Would fellow Americans be wrong in suspecting that you, who had much more knowledge than most of us, knew for a long time that things could head in this direction? That you recklessly fueled the Israeli project until, finally, it led us to this place? That you now change position when a hundred thousand people can't be brought back from famine, saving yourself some of the blame but not necessarily saving them?
I remember well the day that you rejected my Congressman, Jamaal Bowman, because he had the courage to say clearly what was coming, even though it was predictable that it would cost him his career.
^^^Jeremy, this is the type of hateful rhetoric that posts like this one are fueling, whether you intend it or not. I have messaged you about this privately and in the absence of follow-up from you, I will say it here: I really think us liberal Zionists who love and support Israel (unlike this idiot above) need to come together and discuss our messaging and our communication strategy. That invitation still stands.
What about his response is hateful? He’s just saying that bc Israel’s actions were defended for so long we are now in a situation where famine and starvation will be hard to stop
Sadly, no communication strategy is going to counter the countless number of dead, mutilated, starving bodies the entire world is seeing daily. This is not a communication problem, this is a moral and political catastrophe that no amount of messaging will correct.
Why wouldn't it? We didn't see this kind of global hate against the coalition war on isis, which had a much higher civilian casualty ratio and way more dead (and isis didn't even attack America). We see it here because of media bias, which can be fought back against.
I'm not sure where you are getting your stats. It is estimated that 50,000 ISIS combatants were killed. The US estimates 1,400 civilian deaths. Airwars estimates between 8,000 and 13,000 civilian deaths. In Gaza, Israel states 30,000 Hamas combatants have been killed, but does not give any number as to how many civilians have been killed. So I am not sure how we can even calculate a "civilian casualty ratio", let alone state it is better or worse than in other conflicts, when Israel does not even have any information, or refuses to release it, regarding civilian deaths. What we do know is that the Gaza MOH has confirmed 60,000 deaths and various neutral actors (Lancet, The Economist) have stated they estimate total deaths are much higher. So how on earth do these numbers look better than ISIS or any other modern conflict?? And this is just looking at numbers. I didn't see photos of starving children during the war with ISIS. I think if we're in a position to "spin" child starvation, we're in the wrong place.
see e.g. here. The numbers aren't close - Israel has a roughly 1-1 (going by Hamas MOH numbers, which are probably not biased in Israel's favour, to put it mildly). US/ISIS had about 2.5-1 ratio
Re "child starvation" claims, see e.g. here https://spencerguard.substack.com/p/israels-aid-to-gaza-is-historically - Israel's done more to help feed Gaza than anyone else has done in similar situations. You can argue that they should be doing even more, but "not going even further than anyone else ever has to help in similar situations" isn't normally compared with genocide.
(Also, just to point about the Lancet estimate - the way Lancet got their estimate was to say "the typical civilian casualty ratio in urban warfare is 5-1, so we should multiply the deaths by 5". By their own standards Israel's done five times better than typical at avoiding civilian casualties).
"Israel's done more to help feed Gaza than anyone else has done in similar situations. "
Maybe it "helped feed Gaza" before the Hamas attack. After the Hamas attack, calls to starve Gaza were heard from Netanyahu's cabinet, and not long after that, humanitarian aid (=food and drugs) were stopped _by Israel_ at the Gaza border. They still haven't recovered.
Spencer guard is wrong and a charlatan, in a podcast when asked to criticize IDF actions of any sort, said that only they should allow for international journalists. Theres far far more you could criticize IDF if you were in the same occupation as Spencer.
Here's a break down of that 1:1 civ-combat ratio you're discussing which has been a really bad talking point for a very long time.
Did you see Aharon Haliva's comments that Israel should kill 50 Palestinians (including children) for every 1 Israeli killed on Oct 7 as a "price"? Are you familiar with the Israeli concept of "price tag"? Here's the funny thing - supporters of Israel in the West are stuck defending Israel's untenable positions with ludicrous and incorrect talking points - while over in Israel, they just openly admit the truth.
The war against ISIS did not have a higher civilian casualty ratio. On the contrary, it had a far lower civilian casualty ratio than the current Gaza massacre.
Probably similar civilian casualty ratio but fewer total dead? I don't have good stats. It's true that Israel's war against Hamas is no less justified than the war against ISIS. Why isn't Israel's war as popular? Well, internationally the "Palestinian cause" is very popular. Also the fact that Israel has loudmouthed far-right fucks is part of it.
I do not believe in censorship. People are free to spout hateful rhetoric as they please, I'm just inquiring as to whether or not Jeremy realizes his role in it.
What about his response is hateful? He’s just saying that bc Israel’s actions were defended for so long we are now in a situation where famine and starvation will be hard to stop
This is ridiculous... It's not zero sum. Hamas being terrorists doesn't excuse Israel's war crimes, just as war crimes and illegal land theft don't justify attacks on civilians.
For a famine to be officially declared, you need 400 deaths *a day* out of a population of 2 million. So far we haven't hit 200 *total*. Even according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, fewer than 0.01% of Gazans have starved to death. Israel is boosting the flow of aid.
Liberal apologists for Israel like you are genocide-enablers, with the stain of Palestinian blood all over your hands, Jill. You will see the faces of starving Palestinians everytime you look in the mirror for rest of your days on this earth. Can't you see that Israel is imploding. Netanyahu and his war criminal cabinet will soon be in handcuffs at the Hague. You still have to time to redeem your soul. Speak out now or forever be shamed.
I visited Israel a couple of months ago and I can assure you, it's not "imploding." That may be what you fantasize about, but Israel's implosion isn't happening now or anytime soon.
Not being Jewish myself maybe my privilege is showing but a mea culpa like this is more than welcome and mirrors my own experience and expresses it better than I can.
But I also don't live in the USA where diversity equity and inclusion became words to invoke a witch hunt and like VP Kamala Harris noted, so many folded so fast.
Jeremy has always acted in good faith around Israel-Palestine by speaking out against Israel’s appalling treatment of Palestinians and advocating for specific sanctions against Israel, when he believed it to be morally appropriate.
However, I wish that he would go a little bit further than he has so far and, besides calling for the U.S. to stop sending offensive weapons to Israel that is using to commit atrocities against Palestinians, also call for crippling economic sanctions against Israel until its genocide of Palestinians and apartheid in the illegally occupied West Bank stops. But he has always acted in good faith.
And Former Congressman Jamaal Bowman, who I think is a good man and I would have voted for if I lived in his distinct, is also a goof and a schmo.
What other explanation could there be for him pulling a fire alarm in the Cannon House Office Building and denying the sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023? He seems to say and do the first thing that pops into his head.
The responses of people for the most part give me a better impression of J Street than I expected to have; at least of the ordinary people who follow the group or support it in some way.
Bowman is a goof and a schmo. I agree. Before Israel-Palestine was a big issue, I once voted for a Republican instead of Bowman. But perhaps in a political environment where anti-apartheid candidates were starved of resources and of any incentive to have their position, where those of the other persuasion got much more help with career development, it is unsurprising that the anti-apartheid candidates we got were a bit rough around the edges. I could say very similar things about Norman Finkelstein, whom I admire as a brave and decent man.
Ben-Ami's timing is very hard to accept. It seems he changed position just as it became socially untenable to have the previous position. He changed position, it looks like, as a part of a trend, amidst many other people doing so, amidst remarkable new public opinion polling, after Zohran Mamdani, by surprise, won an election as an uncompromising anti-apartheid candidate, as establishment Democratic figures were running for cover, caught in the midst of a change in public opinion the depth of which they were not prepared for. Whereas, the judgment should not be made on whether the position is popular or socially astute; it should be based on the empirical facts in Israel-Palestine, and someone with subject matter expertise like Ben-Ami should be able to see things coming a good way off, instead of only seeing them when they have become obvious to everyone.
I don’t see Jeremy changing his opinion about the positions that J Street should take, which in my view are appropriate positions.
What he’s saying is that he’s not reacting to the word “genocide” in the same way. He gave us a gift — his family’s story— that influences his thinking. I appreciate it because many people in my Jewish community share similar stories and find it difficult to talk openly about because we don’t want to be disrespectful of our friends’ feelings about their ancestors and personal journeys.
This post isn’t looking for a binary response of right or wrong, agree or disagree. He’s sharing his thoughts. I say thank you for that.
Perhaps he struggled as I continue to do. A bit of history for you:
The Holocaust gave birth to the term Genocide. Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term, was very specific. It was to define the Nazis extermination policy of a people; In line with the Wannssee Conference that specifically targeted Jews for industrial-scale murder.
That is the struggle...can anyone in good faith tie the two together?
You are an ordinary person struggling with a complex issue. I understand and have empathy for your relationship to the issue, and I don't even fault Ben-Ami for being uncomfortable with the term – the terminology is not what's important to me. But he is a professional, and he works with both public relations and legislative lobbying. There are certain classes of people that must be held responsible for what has been done to the Palestinians. Ordinary citizens like you and I may only have to pay compensation via our taxes, but for more involved people the consequences will be more substantial.
The issue is not as complex as many would prefer to make it seem. My question to you & Ben Ami, is simple. Under your iteration, the Hirosima, Nagasaki and Dresden would be Genocide…genocide enventhough it was necessary to defeat the instigators of WW2. Are not the actions of the IDF more inkeeping with those of the Allied Armies? Defeating an enemy…who refuses to release hostages, surrender and considers each Gazan killed a victory?
But putting that complex issue aside, I think it is normal and reasonable to expect the standards of international law to increase with time. It is okay that we have higher standards today than we did in the 1940s. Throughout history, people like Clara Barton have pushed us to have better standards even for that least restrained of national activities, warfare.
Your points are completely valid. But I don’t believe that Jeremy is behaving opportunistically by reassessing how he perceives the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and who is primarily responsible for it at this point.
And I concur with you about Norman Finkelstein, even though I don’t agree with every point he makes or every policy position he espouses.
And Zohran Mamdani loves New York and he is going to be the next mayor of the “city that doesn’t sleep.” “Start spreading the news!”
I too, changed my opinion recently. We are all affected one way or another by the opinions of others no matter how much we may deny it. Group think does have a powerful effect, which may not necessarily stop us from thinking independently but at least open us to thoughts we may have been resisting. Especially when the attitudes come from people we respect. I am no political figure so there is no profile I need to be opportunistic about. It is very natural for Jeremy to become more open to self-criticism of past beliefs at a time like this. I totally get what he is saying about the word "genocide." I too, now can no longer assert that we are not doing it, but can also not use that word myself. I totally get that. Why not give him the benefit of the doubt? And what good purpose does it serve to be cynical of his reasons?
Re "denying the sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas terrorists on October 7"
Israel hasn't been able to identify a single victim and isn't filing a single case of sexual assault or rape.
Not one.
Here's a quote from Moran Gaz, the Israeli prosecutor (Google the quote)
> "In the end, we don’t have any complainants. What was presented in the media compared to what will eventually come together will be entirely different…"
I expect his role going forward will not be to really work assiduously to halt the mass starvation, but instead to route the popular energy that is arising, to send it to a relatively unproductive place, to bog it down in unfocused debate.
Besides in general the apartheid / ethnic cleansing / genocide project will not yield to persuasion. I do not think it is evidence or persuasion that changed his mind. It was, in my opinion, the threat of consequences, such as destruction of reputation and social ostracization.
