Memory without the present is hypocrisy

Today, as every year, many capitals and institutions around the world pause to commemorate the atrocities of the past. Memory is a sacred act, a moral commitment to prevent the brutality of man toward his fellow beings from repeating itself. But to what extent can we consider our duty of memory fulfilled when the world continues to consume a systemic tragedy before our eyes?

When we speak of genocide, many nations rightly evoke the most devastating historical experience of the twentieth century. They recall millions of people deported, tortured, killed, and massacred in Nazi extermination camps, and they do so with appropriate solemnity. But memory, to be authentic, cannot be confined to the celebration of historical events without interrogating what is happening today, those crises that are unfolding before our gaze, witnessed by international institutions and rigorous reports, yet often treated as “distant problems” or “complex conflicts.”

The Palestinian genocide is one of these.

On May 15, 1948, at the end of the British mandate in Palestine, the birth of the State of Israel marked the beginning of a human catastrophe that still has no end for the Palestinian population. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced to leave their homes, their villages and their cities during an exodus that the Arab Palestinian population calls Nakba, the “catastrophe.” Historical estimates indicate that over 700,000 Palestinians were expelled or fled from the lands where they had lived for generations, leaving behind an irreversible demographic and social transformation. Villages were destroyed, communities dispersed, entire families deprived of their roots. That catastrophe is not an event buried in archives: it is a permanent wound, and its echo resonates in succeeding generations of Palestinians.

In June 1967, another watershed marked the territory and the lives of millions of people. The so‑called Six‑Day War led to the military occupation by Israel of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. In the West Bank, the expansion of Israeli civilian settlements in the occupied territories continued to intensify, in violation of international humanitarian law, progressively limiting Palestinian access to land, freedom of movement, and natural resources. East Jerusalem also became the subject of political, legal and cultural contestations that persist to this day.

The Gaza Strip, an urban enclave extending over less than 365 square kilometers, today houses over two million people in conditions that many international observers have described as unsustainable. Since the mid‑2000s, Gaza has been subjected to a land, sea and air blockade that severely limits the entry of essential goods such as food, water, medicine and reconstruction materials. This blockade has catastrophic humanitarian consequences, with a devastating impact on public health, poverty levels and access to basic services.

In response to the attack of October 7, 2023, the State of Israel launched a massive military offensive against the Gaza Strip. The humanitarian consequences of this escalation were terrible. It was not an isolated escalation, but a series of operations that struck inhabited areas, schools, hospitals, and civilian infrastructure indiscriminately. According to Amnesty International, the cumulative impact of these operations, combined with the ongoing blockade, creates conditions that fall within the criteria of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948.

The UN Convention, one of the most important documents of international law, defines genocide as “acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.” Such acts include killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction, imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group, and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. These criteria are not vague, they are legal norms with interpretations that have been solidified over time.

In its December 2024 report, Amnesty International concludes that the actions of Israeli authorities in the Gaza Strip satisfy at least four of these criteria, with credible evidence that includes forced disappearances, disproportionate use of force against civilians, deliberate attacks on essential civilian infrastructure, and living conditions designed to lead to the physical destruction of the group, in part or in its entirety. Amnesty emphasized that the strategic objective does not appear limited to specific military targets, but systematically affects the civilian population in ways that correspond to legal definitions of genocide.

Reports from the United Nations confirm many of the concerns raised by Amnesty. An independent international commission established by the UN Human Rights Council has found that conditions on the ground satisfy criteria that suggest genocidal intent, citing bombardments in densely populated areas, forced expulsions, and systematic impediments to humanitarian assistance.

The suffering is not only immediate. The consequences of the destruction of civilian infrastructure translate into indirect deaths, untreated illnesses, hunger, and psychological trauma that become a legacy for entire generations. Malnutrition, healthcare insecurity, the destruction of homes, and lack of access to essential medical care are phenomena repeatedly documented in reports by major NGOs and UN mechanisms.

What makes this situation even more striking is the international reaction. It is not that the world does not know. The reports, investigations, testimonies exist, they are public and accessible. They are drafted by institutions recognized and accepted by the international legal order, not by proliferations of opinions online or by political groups. Yet, despite the volume of documented evidence, global reaction has often been lukewarm, fragmented or purely symbolic.

The Palestinian drama is not an event distant in time and space: it is here and now, exacerbated by policies and practices that have transformed the daily lives of millions of people into a struggle for survival. Broken families, generations deprived of a future of dignity and normalcy, children who know nothing but fear, with deep scars that will not disappear with the passage of years.

And while we remember what has been, we cannot allow ourselves to ignore what continues to be.

Memory, to be authentic, cannot be limited to commemorating a concluded event. It must interrogate the present, it must push us to recognize injustices not only when they are historical, but also when they are documented, legal, and current.

Remembering means not turning away, not choosing the sufferings we want to see, not treating some tragedies as sacred and others as “distant problems.”

The Nakba opened a wound that continues to bleed, and the legal description of genocide today is not an emotional reproach, but an evaluation based on evidence and legal criteria. Ignoring this suffering means betraying the very idea of memory that we have sworn to protect.

And so, while many celebrate the memory of past tragedies, the true question remains suspended: does our memory still have the strength to see contemporary suffering as part of today’s human responsibility? Or will it remain confined to ritual ceremonies, incapable of confronting the horror that repeats itself under everyone’s eyes?