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David Grossman, one of Israel’s most prominent authors, told Italian daily La Repubblica he has decided to start using the word “genocide” to describe the situation in Gaza.
“For years, I refused to use the word ‘genocide.’ But now I can’t hold back from using it, after what I’ve read in the newspapers, after the images I’ve seen and after talking to people who have been there”, he said in the interview published in the paper’s print edition on Friday.
Grossman said coming to the realization that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza was an extremely painful process on a personal level, but that he now found such conclusion inescapable.
“I want to speak as a person who has done everything he could to avoid having to call Israel a genocidal state. And now, with immense pain and a broken heart, I have to say that it is happening before my eyes. Genocide,” he said.
The Israeli writer went on to say he now feels a moral obligation to speak up. “I feel an inner urgency to do the right thing, and now it is the time to do it,” Grossman said.
Asked by the journalist about the spiraling death toll in Gaza, he said: “I feel sick. Even though I know that those numbers are controlled by Hamas and that Israel cannot be solely responsible for all the atrocities we are witnessing. Nevertheless, reading in the newspaper or hearing in conversations with friends in Europe the juxtaposition of the words ‘Israel’ and ‘hunger’; to do so starting from our history, from our supposed sensitivity to the suffering of humanity, from the moral responsibility we have always claimed to have towards every human being and not only towards Jews… all this is devastating”, he said.
Grossman’s words come amid growing condemnation of Israel for its actions in Gaza on the international stage, and as several countries, including France and Britain, have pledged to recognize a Palestinian state in the near future.
The use of the word genocide to describe Israel’s war in Gaza is also becoming more common in international intellectual circles.
In mid-July, an opinion piece titled “I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It” in the New York Times by Professor Omer Bartov, an Israeli professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University, made the case for the use of the word genocide.
Grossman, who is one of Israel’s most well-known writers abroad, has long been a vocal critic of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories. The editor of The New Yorker, David Remnick, recently described him as “the only [living Israeli] novelist with comparable moral authority” to that of the late Amos Oz. In the interview in La Repubblica, he reiterated that he considers Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza after the Six-Day War as a key watershed moment in the country’s history.
“I am absolutely convinced that Israel’s curse began with the occupation of the Palestinian territories in 1967. Perhaps people are tired of hearing about it, but that is how it is,” he said.
Grossman also noted it is critical to ensure those harboring antisemitic sentiments do not “use and manipulate” the word genocide. He also criticized Hamas for turning Gaza into a base for launching rockets into Israel in the aftermath of Israel’s withdrawal in 2005.
“The Palestinians’ big mistake is that they could have turned the Strip into a thriving place, but instead they gave in to fanaticism and used it as a launching pad for missiles against Israel”, he said.
“If they had made the other choice, perhaps this would have prompted Israel to also give up the West Bank and end the occupation years ago”, he said.
Grossman also added that many around the world still fail to understand the magnitude of the trauma of October 7 for Israelis.
“Many people still don’t understand what it meant for us. Many people I know [in Israel] have abandoned our common left-wing values since that day; they have given in to fear, and suddenly their lives have become easier, they feel accepted by the majority, they no longer need to think,” he said.
Grossman considers resettling Gaza, as some Israeli ministers advocate, wrong and self-defeating. “I hear people like Smotrich and Ben-Gvir saying that we must rebuild settlements in Gaza, but what are they saying? Don’t they remember what happened when we were there, with Hamas killing hundreds of Israeli civilians, women and children, without us being able to protect them? We did not leave Gaza out of generosity, but because we could not protect our people”, he argued.
Looking forward, Grossman said he remains a believer in the two-state solution. As such, he praised French President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to recognize a Palestinian state, that was followed by similar statements by other leaders. “I don’t understand the hysteria it has provoked here in Israel”, he said.
Finally, Grossman rejected accusations that Israel’s cultural elites should have taken a stronger stance on what is happening in Gaza a lot faster. “I believe that targeting those who have fought the Occupation for 70 years, who have invested most of their lives and careers in this battle, is unfair”, he concluded.
