent.
The personal pain of my own family from a crime that I believe has no parallel – and my association of the word genocide exclusively with that event - means I am unlikely to use the term myself.
But I cannot and will not argue any more against those using the term. I simply won’t defend the indefensible.