If I had felt he had a genuine realization and change of heart, I would have responded differently. The timing, in particular, seems far too convenient.
I've read through the thread of comments here, especially yours - since they generated so much discussion. Kudos to you, Sir, for writing well and using language above an 8th-grade reading level. Your prose is well constructed. Your arguments...? Well, I'm not sure I'd say the same of them.
Your meaning is clear. But your criticism is strictly ad hominem. This particular posting evinces it most noticeably, but it is embedded in your original post. I may (or may not) respond to that OP separately, as I have much to say about it.
You clearly have an axe to grind against Jeremy Ben-Ami (JBA). It's evident from your OP and it's certainly evident here. The motives you ascribe to his changed stance on whether he can defend the prosecution of the Gaza war and deny the charge of genocide? Well, they are speculative at best, shaded negatively to be charitable, and slanderous if we're calling it as we sees it.
You, sir, have no real idea as to whether JBA's explanation of why he has had this reluctant change of heart is his whole truth and nothing but. Yet you impugn his motives, cast aspersions on his character, and reduce him to an operative motivated solely by expediency. You see, maybe, why I label this as slanderous?
Good for you for thinking that it was neither evidence nor persuasion that changed his mind. Bravo for holding the opinion that, rather, it was the threat of consequences if he didn't. You do know what they say about opinions, right? That they are like a certain part of the body, in that everyone has one?
Yours are about as verifiable as the legend of Bigfoot. Maybe, just maybe... probably not, but wouldn't it be an awesome story if...?
I realized it was an inchoate genocide by late October 2023, and I'm a lot more ignorant and less well studied than him. Why did those who we rely on to help us see around corners fail us?
(2 of 2): (I think this two-parter is going to be posted with its parts in the wrong order. Read 1 of 2 first. See below.)
Pardon my rant, Excellent Sir, but I’m just getting warmed up in my reply to your latest post. Getting back to your incisive assessment, in October 2023, that this was a genocide, inchoate or otherwise:
If you were a bit more restrained in your use of the word, a bit more educated about its legal definition, you would never make such a statement. Because – news flash – the actual, technical meaning of the term in the context of international law and the possibility of holding perpetrators accountable is complex. It is NOT a term that is used lightly. (And in this regard, I’m 100% aligned with and sympathetic to JBA’s unwillingness to use it himself, going forward, though I recognize from his writing that this is likely to be for slightly different reasons than my own.)
No, among serious people it is not a term to be bandied about. There have been, to my knowledge, at least four investigations by different organizations into whether the IDF’s actions in Gaza meet the LEGAL definition of genocide. It is no easy task to make this determination. It takes careful, conservative, scrupulous investigative methods. The standards are high, because the crime is grave. It takes months - even years - to gather and sift the evidence, to lay out the basis for this grave accusation, to arrive at such a weighty finding.
Are you aware of these investigations? Have you downloaded and perused their reports where they present their case? If I were a betting man, I wouldn’t lay odds that you have. And yet, after less than a month of combat in Gaza, you reached your verdict. I’m sorry, but there is simply no way that any person, organization or even a super-intelligent entity such as yourself – your humble self-representation as “ignorant and less well studied” notwithstanding - could make this determination. And further, you not only make this determination; you assert that the evidence was plain, it was obvious to even your humble, ignorant mind, unstudied in the matter.
Well, Brilliant Sir, I HAVE looked at several of those reports. I HAVE hemmed and hawed and wrestled, for months, with whether I can accept that this is the determination of true experts in such matters – which I am not. And neither is JBA, BTW, nor does he purport to be. But what both JBA and I have suffered ourselves to do in recent months (how’s that for some grammatically obtuse verbiage? Look it up if it confuses you.) is to dig into the painful subject, listen to the experts, digest the legal definitions and usage, and be guided thereby.
And, entirely like JBA, I have reluctantly come to the same conclusion.
And, like scholars of genocide and serious pundits whose recent writings on the Gaza catastrophe I have studied, I don’t like to use the word; I’m reluctant to use it.
Why? Because it is far too easily, too casually thrown out there in the endless arguments and debates over the horrors that occurred on and after October 7th. And most importantly, because its use has been that of a weapon. Or of hate-filled and/or mindless sloganeering. Or both. It is casually slipped into conversation, without hesitation; it is used as an epithet.
So, no – I don’t come to this acceptance easily or willingly. Unlike you, I don’t make superficial, skin-depth hasty assessments about matters of such gravity. And unlike you, I don’t then turn around and sling mud, cast aspersions about the motives of those who truly wrestle with their conscience and arrive at this conclusion.
What I aspire to is to act like a mensch, but one who is willing to meet hard truths head on. What I aspire to is being like the Ivy League genocide-studies scholar who wrote recently that he doesn’t use the term himself for the very reasons I elaborated above. And that, after 30 years of devoting his life’s work to the topic, he said about Gaza, “… but I know when I see it.” How painful and how morally courageous and intellectually honest is that?
Then I see someone like you make the statements you do here and I can’t help but compare how you come off to the likes of that scholar and yes, to JBA. And I can’t help but view you as a smug, probably pompous little b***ard who throws his intellectual prowess around on Comments sections of communities like this, and then slyly declares, “The responses of people for the most part give me a better impression of J Street than I expected to have; at least of the ordinary people who follow the group or support it in some way.”
Is that right, Dude? Ya don't say!
Or here’s another gem from your keyboard: “You are an ordinary person struggling with a complex issue.” Or how about the fabulous sentence you fashioned where you intoned, “Animus toward Jews was at most the ideological overlay of the Palestinian operations on Oct. 7th.” Such eloquence! Such gravitas! You must be used to winning arguments with such beautiful and hollow pronouncements! Operations…? Is that really the carefully-chosen best word to use to cloak the horrific brutality of what they did? Apparently, so you think. Oy vey, man!
And I won’t even begin to deconstruct the premise of your pronouncement, because… well… we’d be here for hours.
And then there’s your final sentence. You adopt a mournful tone, that of the hand-wringing innocent, the abandoned child, the average schmo who yearns for righteous leaders to show us the way. And who feels betrayed by JBA who, as such a leader, has let us down, right when we needed him most to “help us see around corners.” This, from the guy who informs us in the same breath that he had no difficulty seeing by October 2023 that this was a genocide!
At best, you reveal how disingenuous your engagement here really is. On its face, your punchy two-sentence reply is self-contradictory. In truth, what you’re doing is no more sophisticated than constructing a strawman caricature of JBA, easily knocked apart. You set him up to be a leader whose purpose and duty to his flock is to guide them in such determinations as whether Gaza constitutes genocide? You sketch him as the one we should rely on to not only lead us in organizing, in framing a broad stance, but to delve into such difficult, painful, and emotionally explosive topics as this?
Sorry, but this is not the role of JBA or any leader like him. He does not purport to be Martin Luther King. Your projection of that onto him is a rhetorical device intended to imbue your straw man with such exalted qualities, so we can see how far short he falls. How he has failed his flock.
I know, I know – you’re so very disappointed and upset. JBA wasn’t who you thought he was, who you needed him to be. Who we all relied on him to be.
Poor you. Poor us. JBA done us wrong.
I’m not buying what you’re peddling. Not for a nanosecond. You come across with your pompous words, your condescension cloaked as empathy. Then, when someone calls your bluff you purport to be a humble member of the flock whose spiritual leader has betrayed him? Really.
Even a poor country lawyer like me, ignorant and unstudied in the ways of sophisticates like you, can see through your charade.
And I haven’t even rolled up my sleeves and begun to deconstruct what you wrote in your original post. As I indicated earlier, I have much to say about it, too, my Dear Friend.
Buckle up. But leave your bullcrap rhetorical games behind. They won’t help you where we’re going next. Or, as my more nerdy friends like to say:
If you “realized” it was a genocide by October 2023, that tells me a lot about your capacity for balanced, rigorous analysis and assessment. It tells me, first, that you are far too ready to slap the label “genocide” on a bloody conflict where civilian casualties are mounting rapidly. More on that in a moment.
Your use of the adjective “inchoate” also gives me some clues. You enjoy using language the sophistication of which is to the right of the bell curve’s maximum. < How was that one?> I, too, enjoy a well-turned phrase. But here’s what Merriam Webster (online) has to say about the term:
“Inchoate is a fancy word meaning ‘vague’ or ‘incoherent,’ as in ‘a badly formed intellectual argument with inchoate ideas.’ It can also mean ‘unfocused,’ as in ‘inchoate rage.’”
Leaving aside for the moment the inchoate nature of your arguments, I can’t help thinking, having read your postings, that your word choice is meant to not only showcase your superior intellect, but also to spice your prose with imprecise but colorful terms. See, if you wanted to have a real discussion where your intended meaning was crystal clear and that meaning was the one assigned by Webster’s, you wouldn’t select such a word here; you’d settle for “chaotic” or “unfocused” or “unorganized” or simply “poorly planned and undisciplined.” You certainly didn’t mean “vague” and you probably didn’t mean “incoherent.” Perhaps you meant “badly formed” but if so, there are plenty of plainer and more precise ways to express that about the first month of the Gaza war.
But perhaps what your mind conjured was killing with wild, undisciplined, indiscriminate brutality. Ya know, like what Hamas did on Oct 7th? And you came up with the phrase “inchoate rage” (since that’s the use case of the word that’s most common). And you shortened that to “inchoate” because, well… who knows? Because you didn’t want to come across with a naked accusation that IDF soldiers were slaughtering innocents in rageful vengeance? Because that would be too provocative for this forum? I dunno; I’m wildly speculating as to how your mind works and, since I don’t trust your good faith, I suspect unflattering motives. Like, perhaps you wanted to be INTENTIONALLY vague in your meaning, so as to give yourself lots of maneuvering room for plausible deniability of your real meaning? You tell me, Sir.
Anyway, this is one of a few telltale indications I’ve seen in your postings of who you are and how you regard both your own abilities and the world at large. Another was the passive-aggressive condescension that slipped into your back-and-forth with other posters here. I’m sure you can identify what I’m referring to, being the keen intellect that you are. You’re probably not accustomed to be called out on this, though, especially in such an arena as a Comments section.
BTW, are you getting a taste of what it’s like to be the target of ad hominem attacks? Perhaps not. But if so, maybe – just maybe - you might think twice about slinging mud at public figures against whom you’re holding some sort of grudge – as was clear from your original post with regard to JBA.
I come at this issue from my background as a retired international lawyer with a sprinkling of familiarity in international humanitarian law (IHL). Because “genocide” has just one agreed definition, under the Genocide Convention, I think the question of whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza needs to be approached as a legal matter. Personally, I have not, and still do not, believe that publicly known evidence under the current legal standard shows that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza. The Convention requires that accused parties must have the “intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnic, racial or religious group as such” – i.e. to destroy all or part of the Palestinian population of Gaza because their members are Palestinian. And at least under its latest rulings I'm aware of, the ICJ requires that it would need to find “a pattern of conduct from which the only reasonable conclusion to be drawn is an intent on the part of . . . [its] authorities to destroy ‘in part’ the protected group” before it can make a finding of genocide.
