Genocide Shmenocide

A political earthquake hit America recently when 104 members of Congress (including 103 Democrats) voted to defund Israel of military and economic aid. It is stunning that they are prepared to abandon one of America’s closest allies in the middle of a conflict where the United States has many shared military and intelligence efforts against an enemy hellbent on destroying both countries. But it goes much deeper than that. They are accusing Israel of a crime of historical proportions.

The current attack is that Israel is guilty of the same kind of crime against humanity that was previously committed against the Jewish people.

The Holocaust is regarded as the worst crime against humanity in history. Generically speaking it was a “genocide.” The word was coined in 1944 by a Polish Jew, Raphael Lemkin. It combines the Greek word “genos” meaning race, tribe or nation, with a Latin suffix, “cide,” meaning to kill. The 6 million Jews murdered during World War II is the largest by number, but not the only attempt to wipe out a group of people. The Armenian Genocide during WWI resulted in the deaths of 1.3-1.5 million by the Ottoman Empire. The Rwandan Genocide in 1994 had between 500,000 and one million Tutsis murdered by the Hutu.

Accusers ignorantly banter around the word “genocide” against Israel. Of the Congress members who voted to defund Israel, 28 of the 104 have charged the Israelis with the crime of genocide. Congresswoman Katherine Clark (D-Mass.), the second-ranking leader in their caucus, withdrew her statement that Israel was guilty of a genocide. However, she did say, “We should not provide a blank check for military aid to any country that does not comply with U.S. law, interests and values.” But she did not cite any American laws Israel has broken or the interests with which they don’t comply.

The victims of the three 20th-century genocides were murdered en masse in attempts to eradicate their entire populations.

Since Gaza was abandoned in 2005 by Israel, the Palestinian population tally tells a completely different story. Gaza had a population at that time of between 1.3 and 1.4 million people. In 2025, the population had grown by 50% to 2.1 million. If the Israelis were hellbent on committing genocide in Gaza, it’s one of the most epic failures in military history.

Similar story in the West Bank. In 2005, the West Bank had a population of 2.4 million Palestinians. By 2025, it had grown to 3.43 million.

Brad Lander, a Jew who defeated incumbent Dan Goldman to assure his election to Congress from New York, has stated he believes Israel is conducting a genocide. Maybe he was following the J Street leader who stated that “international courts will one day find that Israel has broken the international genocide convention.”

Or Lander could be channeling the eight Jews who voted to defund Israel. But as bad as the action was by these members of Congress, it pales in comparison to the people accusing Israel of a genocide.

Accusing a group of people who were the victims of the most heinous genocide in history of then committing the same crime is a total perversion of history and anyone subscribing to this thinking is devoid of knowledge of facts on the ground.

Bruce L. Bialosky is a former presidential appointee to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council.