Israel Guilty of Genocide, on Fast Road to Becoming a Pariah State—If Not One Already:Gershon Baskin

"If not one already, Israel's on the fast road to becoming a pariah state; it's guilty of genocide in Gaza": Gershon Baskin, Middle East Director of the International Communities Organization, to Karan Thapar for The Wire.

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Gershon Baskin, the Middle East Director of the International Communities Organization, who is one of the acknowledged and highly regarded voices of conscience in Israel, says: “If it hasn’t become one as yet, Israel is definitely on the fast road to becoming a pariah state”. He says Israelis increasingly feel less welcome wherever they travel.



In a 25-minute interview to Karan Thapar for The Wire, to talk about his recent cri de coeur where he writes “Israel is rapidly becoming a foreign land to me … a place that I will not want to call home, a place that I cannot call home”, Dr. Baskin readily admitted and accepted that Israel is guilty of genocide. “If you read the convention on genocide there’s no question that what Israel is doing in Gaza is genocide. We’re erasing a civilization. Ninety percent of the people in Gaza have no homes to go back to. They’ve been destroyed. Israel is now levelling half of Gaza. There are no schools, no universities, no public buildings, no libraries. Mosques are being erased. Churches were hit. Roads, infrastructure, water, electricity. They have created a reality in Gaza in which human beings cannot live. That is genocide. And that is what Israel is doing in Gaza.”



I will stop there. Dr. Baskin is the negotiator who secured the release of Gilad Shalit in 2011. He has devoted his life to multiple attempts to reach out to the Palestinian people and, earlier, to build bridge with Hamas. The anguish he feels today, the fact that he now finds it hard to consider Israel home, is a cri de coeur that you should listen to. Very few Israeli Jews have spoken so honestly, so critically, so fully of what their country is doing to Gaza and to the Palestinian people.



Here is the link to the interview:

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