“Who was I to stop the killing?” -Interview R01 from Kjell Anderson’s interviews with perpetrators of the Rwandan genocideKigali Central Prison, July 2009

The Golden State Warriors’ 2024-25 season kicked off on Wednesday when they faced the Portland Trail Blazers. It marked the beginning of the post-Splash Brothers era in Golden State. The Warriors enter the season without a clear second offensive threat in combination with Steph Curry. However, they hope to make up for their relative lack of star power with impressive depth.

That’s one way to describe it.

Another is less removed from the world and perhaps from despair. It marks the start of the second NBA season since the Israeli military invasion of Gaza, which was classified as genocide by the UN Human Rights Council and the International Court of Justice. It marked the deadliest year and the largest displacement of the Palestinian people in decades.

Despite this, the NBA has refrained from criticizing Israel, with no notable players or league officials speaking out about the state’s actions — and with some publicly supporting Israel.

Warriors head coach Steve Kerr and superstar point guard Steph Curry have both been excoriated by the American right over the years for their liberal politics. Both have endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris but have made no public calls for the current vice president to reduce U.S. military support to Israel.

Blazers starting forward Deni Avdija is even more directly linked to the horrors. Avdija served in the Israeli army in 2020, just after the International Criminal Court concluded in a 2019 report “that war crimes have been or are being committed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and in the Gaza Strip.” He has proudly discussed his service and expressed solidarity with IDF soldiers since the invasion of Gaza.

Yet silence has been the decisive treatment NBA players have given to Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians.

“One person couldn’t stop this.” -Interview R39 from Kjell Anderson’s interviews with perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide, Nyarusenge TIG Camp, August 2009.

The police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor had already led to mass actions around the world in August 2020. The long history of racist policing in the United States alongside the litany of police killings of black people that had captured national attention over the past decade had become one of the largest American movements of the century.

On August 23, Kenosha County Police Officer Rusten Sheskey shot Jacob Blake seven times in the side and back. The incident was captured on video by a community member and spread quickly.

A few days later, the Milwaukee Bucks went on a wildcat strike and refused to play their first-round playoff game against the Magic. The NBA quickly postponed all playoff games, prompting several other professional sports leagues to follow suit.

The NBA players, who were in Florida and living in the 2020 NBA Bubble at Disney World due to the COVID-19 pandemic, considered leaving the season in protest. Influenced by a phone call from former President Barack Obama, they ultimately decided against it, choosing to accept some concessions from the league to consider future social justice causes and immediately promote voting. However, the players vowed to remain steadfast in their commitment to the fight against injustice.

“My participation didn’t mean much; those people would have been killed even if I had done nothing.” -Interview R62 from Kjell Anderson’s interviews with perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide, Mont Kigali TIG Camp, October 2009.

Systems of oppression find a way to work together. It is Israel that has worked hand in hand with US police, fueling the militarization of local departments. Those relationships will only grow stronger as various cities spin the 2020 protests as justification for pumping money into new police complexes, like Atlanta’s Cop City. The police forces that engaged in the intimidation and killings that brought NBA players to the brink of ending a season are somehow getting more resources as a so-called solution.

It was Israel whose defense industry depended on the white supremacist apartheid regime in South Africa, while the rest of the world isolated them in trade.

It is the Israeli army that is killing children in Gaza.

It is the United States that has spent nearly $18 billion on military aid to Israel without any serious effort to reduce civilian casualties.

“I had no power to prevent the genocide.” -Interview R76 from Kjell Anderson’s interviews with perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide, Kigali Central Prison, October 2009.

Every genocide ends.

A community is destroyed or given the opportunity to rebuild from the rubble.

When it comes to the future of the Palestinian people, the message from American political and business interests is clear: you do not have the power to prevent the genocide.

No American politician has promoted Israeli expansion more fervently than Joe Biden. Kamala Harris has refused to distance herself from Biden as he sends more weapons and troops and backs Israel as it expands its military assault on Lebanon. And if the Democrats are defeated, Donald Trump will happily sign his name to bombs built to spit Palestinian blood.

But when did our imagination forget that the president is not the only person with power?

Because I remember 2020.

A virus began to destroy the world. The world economy was brought to its knees. And police killings on video circulated. But the people did not succumb to the president’s power. They did not succumb to the power of their bosses.

I remember NBA players taking ownership and threatening to quit the playoffs because they saw injustice in the world and were tired of pretending it was normal to remain unaffected.

The NBA regular season is back. Every fanbase has hope that the start of a new season brings. Maybe a championship. Maybe just the exciting development of a young player. Maybe an unexpected appearance in the playoffs.

But perhaps the 2024-2025 season will bring NBA players back to movements for social justice, and back to using the power they have for those in need.

And maybe we will all follow.

More than 1 million Palestinians still live in Gaza.

A community is destroyed or given the opportunity to rebuild from the rubble.