I’m sure State Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) felt he was being courageous when he announced last Sunday that Israel committed a “genocide” in Gaza.
A few days earlier, Wiener, who is running for Nancy Pelosi’s congressional seat, had declined to make that accusation during the first candidates forum, drawing heavy jeers from the audience who shouted, “Shame on you,” “Sellout,” and “Free Palestine.”
On Sunday, he changed course.
“We all have eyes, and we see the absolute devastation and catastrophic death toll in Gaza,” Wiener said in a 90-second clip posted on X. “The Israeli government has tried to destroy Gaza and to push Palestinians out and that qualifies as genocide.”
Wiener, who is Jewish and is co-chair of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus, is not one of those antizionist Jews who will bash Israel any chance they get.
In fact, in a joint statement expressing their “deep disappointment” with Wiener, a group of mainstream Jewish organizations recognized “that Senator Wiener has been a strong supporter of the Jewish community throughout the Israel-Hamas war and his many years of public service, and that he has directly experienced antisemitic attacks simply for being Jewish.”
Which is precisely the problem. Wiener has a certain street cred as an Israel supporter. For him to jump on the libelous “genocide” bandwagon is serious business. It can harm the very Jews he represents as co-chair of the Jewish Caucus.
But even if we give Wiener the benefit of the doubt that he didn’t do this for political reasons and really means it, at least he could have done his homework.
In a few minutes, Wiener would have landed on one of the most succinct and compelling arguments explaining why he is grossly mistaken.
He would have seen, for example, the American Jewish Committee’s “5 Reasons Why the Events in Gaza Are Not ‘Genocide.’”
“Genocide means targeting members of a group because of their group identity and not something they are individually thought to have done,” the report explains. “Israel’s war is against Hamas: Israel is not seeking to destroy the Palestinian people or the Palestinian population of Gaza, which is what would need to happen in order to correctly apply the term ‘genocide.’”
Among other reasons: “Israel is responding to a genocidal attack by Hamas. Since Oct. 7, Israel’s objective in Gaza has been to destroy Hamas, a terrorist organization that carried out an unprecedented and brutal massacre against its people, including infants, children, elderly and disabled people.”
Also, “Israel’s actions reflect its desire to spare Palestinian civilians from harm, not to deliberately harm them.”
It is this point that Wiener should have paid very close attention to: “Hamas’ actions are designed to cause harm to Palestinian civilians and blame Israel.”
In other words, if anything close to a genocide of Palestinians happened in Gaza, it is the Hamas cowards who hid behind their own civilians who are most responsible.
If anything close to a genocide of Palestinians happened in Gaza, it is the Hamas cowards who hid behind their own civilians who are most responsible.
In a statement, Rabbi Abe Cooper of The Simon Wiesenthal Center urged Wiener to “immediately retract his false endorsement of the claim that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza; it is a big lie that demonizes the Jewish state and endangers Jews everywhere.”
Ironically, Wiener hasn’t only hurt his people with his dangerous accusation– he also threw the Palestinians under the bus.
As a peace lover who cares about the plight of the Palestinians, Wiener should know that the biggest enemies of the Palestinians are their own corrupt leaders who have marinated them in Jew-hatred for decades, who have glorified terrorists, and who have fattened their own bank accounts while their people live in misery.
There is zero courage in Wiener’s statement. A courageous statement would have shown boldness and moral clarity: By sending Palestinians to their deaths in a defensive war that Hamas started, Wiener could have said, Hamas deserves the condemnation of peace lovers and truth lovers everywhere – including from his political rivals in the Congressional race.
