Campus protesters, members of the Congressional “Squad”, Marxists, progressives and certain news outlets allege that Israel is committing genocide of Palestinian people in Gaza. This is a misunderstanding of what constitutes genocide.
Encyclopedia Britannica defines genocide as the deliberate and systematic destruction of a of people because of their ethnicity, nationality, religion, or race. While the term was first used during World War II to describe the Nazi ‘final solution’, there have been numerous instances of genocide throughout history.
There is no question that Jews and other people deemed ‘less than’ by the Third Reich were victims of genocide.
Regrettably, Palestinians and other residents in Gaza are collateral damage in Israel’s efforts to justifiably eradicate Hamas, a terrorist organization that vows to destroy Israel and the Jewish people. The attacks by Hamas on October 7, 2023 constituted an act of war just as heinous as the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the USA in 2001 and the January 7, 2015 attacks at Charlie Hebdo and the November 13, 2015 attacks by ISIL at the Batavian Theatre in Paris. Retaliation against terrorists that murder innocent civilians and use other civilians as human shields are responsible for the collateral damage. These victims are casualties of war, not victims of genocide.
British civilians were victims of bombings, Norwegian merchant marines were torpedoed, Dresden residents were killed, the Lusitania was attacked, residents of the Balkans were murdered, opponents of Franco and Il Duce were purged, and the Romans enslaved their captives. These casualties were not victims of genocide anymore than the casualties in Gaza.
Words matter. Much as I am not a fan of Joe Biden, he certainly has not earned the moniker Genocide Joe. That is actually defamatory.
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