I think it is at least reasonable to draw the conclusion that, as Israel has said all along, its war is only with Hamas (and its allies like Islamic Jihad), a group that perpetrated the most deadly attack on Israel in its history and vowed to continue such attacks until Israel is annihilated, and that Israel's intent is to stop its attacks in Gaza once Hamas relinquishes power and demilitarizes. This intended result is not compatible with an intent to destroy all or part of the Palestinian people of Gaza because they are Palestinian.
Other evidence supports that this is Israel’s intent. For example, as a December 2024 New York Times investigation found, and I’ve seen no evidence to contradict, Israel does legal reviews before each of its attack plans is executed, in order to assure that the attacks are necessary, lawful, and proportional to the target’s military value in the fight against Hamas, and that it will take all feasible precautions to protect civilian life. And while the current threat caused by Hamas to Israel has diminished very substantially, it continues as a deadly organized force to kill Israeli soldiers, still exerts control over much of the territory of Gaza that Israeli forces do not occupy at a particular time, and has neither surrendered nor moved at all from its aspirations to apply what it states is its legitimate right and duty to use armed resistance until (even according to its more moderate 2017 revised Charter) an Islamic state of Palestine is established from the river to the sea. I have yet to see any of the distinguished scholars who assert that Israel is committing genocide deal with the continuing threat of Hamas and the Israeli government's willingness to end its war against Hamas if it relinquishes power in Gaza, aside from dismissing Hamas as a still-potent force.
In contrast, Jeremy has argued in this Substack and last Wednesday’s podcast that based on legal and scholarly arguments, he has come to believe that international courts will find some day that Israel has the necessary intent to destroy the Palestinian people. While Jeremy doesn't lay out the details of the arguments that have persuaded him, the body of scholars he alludes to include Omer Bartov, Melanie O'Brien (president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars), and a strong majority even though not a unanimous body of global scholars on genocide and IHL. The most persuasive elements of their arguments to me revolve around the increasing likelihood that Gaza may already have been destroyed as a livable territory, and that the Israeli government has express and in-process plans to destroy Gaza's remaining civil infrastructure.
Jeremy's Substack caused me to do a deep but quick dive into the scholarly writings and the relevant facts, law, and jurisprudence, including consulting with some more knowledgeable colleagues on applicable IHL principles. The bottom line I come to is that both the “pro” and the “con” arguments have a good faith basis, and that neither side should have much confidence that its argument will prevail over the other at the ICJ. Instead, what screams out to me, as well as to our J Street leadership and numerous others, is that the far more important action item for those of us in this country who care about Israel and Palestine is to stop arguing about the “g word” and get to work in ending the war and feeding the people.
Given the plausible basis for either the affirmative or negative argument for the existence of genocide, the vilification of believers of one argument by the more extremist adherents of the other side is especially unwarranted. In my view, we have seen much too much of that, especially in my experience from those on the left who maintain that a genocide is ongoing.
Moreover, without even needing to get to the genocide question and thorny issues of intent, we see that international law provides for a wide assortment of serious war crimes and crimes against humanity very likely committed by both Israel as well as Hamas. The collective punishment of the civilian population through the deprivation of food, water, and other necessities of life and starvation as a method of warfare are examples of such serious crimes. Some people have argued that these acts do not amount to genocide because Israel is only using its blockades of aid as a tactic to get Hamas to surrender and occasionally allows aid in before mass starvation events have occurred. But there is no question that these tactics are prohibited under, e.g., the ICC's Rome Statute and the 1977 Protocol II to the Geneva Convention, regardless of whether there is an intent to destroy an entire group through them. The extreme loosening up of standards of civilian protection highlighted in the above-referenced New York Times investigation resulted in numerous other actions that would need to be individually investigated, but many of which are likely to involve the war crime or (if widespread) crime against humanity of unnecessary uses of force that cause death or destruction to civilian populations.
While some have argued that characterization of Israel's worst acts as genocide is needed to compel the world to act, many of the acts themselves are so horrific that they do not need that label to spur responsive action. Why not stop at pointing out the horrendous and almost certainly criminal infliction of massive suffering on people for no good purpose at this point that needs to be brought to an end, without expressing certainty about the most fraught but debatable accusation?
Shaul Magid wrote recently on his substack that the inter Jewish argument on whether it is a genocide can be compared to Nero playing the fidel as Rome burned. Why we all scrutinized all criticism of Israel if it's layered with antisemitism, the policy Israel is pursuing a policy that's destroying the Jewish state.
It’s self defeating to use the word “genocide.” That ignites a furious debate over the use of the word, with the dictionary and other sources (usually amorphous) cited in defense of both positions. The linguistic argument obscures the real horrors we are witnessing. The facts of Gaza are clear. The many innocent people(women and children) killed or injured. Starvation used as a military tool. Infants deprived of nourishment. Pitiously gaunt bodies reminiscent of the holocaust. An entire infrastructure of schools, hospitals and homes virtually destroyed. Population being squeezed into impossibly small areas. Bodies still buried under tons of rubble.
There will never be one appropriate word to describe this. The facts will speak for themselves.
Stephen - I couldn't agree more. The distinction between what is legally and analytically true and what makes for good messaging is the heart of the conundrum here. I cannot deny what is happening and where I think we've gotten to in terms of compliance with the international convention. At the same time, I recognize my deep pain and discomfort - and so many Jews' pain and discomfort - at using a term that has such particular and painful meaning to us and our families and our community. It's also an ineffective way to grow the movement to press for action to end this war with a hostage release and a surge in aid. I agree wholeheartedly with you, with Bernie Sanders and with so may others: what's important isn't winning a debating point over the word, it's building the political movement to stop this war. And I'm not convinced that using the word will grow the movement and have the impact we all desire.
Thank you. I am a Jew whose family fled Poland in the early 1900s because of pogroms and who believed exactly as you did in my formative years. I had friends whose parents were in Auschwitz. I believed in “never again,” and it pained me greatly when I had to break from Zionism when I finally learned the truth about Israel’s history. I have no problem calling this a genocide. It matches entirely the definition established is 1948 by the UN genocide convention.
First the Israelis have to get rid of the right wing fanatics, including Netanyahu, all of whom have made it very clear they are imposed to a Palestinian state. They are the main obstacle to peace, not the Palestinians in Gaza or the West Bank (where the IDF protects settlers as they conduct pogroms in Palestinian villages.
Source for what part of my comment? The UN genocide convention? https://www.un.org/en/genocide-prevention/definition. The restoration of Gaza certainly cannot be accomplished without a permanent ceasefire and negotiations that address the national aspirations of the Palestinian people. And this is the ONLY way to have a secure state of Israel. What the Netanyahu regime is carrying out is guaranteed to produce ever-more iterations of Hamas like groups, as Palestinians lose hope that there is any peaceful way to resolve this. Israel will be unsafe as long as it continues on this path.
I've seen the UN convention. They focus almost exclusively on Israel vs Sudan, etc. and had little response to October 7th. Remember that the attack on Israel was by civilians and terrorists. Remember that they cheered and threw candy as the hostages were paraded through the streets including a young woman whose naked rear was displayed in a pickup truck. She was later killed. Where are the Gazans who want peace and are willing to sacrifice themselves - as Israeli's did since 1948, to achieve it? Where is the anti-Hamas protest movement? Where is there a push for a two-state solution from the Gazan side? Where is the recognition of Israel's right to exist? Where is there a government in exile waiting to come in and rebuild a free and democratic Gaza? As I see it, Israel - not the right-wing fanatics in power now - would be quite pleased to have a peaceful and cooperative neighbor. Again, to paraphrase Golda, how do you negotiate with someone who only wants to kill you?
What exactly does your “More important” part have to do with the reality on the ground that is genocide, which is precisely what you are responding to? What’s up with this obvious deflection? And doesn’t it actually prove the point that in the name of and under the pretence of the so called security, Israel wouldn’t even blink twice to commit to a genocide? I mean, what the hell are you even defending? Half of the elected representatives in the Knesset are openly supporting starving children to death. Get a grip already!
The word or words we choose to discuss the starvation of children in Gaza is not as crucially important as our joined concerted efforts to stop it. In the words of Omar Al Akkad in his book One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, “..it may seem now like it’s someone else’s children, but there is no such thing as someone else’s children.” May we join together to speak up on their behalf, and help make a world where all children may thrive.
Thank you. I know this cannot be easy for any number of psychological and professional reasons. But not only is it a moral obligation, in practical terms it is also a way to protect Jews by reconnecting them to the human rights norms and legal infrastructure that came in the wake of the Holocaust. You are doing right both as a human being and as a Jewish human being.
This is such an amazing statement. Thank you so very much from a United Methodist minister with both Jewish and Palestinian friends. In the future, I hope you will include the atrocities in the West Bank, most recently the shooting of Adwah, turned away a few weeks ago at SFO, sent home and shot in the last two weeks. Gaza is terrible, sickening to witness, but so is the settlement movement and violence in the West Bank. Rev. Dr. Judith Pruess-Mellow
On the contrary, Gaza is a just war that was started by Hamas and is continued by Hamas. The settlement movement in the West Bank is an atrocity, a crime against international law and all human decency.
Gaza was evacuated and sovereign from 2005 until 2007 when Hamas took over, murdered the PA, and started launching rockets at civilians. Any state would respond similarly. But if you know nothing of the history and get high off Jeremy Scahill all day I suspect your critical thinking skills have atrophied.
The real problem is the West Bank. When it comes to Gaza, Hamas chose to sacrifice its population on Oct 7.
Gaza was never sovereign, not in any meaningful legal or material sense. After the 2005 disengagement, Israel retained control over Gaza’s airspace, maritime borders, population registry, and goods movement. That’s not sovereignty; it’s remote occupation.
As for a terrorist group like Hamas, whatever one thinks of its tactics or legitimacy, Oct 7 didn’t begin history. It didn’t justify decades of blockade, or a military campaign that has killed tens of thousands, mostly civilians, half of them children. Framing this as Hamas "sacrificing" Gaza’s population lets a vastly more powerful state off the hook for choices it continues to make.
You mention the West Bank and of course you’re right: the settlement project is indefensible. But that doesn’t mean Gaza isn’t also a site of systemic violence. We can hold more than one fact at a time.
Nice job with ChatGPT (literally verbatim). But the fact remains it was not under blockade until Hamas violently executed the opposition, established a dictatorship, and vowed to destroy Israel (not the occupation of the WB, Israel itself). This followed on the heels of them torpedoing Oslo by such noble acts of resistance as suicide bombing a teenage nightclub, Passover Seders and Buses. So yeah, Israel did conduct a lawful blockade. I wish it hadn't payed them money for peace and destroyed them fully a decade ago with "systemic violence." BTW Joel Roazen, how did your family get to the US? If they had been left behind in Europe would you have preferred they die in the Holocaust or rot in the DP camps?
How my family got to the states is irrelevant. And there’s no ChatGPT – I’m a pro writer and scholar myself. Let’s end this here. You would rather deflect than argue and this is fast becoming a waste of words.
Gaza never had real sovereignty. Israel retained control over its airspace, borders, and population registry. That’s why the UN, ICRC, and legal scholars still consider it occupied.
The blockade, labeled “economic warfare” by Israeli officials, amounts to collective punishment – that’s a war crime under international law. Hamas’ atrocities don’t absolve Israel of its own legal and moral obligations.
And wishing Israel had “destroyed Hamas” a decade ago, knowing full well what that’s meant in practice for civilians, reveals a troubling disregard for Palestinian life and undermines any claim to principled concern.
