The international human rights community has been clear in its language. Yet even Bernie Sanders refuses to speak of a Gaza genocide.
Here is a partial list of the people and organizations that have concluded that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza: - B'Tselem (The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories) - Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) - Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor - International Federation for Human Rights - Physicians for Human Rights-Israel - American Friends Service Committee - UN human rights experts and the UN Special Committee on Palestinian rights These groups represent some of the most respected, experienced, knowledgeable, and dedicated defenders of human rights in the world. Their work is stellar. They know genocide when they see it. MSF, Amnesty, and the American Friends Service Committee have each won the Nobel Peace Prize. (For what that’s worth.) Other Nobel Peace Prize laureates have also condemned Israel’s actions as genocide. B’Tselem, Israel’s leading human rights organization, explains the grounds of its conclusion as follows: Statements by senior Israeli officials and actions on the ground prove beyond any doubt that, in Israel’s eyes, the entire population of the Gaza Strip is the target. Israel has been leading a systematic policy for almost two years, with clear and visible outcomes: entire cities erased, the healthcare system shattered, educational, religious and cultural institutions destroyed, more than 2 million people forcibly displaced, and masses killed and starved. All this and more, put together, constitutes a coordinated attack on all aspects of Palestinians’ life. It is a clear and explicit attempt to destroy Palestinian society in Gaza and create catastrophic living conditions that prevent the continued existence of this society in Gaza. That is precisely the definition of genocide. The documentation is voluminous. If you want a basic overview, the Wikipedia entry on the Gaza genocide is excellent. If you turn your nose up at Wikipedia as a source, Israeli historian Lee Mordechai’s excellent 230-page report released last year is a solid summary of the evidence. So are the books Deluge: Gaza and Israel from Crisis to Cataclysmand The Killing of Gaza, although none of these includes the horrifying famine now unfolding. The reasoning provided by B’Tselem is clear and inescapable. The destruction of Gaza is virtually total. It has not been directed solely at Hamas, but at civilian infrastructure in a way that renders the whole territory unlivable. Medical professionals and aid workers who have spent time in Gaza have produced endless harrowing testimonies on the targeting of civilians including children. (If you want more evidence of this, this magazine has produced plenty of writing and interviews documenting it over the last 18 months.) Given how open-and-shut the genocide case now is, how unanimous the human rights community is in its verdict, I was rather shocked and dismayed to see the de facto leader of the American left, Bernie Sanders, refusing to endorse the verdict of the above-listed organizations. Right-wing congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene had recently come out and used the term “genocide,” and CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked Sanders if he would do the same. Sanders’ response was mealy-mouthed and evasive: Genocide is a legal term. What is going on now clearly is absolutely horrific[…] But the important point is not what you call it—it is horror—the answer is what the hell do we do about it? Should the United States taxpayer, should your taxpayer dollars, go to support a government that is doing it? That is the most important issue. This answer doesn’t contain much of a clear explanation of Sanders’ refusal to endorse the term. When he says genocide is a “legal term,” presumably he means that if a term is “legal,” you shouldn’t use it unless it has been established by a court of law. It’s true that the International Court of Justice has not yet ruled on whether Israel has committed genocide, having only found that there is a plausible enough case for the court to rule on. But what about the human rights organizations listed above? They’re not courts. Does Sanders think they shouldn’t have weighed in on whether they’re seeing genocide? If he does think that’s inappropriate, he should say so, and explain why. If he doesn’t, then his argument that “genocide is a legal term” doesn’t hold up, because if a human rights organization can reach a conclusion, why can’t a United States senator? The bare minimum expected of a leader of the American left, and a democratic socialist, should be a willingness to say “I endorse the conclusion of mainstream human rights organizations.” Why wouldn’t Sanders be willing to do that? He says that it doesn’t really matter “what you call it,” because it’s horrific. But clearly it does matter to Sanders, because he is making a choice not to use the same language as the human rights organizations. Why is he making that choice? He has not explained. I do actually agree, to an extent, with Sanders’ point that the words we choose to describe something are less important than the actions we take in response. And I’ve even been a little frustrated about the level of discourse about the word genocide, as if what Israel is doing to Gaza would be okay if we could prove that Israel’s “intent” is pure and noble. One of the central points that Noam Chomsky and I make in The Myth of American Idealism is that “good intentions” mean very little. If Mao Zedong didn’t intend to cause mass starvation in China, do we not blame him for the deaths? The U.S. might not have “intended” to cause birth defects in Vietnam when it used chemical weapons, but it is still fully responsible for the consequences of its actions. The definition of genocide emphasizes what the purpose of an action is, and to the victims, the purpose doesn’t actually make much of a difference if the act is the same either way. If I fire a gun into a classroom, does it matter whether I am trying to hit children or