Since World War II, Germany and its people have had to address their forefathers’ participation in the emblematic evil of modern times, the Holocaust. Coming to terms with their Nazi ancestors’ crimes became a major issue for many families. But this was also a major issue for the German state, which resolved it by making solidarity with Israel (and anti-antisemitism) its Staatsräson — literally, “reason of state.” Indeed, as the Nazi genocide became a universal “sacred evil” in American and Western thought, these same themes became (in a more familiar language) raisons d’état unifying the entire liberal-democratic world.
When Hamas murdered hundreds of Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023, Western leaders and opinion-formers therefore moved quickly to interpret their actions in this established frame. Hamas were the new Nazis, those who raised the alarm about Israel’s massive assault on Palestinian civilians were pro-Hamas and antisemitic, and the counterattack was fully justified as “self-defense.”
Almost two years later, the campaign that the West endorsed has morphed into the emblematic genocide of our century, and this framework looks threadbare. Far from defending itself, Israel has mercilessly destroyed Gaza, killed, wounded, dehoused, and starved its people, threatening to remove the desperate survivors from the territory so as to build new Jewish colonies and Donald Trump’s “riviera.” Along the way, Israel’s leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, has sacrificed his country’s hostages, whom the West adopted as the prime reason for endorsing his campaign, to the pursuit of unending violence and his far-right government’s survival.
Despite Israel’s ruthless exclusion of international journalists and murders of their Palestinian counterparts, the victims have used mobile phones to broadcast its crimes. And despite the complicity of most mainstream Western media, they have cut though: international publics have turned decisively against Israel. Indeed, the idea that Israel’s actions constitute “genocide,” a fringe opinion when I and a few others first argued it in October 2023, is now accepted by almost half of both British and American voters, according to recent polls.
The genocide case was given credibility by the International Court of Justice (ICJ)’s finding of “plausible risks” to the rights of Palestinians under the Genocide Convention in January 2024, but most Western governments and opinion-formers ignored this. Indeed, the word itself was banned by many media outlets. However, a genocide consensus gathered momentum in late 2024, when evidence and legal arguments were authoritatively expressed in Amnesty International’s report, and has become almost received opinion since Netanyahu’s starvation policy began to produce pictures of emaciated children this summer.
Certainly, genocide denial remains the norm in official circles. The Genocide Convention commits signatory states to “prevent and punish” the crime, which is why Western governments, with the exceptions of Spain, Ireland, and Slovenia, are the principal holdouts against the genocide verdict. But leaders are obviously aware that Israel is committing it, not least the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, who barely a decade ago argued a lesser genocide case (Croatia’s about the 1991 Serbian siege of Vukovar) before the ICJ.
The specious argument is advanced that states cannot act until the ICJ has made a full determination (which may not happen until the end of the decade), making nonsense of the duty to prevent. Much is made of the difficulties of the “genocide” idea, but those who deny it are equally vague about whether Israel is committing crimes against humanity and war crimes. The International Criminal Court’s charges against Netanyahu are also ignored: France, Italy and Greece have allowed him to cross their airspace en route to Washington, while Poland even invited him to the eightieth anniversary commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz.
Yet all this is changing. Now that Gaza’s hunger crisis is obvious, even Donald Trump, viewing Gaza through his TV screen, is forced to concede that the images are genuine. Centrist leaders like Starmer, Emmanuel Macron, and Mark Carney feel the need to protest Israel’s actions, and recognition of the state of Palestine has become the gesture of the day.
This is a displacement tactic, which in itself will do nothing to prevent Netanyahu from continuing to starve and bomb Palestinians. But it signals a deepening crisis in the West. Without a fundamental change in Israel’s direction, its genocide will become an ever greater liability. Indeed, critics are also finally finding their voices inside Israel, recognizing an existential threat to the state from its continuation. Not only has the taboo on calling out “genocide” been broken, but some Israelis are calling for international sanctions, even “crippling” sanctions, to stop Netanyahu. This goes well beyond the suspension of trade negotiations, which is about as much as some serious European journals, even as they acknowledge genocide, are prepared to urge on their governments.
Yet it is obvious that Western governments regard decisive steps against Israel with trepidation, for three main reasons.
First, many politicians have given ideological and practical hostages to fortune in their support for Israel over the last twenty-two months. Many are deeply committed to Zionist and anti-antisemitic ideas and have deep connections in the networks that Israel has cultivated in Western societies over decades. The UK case is emblematic: Starmer has honored its military alliance with Israel, providing it with aerial surveillance over Gaza. Even as he shifted on recognition, he banned Palestine Action, a direct-action protest group, as a “terrorist” organization.