If you look at the changes in Jewish population during the Holocaust, you can easily see that the Jewish population decreased precipitously throughout the years 1943- 1945. The same is true of any genocide where the attacked population decreases dramatically in time. In Gaza, however, the population is definitely increasing -- that is -- there have been more Gazans born than have been killed, and by a significant number. What we are witnessing is war, not genocide. The United States was not committing genocide on the Nazis in WWII, no matter how many were killed. Again, this is war, not genocide. Please allow yourself to m make the distinction. Thanks.
But it's not genocide, David. I don't think it's a just war, but war nevertheless. I don't agree with the way Israel is conducting itself in Gaza, but we are not watching a genocide.
No, Eric. The U.N. and other international humanitarian organizations have clearly said the reason for the famine in Gaza is because ISRAEL is not allowing nearly enough food to enter Gaza. And it is deliberately shooting innocent Palestinian civilians at the food distribution sites in Gaza, another crime against humanity.
In fact, the NYT reported last Sunday that Netanyahu was lying about Hamas pilfering large amounts of food. And the Sunday before it ran a story about him prolonging the “war” for purely political reasons.
Without question, Hamas is an evil terrorist organization that must be completely dismantled, disarmed, defunded, and destroyed. But Israel murdering innocent Palestinian civilians and committing genocide against the Palestinians are the wrong ways to go about accomplishing that.
The overwhelming majority of the solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict is political and diplomatic, notwithstanding what the AIPAC genocide lobby says.
Israel preventing food from entering Gaza, lying that Hamas is pilfering large amounts of it, making zero effort to protect Palestinian civilians when conducting air strikes, and IDF “soldiers” deliberately targeting Palestinian civilians is a textbook case of genocide.
Great article that I agree with on many points though not all points. It is rare that I agree with any article on all points, though that does happen occasionally too. Although I choose to use the word “genocide” and other rather incendiary terms designed to provoke thought and reflection (knowing full well it will also provoke disgust and emotionally-charged reactions by some), I would agree that the Nazi Holocaust was something unique in its scope, magnitude, horror and immense human depravity. So while I think some situational, episodic comparisons to the Holocaust are indeed legitimate and valid, I also think that equating what is happening in Gaza to the Nazi Holocaust is factually incorrect and morally misguided since not all evils are equally evil. Some evils are worse than other evils (hence the geostrategic term of choosing a lesser of all evils) and the Nazi Holocaust is the worst or one of the worst of all evils whilst the genocide in Gaza is pretty evil but does not nearly rise the level of the Nazi Holocaust. That is an important point to remember. The question to ask is: Could it rise nearly to that level? I should certainly hope not but that is why we do our activism and speak out to help prevent it from rising to that level, as you well know. To your credit, you are using your platform to help compel others to follow your lead and speak out and activate and agitate against this policy. Kudos to you for that, Jeremy.
Also—-Editorial correction on paragraph #14 —-the word “fulling” should be changed to the word “fully.”
As I wrote in my post, real genocide - the elimination of a people - is occurring today in Sudan, Rwanda and other places around the world. I'd add that what the US has done in eliminating USAID qualifies as well. Where is the hue and cry? Also please remember that this is a war!
About US Aid, I very much disagree. Many people on the Left think that USAid does good and beneficiall things around the world and that may characterize its genesis much like the European Union was created to establish peace between European nations. But over the years, USAid, much like the European Union, has become captured by warmongering Imperialist elements like the CIA under the auspices of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) for USAid or from the Russophobia that now infects the European Union. The NED promotes U.S. Imperial hegemony more than genuine democracy. See the article by Patrick Lawrence below.
While I would also criticize other nations genocidal actions like in Rwanda or Sudan, I focus on Israel / Gaza because my U.S. tax dollars are used to fund that genocide/ethnic cleansing/forced displacement which makes me indirectly responsible for that war-criminal policy waged by the Apartheid-Oppressor State of Israel and because of my partial Jewish heritage, I feel also compelled to engage in activism that seeks justice, human equality and the pursuit of Tikkun Olam. I do what I do because I love the justice-pursuing aspects of Judaism that inspire me to make the world a better place by using my voice to criticize injustice to help compel justice, peace and truth. In that way, my voice and my actions are propelled by love of human equality and of justice and also by the disgust and hatred of injustice, warmongering and propaganda in service to power. Hatred of injustice is good hate because it is rooted in human equality because every person deserves to be treated with respect and dignity.
I would follow Jeremy Ben-Ami's lead (and JVP's lead and IfNotNow's lead and others' lead too) by continuing to call for various community leaders and other secular leaders to keep speaking out for peace and justice. I would also continue to engage others and try to provide them with an array of varying perspectives and points of information so that people can accumulate facts, reflect on their relevance, analyze the data, synthesize the various insights and decide on their own, 1) what to believe and 2), what action to take toward furthering that objective-------with the caveat that people of different backgrounds and experiences may arrive at different conclusions and each person has the right to think about things differently and we should respect that independence of mind in others. We seek only to inform and not to dominate how others choose to think. Tolerance.
In terms of what specific policies to enact, that is much more difficult question for me to answer since I am a Data Analytics and Business Intelligence expert and not a public policy expert, so I will defer to the recommendations of experts on that topic. However, I tend to prefer the viewpoints and expertise of those who reside outside of government. This is because I think most of those who work for the machine (and this would include most members of corporate media too) and often corrupted by that machine since their careers often depend upon groupthink echo-chambers and informal conformity to particular narratives that often conflict with reality. This is why I tend to prefer experts outside of the establishment that can offer independent critical thinking, untainted analysis and sound policy recommendations in a way that is usually less corruptable by the State and its various minions and tentacles.
I'm so sorry.....speaking out for peace and justice is a Western cultural product and will continue to have no impact here. It sadly is intellectual sophistry. It didn't do much when Hitler rose to power or any of the other dictator/autocrats since. Those who are in power in the Middle Eastern world have a culture based on tribalism, power, patriarchy, transactional relationships, honor and revenge. Have you noticed that we're barreling in that direction in our own democracy? Untainted analysis is wonderful but useless if there are no means to effect change.
There is no need to say sorry or apologize as we are both equals here. I am sure you have knowledge to impart and I have much knowledge that I can impart to you as well. So we can learn from each other as equals.
I respectfully and highly disagree with the idea that speaking out for peace and justice will have no impact. But I do see your point so let me elaborate my view further. Pardon my long-windedness but many tangential thoughts often zip through my brain while I try organize my thoughts into writing. So let me use both my own experience and the experience of my observations ofJeremy Ben-Ami as two case-studies to illustrate my point.
Just after the events of October 7, it may surprise you to learn that both myself and Jeremy were both reluctant to use the word "genocide" to describe the events occuring in Gaza. Jeremy is still reluctant but for other reasons. (For now we shall leave aside the 20 year oppressive, murderous siege upon Gaza preceding October 7 that led to the blowback from that policy that manifested on October 7 and the Israeli victims of that day (remember, Palestinians are everyday victims of that policy whereas Israelis are occasional, periodic victims from the blowback of that oppressive Israeli policy and this is why it is difficult to see Israeli Jews as primary victims since they are also the victimizers visiting regular murder, oppression and hostage-taking upon the Palestinian people (which they term as arresting terrorists and subjugating them to indefinite-detention at several torture facilites or other detention facilities in Israel) conducted by way of IDF night-home raids and many other oppressive policies). Thank you to the Israeli group, Breaking the Silence, IDF veterans for their speaking out for peace and justice to help educate me about some of those policies. For now, we shall also leave aside the 80 years of oppression enforced upon the Palestinian people following the Nakba and the years of Jewish terrorism (and violent Palestinian resistance to it) from groups like the Irgun in the post-Balfour Declaration/pre-establishment of the State of Israel era, (which, as you know, created a safe-haven for Jews (a necessary evil given the events of the Holocaust) but which simultaneously created a system of displacement and ongoing oppression and murder upon Palestinians)), so leaving all of that aside for the moment, both Jeremy and I and many others refused to use the term "genocide." initially. I think this is because in the wake of the Holocaust, using that term loosely can both cheapen and diminish its weight and depth of meaning. So I resisted the trite use of that word initially. Using the weighty word of "genocide" much like the weaponization and politicization that false accusations of anti-Semitism against those who legitimately criticize the inhumane policies of Israel, serves to both cheapen and diminish the true ugliness of genuine anti-Semitism (which legitimate criticism of inhumane Israeli policy is not). So I did not originally feel comfortable with the term "genocide" either as I resisted the trite use of that weighty term.
Jeremy, we just got photos of our hostages looking emaciated and digging their own graves b/c Hamas thought that would make for good video material. Do you think that might be worth a mention in this meditation of yours?
Since your thesis is that you will no longer "defend the indefensible," can you please be more specific about the actions you are referring to as "indefensible"? Thx.
Jill - I do specifically reference to the starvation of hostages by Hamas and provide a link to the story. The horrific acts of Hamas must be condemned but don't provide a reason for us to be silent about what is happening to Gaza's civilian population. I run through Hamas's horrors in the post.
Israel has killed over 60,000, starved an entire population, gunned down aid seekers, destroyed 70%+ of structures, decimated Gaza’s healthcare system to ensure people can’t recover, and openly talked about ethnic cleansing and resettling Gaza — but “liberal” Zionists still insist the lede should be two starving hostages.
I listened to the conversation on Pod Save America that you referenced. The conversation about the term "genocide" was painful to listen to. I greatly appreciate your additional reflections on this. And, your willingness to participate in discussion like the one that you had with Medhi Hasan.
Would fellow Americans be wrong in suspecting that you, who had much more knowledge than most of us, knew for a long time that things could head in this direction? That you recklessly fueled the Israeli project until, finally, it led us to this place? That you now change position when a hundred thousand people can't be brought back from famine, saving yourself some of the blame but not necessarily saving them?
I remember well the day that you rejected my Congressman, Jamaal Bowman, because he had the courage to say clearly what was coming, even though it was predictable that it would cost him his career.
^^^Jeremy, this is the type of hateful rhetoric that posts like this one are fueling, whether you intend it or not. I have messaged you about this privately and in the absence of follow-up from you, I will say it here: I really think us liberal Zionists who love and support Israel (unlike this idiot above) need to come together and discuss our messaging and our communication strategy. That invitation still stands.
What about his response is hateful? He’s just saying that bc Israel’s actions were defended for so long we are now in a situation where famine and starvation will be hard to stop
Sadly, no communication strategy is going to counter the countless number of dead, mutilated, starving bodies the entire world is seeing daily. This is not a communication problem, this is a moral and political catastrophe that no amount of messaging will correct.
Why wouldn't it? We didn't see this kind of global hate against the coalition war on isis, which had a much higher civilian casualty ratio and way more dead (and isis didn't even attack America). We see it here because of media bias, which can be fought back against.
