by Jonathan Krall and Mo Seifeldein
Today, in 2024, the decades-long war between Israel and Palestine is a national issue. The post-October-7 “plausible genocide” in Gaza has broken the relative silence surrounding US complicity in this lopsided conflict between a national military and an occupied people. As with Vietnam in 1968 and Apartheid in 1986, students are acting. Students in Virginia universities and activists in Virginia city halls and county boardrooms are doing their best to make Palestine a Virginia issue. Are they correct? We say yes because we uniquely use our Virginia tax dollars to connect Israeli and Virginia tech firms, because Northern Virginia is host to so much of that military technology, and because (plausible) genocide touches so many Alexandria families.
(Plausible) Genocide impacts Alexandria
Let’s begin with one of the most fundamental questions raised by Gaza: how should we respond to a horrific event that is either “a war” or “a genocide”, depending on who you ask? We note that the International Court of Justice calls the events in Gaza a “plausible genocide,” only because their litigation is ongoing. Weirdly, because genocide is so serious, some institutions and some individuals hesitate to recognize their reality. Because modern genocides rarely match the stunning planning, mechanization, and scale of the Holocaust, some believe the oft-repeated phrase “never again” does not apply. They lie to themselves and to us.
Our point is not that these are genocides (even though they are; the legal definition is included below). Our point is that the mental gymnastics that seemingly allow our political leaders to tune out the humanitarian crisis in Gaza are letting them ignore other, equally significant humanitarian crises. With the Holocaust as a yardstick, every modern genocide is, seemingly, just another war. These “just another wars” impact Alexandria communities. They have been too-long ignored.
Here in Alexandria, where many speak the Amharic language of Ethiopia or the Arabic language of the Middle East and North Africa, many families were and are touched by genocides in Tigray, Darfur, and Gaza. The politically-convenient blind spots that enable politicians to ignore genocide are making some of these Alexandria families feel ignored and marginalized. We can do better.
Virginia is uniquely entangled with Israel
In Virginia, politics and the military uniquely intersect. The taxpayer-funded Virginia Israel Advisory Board (VIAB) partners Virginia and Israeli businesses to obtain American grant dollars. To our knowledge, only one other state funds a similar entity. Unlike other advisory boards, such as the Virginia LGBTQ+ Advisory Board, VIAB will not advise the Governor to support human rights and will receive taxpayer funding ($244,000 in FY 2024). Other such Virginia boards are unfunded. Citizens in Virginia are questioning this relationship and demanding that it be ended.
The military-industrial complex is local
Usually, we encourage our friends and neighbors to support all of our local businesses. Not this time. Elbit Systems of America, with offices in Arlington and Roanoke, is a subsidiary of Elbit Systems of Haifa. They make night vision goggles for use in war zones. Israeli Aerospace Industries (IAI), with North American headquarters in Herdon, makes “suicide drones.” MELD Printworks, in Christiansburg VA, makes 3D-printed components for IAI. Virginia can do better.
Next steps
There is nothing sacred about VIAB or about the military-industrial complex. We in Virginia can dismantle VIAB. Virginia’s technological enterprises can produce hardware and software that does something other than kill people. Taxpayer money currently invested in Israel can instead be redirected to humanitarian aid for the people of Tigray, Darfur, and Gaza, either overseas or here in Virginia. Working together, we can break the silence and support the refugees. We can actively oppose, defund, and interrupt genocide.
Endnote: the definition of genocide
The elements of genocide, as defined by the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948), are:
- Killing members of the group.
- Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group.
- Deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the group’s physical destruction in whole or in part.
- Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.
- Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
On March 25, 2024, Francesca Albanese, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, included the following in her report:
“By analysing the patterns of violence and Israel’s policies in its onslaught on Gaza, this report concludes that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating Israel’s commission of genocide is met. One of the key findings is that Israel’s executive and military leadership and soldiers have intentionally distorted jus in bello principles, subverting their protective functions, in an attempt to legitimize genocidal violence against the Palestinian people.”