Second, Israeli economic, cultural and scientific institutions are deeply embedded in the wider West, and many Israelis have deep ties to Western countries. Israel is not just a small genocidal state and society in the Middle East; it sees itself, and more importantly is largely seen in North America and Europe, as an integral part of the West. Its arms companies, which are servicing the genocide, are entrenched in Western economies: an IDF commander who openly boasted about the total deliberate destruction of Gaza turns out to work, in civilian life, for Rafael, an Israeli arms firm offering “combat proven” weaponry in Western countries.
Third, breaking with Israel entails radical divergence from the United States, which has played a central part in Israel’s genocide and under Trump actively participates in it. The investments of Western states in their relationships with the US dwarf those in Israel; they have bowed to Trump on tariffs and decided they cannot do without him on Ukraine. Leaders are desperately trying to avoid an open breach: Starmer only followed Macron in pledging Palestine recognition after appearing to check it with Trump; both he and Mark Carney hedged their support with conditions and sought to demonstrate their continuing loyalty to Israeli concerns.
Something has to give, and everything suggests that it will mostly be on Europe’s side. Trump has read the sycophancy of Starmer, the flattery of Mark Rutte, the NATO secretary-general, and the self-abasement of EU president Ursula von der Leyen, and knows their protests are not sufficient for him to stop Israel completing its genocide, through mass concentration, expulsion, or worse.
Nevertheless, the changing rhetoric of centrist Western leaders, reinforced by growing criticism inside Israel itself, offers real opportunities to the anti-genocide movement. Israel’s legitimacy is at an all-time low, and Trump’s return has drastically reduced European support for the US alliance, however much leaders try to keep it afloat. The West’s proclaimed values are sharply exposed by its tolerance of a blatant génocidaire state at the heart of its “family” of nations.
Moreover, individual Israeli génocidaires are present within, and pass through, other Western countries: from senior ministers and officials — like the foreign minister and the heads of the Israel Defense Forces and its air force, all of whom have all been welcomed in the UK in recent months — to individuals who have taken part in the Gaza genocide. The arrest of two soldiers in Belgium last month could prove the tip of a potentially large iceberg, if Western law enforcement agencies start to take Israeli crimes seriously.
With Israel and the Western leaders who have enabled and protected it on the defensive, it is time for Palestine solidarity campaigners to push for a complete break between their countries and Israel. It is clear that expressing concerns and making requests of the genocidal state, as the West mostly continues to do, and even limited unilateral moves like partial restrictions on arms exports, will not substantially shift Israel’s policies so long as the United States has its back. Only unprecedented pressure on the Israeli and US governments, from across Europe and around the world as well as from inside those countries, can force them to change.
This pressure should center on the idea of “breaking with Israel,” a comprehensive boycott that matches the horror of the genocide. No state that commits this should be tolerated, and the breaking of relations should be comprehensive. Military, trade, and cultural agreements and links should be canceled. Imports as well as exports, commercial as well as military, from Israel as a whole, not just the illegally occupied territories, should be banned. All Israeli ministers and public figures who have supported the genocide should be barred, not just token extreme-right ministers. Visa-free travel from Israel into other countries should be ended — 170 currently allow it, including many that nominally oppose the Gaza genocide — so that the entry of those who have participated in the genocide can be prevented.
These demands will obviously be particularly difficult for Jewish communities, and especially for Israeli American, Israeli British, and other dual-citizen families, so they will need the support of anti-Zionist Jews. But if we take “never again” after the Holocaust seriously, it applies to Israel too. The recognition of genocide by B’Tselem, Physicians for Human Rights–Israel, and other Israeli Jews is obviously crucial in legitimating the demand for an anti-genocide break with the state within the global Jewish community.
Clearly, these kinds of demands are well in advance of where even the most progressive Western governments are at the present time. But they are the kinds of pressures that match the growing consciousness of the genocide across the world. It is actions, not words, that Israel and even Donald Trump will take notice of. Ending the Gaza genocide must become the new raison d’état in every country that claims to represent human values. Only in this context can the new Western support for recognition of the state of Palestine help to end the genocide and link to a meaningful way forward.
Great Job Martin Shaw & the Team @ Jacobin Source link for sharing this story.
