The End of Impunity – It appears that the outside world has infiltrated even the small mountain town of Tahoe; the noise is getting louder, even in our backyard. The world has become a very dark place, and I never thought I would have to write this. For the last 77 years, and the last two years live-streamed on our cellphones, we have witnessed a genocide carried out by the State of Israel against the Palestinians. The United Nations and several credible sources have announced that what Israel is doing to the Gaza Strip is genocide. According to the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel declared, “The Commission has been investigating the events on and since 7 October 2023 for the last two years, and concluded that Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces committed four of the five genocidal acts defined by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, namely killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of the Palestinians in whole or in part, and imposing measures intended to prevent births.”
There are war crimes that have been committed against humanity, and every single person complicit must be held accountable. This includes every single military soldier who served in the Israeli “Defense” Forces and has been allowed to roam free while Palestinians pay the price for Western imperialism.
These “IDF” soldiers even get to roam free in Tahoe. South Tahoe Now shared a fundraising event for “Faces of the IDF,” hosted by the Chabad Jewish Center at Stateline, Nev., for the organization Warrior Gratitude. This alleged mission of Warrior Gratitude is about “honoring and supporting IDF soldiers through restorative retreats that foster healing, resilience, and personal growth.” The choice of wording used to describe both the event and the purpose of this organization should raise significant concerns for our community. Back in April of 2025, there was another Tahoe Tribune article published by Zoe Meyer titled “Lake Tahoe nonprofit offers Israeli soldiers a respite from war.”
Therefore, this isn’t the first time war criminals have been featured and invited to Lake Tahoe. By allowing these advertisements to exist in the first place, Tahoe is now making a clear statement by inviting and rewarding war criminals with vacations in the place we call home. Genocide is not self-defense; the “IDF” is actively destroying, killing, raping, displacing, and being designated to carry on the most barbaric actions against an innocent civilian population of children, women, men, the elderly, the disabled, and the most vulnerable. There is a reason why many “IDF” soldiers come back with PTSD and trauma, because they are being tasked to carry out a genocide. We should not sympathize with them, just like we never sympathized with the Nazis. The UN Commission adds, “The Commission urges Israel and all States to fulfill their legal obligations under international law to end the genocide and punish those responsible for it.” The IDF calls itself the most moral army in the world, but in fact, Israel holds the most nuclear weapons in the Middle East, holding unrestricted power, which no state should ever have. It is quite ironic that they say they are the defense forces, but what they should really be called is the Israeli Occupation Forces. They are occupying the State of Palestine under religious claims, and not legal ones. The international community is urging that these “IDF” soldiers be held to account for their crimes and taken to the International Criminal Court. Every “IDF” soldier will have their name appear, and each one will be taken to trial, like the Nuremberg Trials of World War II.
The Hind Rajab Foundation recently took 24 Israeli soldiers and commanders to the ICC for the murder of six-year-old Hind Rajab. Hind was shot 335 times while waiting to be rescued and murdered in a car with her family. The HRF explains, “This new filing names 24 Israeli soldiers and commanders responsible for the killing of Hind Rajab, six members of her family, and two Palestinian Red Crescent paramedics, Yusuf al-Zeino and Ahmed al-Madhoun, who were deliberately targeted while attempting to rescue her on 29 January 2024 in Gaza City.” Everything that Israel has committed against the Palestinians since 1948 has led us to not act against impunity. The age of impunity is over, and it starts with these advertisements.
Nothing justifies what is happening in Palestine, and everyone complicit needs to be taken to The Hague, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. What we are witnessing today is nothing more than a settler colonial project backed by Western imperialist nations, including the United States of America, and our taxes pay for it.
Every single day of inaction destroys more lives in Palestine and damages the international community’s reputation to stand by and do something. Any state is required by international law to stop the genocide in Gaza by using any reasonable means at its disposal. On the local level, this means not normalizing and promoting retreats for perpetrators of genocide; this means not welcoming war criminals to Tahoe. Our beautiful home may be an escape for millions of tourists a year, but it cannot be a safe haven for war criminals to escape accountability for their crimes.
Free Palestine.
Sources:
–Alondra Gomez