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The rising death toll in Gaza is tragic. But Holocaust scholars should know: It is not genocide.
(JTA) — Up in Broome County, New York, beneath a simple marker in a family plot in Hale Eddy Cemetery, I believe the Rev. Dr. Franklin Hamlin Littell is turning in his grave.
Littell, the son of a Methodist minister who also became one, was a towering figure in the study of the Holocaust and genocide. In postwar West Germany, he spent almost a decade as chief Protestant religious adviser to the High Commission on Germany, assigned to denazification. In 1958 at Emory University in Atlanta, he initiated the first U.S. graduate seminar on the Holocaust. Eighteen years later in Philadelphia, as chair of Temple University’s religion department, he started the world’s first doctoral program in Holocaust studies. And in 1998 at Stockton University in Pomona, New Jersey, he and his wife, Marcia Sachs Littell, established the first interdisciplinary master’s program in Holocaust and genocide studies.
My late mother, Halina Wind Preston, a Jewish educator who survived 14 months hiding from the Nazis in the sewers of Lviv, was a frequent attendee at an annual Holocaust scholars’ conference cofounded by Littell. I knew Littell, who died in 2009, and at his invitation in 2000 I traveled from Atlanta, where I was a senior editor at CNN.com, to speak on “Professional Ethics After Auschwitz” at the 30th conference in Philadelphia.
So I can imagine Littell’s revulsion if he knew that the word “genocide” was being misused against Israel by scholars and activists — including an Israeli historian who now directs the Stockton program he started.
As Israel retaliates in the wake of the bloody rampage of Oct. 7 — in which Hamas killed 1,500 Israelis, including 260 people at a music festival and hundreds of civilians in nearby communities, and took more than 200 hostages — Raz Segal, the Israeli historian who directs the Master of Arts in Holocaust and Genocide Studies program at Stockton University, has been attracting worldwide attention by blaming the victims.
On Oct. 18, at a vigil on the University of Pennsylvania campus, Segal called President Joe Biden’s visit to Israel “support for Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza.” On Oct. 13, Jewish Currents published “A Textbook Case of Genocide,” in which Segal wrote that “Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza is quite explicit, open, and unashamed” and that “Israel’s goal is to destroy the Palestinians of Gaza.”
Segal is far from a lone voice accusing Israel of genocide. At Penn, a student group that organized a rally Oct. 16 said it “unequivocally stands with Palestine in the face of ongoing genocide committed by the Israeli government, which has been assisted by other Western allies like the United States.” On Oct. 24 in Washington, D.C., students at George Washington University projected the message “Divestment from Zionist Genocide Now” onto a library facade.
And on Tuesday, Craig Mokhiber, director in the New York office of the United Nations High Commissioner of Human Rights, resigned, citing Israel for a “textbook case of genocide.”
Littell understood that “genocide” was coined in 1944 by a Polish Jewish lawyer named Raphael Lemkin to denote “the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group.” Lemkin wrote that genocide is intended “to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. ”
Historian Michael Berenbaum, distinguished professor of Jewish studies at American Jewish University in Los Angeles, said that Israel has no greater ambition than to coexist with the Palestinians as peaceful neighbors and that Littell would be appalled at the suggestion that Israel was committing genocide in its attempts to root out the fighters and sever the leadership of a group that killed and kidnapped Israelis.
“I knew and worked with and deeply respected Franklin Littell for the last 40 years of his life,” Berenbaum, who was a visiting distinguished professor at Stockton under Littell, told me. “These statements would be anathema to his values.”
Richard Libowitz, coauthor with Marcia Sachs Littell and Dennis B. Klein of “The Genocidal Mind,” agreed that the Israeli incursion does not constitute genocide.
Israel “has never advocated nor sought the total annihilation of an Arab population, whether in Israel proper, the West Bank or Gaza,” said Libowitz, who received a Ph.D. in religion under Franklin Littell at Temple and is retired from the faculties of Temple and St. Joseph’s University.
Indeed, since Israel’s founding in 1948, the Palestinian population in what now includes Israel, the West Bank and Gaza has risen from 1.4 million to 6.6 million, including 1.6 million Palestinian citizens of Israel.
Libowitz acknowledged the ferocity of the Israeli military strikes on Gaza in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks, as the Palestinian death toll as reported by the Hamas-run health ministry rose above 9,000.
