Beating my chest Yom-Kippur style, a presumed act of personal and collective repentance, demonstrating my sense of shame, determined to assume responsibility where necessary. That summarizes the process since the email I received in April 2024. A professional contact, a woman representing Pax Christi, not accusing, just matter-of-factly relating to genocide in Gaza. I told the head of my organization, intending to set my correspondent straight. He discouraged me, asking how I thought things looked to the outside world. Understood – as an individual I could suggest she reconsider her choice of words, but representing an organization, I should contain my struggle.

Belonging to a team invariably affects my personal viewpoint movements. Adapting, I expand or reduce the focus of my lens, constantly.

I selectively delved into academic analyses convincing me Israel’s actions in Gaza qualified as genocide. Members of the government of Israel and individual Israeli personalities with wide media following made statements calling for the death of every Gazan from the delivery room to the deathbed.

I followed online arguments against pro-Palestinian claims that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza. I projected: like me the respondents squirm at the thought of Israel’s war crimes. They must want to convince others Israel is not guilty of genocide, to convince themselves. I refrained from engaging. I acquiesced and called it genocide. Nobody clobbered me. A tacit agreement to disagree? One exception, but the discussion was postponed.

While arguing that genocide and Shoah are not synonyms, I asked how Israel could do this, and if friends denying it weren’t doing a disservice to the process of acknowledging our war crimes. The accuracy of interpreting the Hamas Covenant as its genocide policy didn’t warrant my attention. I was concerned about us. Living in fear of future Hamas attacks. Gazans fearing future Israeli attacks.

Nevertheless, indisputable that the 1988 Charter of the Hamas Covenant calls for killing the Jews, obliterating Israel. The 2017 revision states their issue is with the Zionist project, not the Jews. Hamas trained the Nukba for civilian infiltration. October 7.  Field documents found and media interviews substantiate official Hamas genocidal policy.

Driving through the Caucasus mountain region of Azerbaijan last weekend, a sign pointing to a museum commemorating genocide caught my eye at a rural intersection. Not the Armenian genocide. A local genocide. Just a little research by our friend traveling with us seemed to indicate a war and an opportunity to invoke the word – genocide – for impact. War and war crimes should strike us as sufficiently evil.

Nevertheless, along the continuum since October 7, 2023, I painfully, apologetically, explicitly said I couldn’t deny Israel’s genocidal attacks. It felt like something I had to face – unjustifiably indiscriminate losses of lives, war crimes.

I changed jobs, worked with different people, largely likeminded, with differences in the nuances. In discussion with a Jewish colleague, she told me, though horrified by Israeli actions in Gaza, they don’t qualify as genocide. An exchange of raised eyebrows in agreement to disagree, knowing we basically agree.

But in Baku, I realized, mostly we avoid discussion of the nuances. The word “genocide” is not just nuanced. Traveling with our friends, evening discussions of other disturbing issues. The woman, far more boldly than I, travels regularly to the West Bank, documenting hilltop youth and extremist Israeli settlers violating Palestinians’ human rights, wreaking havoc – if not setting property afire. She confronts systemic indifference and enabling practices – because it’s the right thing to do. Travel time opportunity for the postponed discussion of applying the word “genocide” to the war in Gaza.

Never since October 7, 2023, have I questioned Israel’s right to retaliate. Throughout the war, Israeli politicians made despicable statements that the government and the Prime Minister should have condemned, statements genocidal in their own right, though, not adopted as official policy. Over two years, military strikes and accidents. War crimes, intertwined with eliminating terror cells and individuals intent on destroying Israel. Is there a method of defense in war that can avoid war crimes? Passive inaction to enable others to annihilate you?

Since October 7, 2023, and until October 2025, considering Israeli capability, if Israel had committed genocide, not a living Gazan would remain in Gaza today.

The power of discussion lost in the nuances.

Harriet Gimpel,  February 21, 2026

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