The G-Word

People ask me if I was safe on my recent trip to Israel. The question shows how little we understand what is going on there. Of course I was safe – I’m not Palestinian. I have fair skin and a North American accent. Even when I attended a protest in the West Bank, the Israel soldiers aimed their rubber bullets at the Palestinian children, not at me.

I swam in the Dead Sea while the first bombs were dropped on Gaza. The next day, while more bombs fell, I visited historic Yafo. That day the newspaper headline noted only that two Israeli homes had been hit by rockets, it didn’t mention that 200 Palestinians had died. At a protest against the bombing in Tel Aviv, Israel activists were almost begging to be arrested – they desperately wanted to do something to demonstrate their opposition to the killing of civilians, and there is so little they could do while walled into a police state. As I left the country, and the soldiers searched every pocket of my bags, I grieved not only for the people in Gaza, but also for the Israelis against the occupation who are being smothered.

I can’t help but think, if what was happening in Gaza right now was happening in Africa, the international community and press would be throwing around the G –word. Can you guess what the G-word is? It’s not God, there is nothing Godly going on in the Holy Land these days. It’s not Good, or Great, or Gargantuan. It’s Genocide. It’s a big word, and a serious word. I don’t think it should be used lightly (as the press loves to do when reporting about Africa but not when reporting on ‘civilized’ states), but its worth reflecting on the definition in light of the destruction of Gaza: the organized attempt to deliberately and systematically destroy, in whole or in part, an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group.

My own country recently voted against a UN Human Rights Council resolution condemning the Israeli campaign on humanitarian grounds. Perhaps we are no longer deserving of our reputation as peacemakers. It’s not often I’m ashamed to be Canadian, but today I am.