By Ephraim Agbo
When a nation’s moral vocabulary cracks, one of Israel’s most searching writers confronts the language — and the politics — of cruelty, recovery and what it means to remain humane.
David Grossman — Israel’s most prominent living author and a long-time voice for peace — shocked global readers in August 2024 when he described Israel’s actions in Gaza as “genocide.” In a wide-ranging BBC interview that followed, Grossman expanded on that provocation: the moral crisis it signalled, the dangers of both isolation and normalization, and the near-impossibility of simple political fixes like one- or two-state solutions. This piece maps the intellectual and moral contours of his argument, interrogates its implications, and asks what it means for Israel — and for those who still hope for a different politics.
The weight of a word
Grossman’s use of the term “genocide” was neither rhetorical flourish nor casual invective. For a Jewish writer whose work is steeped in historical memory, the word carries extraordinary historical resonance. In the BBC exchange he explains why he chose such a “sharp word”: not to end conversation but to force attention to a reality he found intolerable.
He immediately qualifies that choice: time and events shift context, he told the BBC, and he no longer wanted the label to become the sole frame through which his relationship to reality was understood. That ambivalence — to speak a terrible truth while fearing the way language can ossify into politics — sits at the heart of Grossman’s moral stance.
Between condemnation and isolation: the politics of response
Grossman rejects punitive responses that would isolate Israel. He warns that boycotts and blanket punishments would likely harden Israeli society, making it more insular, more defensive and less capable of self-reflection. For him, the remedy is not moral excision but dialogue — the patient, complex work of reclaiming political maturity and trust.
This is an intentionally uncomfortable position: Grossman refuses both absolution and annihilation. He insists we hold Israel to moral scrutiny while resisting the simplistic, vindictive narratives that would foreclose meaningful engagement. His stance raises a thorny practical question: how do international actors press for accountability without feeding the cycle of entrenchment and rage?
On hope, fear and Israel’s character
At the center of Grossman’s analysis is a societal diagnosis: Israel is being reshaped by fear. Repeated trauma produces a political culture increasingly dominated by suspicion, religion-driven politics, and a readiness to militarize. Even if some geopolitical calculations—containment of regional rivals, defensive alliances—appear to favour Israel’s strategic standing, Grossman argues that power without moral self-restraint risks deforming the society that wields it.
He is both realist and moralist. Realist in acknowledging the security threats that shape Israeli decision-making; moralist in insisting that those pressures do not excuse the erosion of dignity and restraint. The challenge he frames is existential: maintain security without losing the civic soul.
The deep problem with “solutions”
Grossman is skeptical of quick political fixes. He doubts Israelis will voluntarily cede territory for a two-state settlement in the foreseeable future and warns that a one-state framework, absent extraordinary political wisdom, risks creating deeper structures of domination and humiliation for Palestinians.
Yet he recognizes models of relative coexistence: he points to the approximately 20% of Israel’s population that is Palestinian (within recognized borders) whose political behavior in recent years has demonstrated maturity and civic responsibility. That example offers cautious hope — but it does not scale automatically across a region charged with historical grievances, systemic inequality and overlapping sovereignties.
The double standard — and moral complexity
One persistent claim in Grossman’s interview is the asymmetry of moral outrage. He notes that other nations commit terrible acts, often with less international opprobrium, and asks why Israel becomes a unique target of intense moral hatred. He does not deploy this to excuse Israeli policies; rather, he uses it to complicate the moral ecology in which Israel’s actions are judged and in which Israelis are judged as a people.
This point does two things: it reminds us that moral assessments in geopolitics are rarely even-handed, and it invites empathy for the sense of existential vulnerability that cuts across Israeli politics — even as it presses for stronger accountability where abuses occur.
What Grossman wants — and what he asks of us
At core, Grossman remains a carrier of hope in a limited but stubborn sense: not the naïve hope that politics will quickly heal, but the quieter resilience that resists being swallowed by hatred and allows a nation and its citizens to remain human under pressure. He invokes an anecdote from the Vietnam War to make the point: some acts of protest or moral witness exist not to change the world instantly, but to make sure the world does not change us.
For readers outside Israel and Palestine, his plea is twofold:
- Resist the ease of punitive moral absolutism that closes off dialogue.
- Demand accountability and dignity for those who suffer — even while remembering the complex, often contradictory realities that produce political violation.
Implications for policy and civil discourse
- For policymakers: Grossman’s argument suggests a hybrid approach — one that couples pressure to end abuses with sustained diplomatic channels and initiatives aimed at rebuilding trust rather than deepening isolation. Sanctions that sever dialogue risk delegitimizing internal dissent and empowering hardliners.
- For civil society: Grassroots work that protects dignity, fosters cross-community ties, and amplifies moderate voices is crucial. Civic resilience may be the only long-term antidote to cycles of brutality.
- For journalists and commentators: Precision matters. Labels like “genocide” must be deployed with analytic care: they focus attention, but they also harden politics. Responsible reporting should interrogate both the acts and the language used to describe them.
Pull quote
“For me, it remains heartbreaking that it is even possible — an option — that Israel, with the moral legacy we claim, could be associated with such cruelty.” — David Grossman
Conclusion
David Grossman’s intervention is painful because it forces us to hold two hard truths at once: that real abuses may be taking place, and that reflexive measures of condemnation can sometimes make moral recovery harder. His stance is not a simple political prescription; it is a moral performance — a demand that societies keep their moral names even when they are tempted to abandon them.
Spread this conversation. It matters because it compels us to ask uncomfortable questions about language, responsibility, and the long work of rehumanization. Whether one agrees with Grossman’s terminology or not, his plea for dialogue, restraint, and moral imagination is hard to dismiss.
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