I'm not sure where you are getting your stats. It is estimated that 50,000 ISIS combatants were killed. The US estimates 1,400 civilian deaths. Airwars estimates between 8,000 and 13,000 civilian deaths. In Gaza, Israel states 30,000 Hamas combatants have been killed, but does not give any number as to how many civilians have been killed. So I am not sure how we can even calculate a "civilian casualty ratio", let alone state it is better or worse than in other conflicts, when Israel does not even have any information, or refuses to release it, regarding civilian deaths. What we do know is that the Gaza MOH has confirmed 60,000 deaths and various neutral actors (Lancet, The Economist) have stated they estimate total deaths are much higher. So how on earth do these numbers look better than ISIS or any other modern conflict?? And this is just looking at numbers. I didn't see photos of starving children during the war with ISIS. I think if we're in a position to "spin" child starvation, we're in the wrong place.
see e.g. here. The numbers aren't close - Israel has a roughly 1-1 (going by Hamas MOH numbers, which are probably not biased in Israel's favour, to put it mildly). US/ISIS had about 2.5-1 ratio
https://x.com/SpencerGuard/status/1786612914117349769?lang=en
Re "child starvation" claims, see e.g. here https://spencerguard.substack.com/p/israels-aid-to-gaza-is-historically - Israel's done more to help feed Gaza than anyone else has done in similar situations. You can argue that they should be doing even more, but "not going even further than anyone else ever has to help in similar situations" isn't normally compared with genocide.
(Also, just to point about the Lancet estimate - the way Lancet got their estimate was to say "the typical civilian casualty ratio in urban warfare is 5-1, so we should multiply the deaths by 5". By their own standards Israel's done five times better than typical at avoiding civilian casualties).
"Israel's done more to help feed Gaza than anyone else has done in similar situations. "
Maybe it "helped feed Gaza" before the Hamas attack. After the Hamas attack, calls to starve Gaza were heard from Netanyahu's cabinet, and not long after that, humanitarian aid (=food and drugs) were stopped _by Israel_ at the Gaza border. They still haven't recovered.
https://movemequotes.com/when-arguing-is-futile-short-story-of-the-donkey-and-the-tiger/
Spencer guard is wrong and a charlatan, in a podcast when asked to criticize IDF actions of any sort, said that only they should allow for international journalists. Theres far far more you could criticize IDF if you were in the same occupation as Spencer.
Here's a break down of that 1:1 civ-combat ratio you're discussing which has been a really bad talking point for a very long time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQFozvlimbk&feature=youtu.be
not sure you'll see this but heres hoping.
Did you see Aharon Haliva's comments that Israel should kill 50 Palestinians (including children) for every 1 Israeli killed on Oct 7 as a "price"? Are you familiar with the Israeli concept of "price tag"? Here's the funny thing - supporters of Israel in the West are stuck defending Israel's untenable positions with ludicrous and incorrect talking points - while over in Israel, they just openly admit the truth.
The war against ISIS did not have a higher civilian casualty ratio. On the contrary, it had a far lower civilian casualty ratio than the current Gaza massacre.
Probably similar civilian casualty ratio but fewer total dead? I don't have good stats. It's true that Israel's war against Hamas is no less justified than the war against ISIS. Why isn't Israel's war as popular? Well, internationally the "Palestinian cause" is very popular. Also the fact that Israel has loudmouthed far-right fucks is part of it.
Nonsense. You are advocating censorship, which is what the Israeli thugs at OpenWeb do throughout the Web.
Among other things, the J Street U students must have unfettered speech, whether they agree with or condemn the Apartheid state's actions.
I do not believe in censorship. People are free to spout hateful rhetoric as they please, I'm just inquiring as to whether or not Jeremy realizes his role in it.
His higher calling is to promote free and unfettered speech. This is required for J Street U students, if no one else.
Fine. But they should be honest and say they want an apartheid Palestine, and all the Jews in the Middle East should have their lives destroyed.
Probably so.
What is Israeli thugs? Apartheid Palestine has been oppressing its own people for decades, and Hamas loves the current situation.
Organizations run by Shia Iran are more than happy to use Sunni kids to do their dirty work. Don't agree? Get tossed of a building.
What about his response is hateful? He’s just saying that bc Israel’s actions were defended for so long we are now in a situation where famine and starvation will be hard to stop
Well that's because they did the right thing, but with one hand tied behind their collective back. Judaism is not masochism.
There's no situation where ethnic cleansing and genocide are "the right thing".
Then why do you support it when the victims are Israeli Jews?
This is ridiculous... It's not zero sum. Hamas being terrorists doesn't excuse Israel's war crimes, just as war crimes and illegal land theft don't justify attacks on civilians.
For a famine to be officially declared, you need 400 deaths *a day* out of a population of 2 million. So far we haven't hit 200 *total*. Even according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, fewer than 0.01% of Gazans have starved to death. Israel is boosting the flow of aid.
Message this:
https://x.com/DropSiteNews/status/1952059751602311483
Liberal apologists for Israel like you are genocide-enablers, with the stain of Palestinian blood all over your hands, Jill. You will see the faces of starving Palestinians everytime you look in the mirror for rest of your days on this earth. Can't you see that Israel is imploding. Netanyahu and his war criminal cabinet will soon be in handcuffs at the Hague. You still have to time to redeem your soul. Speak out now or forever be shamed.
I visited Israel a couple of months ago and I can assure you, it's not "imploding." That may be what you fantasize about, but Israel's implosion isn't happening now or anytime soon.
Not being Jewish myself maybe my privilege is showing but a mea culpa like this is more than welcome and mirrors my own experience and expresses it better than I can.
But I also don't live in the USA where diversity equity and inclusion became words to invoke a witch hunt and like VP Kamala Harris noted, so many folded so fast.
Delusional post. Your problem isn't "messaging" and "communication strategy".
It's the genocide the Jewish State is committing.
Would we all be wrong in viewing you as the smug little Jew hater that you clearly are?
What a cheap ad-hominem.
You feeling left out?
They're just pointing out how defenders of Israel have no way to defend the indefensible so have to resort to personal attacks.
Thanks for demonstrating their point so eloquently.
No, it won’t be. Most on this thread are, as it turns out.
Ben,
Jeremy has always acted in good faith around Israel-Palestine by speaking out against Israel’s appalling treatment of Palestinians and advocating for specific sanctions against Israel, when he believed it to be morally appropriate.
However, I wish that he would go a little bit further than he has so far and, besides calling for the U.S. to stop sending offensive weapons to Israel that is using to commit atrocities against Palestinians, also call for crippling economic sanctions against Israel until its genocide of Palestinians and apartheid in the illegally occupied West Bank stops. But he has always acted in good faith.
And Former Congressman Jamaal Bowman, who I think is a good man and I would have voted for if I lived in his distinct, is also a goof and a schmo.
What other explanation could there be for him pulling a fire alarm in the Cannon House Office Building and denying the sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023? He seems to say and do the first thing that pops into his head.
The responses of people for the most part give me a better impression of J Street than I expected to have; at least of the ordinary people who follow the group or support it in some way.
Bowman is a goof and a schmo. I agree. Before Israel-Palestine was a big issue, I once voted for a Republican instead of Bowman. But perhaps in a political environment where anti-apartheid candidates were starved of resources and of any incentive to have their position, where those of the other persuasion got much more help with career development, it is unsurprising that the anti-apartheid candidates we got were a bit rough around the edges. I could say very similar things about Norman Finkelstein, whom I admire as a brave and decent man.
Ben-Ami's timing is very hard to accept. It seems he changed position just as it became socially untenable to have the previous position. He changed position, it looks like, as a part of a trend, amidst many other people doing so, amidst remarkable new public opinion polling, after Zohran Mamdani, by surprise, won an election as an uncompromising anti-apartheid candidate, as establishment Democratic figures were running for cover, caught in the midst of a change in public opinion the depth of which they were not prepared for. Whereas, the judgment should not be made on whether the position is popular or socially astute; it should be based on the empirical facts in Israel-Palestine, and someone with subject matter expertise like Ben-Ami should be able to see things coming a good way off, instead of only seeing them when they have become obvious to everyone.
I don’t see Jeremy changing his opinion about the positions that J Street should take, which in my view are appropriate positions.
What he’s saying is that he’s not reacting to the word “genocide” in the same way. He gave us a gift — his family’s story— that influences his thinking. I appreciate it because many people in my Jewish community share similar stories and find it difficult to talk openly about because we don’t want to be disrespectful of our friends’ feelings about their ancestors and personal journeys.
This post isn’t looking for a binary response of right or wrong, agree or disagree. He’s sharing his thoughts. I say thank you for that.
Perhaps he struggled as I continue to do. A bit of history for you:
The Holocaust gave birth to the term Genocide. Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term, was very specific. It was to define the Nazis extermination policy of a people; In line with the Wannssee Conference that specifically targeted Jews for industrial-scale murder.
That is the struggle...can anyone in good faith tie the two together?
You are an ordinary person struggling with a complex issue. I understand and have empathy for your relationship to the issue, and I don't even fault Ben-Ami for being uncomfortable with the term – the terminology is not what's important to me. But he is a professional, and he works with both public relations and legislative lobbying. There are certain classes of people that must be held responsible for what has been done to the Palestinians. Ordinary citizens like you and I may only have to pay compensation via our taxes, but for more involved people the consequences will be more substantial.
The issue is not as complex as many would prefer to make it seem. My question to you & Ben Ami, is simple. Under your iteration, the Hirosima, Nagasaki and Dresden would be Genocide…genocide enventhough it was necessary to defeat the instigators of WW2. Are not the actions of the IDF more inkeeping with those of the Allied Armies? Defeating an enemy…who refuses to release hostages, surrender and considers each Gazan killed a victory?
How do you decide which side to take in this war?
But putting that complex issue aside, I think it is normal and reasonable to expect the standards of international law to increase with time. It is okay that we have higher standards today than we did in the 1940s. Throughout history, people like Clara Barton have pushed us to have better standards even for that least restrained of national activities, warfare.
Ben,
Your points are completely valid. But I don’t believe that Jeremy is behaving opportunistically by reassessing how he perceives the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and who is primarily responsible for it at this point.
And I concur with you about Norman Finkelstein, even though I don’t agree with every point he makes or every policy position he espouses.
And Zohran Mamdani loves New York and he is going to be the next mayor of the “city that doesn’t sleep.” “Start spreading the news!”
I too, changed my opinion recently. We are all affected one way or another by the opinions of others no matter how much we may deny it. Group think does have a powerful effect, which may not necessarily stop us from thinking independently but at least open us to thoughts we may have been resisting. Especially when the attitudes come from people we respect. I am no political figure so there is no profile I need to be opportunistic about. It is very natural for Jeremy to become more open to self-criticism of past beliefs at a time like this. I totally get what he is saying about the word "genocide." I too, now can no longer assert that we are not doing it, but can also not use that word myself. I totally get that. Why not give him the benefit of the doubt? And what good purpose does it serve to be cynical of his reasons?
Re "denying the sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas terrorists on October 7"
Israel hasn't been able to identify a single victim and isn't filing a single case of sexual assault or rape.
Not one.
Here's a quote from Moran Gaz, the Israeli prosecutor (Google the quote)
> "In the end, we don’t have any complainants. What was presented in the media compared to what will eventually come together will be entirely different…"
So better never than late? I mean, what are you trying to achieve here?
Someone has come around so now you attack?
I expect his role going forward will not be to really work assiduously to halt the mass starvation, but instead to route the popular energy that is arising, to send it to a relatively unproductive place, to bog it down in unfocused debate.
Besides in general the apartheid / ethnic cleansing / genocide project will not yield to persuasion. I do not think it is evidence or persuasion that changed his mind. It was, in my opinion, the threat of consequences, such as destruction of reputation and social ostracization.
