In order to counter the dangerous narrative that Israel’s violence against Palestinians is simply self-defense, it’s important to plainly state the facts of Israel’s genocidal intent.

Avi Dichter, an Israeli security Cabinet member, put it about as straightforwardly as possible, “We are now rolling out the Gaza Nakba.” The Nakba was the catastrophe in 1948 when roughly 15,000 Palestinians were massacred and 85% of their population forcibly displaced from their homelands. This was all to make way for the establishment of Israel as a state. Clearly, Israel’s government views the Nakba as a model to be replicated, rather than an egregious crime to never be repeated.

Dichter’s words are far from the only such statement to come from Israeli government. It’s disgusting that I, like many other people before me, have to point this out.

Slaughtering well more than 18,000 people and counting, nearly half of whom were children, is not self-defense. Indiscriminate bombing of Gaza’s captive population is not self-defense. Israeli settler violence against Palestinians in Jerusalem’s West Bank is not self-defense. Genocide is not self-defense.

The Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas were horrific. But even they are dwarfed by Israel’s ongoing, decades-long campaign of ethnic cleansing, apartheid and outright violence against Palestinians.

Where is Palestine’s right to self-defense? Who will assert Palestine’s right to exist? Will you?

Only a permanent ceasefire that includes genuine work toward freedom and justice for Palestine can solve this crisis.

End genocide. Never again means never again.

Keaton Griffith

Durango