{"id":111032,"date":"2025-08-01T19:23:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T19:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/111032\/"},"modified":"2025-08-01T19:23:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T19:23:09","slug":"israeli-author-david-grossman-says-his-country-is-committing-genocide-in-gaza-israel-gaza-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/111032\/","title":{"rendered":"Israeli author David Grossman says his country is committing genocide in Gaza | Israel-Gaza war"},"content":{"rendered":"

The award-winning Israeli author David Grossman has described his country\u2019s campaign in Gaza<\/a> as a genocide and said he now \u201ccan\u2019t help\u201d but use the term.<\/p>\n

\u201cI ask myself: how did we get here?\u201d the celebrated writer and peace activist told the Italian daily La Repubblica in an interview published on Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow did we come to be accused of genocide? Just uttering that word \u2013 \u2018genocide\u2019 \u2013 in reference to Israel<\/a>, to the Jewish people, that alone, the fact that this association can even be made, should be enough to tell us that something very wrong is happening to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grossman said that for many years he had refused to use the term. \u201cBut now I can\u2019t help myself \u2013 not after what I\u2019ve read in the papers, not after the images I\u2019ve seen, not after speaking with people who\u2019ve been there. This word is an avalanche: once you say it, it just gets bigger, like an avalanche. And it adds even more destruction and suffering,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Grossman\u2019s comments come days after two major Israeli rights groups said Israel was committing genocide in Gaza<\/a>, amid growing global alarm over starvation in the besieged territory.<\/p>\n

The author, who has long been a critic of the Israeli government, told La Repubblica he was using the word \u201cwith immense pain and with a broken heart\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cReading in a newspaper or hearing in conversations with friends in Europe the association of the words \u2018Israel<\/a>\u2019 and \u2018hunger\u2019 \u2013 especially when this comes from our own history, from our supposed sensitivity to human suffering, from the moral responsibility we\u2019ve always claimed to hold toward every human being, not just toward Jews \u2013 this is devastating,\u201d said Grossman, who won the country\u2019s top literary prize, the Israel prize, in 2018 for his work spanning more than three decades.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe occupation has corrupted us,\u201d he said. \u201cI am absolutely convinced that Israel\u2019s curse began with the occupation of the Palestinian territories<\/a> in 1967. Maybe people are tired of hearing about it, but that\u2019s the truth. We\u2019ve become militarily powerful, and we\u2019ve fallen into the temptation born of our absolute power, and the idea that we can do anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked what he thought of France and the UK being among the latest countries preparing to formally recognise a state of Palestine<\/a>, Grossman said: \u201cI actually think it\u2019s a good idea, and I don\u2019t understand the hysteria around it here in Israel. Maybe dealing with a real state, with real obligations, rather than a vague entity like the Palestinian Authority, will have its advantages. Of course, there would need to be very clear conditions: no weapons, and the guarantee of transparent elections from which anyone who advocates violence against Israel is excluded.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he remained \u201cdesperately committed\u201d to the two-state solution. \u201cIt will be complex, and both we and the Palestinians will need to act with political maturity in the face of the inevitable attacks that will come.\u201d He added: \u201cThere is no other plan.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The award-winning Israeli author David Grossman has described his country\u2019s campaign in Gaza as a genocide and said…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":111033,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[99,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-111032","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-israel","9":"tag-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114955144716383121","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111032\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}