'Israel Guilty of Genocide; A Place I Will Not Want to Call Home': Gershon Baskin
Karan Thapar
'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.'
Palestinians mourn during the funeral of people who were killed while trying to reach aid trucks entering northern Gaza through the Zikim crossing with Israel, at Shifa Hospital, in Gaza City, Saturday, July 26, 2025. Photo: AP/PTI
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', 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.'
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