It’s no mystery who killed Santiago Nasar nor the motives behind the tragic murder. Instead, the narrator of Gabriel García Márquez’s 1981 novella Chronicle of a Death Foretold must grapple with how such a violent event can happen despite being common knowledge to the townspeople well before its occurrence. The Vicario brothers, the perpetrators, openly tell many in the town of their plan to seek retribution for the calling off of their sister’s wedding, the blame for which they placed solely at the feet of Santiago, thus making the latter’s death an accepted reality for the townspeople before it actually happens. Clotilde Armenta stands out among the townspeople for her attempts to call attention to the premeditated murder of Santiago and galvanize others to prevent it. Despite her efforts, indifferent acceptance, disbelief, distraction, and justification of murder collectively enable the “untrammeled fulfillment of a death so clearly foretold.”^[1] The theme of social responsibility runs throughout the story in which the narrator, in speaking with people of the town afterwards, attempts to “put the broken mirror of memory back together from so many scattered shards.”^[2]

There’s a similar collective culpability in Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians, albeit it on a far grander scale both in terms of violence and silent bystanders. It’s worth stating that Israel’s mass murder and expulsion of Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023 did not emerge suddenly from the mind of Netanyahu, Gallant, or any of the other war criminals responsible for the current atrocities. In a letter to his son, David Ben-Gurion stated bluntly in 1937 that “the Arabs will have to go, but one needs an opportune moment for making it happen, such as a war.”^[3] The opportunity arose in 1948 for Zionist forces to “harm [Palestinians] without mercy, women and children included” with “no need to distinguish between guilty and not guilty.”^[4]

While rotten at its foundation, one needn’t study the personal writings of Ben-Gurion nor file any request of information to understand the genocidal nature of the Zionist colonial project. The fruition of this vision is now in plain sight for all to see. With open calls to “remember what Amalek has done,”^[5] Israel continues loudly and in broad daylight down the path toward “death for which we all could have been to blame.”^[6] Not to be outdone in genocidal proclamations, calls from the US have been for Israel to “get it over quick… like Nagasaki and Hiroshima.”^[7] The fact that merely acknowledging the humanity of children in Gaza can be publicly denounced as “Hamas propaganda” and so many universities are now collaborating in the crackdown on pro-Palestinian protests, up to and including plain clothes agents disappearing students, reveal the level of commitment to ethnic cleansing in both the US government and civil society.^[8] While the brashness of Trump’s plan to “own” a Gaza cleansed of Palestinians shocked many, it is only the latest of many instances of US and Israeli officials openly calling for genocide which is otherwise taken for granted.

In the wake of South Africa’s case against the state of Israel in the International Court of Justice—itself a foretelling and call to action as much as a recounting—and the ongoing murder of Palestinians we are left to grapple with how so much prolonged death could be so openly foretold and yet be openly permitted to continue with no apparent end in sight. Of course, there are many who celebrate the genocide of the Palestinian people, those with a personal grudge against Santiago Nassar. However, there is also a significant portion of the “international community” that merely sits by in uncomfortable silence. Like many of the townspeople in García Márquez’s novella the world has overwhelmingly dealt with the ongoing genocide as an unfortunate event, as if it hadn’t been made explicit by both the words and actions of the Israeli and US governments. Too many take refuge from collective responsibility we have as humans in apathy, celebrity scandal, and other forms of daily distraction from life around them. This is ultimately part of the dehumanization that facilitates further violence. As Munther Isaac states plainly, “this genocide was broadcast live for the world to see. It is not as if the horrors were discovered later, long after the fact. Rather, the world has become desensitized to the brutal images of children killed in Gaza, day after day after day. The devaluation and dehumanization of Gazan lives unfolded in a very public manner.”^[9] The extensive foretelling and real-time documentation of genocide broadcast throughout the world marks a new level of neglected social responsibility and culpability, the social and psychological impact of which will no doubt remain long after the Zionist colonial project.

There is an international human tragedy in our falling short, in the fact that so much blatant and unjustifiable death can be permitted, a mere fact to be tossed aside and forgotten before, during, and after. Like García Márquez says, “fatality makes us invisible.”^[10] However, the weight of social responsibility must still be carried, whether by those who, like the narrator of the story, preserve the honest memory of events, or those who, like Clotilde, actively put their bodies on the line against genocide. It is only a question of whether we step up to meet our obligation to one another in a time where the increasing stakes of solidarity demand it all the more.

Free Palestine, Mahmoud Khalil, and all political prisoners!

-Christian Noakes

1. Gabriel García Márquez , Chronicle of a Death Foretold (Vintage, 2003), 99.

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2. Ibid, 6.

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3. Ben-Gurion’s Diary, January 12, 1937, quoted in Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (Oneworld, 2007), 23.

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4. Ben-Gurion’s Diary, Jan. 1, 1948, qtd. In Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, 69.

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5. "Netanyahu's references to violent biblical passages raise alarm among critics," NPR, November 7, 2023, https://www.npr.org/2023/11/07/1211133201/netanyahus-references-to-violent-biblical-passages-raise-alarm-among-critics; see Deut. 25:17-19 and Samuel 15:3 for a full understanding of the genocidal language of referencing the Amalekites.

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6. García Márquez, 81.

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7. Sam Fossum, “GOP congressman appears to suggest dropping bombs on Gaza to end conflict quickly, referring to ‘Nagasaki and Hiroshima’,” CNN, March 31, 2024, https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/31/politics/tim-walberg-gaza-nagasaki-hiroshima/index.html.

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8. Ayah El-Khaldi, “StopAntisemitism account 'delusional' for demanding investigation into Ms Rachel, critics say,” Middle East Eye, April 9, 2025, https://www.middleeasteye.net/trending/calls-investigation-ms-rachel-met-ridicule-and-outrage-online.

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9. Munther Isaac, Christ in the Rubble: Faith, the Bible, and the Genocide in Gaza (Erdmans, 2025), 226.

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10. García Márquez, 113.

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