ATHENS-Jeff Potter's column argues that because some United Nations officials and nongovernmental organizations argue Israel's conduct in Gaza is genocide, it is "unrealistic to pretend otherwise." That framing misleads by inflating the credibility of those sources and emptying the word of its legal and moral definition.
Genocide is not a synonym for war, destruction, or mass suffering. The 1948 Genocide Convention defines it as acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. A large death toll, tragic as it is, does not by itself prove genocide. Nor does devastation caused by military operations against an enemy entrenched in civilian areas.
For genocide, there must be evidence of a policy to annihilate a people. No such evidence exists here. On the contrary, there is official policy to minimize civilian harm. To wield the term now is perverse.
The descendants of the victims of a genocide, the event for which the term was coined, are now falsely accused of committing one. That inversion is not truth or solidarity with Palestinians and repeating it a million times will not make it so. But it will ensure when the next real genocide arises, the response will be weaker. Activists endanger future victims who will find a world less willing to act. No one has been helped by this.
Potter places great weight on the United Nations. But the UN's credibility is demonstrably compromised when it comes to Israel, devoting more resolutions to condemning Israel than all other nations combined. Iran, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria, to name a few, receive far fewer censures. Israel bashing is a permanent fixture on the assembly floor, while regimes guilty of actual violations of human rights receive barely a notice. That imbalance reveals selective concern and political obsession. Ditto for many NGOs. There isn't enough space on these pages to detail the incessant, provable pattern of worldwide bias against Israel, otherwise known as antisemitism. To cite these bodies as if they were neutral arbiters of truth is to ignore this.
Jews are afforded no such luxury.
We are terrified and aghast at the charges leveled against us so callously, so ignorantly, and with such fervor in the days after October 7, starting before Israel even invaded Gaza. The rush to slander the Jewish nation guilty without facts or context unleashed immediate consequences, fueling physical assaults and repeated threats. Reckless and inflammatory rhetoric has made us targets, and deepened the climate of fear in which Jewish families worry for their safety.
Our community deserves better. Carelessly repeating this protest slogan amplifies the world's oldest hatred. We deserve fact-checking and better vetting for hidden hate speech meant only to inflame and harass. Anything less misleads readers, emboldens hostility against Jews, and debases the very language of human rights, betraying the truth and memory of those we've already lost and the 20 living hostages still held in Gaza's tunnels for over 700 days.
Mark Trienkman
Athens
This letter to the editor was submitted to The Commons.
This piece, published in print in the Voices section or as a column in the news sections, represents the opinion of the writer. In the newspaper and on this website, we strive to ensure that opinions are based on fair expression of established fact. In the spirit of transparency and accountability, The Commons is reviewing and developing more precise policies about editing of opinions and our role and our responsibility and standards in fact-checking our own work and the contributions to the newspaper. In the meantime, we heartily encourage civil and productive responses at voices@commonsnews.org.