If I had felt he had a genuine realization and change of heart, I would have responded differently. The timing, in particular, seems far too convenient.
"The gates of repentance are always open."
A late admission of error is better than none.
I've read through the thread of comments here, especially yours - since they generated so much discussion. Kudos to you, Sir, for writing well and using language above an 8th-grade reading level. Your prose is well constructed. Your arguments...? Well, I'm not sure I'd say the same of them.
Your meaning is clear. But your criticism is strictly ad hominem. This particular posting evinces it most noticeably, but it is embedded in your original post. I may (or may not) respond to that OP separately, as I have much to say about it.
You clearly have an axe to grind against Jeremy Ben-Ami (JBA). It's evident from your OP and it's certainly evident here. The motives you ascribe to his changed stance on whether he can defend the prosecution of the Gaza war and deny the charge of genocide? Well, they are speculative at best, shaded negatively to be charitable, and slanderous if we're calling it as we sees it.
You, sir, have no real idea as to whether JBA's explanation of why he has had this reluctant change of heart is his whole truth and nothing but. Yet you impugn his motives, cast aspersions on his character, and reduce him to an operative motivated solely by expediency. You see, maybe, why I label this as slanderous?
Good for you for thinking that it was neither evidence nor persuasion that changed his mind. Bravo for holding the opinion that, rather, it was the threat of consequences if he didn't. You do know what they say about opinions, right? That they are like a certain part of the body, in that everyone has one?
Yours are about as verifiable as the legend of Bigfoot. Maybe, just maybe... probably not, but wouldn't it be an awesome story if...?
I realized it was an inchoate genocide by late October 2023, and I'm a lot more ignorant and less well studied than him. Why did those who we rely on to help us see around corners fail us?
(2 of 2): (I think this two-parter is going to be posted with its parts in the wrong order. Read 1 of 2 first. See below.)
Pardon my rant, Excellent Sir, but I’m just getting warmed up in my reply to your latest post. Getting back to your incisive assessment, in October 2023, that this was a genocide, inchoate or otherwise:
If you were a bit more restrained in your use of the word, a bit more educated about its legal definition, you would never make such a statement. Because – news flash – the actual, technical meaning of the term in the context of international law and the possibility of holding perpetrators accountable is complex. It is NOT a term that is used lightly. (And in this regard, I’m 100% aligned with and sympathetic to JBA’s unwillingness to use it himself, going forward, though I recognize from his writing that this is likely to be for slightly different reasons than my own.)
No, among serious people it is not a term to be bandied about. There have been, to my knowledge, at least four investigations by different organizations into whether the IDF’s actions in Gaza meet the LEGAL definition of genocide. It is no easy task to make this determination. It takes careful, conservative, scrupulous investigative methods. The standards are high, because the crime is grave. It takes months - even years - to gather and sift the evidence, to lay out the basis for this grave accusation, to arrive at such a weighty finding.
Are you aware of these investigations? Have you downloaded and perused their reports where they present their case? If I were a betting man, I wouldn’t lay odds that you have. And yet, after less than a month of combat in Gaza, you reached your verdict. I’m sorry, but there is simply no way that any person, organization or even a super-intelligent entity such as yourself – your humble self-representation as “ignorant and less well studied” notwithstanding - could make this determination. And further, you not only make this determination; you assert that the evidence was plain, it was obvious to even your humble, ignorant mind, unstudied in the matter.
Well, Brilliant Sir, I HAVE looked at several of those reports. I HAVE hemmed and hawed and wrestled, for months, with whether I can accept that this is the determination of true experts in such matters – which I am not. And neither is JBA, BTW, nor does he purport to be. But what both JBA and I have suffered ourselves to do in recent months (how’s that for some grammatically obtuse verbiage? Look it up if it confuses you.) is to dig into the painful subject, listen to the experts, digest the legal definitions and usage, and be guided thereby.
And, entirely like JBA, I have reluctantly come to the same conclusion.
And, like scholars of genocide and serious pundits whose recent writings on the Gaza catastrophe I have studied, I don’t like to use the word; I’m reluctant to use it.
Why? Because it is far too easily, too casually thrown out there in the endless arguments and debates over the horrors that occurred on and after October 7th. And most importantly, because its use has been that of a weapon. Or of hate-filled and/or mindless sloganeering. Or both. It is casually slipped into conversation, without hesitation; it is used as an epithet.
So, no – I don’t come to this acceptance easily or willingly. Unlike you, I don’t make superficial, skin-depth hasty assessments about matters of such gravity. And unlike you, I don’t then turn around and sling mud, cast aspersions about the motives of those who truly wrestle with their conscience and arrive at this conclusion.
What I aspire to is to act like a mensch, but one who is willing to meet hard truths head on. What I aspire to is being like the Ivy League genocide-studies scholar who wrote recently that he doesn’t use the term himself for the very reasons I elaborated above. And that, after 30 years of devoting his life’s work to the topic, he said about Gaza, “… but I know when I see it.” How painful and how morally courageous and intellectually honest is that?
Then I see someone like you make the statements you do here and I can’t help but compare how you come off to the likes of that scholar and yes, to JBA. And I can’t help but view you as a smug, probably pompous little b***ard who throws his intellectual prowess around on Comments sections of communities like this, and then slyly declares, “The responses of people for the most part give me a better impression of J Street than I expected to have; at least of the ordinary people who follow the group or support it in some way.”
Is that right, Dude? Ya don't say!
Or here’s another gem from your keyboard: “You are an ordinary person struggling with a complex issue.” Or how about the fabulous sentence you fashioned where you intoned, “Animus toward Jews was at most the ideological overlay of the Palestinian operations on Oct. 7th.” Such eloquence! Such gravitas! You must be used to winning arguments with such beautiful and hollow pronouncements! Operations…? Is that really the carefully-chosen best word to use to cloak the horrific brutality of what they did? Apparently, so you think. Oy vey, man!
And I won’t even begin to deconstruct the premise of your pronouncement, because… well… we’d be here for hours.
And then there’s your final sentence. You adopt a mournful tone, that of the hand-wringing innocent, the abandoned child, the average schmo who yearns for righteous leaders to show us the way. And who feels betrayed by JBA who, as such a leader, has let us down, right when we needed him most to “help us see around corners.” This, from the guy who informs us in the same breath that he had no difficulty seeing by October 2023 that this was a genocide!
At best, you reveal how disingenuous your engagement here really is. On its face, your punchy two-sentence reply is self-contradictory. In truth, what you’re doing is no more sophisticated than constructing a strawman caricature of JBA, easily knocked apart. You set him up to be a leader whose purpose and duty to his flock is to guide them in such determinations as whether Gaza constitutes genocide? You sketch him as the one we should rely on to not only lead us in organizing, in framing a broad stance, but to delve into such difficult, painful, and emotionally explosive topics as this?
Sorry, but this is not the role of JBA or any leader like him. He does not purport to be Martin Luther King. Your projection of that onto him is a rhetorical device intended to imbue your straw man with such exalted qualities, so we can see how far short he falls. How he has failed his flock.
I know, I know – you’re so very disappointed and upset. JBA wasn’t who you thought he was, who you needed him to be. Who we all relied on him to be.
Poor you. Poor us. JBA done us wrong.
I’m not buying what you’re peddling. Not for a nanosecond. You come across with your pompous words, your condescension cloaked as empathy. Then, when someone calls your bluff you purport to be a humble member of the flock whose spiritual leader has betrayed him? Really.
Even a poor country lawyer like me, ignorant and unstudied in the ways of sophisticates like you, can see through your charade.
And I haven’t even rolled up my sleeves and begun to deconstruct what you wrote in your original post. As I indicated earlier, I have much to say about it, too, my Dear Friend.
Buckle up. But leave your bullcrap rhetorical games behind. They won’t help you where we’re going next. Or, as my more nerdy friends like to say:
Your Jedi mind tricks won’t work here.
(1 of 2)
My dearest Ben,
If you “realized” it was a genocide by October 2023, that tells me a lot about your capacity for balanced, rigorous analysis and assessment. It tells me, first, that you are far too ready to slap the label “genocide” on a bloody conflict where civilian casualties are mounting rapidly. More on that in a moment.
Your use of the adjective “inchoate” also gives me some clues. You enjoy using language the sophistication of which is to the right of the bell curve’s maximum. < How was that one?> I, too, enjoy a well-turned phrase. But here’s what Merriam Webster (online) has to say about the term:
“Inchoate is a fancy word meaning ‘vague’ or ‘incoherent,’ as in ‘a badly formed intellectual argument with inchoate ideas.’ It can also mean ‘unfocused,’ as in ‘inchoate rage.’”
Leaving aside for the moment the inchoate nature of your arguments, I can’t help thinking, having read your postings, that your word choice is meant to not only showcase your superior intellect, but also to spice your prose with imprecise but colorful terms. See, if you wanted to have a real discussion where your intended meaning was crystal clear and that meaning was the one assigned by Webster’s, you wouldn’t select such a word here; you’d settle for “chaotic” or “unfocused” or “unorganized” or simply “poorly planned and undisciplined.” You certainly didn’t mean “vague” and you probably didn’t mean “incoherent.” Perhaps you meant “badly formed” but if so, there are plenty of plainer and more precise ways to express that about the first month of the Gaza war.
But perhaps what your mind conjured was killing with wild, undisciplined, indiscriminate brutality. Ya know, like what Hamas did on Oct 7th? And you came up with the phrase “inchoate rage” (since that’s the use case of the word that’s most common). And you shortened that to “inchoate” because, well… who knows? Because you didn’t want to come across with a naked accusation that IDF soldiers were slaughtering innocents in rageful vengeance? Because that would be too provocative for this forum? I dunno; I’m wildly speculating as to how your mind works and, since I don’t trust your good faith, I suspect unflattering motives. Like, perhaps you wanted to be INTENTIONALLY vague in your meaning, so as to give yourself lots of maneuvering room for plausible deniability of your real meaning? You tell me, Sir.
Anyway, this is one of a few telltale indications I’ve seen in your postings of who you are and how you regard both your own abilities and the world at large. Another was the passive-aggressive condescension that slipped into your back-and-forth with other posters here. I’m sure you can identify what I’m referring to, being the keen intellect that you are. You’re probably not accustomed to be called out on this, though, especially in such an arena as a Comments section.
BTW, are you getting a taste of what it’s like to be the target of ad hominem attacks? Perhaps not. But if so, maybe – just maybe - you might think twice about slinging mud at public figures against whom you’re holding some sort of grudge – as was clear from your original post with regard to JBA.
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I come at this issue from my background as a retired international lawyer with a sprinkling of familiarity in international humanitarian law (IHL). Because “genocide” has just one agreed definition, under the Genocide Convention, I think the question of whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza needs to be approached as a legal matter. Personally, I have not, and still do not, believe that publicly known evidence under the current legal standard shows that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza. The Convention requires that accused parties must have the “intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnic, racial or religious group as such” – i.e. to destroy all or part of the Palestinian population of Gaza because their members are Palestinian. And at least under its latest rulings I'm aware of, the ICJ requires that it would need to find “a pattern of conduct from which the only reasonable conclusion to be drawn is an intent on the part of . . . [its] authorities to destroy ‘in part’ the protected group” before it can make a finding of genocide.
