{"id":11903,"date":"2024-03-05T17:00:12","date_gmt":"2024-03-05T17:00:12","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","slug":"My-Turn-Examining-the-use-of-genocide-label-in-Gaza-54240173\/","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/?p=11903","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: The charge of genocide in Gaza"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Smoke<\/a>
Smoke and explosion following Israeli bombardment inside the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, Sunday, Feb. 11.<\/figcaption><\/figure>

\n Bob Sanders, a retired reporter, is a new member of Vermont\/New Hampshire chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace. Contact him at bob.gns@gmail.com. <\/em> <\/p>\n

Genocide. It\u2019s the worst violent act you can commit, to wipe an ethnic group by killing its people. It is also an emotionally charged term, particularly to us Jews who were arguably its greatest victims during the Holocaust. How dare anyone charge Jews, of all people, of committing such a despicable act? <\/p>\n

When I heard that word to describe Israel\u2019s destruction of Gaza, I recoiled. Like every Jew, I was brought up learning about the monstrous crime of the Nazis. I too thought, and still think, \u201cNever again,\u201d not to Jews, not to anybody.<\/p>\n

Yes, Israel in its massive overreaction to the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, is engaging in the wholesale desolation of Gaza, disregarding civilian life, destroying its hospitals, bombing fleeing refugees, and blocking humanitarian aid.<\/p>\n

But how could you compare this excess brutality to the killing of six million and the gas chambers? <\/p>\n

What Israel was engaged in was war crimes, perhaps, not genocide. That\u2019s going too far.<\/p>\n

And yet, when I saw the United Nation definition, the definition that Israel is being charged with by South Africa under international law, I had to reconsider.<\/p>\n

\u201cA crime committed with the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, in whole or in part.\u201d <\/p>\n

Look at what Israel is doing, not what it is saying.<\/p>\n

Hamas and other groups might want to destroy Israel from the \u201cRiver to the Sea\u201d but Israel is actually doing that to Gaza. It is not just the 30,000 (and counting) killed directly (more than 25 times those killed in the Hamas attack). It is the intentional destruction of infrastructure, health care, utilities, communications, that could cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands. It is not war against Hamas, but the Gaza people who happen to be living under Hamas, and had not voted for that group in nearly a decade.<\/p>\n

My first reaction is that what Israel is doing is ethnic cleansing. Israel obviously didn\u2019t care whether Palestinians lived and died, it just wanted them out of the way, and if they didn\u2019t flee fast enough, too bad for them. Settlers are already eyeing the territory.<\/p>\n

But Israel doesn\u2019t let the Palestinians go, and even if they did, no country is stepping up to take them. These people are trapped, relatively defenseless. Israel hasn\u2019t put people in concentration camps. It has turned the entire Gaza Strip into a concentration camp. This isn\u2019t so much a war as a massacre. Sure, it doesn\u2019t seem like they are aiming to kill every last Palestinian, but you remember the last words of the UN definition: in whole or in part. Israel is killing those living in Gaza in part, a substantial part.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t know Israel\u2019s real intent. The Nazis kept the final solution a secret. It was only later that we knew they really were trying to wipe out all of the Jews. But we do have statements from top officials, that certainly lend credibility to the charge of genocide.<\/p>\n

\n Deputy Speaker of the Knesset<\/a> Nissim Vaturi: \u201cNow we all have one common goal \u2014 erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth.\u201d <\/p>\n

Oct. 9, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant: \u201cNo electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly\u2026Gaza won\u2019t return to what it was before. We will eliminate everything.\u201d <\/p>\n

Oct. 17, Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir: \u201cThe only thing that needs to enter Gaza are hundreds of tons of explosives from the Air Force, not an ounce of humanitarian aid.\u201d <\/p>\n

Is it genocide? I\u2019m still not sure. Certainly, it\u2019s not on the scale of the Holocaust. But whether it is or not, it\u2019s definitely bad enough. As Jews we can not allow this to happen in our name, and as U.S. citizens we cannot allow our tax dollars to be used for this.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a mystery to me that the U.S. needs to send arms to Israel, when it could make its own. It is the only country in the Middle East with nuclear weapons for God\u2019s sake. Unlike Ukraine, Israel is currently waging war against a people, a group of terrorists at most, not a nuclear superpower.<\/p>\n

We must speak out for a cease fire, humanitarian aid, and the end of military support for Israel. We must do it now, not just for the sake of the Palestinians, but for ourselves, to live with ourselves. Because how, as Jews, can we remain silent?<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bob Sanders, a retired reporter, is a new member of Vermont\/New Hampshire chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace. Contact him at bob.gns@gmail.com. Genocide. It\u2019s the worst violent act you can commit, to wipe an ethnic group by killing its people. It is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":75,"featured_media":11904,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","_newspack_byline_active":false,"_newspack_byline":"","newspack_content_restriction_is_exempt":false,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,510],"tags":[263,505],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[700],"class_list":["post-11903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-opening","tag-opinion","tag-paywall","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/43079271-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/75"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11903"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11903\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11905,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11903\/revisions\/11905"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11903"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fnewspack_spnsrs_tax&post=11903"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=11903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}