Yet to see the past two years not only through the prism of genocide but also as a second Nakba — a sustained project of erasure aimed at destroying both a people and the space they inhabit — may bring us closer to grasping the nature of Israel’s actions. Whereas genocide is often understood as violence for its own sake, the Nakba represents violence with a purpose: the removal and replacement of a people.

And yet, as a Jewish-Israeli faced with the horrors of the past two years, I cannot help but think in Holocaust terms. The destruction of Gaza has enabled me to better understand not only the stories of the victims but also of the perpetrators — the silent majority who facilitated atrocities through their actions and the stories they tell themselves to justify it all.