A genocide by any other name
Photos from National Demonstration for Palestine on June 21, 2025. icahd.org
Narrated by Ted Miller
It has been two years since Hamas terrorists crossed into Israel from Gaza, killed 1200 innocent people, and kidnapped 250 hostages. Those acts clearly meet the definition of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and those responsible should be held accountable. As an act of war, Israel has a right to defend itself from the attacks of October 7, 2023.
But from the beginning, Israel’s response has been exceedingly disproportionate, inflicting death, violence, and destruction on the entire population of the 2.2 million Palestinians in Gaza. More than 65,000 people have been killed — more than 18,000 of them children — and two-thirds of those children killed were under the age of 12. At least 164,000 people have been wounded. With thousands of bodies still under the rubble of destroyed buildings, the actual numbers are likely much higher.
The conditions in Gaza are intolerable. After two years of bombing and bulldozing, 92% of housing units and 70% of all structures have been destroyed. With the nearly complete siege preventing food, water, medicine, and energy from entering Gaza, thousands more are on the brink of death. Famine is occurring. Hundreds have died of starvation.
At the end of the second world war, in response to the horrors of the holocaust, the word ‘genocide’ was coined as a way to ensure those horrors would never happen again.
“NEVER AGAIN.”
And yet genocide continues all over the world, in places like Sudan, Ethiopia, China, and Gaza.
Violence against the people of Gaza consists of war crimes and crimes against humanity. And although the United States and Israel refuse to acknowledge it, those crimes are genocide.
For two years, pundits and politicians have been arguing about whether Israel is legally committing genocide, as if arguing about whether the legal definition has been met somehow makes a difference to those who are suffering. Is the devastation somehow more acceptable if we don’t call it genocide? If the entire population of Gaza is being killed, injured, starved, or displaced, but we don’t call it genocide, does that somehow justify the violence?
On August 31, the International Association of Genocide Scholars issued a resolution that concluded:
“Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide in Article II of the United Nations Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948).”
On September 16, the United Nations Human Rights Commission made a declaration:
“It is clear that there is an intent to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza through acts that meet the criteria set forth in the Genocide Convention.”
There is no longer any question about whether this is genocide.
The crimes against humanity in Gaza are not self-defense. They are disproportionate violence and genocidal war crimes against the Palestinian people.
The United States has a moral and legal obligation to do all in its power to stop the war and help the victims of this atrocity. Our government can start by acknowledging the violence perpetrated with offensive weapons provided by the United States. We can immediately stop providing the billions of dollars Israel is using to perpetrate this abhorrent violence against Palestinians. And we can join the majority of other nations calling for an immediate ceasefire and a release of the hostages being held by Hamas.
Yes, Hamas must be held accountable. The hostages must be released. But the government of Israel must also be held accountable for genocide.
And let me be clear: It is the Israeli government — not Israeli civilians or the Jewish people — that must be held accountable. It is not antisemitic to call for an end to violence against Palestinians. The Jewish people are no more responsible for the genocide being committed by the State of Israel than Palestinian people are for the terrorist acts of Hamas.
Palestinians deserve to live in peace just like every other human being. To deny their humanity through this continued violence is a denial of our own humanity.
“Never again” should mean never again for anyone.
Ted Miller grew up around the world but now lives in Richland with his wife. He’s a runner, actor, singer, nuclear engineer, and graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy.
Ted believes that if more people worked toward love and understanding instead of giving in to fear and divisiveness, the world would be a better place.
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Editor’s note:
Read “Never Again Means Never Again For Anyone” by Jewish anthropologist Maura Finkelstein: allegralaboratory.net/never-again-means-never-again-for-anyone
Also, check out Jewish Voice for Peace: jewishvoiceforpeace.org and If Not Now: ifnotnowmovement.org