I think it is at least reasonable to draw the conclusion that, as Israel has said all along, its war is only with Hamas (and its allies like Islamic Jihad), a group that perpetrated the most deadly attack on Israel in its history and vowed to continue such attacks until Israel is annihilated, and that Israel's intent is to stop its attacks in Gaza once Hamas relinquishes power and demilitarizes. This intended result is not compatible with an intent to destroy all or part of the Palestinian people of Gaza because they are Palestinian.
Other evidence supports that this is Israel’s intent. For example, as a December 2024 New York Times investigation found, and I’ve seen no evidence to contradict, Israel does legal reviews before each of its attack plans is executed, in order to assure that the attacks are necessary, lawful, and proportional to the target’s military value in the fight against Hamas, and that it will take all feasible precautions to protect civilian life. And while the current threat caused by Hamas to Israel has diminished very substantially, it continues as a deadly organized force to kill Israeli soldiers, still exerts control over much of the territory of Gaza that Israeli forces do not occupy at a particular time, and has neither surrendered nor moved at all from its aspirations to apply what it states is its legitimate right and duty to use armed resistance until (even according to its more moderate 2017 revised Charter) an Islamic state of Palestine is established from the river to the sea. I have yet to see any of the distinguished scholars who assert that Israel is committing genocide deal with the continuing threat of Hamas and the Israeli government's willingness to end its war against Hamas if it relinquishes power in Gaza, aside from dismissing Hamas as a still-potent force.
In contrast, Jeremy has argued in this Substack and last Wednesday’s podcast that based on legal and scholarly arguments, he has come to believe that international courts will find some day that Israel has the necessary intent to destroy the Palestinian people. While Jeremy doesn't lay out the details of the arguments that have persuaded him, the body of scholars he alludes to include Omer Bartov, Melanie O'Brien (president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars), and a strong majority even though not a unanimous body of global scholars on genocide and IHL. The most persuasive elements of their arguments to me revolve around the increasing likelihood that Gaza may already have been destroyed as a livable territory, and that the Israeli government has express and in-process plans to destroy Gaza's remaining civil infrastructure.
Jeremy's Substack caused me to do a deep but quick dive into the scholarly writings and the relevant facts, law, and jurisprudence, including consulting with some more knowledgeable colleagues on applicable IHL principles. The bottom line I come to is that both the “pro” and the “con” arguments have a good faith basis, and that neither side should have much confidence that its argument will prevail over the other at the ICJ. Instead, what screams out to me, as well as to our J Street leadership and numerous others, is that the far more important action item for those of us in this country who care about Israel and Palestine is to stop arguing about the “g word” and get to work in ending the war and feeding the people.
Given the plausible basis for either the affirmative or negative argument for the existence of genocide, the vilification of believers of one argument by the more extremist adherents of the other side is especially unwarranted. In my view, we have seen much too much of that, especially in my experience from those on the left who maintain that a genocide is ongoing.
Moreover, without even needing to get to the genocide question and thorny issues of intent, we see that international law provides for a wide assortment of serious war crimes and crimes against humanity very likely committed by both Israel as well as Hamas. The collective punishment of the civilian population through the deprivation of food, water, and other necessities of life and starvation as a method of warfare are examples of such serious crimes. Some people have argued that these acts do not amount to genocide because Israel is only using its blockades of aid as a tactic to get Hamas to surrender and occasionally allows aid in before mass starvation events have occurred. But there is no question that these tactics are prohibited under, e.g., the ICC's Rome Statute and the 1977 Protocol II to the Geneva Convention, regardless of whether there is an intent to destroy an entire group through them. The extreme loosening up of standards of civilian protection highlighted in the above-referenced New York Times investigation resulted in numerous other actions that would need to be individually investigated, but many of which are likely to involve the war crime or (if widespread) crime against humanity of unnecessary uses of force that cause death or destruction to civilian populations.
While some have argued that characterization of Israel's worst acts as genocide is needed to compel the world to act, many of the acts themselves are so horrific that they do not need that label to spur responsive action. Why not stop at pointing out the horrendous and almost certainly criminal infliction of massive suffering on people for no good purpose at this point that needs to be brought to an end, without expressing certainty about the most fraught but debatable accusation?
Shaul Magid wrote recently on his substack that the inter Jewish argument on whether it is a genocide can be compared to Nero playing the fidel as Rome burned. Why we all scrutinized all criticism of Israel if it's layered with antisemitism, the policy Israel is pursuing a policy that's destroying the Jewish state.
Agreed. Genocide—no; war crimes — yes.
EXCELLENT! Thank you.
Well written and powerful! Thank you for speaking out about this!
It’s self defeating to use the word “genocide.” That ignites a furious debate over the use of the word, with the dictionary and other sources (usually amorphous) cited in defense of both positions. The linguistic argument obscures the real horrors we are witnessing. The facts of Gaza are clear. The many innocent people(women and children) killed or injured. Starvation used as a military tool. Infants deprived of nourishment. Pitiously gaunt bodies reminiscent of the holocaust. An entire infrastructure of schools, hospitals and homes virtually destroyed. Population being squeezed into impossibly small areas. Bodies still buried under tons of rubble.
There will never be one appropriate word to describe this. The facts will speak for themselves.
Stephen - I couldn't agree more. The distinction between what is legally and analytically true and what makes for good messaging is the heart of the conundrum here. I cannot deny what is happening and where I think we've gotten to in terms of compliance with the international convention. At the same time, I recognize my deep pain and discomfort - and so many Jews' pain and discomfort - at using a term that has such particular and painful meaning to us and our families and our community. It's also an ineffective way to grow the movement to press for action to end this war with a hostage release and a surge in aid. I agree wholeheartedly with you, with Bernie Sanders and with so may others: what's important isn't winning a debating point over the word, it's building the political movement to stop this war. And I'm not convinced that using the word will grow the movement and have the impact we all desire.
Thank you. I am a Jew whose family fled Poland in the early 1900s because of pogroms and who believed exactly as you did in my formative years. I had friends whose parents were in Auschwitz. I believed in “never again,” and it pained me greatly when I had to break from Zionism when I finally learned the truth about Israel’s history. I have no problem calling this a genocide. It matches entirely the definition established is 1948 by the UN genocide convention.
First the Israelis have to get rid of the right wing fanatics, including Netanyahu, all of whom have made it very clear they are imposed to a Palestinian state. They are the main obstacle to peace, not the Palestinians in Gaza or the West Bank (where the IDF protects settlers as they conduct pogroms in Palestinian villages.
Please enlighten me on details and source of your "truth". More important, what would you do to restore Gaza and have a secure State of Israel?
Source for what part of my comment? The UN genocide convention? https://www.un.org/en/genocide-prevention/definition. The restoration of Gaza certainly cannot be accomplished without a permanent ceasefire and negotiations that address the national aspirations of the Palestinian people. And this is the ONLY way to have a secure state of Israel. What the Netanyahu regime is carrying out is guaranteed to produce ever-more iterations of Hamas like groups, as Palestinians lose hope that there is any peaceful way to resolve this. Israel will be unsafe as long as it continues on this path.
I've seen the UN convention. They focus almost exclusively on Israel vs Sudan, etc. and had little response to October 7th. Remember that the attack on Israel was by civilians and terrorists. Remember that they cheered and threw candy as the hostages were paraded through the streets including a young woman whose naked rear was displayed in a pickup truck. She was later killed. Where are the Gazans who want peace and are willing to sacrifice themselves - as Israeli's did since 1948, to achieve it? Where is the anti-Hamas protest movement? Where is there a push for a two-state solution from the Gazan side? Where is the recognition of Israel's right to exist? Where is there a government in exile waiting to come in and rebuild a free and democratic Gaza? As I see it, Israel - not the right-wing fanatics in power now - would be quite pleased to have a peaceful and cooperative neighbor. Again, to paraphrase Golda, how do you negotiate with someone who only wants to kill you?
What exactly does your “More important” part have to do with the reality on the ground that is genocide, which is precisely what you are responding to? What’s up with this obvious deflection? And doesn’t it actually prove the point that in the name of and under the pretence of the so called security, Israel wouldn’t even blink twice to commit to a genocide? I mean, what the hell are you even defending? Half of the elected representatives in the Knesset are openly supporting starving children to death. Get a grip already!
The word or words we choose to discuss the starvation of children in Gaza is not as crucially important as our joined concerted efforts to stop it. In the words of Omar Al Akkad in his book One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, “..it may seem now like it’s someone else’s children, but there is no such thing as someone else’s children.” May we join together to speak up on their behalf, and help make a world where all children may thrive.
Profoundly true. Such a moving book...
Thank you. I know this cannot be easy for any number of psychological and professional reasons. But not only is it a moral obligation, in practical terms it is also a way to protect Jews by reconnecting them to the human rights norms and legal infrastructure that came in the wake of the Holocaust. You are doing right both as a human being and as a Jewish human being.
A deeply moving, profound reckoning with the current behavior of a nation we have long loved and defended — but no longer can. Thank you.
You can defend a nation while simultaneously disagreeing/speaking out about what its government is doing. I do it all the time.
well written and helpful thank you
This is such an amazing statement. Thank you so very much from a United Methodist minister with both Jewish and Palestinian friends. In the future, I hope you will include the atrocities in the West Bank, most recently the shooting of Adwah, turned away a few weeks ago at SFO, sent home and shot in the last two weeks. Gaza is terrible, sickening to witness, but so is the settlement movement and violence in the West Bank. Rev. Dr. Judith Pruess-Mellow
On the contrary, Gaza is a just war that was started by Hamas and is continued by Hamas. The settlement movement in the West Bank is an atrocity, a crime against international law and all human decency.
"War" implies two sovereign states with standing armies. This is a nuclear-armed state besieging a stateless population under blockade.
Gaza was evacuated and sovereign from 2005 until 2007 when Hamas took over, murdered the PA, and started launching rockets at civilians. Any state would respond similarly. But if you know nothing of the history and get high off Jeremy Scahill all day I suspect your critical thinking skills have atrophied.
The real problem is the West Bank. When it comes to Gaza, Hamas chose to sacrifice its population on Oct 7.
Gaza was never sovereign, not in any meaningful legal or material sense. After the 2005 disengagement, Israel retained control over Gaza’s airspace, maritime borders, population registry, and goods movement. That’s not sovereignty; it’s remote occupation.
As for a terrorist group like Hamas, whatever one thinks of its tactics or legitimacy, Oct 7 didn’t begin history. It didn’t justify decades of blockade, or a military campaign that has killed tens of thousands, mostly civilians, half of them children. Framing this as Hamas "sacrificing" Gaza’s population lets a vastly more powerful state off the hook for choices it continues to make.
You mention the West Bank and of course you’re right: the settlement project is indefensible. But that doesn’t mean Gaza isn’t also a site of systemic violence. We can hold more than one fact at a time.
Nice job with ChatGPT (literally verbatim). But the fact remains it was not under blockade until Hamas violently executed the opposition, established a dictatorship, and vowed to destroy Israel (not the occupation of the WB, Israel itself). This followed on the heels of them torpedoing Oslo by such noble acts of resistance as suicide bombing a teenage nightclub, Passover Seders and Buses. So yeah, Israel did conduct a lawful blockade. I wish it hadn't payed them money for peace and destroyed them fully a decade ago with "systemic violence." BTW Joel Roazen, how did your family get to the US? If they had been left behind in Europe would you have preferred they die in the Holocaust or rot in the DP camps?
