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October 18, 2026
Key Developments and What We're Discussing Today:
- We cannot effectively advocate for Israel if we do not understand what the term "genocide" means and how it is used.
- I am not suggesting that Israel committed genocide.
- I am suggesting that we do ourselves no favors when we deny accusations of genocide based on a misunderstanding of what that term means. Reasonable people whose opinions we should respect have concluded that it is likely that Israel was engaged in genocide. A substantial portion of the Jewish American community thinks that Israel has committed genocide. That does not mean they are right; it does mean we cannot cavalierly dismiss their concerns.
- For many of us, including me, entertaining the possibility that Israel committed genocide is emotionally devastating. Public officials need to understand that the term "genocide" is a loaded, emotionally charged term. At the same time, if someone sincerely believes that Israel is committing genocide, we cannot expect them to remain silent in the face of what they see as injustice.
- Federal agents raided Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) Washington-area home last week, 22 days before the election. We cannot condone authoritarianism even when it is directed at people with whom we may disagree, even strongly disagree, on some issues. It's happened to us before and it could happen to us again.
- Apparently, CNN does not know how to read polls, and neither does anyone who breathlessly shared its inaccurate and misleading reports that Jewish Democrats in New York are turning away from the Democratic Party.
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Friends,
Let me start by explaining what I am not saying in today's newsletter. I am not saying that Israel committed genocide. I don't know if Israel committed genocide. By the time you are finished reading this newsletter, you probably won't know either, even if, like me, you desperately want it not to be true.
We need to understand why reasonable people could conclude that Israel is committing genocide and why we in the pro-Israel community do ourselves no favors by advancing arguments that do not make sense and by accusing those who think Israel is committing genocide of antisemitism or bad faith.
The worst genocide in history occurred during World War II, when more than 6 million Jews were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, "approximately 9.5 million Jews lived in Europe in 1933, the year Hitler came to power. This number represented...more than 60 percent of the world's Jewish population. By 1945, most European Jews—2 out of every 3—had been killed."
Accusing Israel of committing genocide is an emotionally charged accusation because it is accusing Jews of doing to others what others did to Jews and leads to the conclusion that others need protection from us.
However, it is not a valid defense to an accusation to respond by saying that the accusation, if true, would be emotionally devastating. Those who accuse Israel of genocide to undermine its legitimacy are wrong to do so. But those who accuse Israel of genocide because they believe it is committing genocide cannot be expected to withdraw the accusation because defenders of Israel would be upset or because defenders of Israel do not like the implications of the accusation. No one likes to be accused of genocide.
Since we do not know what is in anyone's heart, it is incumbent upon us to respond to accusations of genocide on the merits and not attempt to dismiss the allegations by claiming that they are antisemitic or offensive. To do that, we need to understand what the term "genocide" means.
What does "genocide" mean? For some, "genocide" is synonymous with the Holocaust (in which case nothing else is genocide) or it means killing or attempting to kill everyone, in which case what Israel did in Gaza is not genocide.
For others, "genocide" seems to mean causing widespread death and suffering, especially if its legitimate military necessity is unclear. To those people, what happened in Gaza might be genocide.
We are going to focus on the legal definition of genocide: Certain acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. The acts that constitute genocide fall into five categories: Killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction, in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Under the legal definition, it is not enough to prove the acts that constitute genocide. Intent to commit those acts must be proven.
The legal definition provides no defense based on who attacked who first. The definition of genocide does not have an exception for individuals or countries whose actions meet the definition of genocide but claim they were defending themselves, even against genocidal enemies.
The legal definition has no numerical or percentage threshold. What matters is that the acts were intended to destroy, in whole or part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. Success is not required. Neither is killing.
That is why defending Israel against charges of genocide by pointing out that Israel did not kill everyone or nearly everyone in Gaza is no defense at all. The idea is to stop genocide before it succeeds, not wait until after it is over to declare it a genocide.
