This column responds to the debate sparked by my previous editorial critiquing President Boric’s cautious stance amid the genocide in Gaza. It is not a personal critique nor a polemical gesture, but a demand for coherence grounded in international law. When a State commits crimes against humanity, the entirety of humanity becomes its victim. That includes us. Demanding more is not attacking; it is defending ourselves from a crime that already includes us.

There are those who are scandalized when a journalist urges the president to do more during a genocide. There are those, like my friend Sergio Aguiló —whom I deeply respect— who believe that Gabriel Boric’s designation of what is happening in Gaza as “genocide” is reason enough, that he has spoken clearly and valiantly on the global stage. What they don’t grasp is that this is not a debate about presidential style, nor about political platforms, nor even about progressive sensitivity. This is something else entirely. This is international law. And this is humanity.

My editorial on Boric’s so‑called “caution” was not a political jab. It was an act of legal, historical, and ethical defense regarding what humanity has already recognized as crimes against humanity. It is not about attacking the president. It is about reminding that once the horror is named, action must follow.

Gabriel Boric said “genocide.” That is no ordinary word. It has legal. Political. Moral. consequences. And while his government has taken some measures —such as the temporary withdrawal of its ambassador from Israel and public condemnations in international forums— those steps, if not backed by materially consequential actions, are clearly insufficient given the gravity of the crime denounced. Naming genocide cannot remain symbolic. Naming is committing to act.

Under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, when a State —like Israel— systematically commits acts against a civilian population such as mass murders, extermination, forced displacement, starvation as a weapon of war, and humanitarian blockade, it is committing crimes against humanity. Crimes against humanity are not crimes against “others.” They are crimes against everyone.

That means, concretely and bindingly in law, that we are all victims. You, Sergio. I. Eduardo. Every human being. These crimes violate the fundamental principles that protect us all: dignity, life, legal safeguards against force, humanity as a community of meaning. Therefore, to say that demanding more is attacking the president is to miss the essential point: this is not a debate about government, but about a moral and legal abyss that includes us all.

Flowchart of Legal Truth:

A State (Israel) commits systematic acts against a civilian population:
a. Extermination
b. Forced displacement
c. Deliberate destruction of vital infrastructure
d. Use of starvation as a weapon of war
These acts constitute crimes against humanity according to international law and the Rome Statute.

Crimes against humanity are imprescriptible, not subject to amnesty, and affect all humanity:
a. Their victims are not only the dead, the wounded, the displaced.
Any State party to the Statute (such as Chile) is legally obliged to:
a. Prevent
b. Sanction
c. Refuse to cooperate with perpetrators
Once a president formally labels these events “genocide,” a coherence obligation is triggered:
a. The State cannot maintain normal diplomatic relations with the perpetrator.
b. It cannot sustain military, technical, or economic cooperation that may strengthen the aggressor.
c. It must act—because the horror was named. And to name is to take a stand.
When others —citizens, journalists, legislators— demand that coherence be actualized, we are exercising our victims’ rights.
a. Because state terrorism by Israel—being a crime against humanity—also legally makes us victims, even if we are not under bombs.
Therefore, every demand, every call for greater action is not only legitimate: it is necessary.

It is not propaganda. It is the propaganda that relies on international law for legitimacy.

Critics have said that these denunciations carry a tone more suitable for propaganda, that they target the president as if he were the enemy, that they misunderstand diplomatic balance. But the reality is the opposite. International law needs no gloss or adornment. It is the propaganda that taps into law to acquire weight. Here, there is no empty slogan. There is a legal structure, a logic of coherence, a civilizational demand.

When

  • a city is bombed for over 200 days,
  • journalists, doctors, children are killed deliberately,
  • the flow of food, water, medicine is blocked, flight is then prevented and the very place of forced displacement is bombed, and all of that has been documented, named and recognized as crime against humanity by multiple agencies and governments—including Chile— then there is no room for caution. Action is imperative. And if the president fails to act, civil society, the press, the legislature, the victims we all are must.

This is not impulsiveness. This is coherence. The demand is that Chile—my homeland—be worthy of the word it has already spoken. Once “genocide” has been uttered, we cannot afford to return to diplomatic equilibrium. Equilibrium between victims and perpetrators is indecent.

Sergio: this is not addressed to you alone. It’s addressed to all who believe that demanding more is divisive. No. It is about uniting in the only unity that matters: the unity of law, shared human pain, and the “never again.”

Because if, in the face of genocide, we continue opting for caution, the crime will cease to be only that of the aggressor. It will become the crime of those who remained silent. And of those who—able to act—chose to wait.