How my family got to the states is irrelevant. And there’s no ChatGPT – I’m a pro writer and scholar myself. Let’s end this here. You would rather deflect than argue and this is fast becoming a waste of words.
Gaza never had real sovereignty. Israel retained control over its airspace, borders, and population registry. That’s why the UN, ICRC, and legal scholars still consider it occupied.
The blockade, labeled “economic warfare” by Israeli officials, amounts to collective punishment – that’s a war crime under international law. Hamas’ atrocities don’t absolve Israel of its own legal and moral obligations.
And wishing Israel had “destroyed Hamas” a decade ago, knowing full well what that’s meant in practice for civilians, reveals a troubling disregard for Palestinian life and undermines any claim to principled concern.
If you look at the changes in Jewish population during the Holocaust, you can easily see that the Jewish population decreased precipitously throughout the years 1943- 1945. The same is true of any genocide where the attacked population decreases dramatically in time. In Gaza, however, the population is definitely increasing -- that is -- there have been more Gazans born than have been killed, and by a significant number. What we are witnessing is war, not genocide. The United States was not committing genocide on the Nazis in WWII, no matter how many were killed. Again, this is war, not genocide. Please allow yourself to m make the distinction. Thanks.
It is not appropriate to spread fascist hasbara when Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians, especially on Tisha B’Av.
But it's not genocide, David. I don't think it's a just war, but war nevertheless. I don't agree with the way Israel is conducting itself in Gaza, but we are not watching a genocide.
"War" implies two sovereign states with standing armies. This is a nuclear-armed state besieging a stateless population under blockade.
No, Eric. The U.N. and other international humanitarian organizations have clearly said the reason for the famine in Gaza is because ISRAEL is not allowing nearly enough food to enter Gaza. And it is deliberately shooting innocent Palestinian civilians at the food distribution sites in Gaza, another crime against humanity.
In fact, the NYT reported last Sunday that Netanyahu was lying about Hamas pilfering large amounts of food. And the Sunday before it ran a story about him prolonging the “war” for purely political reasons.
Without question, Hamas is an evil terrorist organization that must be completely dismantled, disarmed, defunded, and destroyed. But Israel murdering innocent Palestinian civilians and committing genocide against the Palestinians are the wrong ways to go about accomplishing that.
The overwhelming majority of the solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict is political and diplomatic, notwithstanding what the AIPAC genocide lobby says.
Howard,
Israel preventing food from entering Gaza, lying that Hamas is pilfering large amounts of it, making zero effort to protect Palestinian civilians when conducting air strikes, and IDF “soldiers” deliberately targeting Palestinian civilians is a textbook case of genocide.
The UN is refusing to let food enter Gaza, Hamas IS pilfering large amounts of food, and the only way to end this thing is for Hamas to surrender.
Great article that I agree with on many points though not all points. It is rare that I agree with any article on all points, though that does happen occasionally too. Although I choose to use the word “genocide” and other rather incendiary terms designed to provoke thought and reflection (knowing full well it will also provoke disgust and emotionally-charged reactions by some), I would agree that the Nazi Holocaust was something unique in its scope, magnitude, horror and immense human depravity. So while I think some situational, episodic comparisons to the Holocaust are indeed legitimate and valid, I also think that equating what is happening in Gaza to the Nazi Holocaust is factually incorrect and morally misguided since not all evils are equally evil. Some evils are worse than other evils (hence the geostrategic term of choosing a lesser of all evils) and the Nazi Holocaust is the worst or one of the worst of all evils whilst the genocide in Gaza is pretty evil but does not nearly rise the level of the Nazi Holocaust. That is an important point to remember. The question to ask is: Could it rise nearly to that level? I should certainly hope not but that is why we do our activism and speak out to help prevent it from rising to that level, as you well know. To your credit, you are using your platform to help compel others to follow your lead and speak out and activate and agitate against this policy. Kudos to you for that, Jeremy.
Also—-Editorial correction on paragraph #14 —-the word “fulling” should be changed to the word “fully.”
and thanks for catching the typo. Fixed in the post. Too late for the email.
It happens to us all. I always do my best editing after I press the send button-----LOL!!!
As I wrote in my post, real genocide - the elimination of a people - is occurring today in Sudan, Rwanda and other places around the world. I'd add that what the US has done in eliminating USAID qualifies as well. Where is the hue and cry? Also please remember that this is a war!
About US Aid, I very much disagree. Many people on the Left think that USAid does good and beneficiall things around the world and that may characterize its genesis much like the European Union was created to establish peace between European nations. But over the years, USAid, much like the European Union, has become captured by warmongering Imperialist elements like the CIA under the auspices of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) for USAid or from the Russophobia that now infects the European Union. The NED promotes U.S. Imperial hegemony more than genuine democracy. See the article by Patrick Lawrence below.
While I would also criticize other nations genocidal actions like in Rwanda or Sudan, I focus on Israel / Gaza because my U.S. tax dollars are used to fund that genocide/ethnic cleansing/forced displacement which makes me indirectly responsible for that war-criminal policy waged by the Apartheid-Oppressor State of Israel and because of my partial Jewish heritage, I feel also compelled to engage in activism that seeks justice, human equality and the pursuit of Tikkun Olam. I do what I do because I love the justice-pursuing aspects of Judaism that inspire me to make the world a better place by using my voice to criticize injustice to help compel justice, peace and truth. In that way, my voice and my actions are propelled by love of human equality and of justice and also by the disgust and hatred of injustice, warmongering and propaganda in service to power. Hatred of injustice is good hate because it is rooted in human equality because every person deserves to be treated with respect and dignity.
https://consortiumnews.com/2025/02/12/patrick-lawrence-musk-the-myth-of-usaid/
I also believe in Tikkun Olam. So how would you precipitate justice and peace?
Hi David,
I would follow Jeremy Ben-Ami's lead (and JVP's lead and IfNotNow's lead and others' lead too) by continuing to call for various community leaders and other secular leaders to keep speaking out for peace and justice. I would also continue to engage others and try to provide them with an array of varying perspectives and points of information so that people can accumulate facts, reflect on their relevance, analyze the data, synthesize the various insights and decide on their own, 1) what to believe and 2), what action to take toward furthering that objective-------with the caveat that people of different backgrounds and experiences may arrive at different conclusions and each person has the right to think about things differently and we should respect that independence of mind in others. We seek only to inform and not to dominate how others choose to think. Tolerance.
In terms of what specific policies to enact, that is much more difficult question for me to answer since I am a Data Analytics and Business Intelligence expert and not a public policy expert, so I will defer to the recommendations of experts on that topic. However, I tend to prefer the viewpoints and expertise of those who reside outside of government. This is because I think most of those who work for the machine (and this would include most members of corporate media too) and often corrupted by that machine since their careers often depend upon groupthink echo-chambers and informal conformity to particular narratives that often conflict with reality. This is why I tend to prefer experts outside of the establishment that can offer independent critical thinking, untainted analysis and sound policy recommendations in a way that is usually less corruptable by the State and its various minions and tentacles.
I'm so sorry.....speaking out for peace and justice is a Western cultural product and will continue to have no impact here. It sadly is intellectual sophistry. It didn't do much when Hitler rose to power or any of the other dictator/autocrats since. Those who are in power in the Middle Eastern world have a culture based on tribalism, power, patriarchy, transactional relationships, honor and revenge. Have you noticed that we're barreling in that direction in our own democracy? Untainted analysis is wonderful but useless if there are no means to effect change.
Hi David,
There is no need to say sorry or apologize as we are both equals here. I am sure you have knowledge to impart and I have much knowledge that I can impart to you as well. So we can learn from each other as equals.
I respectfully and highly disagree with the idea that speaking out for peace and justice will have no impact. But I do see your point so let me elaborate my view further. Pardon my long-windedness but many tangential thoughts often zip through my brain while I try organize my thoughts into writing. So let me use both my own experience and the experience of my observations ofJeremy Ben-Ami as two case-studies to illustrate my point.
Just after the events of October 7, it may surprise you to learn that both myself and Jeremy were both reluctant to use the word "genocide" to describe the events occuring in Gaza. Jeremy is still reluctant but for other reasons. (For now we shall leave aside the 20 year oppressive, murderous siege upon Gaza preceding October 7 that led to the blowback from that policy that manifested on October 7 and the Israeli victims of that day (remember, Palestinians are everyday victims of that policy whereas Israelis are occasional, periodic victims from the blowback of that oppressive Israeli policy and this is why it is difficult to see Israeli Jews as primary victims since they are also the victimizers visiting regular murder, oppression and hostage-taking upon the Palestinian people (which they term as arresting terrorists and subjugating them to indefinite-detention at several torture facilites or other detention facilities in Israel) conducted by way of IDF night-home raids and many other oppressive policies). Thank you to the Israeli group, Breaking the Silence, IDF veterans for their speaking out for peace and justice to help educate me about some of those policies. For now, we shall also leave aside the 80 years of oppression enforced upon the Palestinian people following the Nakba and the years of Jewish terrorism (and violent Palestinian resistance to it) from groups like the Irgun in the post-Balfour Declaration/pre-establishment of the State of Israel era, (which, as you know, created a safe-haven for Jews (a necessary evil given the events of the Holocaust) but which simultaneously created a system of displacement and ongoing oppression and murder upon Palestinians)), so leaving all of that aside for the moment, both Jeremy and I and many others refused to use the term "genocide." initially. I think this is because in the wake of the Holocaust, using that term loosely can both cheapen and diminish its weight and depth of meaning. So I resisted the trite use of that word initially. Using the weighty word of "genocide" much like the weaponization and politicization that false accusations of anti-Semitism against those who legitimately criticize the inhumane policies of Israel, serves to both cheapen and diminish the true ugliness of genuine anti-Semitism (which legitimate criticism of inhumane Israeli policy is not). So I did not originally feel comfortable with the term "genocide" either as I resisted the trite use of that weighty term.
Jeremy, we just got photos of our hostages looking emaciated and digging their own graves b/c Hamas thought that would make for good video material. Do you think that might be worth a mention in this meditation of yours?
Since your thesis is that you will no longer "defend the indefensible," can you please be more specific about the actions you are referring to as "indefensible"? Thx.
Jill - I do specifically reference to the starvation of hostages by Hamas and provide a link to the story. The horrific acts of Hamas must be condemned but don't provide a reason for us to be silent about what is happening to Gaza's civilian population. I run through Hamas's horrors in the post.
You very much buried the lede with that one.
Israel has killed over 60,000, starved an entire population, gunned down aid seekers, destroyed 70%+ of structures, decimated Gaza’s healthcare system to ensure people can’t recover, and openly talked about ethnic cleansing and resettling Gaza — but “liberal” Zionists still insist the lede should be two starving hostages.
Bibi doesn't seem to care about the hostages, I don't think waving the bloody shirt is helping things.
Did you read all of Jeremy’s post?
I listened to the conversation on Pod Save America that you referenced. The conversation about the term "genocide" was painful to listen to. I greatly appreciate your additional reflections on this. And, your willingness to participate in discussion like the one that you had with Medhi Hasan.
Thank you for your courage!