chalkboards, if I end up killing children? Whether Israel is trying to eliminate Palestinians “as a national group,” or is trying to win its war against Hamas with overwhelming firepower and zero regard for “collateral damage,” the consequence for Gaza is still total destruction. So, yes, Sanders is right that the more important debate is about actions rather than language. But genocide is also the supreme crime against humanity, and it is so unanimously reviled that it makes a difference whether we use the term. For instance: there might be a debate over whether we should cut off weapons to a state that has “engaged in war crimes.” (How many? Are they aberrations or policy?) The Allied powers in World War II engaged in war crimes, and many Americans think war crimes can be justified in the service of a noble end. But there can be no debate over whether we should ever arm a state that has engaged in genocide. Genocide has no justification, no mitigation. If a state is committing it, all ties should be cut with that state. Actually, we can see the difference in Bernie Sanders’ own policy response to Israel’s crimes. He told CNN that “your taxpayer dollars” should not go to support a “horror.” This is true. Sanders, to his credit, has repeatedlyproposed a bill that would cut off a certain amount of weapons sales to Israel. Democratic opinion has so soured on Israel that Sanders’ bill attracted a record amount of Democratic support (27 senators, more than half the caucus.) But notably, Sanders’ bill only cuts off “offensive” weapons to Israel, leaving “defensive” weapons sales intact. We might think that it’s perfectly fine to sell “defensive” weapons. Israel’s “Iron Dome” system, which U.S. taxpayers help pay for, protects the country against incoming missiles, and protection against incoming missiles is surely a good and noble thing. But notably, we have not bought Hamas its own “iron dome.” Or Iran. Or Russia. This is because we do not support the causes for which they fight. We understand in these cases that to help the “defense” is to help the “offense.” If Russia is protected from Ukrainian missiles, it will fight Ukraine more effectively. Likewise, if Israel is protected from Hamas rocket fire, but Gaza is not protected from Israeli missiles, the balance of arms is tilted toward Israel, and they can pulverize Gaza without Hamas being able to inflict similar damage in response. If a state is committing genocide, the idea of giving it “defensive” arms would seem absurd. Would we think it okay to give Slobodan Milosevic, or Hutu militias during the Rwanda genocide, “defensive” arms? Of course not. Yet both Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez believe in supplying “defensive” arms to Israel. If we do accept the international human rights groups’ views that Israel is conducting genocide, it begins to seem absurd that we would give any arms to Israel. In fact, the debate we should be having is whether and when we will impose crippling sanctions and contemplate the solution we use against other small nations: forcible regime change. After all, Iran has not engaged in anything approaching outright genocide, and yet Iran’s crimes are considered so egregious that “all options are on the table” in dealing with them. Once you agree with the position of MSF and Amnesty, it is very hard to accept the Bernie/AOC view that Israel should receive some weapons. (AOC has called what is happening in Gaza a genocide but also defended the provision of “defensive” weapons. I’m not quite sure how she squares that.) I have been critical of Bernie Sanders here, but he has the among the best positions of anyone in the United States Senate on this issue, and at least made an attempt to cut off some weapons and has been critical of the unfolding crime against humanity in Gaza. Virtually everyone else in the U.S. Senate is much, much worse. The Republicans, of course, almost unanimously support Israel in whatever barbaric acts it commits. Some, like House member Randy Fine, seem to relish the sight of dying Palestinians. Many Democrats are either vocally pro-Israel or simply prefer to remain awkwardly silent. Although Elizabeth Warren, to her credit, said over a year ago she thought Israel’s actions would legally amount to genocide. But every politician should have to answer directly: Do you accept the human rights organizations’ verdict or not? In an attempt to get them on the record, I have emailed the press office of every U.S. senator, and asked them directly a few basic questions: I will update this article with any responses I receive. So far: mostly crickets, including from Senator Sanders. I have had only one reply, from Nevada Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto, who said: “Israel is our ally, and we should continue to support them. At the same time, there needs to be more humanitarian aid reaching Palestinians and the threat of starvation must end. I’ve urged Trump to resume diplomatic efforts to secure a large-scale expansion of aid, bring the hostages home, and end the war. They also need to pursue a real two-state solution where Gaza is governed by Palestinians, not Hamas terrorist.” Note that this is a complete evasion of the questions that were actually asked, which were about whether the senator accepts the human rights community's finding of genocide and whether the senator believes any arms support to a genocidal country is acceptable. These questions are not addressed in any way by the above paragraph, making it worthless. If you’d like to send your own representative or senator a version of this letter, you can find one here. It is important not to let them evade this. They should be forced to go on record. Are they denying the genocide? Or do they admit it, but not want to do anything about it? I suspect that a lot of our politicians are much more like Randy Fine than they would like people to know. They preach compassion, and would never cheer on starvation, but at the end of the day, they will deny what is obvious to the international human rights community, and will do absolutely nothing to try to stop this unfolding crime against humanity. 