The AI-generated man in this image has a very serious expression, but the only thing his sign proves is that he has not read the legal definition of genocide.
Conversely, mass killing, even if not in self-defense, is not necessarily genocide. War crimes are not necessarily genocide.
A substantial portion of the Jewish American community believes that Israel is guilty of genocide. Based on the legal definition, a methodologically sound poll found that 39% of Jewish Americans (including 52% of Jewish Democrats) think Israel is guilty of genocide, 10% don't know, and 51% think Israel is not guilty of genocide.
The point is not that they are right or that they are wrong. The point is that it is absurd to accuse someone of antisemitism or of hating Israel because they accuse Israel of doing something that a substantial portion of Jewish Americans think that Israel has done.
Did Israel commit genocide? Based on the legal definition, scholars such as Omer Bartov think Israel is committing genocide. Other scholars disagree. Whether you agree or disagree with Bartov, you can see why charges of genocide against Israel cannot be dismissed as easily as some might like.
It is a complex question that some of us try to reduce to a simple question and a simple definition, instead of the legal definition, which leads to the answer we want in our hearts to be true. Unfortunately, sometimes our hearts lead us astray.
An expert in the field told me privately regarding Israel and Gaza that "Evidence of genocidal intent is overwhelming; the question is whether the conduct flowed from that intent. [His] view is that there is no question that there are Israeli officers and soldiers who could be successfully prosecuted for genocide. Their words and deeds are closely linked. The question of whether the State of Israel as such is responsible for genocide is more complicated."
Jay Michaelson writes that despite evidence that Israel may have committed genocide under the legal definition, "it is still an open question, one that should be settled in courts of law." That's why, had I been asked, I would've been in the 10% of Jewish Americans who said that they did not know whether Israel was committing genocide.
Michaelson concludes that "the left was wrong to make the word 'genocide' into a yes/no test of one’s political acceptability, and these would-be defenders of Israel are wrong to make it a test of whether one is an antisemite."
To better understand the complexity of whether the legal definition of genocide applies to Israel's actions in Gaza, read Ezra Klein's interview with Phillipe Sands, a lawyer who specializes in genocide cases, has tried genocide cases, and who teaches on these questions at Harvard Law School and University College London. I'll be surprised if you have a question that Klein did not ask, and he probably asks some questions you wish you'd thought to ask.
The International Court of Justice did not find that Israel committed genocide in Gaza. That determination has yet to be made. The ICJ concluded that some of the acts complained about, if proven, could fall under the United Nations’ Convention on Genocide. This article explains the confusion about the term "plausible" as used in that decision.
What about allegations of genocide against Israel that pre-date October 7? Read documentation of Israeli actions against Palestinians in 1948, which contradict what some of us were taught to believe about "whether close to 800,000 Arabs fled at their own initiative and at the directive of their leaders – or were expelled." (tl;dr: What we were taught was wrong--but whether Israel's actions constituted genocide is another question.) Read about what happened in 1967 too.
These revelations from Israeli sources might come as news to you. They do not come as news to the Palestinians who experienced them or their supporters in the United States.
None of this delegitimizes Israel. The problem is that we act as if it does, and that drives some of us to dismiss allegations of genocide as a lie, dangerous propaganda, blood libel, or antisemitism, assuming the conclusion that we want to reach. That might make us feel better. It will not persuade anyone.
Shaul Magid explains that even if one disagrees that Israel committed genocide, claiming that genocide accusations against Israel are a blood libel is irresponsible, and to then "answer the accusation of genocide by claiming that it is only Hamas that is guilty of genocide stretches all this to absurd incredulity, even given the obvious fact that Hamas is a brutal terrorist organization."
The Nexus Project points out that "even if the claim that Israel is engaging in genocide proves to be false, or imprecise, or reductionist, that does not necessarily mean that the claim is antisemitic. The question of whether the charge is accurate and the question of whether it is antisemitic are two separate questions."
If Israel is guilty of genocide--and we do not know if it is--the people responsible for the genocide are the ones who will and should be punished. The State of Israel is not the same as any given government.
Germany did far worse during World War II than anything Israel is accused of doing in Gaza, but Germany's legitimacy as a state was never called into question. Rather, those responsible for Germany's actions were, to the extent possible, held accountable.
That is why it is important for us to distinguish the government of Israel from the people of Israel and the State of Israel, and not treat criticism of the government of Israel as antisemitism or an attempt to delegitimize the State of Israel unless the content or context of such criticism indicates otherwise.
Accusations of genocide are serious accusations. We should treat them seriously instead of simply wishing them away.
We should oppose Trump's political persecution of Rep. Ilhan Omar D-MN). Federal agents raided Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) Washington-area home last week, 22 days before the election. Homeland Security Investigations, the investigative arm of ICE, carried out the search pursuant to a warrant obtained by the DOJ, ostensibly regarding her immigration to the U.S. as a teenager. A 2019 Trump administration investigation of Omar’s immigration records looked at many of the same issues being investigated now and did not find any citizenship issues.
We cannot condone authoritarianism even when it is directed at people with whom we may disagree, even strongly disagree, on some issues. Who is to say who could be next? In the famous quote from Martin Niemöller, they did not come for the Jews first. First they came for other people. No one else, including presumably the Jews, spoke out. It was only then that they came for the Jews, and when they eventually came for the protagonist in the quote, no one was left to speak for him. We forget that lesson at our peril.
The Minnesota DFL Jewish Caucus is standing with Omar, as all of us should, in her fight against government persecution. As Tommy Vietor said, "DHS raiding a member of Congress's home to search for immigration paperwork filled out decades ago by her now-deceased father really checks all the fascist police state boxes." "Whatever you think of Ilhan Omar," writes Emily Tamkin, "these threats are unconscionable."
Michele Goldberg writes, "This is more than just another persecution of one of Trump’s political enemies. Rather, his government is tacitly declaring the citizenship of all foreign-born people provisional, their Americanness something that can be revoked." Goldberg quotes Hannah Arendt: 'Mass cancellation of naturalizations, such as the one introduced by Nazi Germany in 1933 against all naturalized Germans of Jewish origin, usually preceded denationalization of citizens by birth in similar categories.' If there’s one lesson of the last decade, it’s never believe it can’t happen here."
Norm Eisen filed a Hatch Act complaint over the outrageous raid on Omar's home.
Does anyone know how to read a poll? Too many people are functionally illiterate when it comes to reading and understanding polls, including much of the media. Last week, CNN misreported and misrepresented the results of a Siena poll, claiming that it showed a large drop in Jewish support for Democrats in New York.
If CNN had understood the crosstabs or if anyone sharing the CNN story had bothered to check for themselves, they would see that at most, only 69 Jews were included in the poll. That is hardly enough from which to draw any conclusions, and since this was not a poll designed to survey Jewish voters, it does not appear that Siena made any effort to get a representative sample by denomination of the Jewish voters that responded, let alone ask the proper screening questions to help determine whether respondents were Jewish.
The poll was a poll of the general population that just happened to pick up a small number of Jews. It is no wonder that Siena, which is a reputable polling organization, did not even mention the Jewish vote in its own press release on its own poll.
If you want a good explainer on how to read polls that purport to survey the Jewish vote, read this from yours truly.
In Case You Missed It:
Social Media of the Week. Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL), Covie, and another from Covie.
Threads of the Week. Rep. Sean Casten (D-IL) and Jordan Acker.
Facebook Posts of the Week. Elissa Wald and Drew Westen.
Video Clip of the Week. Yohay Sponder.
New Music Clip of the Week. Jesse Welles--Death By Firing Squad (Trump appears to have canceled the live stream of the execution, but it will still be by firing squad).
Vintage Music Clip of the Week. Cream's Falstaff Beer jingle.
The Fine Print. Read the fine print before you reply or send me anything.
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