“Civilian casualties in Gaza — especially the death of children — are tragic,” said Libowitz. “Hamas carried out the worst murder of Jews since the Holocaust and the outrage should be understood. Israel intends to destroy Hamas, but Magen David Adom [the Israeli Red Cross] personnel treated wounded terrorists after their attack. Gazans were warned to flee the northern part of the strip. This is human tragedy, but it is not genocide.”
He added: “The stated aim of Hamas — to wipe Israel from the Earth — is certainly a genocidal intent.”
Polly Zavadivker, an assistant professor of history at the University of Delaware, told me that Segal’s statements on genocide “threaten future attempts to identify, prevent, and prosecute that crime. It is equally damaging to the legitimacy of Holocaust and Genocide Studies as a field when such false claims are presented in the guise of scholarly expertise.”
Zavadivker, who teaches courses in antisemitism, the Holocaust, and comparative genocide, said that an accusation that Israel is committing genocide “renders the word meaningless.”
In 1973, after working on it for four years, Franklin Littell and 17 other Christian theologians released a 14-point statement on Israel. The statement, which appeared as an appendix in Littell’s book, seems strikingly relevant 50 years later.
“The charge is sometimes made that Israel is belligerently expansionistic as a result of its military triumphs in the Six-Day War,” it said in part. “Visitors to Israel, however, can easily discover that the overriding concern of the majority of Israelis is peace, not more territory. Israel’s anxiety about national defense reflects the age-old human yearning for security, the anxiety of a people whose history has been a saga of frightful persecution, climaxed by the Holocaust of six million men, women, and children.
“Against such a tormented background, is it surprising that the Jewish people should want to defend themselves?” they continued. “Criticism that would use the failure of Israel to live up to the highest moral standards as an excuse to deny its right to exist … would be a double standard, one not applied to any other nation on earth.”
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The post The rising death toll in Gaza is tragic. But Holocaust scholars should know: It is not genocide. appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Israel Strikes Houthi Targets in Yemen
Smoke rises after Israeli strikes near Sanaa airport, in Sanaa, Yemen, Dec. 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
Israel struck multiple targets linked to the Iran-aligned Houthi terrorist group in Yemen on Thursday, including Sanaa International Airport, and Houthi media said three people were killed.
The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said he was about to board a plane at the airport when it came under attack. A crew member on the plane was injured, he said in a statement.
The Israeli military said that in addition to striking the airport, it also hit military infrastructure at the ports of Hodeidah, Salif, and Ras Kanatib on Yemen’s west coast. It also attacked the country’s Hezyaz and Ras Kanatib power stations.
Houthi-run Al Masirah TV said two people were killed in the strikes on the airport and one person was killed in the port hits, while 11 others were wounded in the attacks.
There was no comment from the Houthis, who have repeatedly fired drones and missiles towards Israel in what they describe as acts of solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said following the attacks that Israel will continue its mission until it is complete: “We are determined to sever this terror arm of Iran’s axis.”
The prime minister has been strengthened at home by the Israeli military’s campaign against Iran-backed Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon and by its destruction of most of the Syrian army’s strategic weapons.
The Israeli attacks on the airport, Hodeidah and on one power station, were also reported by Al Masirah TV.
Tedros said he had been in Yemen to negotiate the release of detained UN staff detainees and to assess the humanitarian situation in Yemen.
“As we were about to board our flight from Sanaa … the airport came under aerial bombardment. One of our plane’s crew members was injured,” he said in a statement.
“The air traffic control tower, the departure lounge — just a few meters from where we were — and the runway were damaged,” he said, adding that he and his colleagues were safe.
There was no immediate comment from Israel on the incident.
More than a year of Houthi attacks have disrupted international shipping routes, forcing firms to re-route to longer and more expensive journeys that have in turn stoked fears over global inflation.
The UN Security Council is due to meet on Monday over Houthi attacks against Israel, Israel‘s UN Ambassador Danny Danon said on Wednesday.
On Saturday, Israel‘s military failed to intercept a missile from Yemen that fell in the Tel Aviv-Jaffa area, injuring 14 people.
The post Israel Strikes Houthi Targets in Yemen first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Controversial Islamic Group CAIR Chides US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew for Denying Report of ‘Famine’ in Gaza
US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew. Photo: Alchetron.
The Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR) has condemned US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew for casting doubt on a new report claiming that famine has gripped northern Gaza.
The controversial Muslim advocacy group on Wednesday slammed Lew for his “callous dismissal” of the recent Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) report accusing Israel of inflicting famine on the Gaza Strip. The organization subsequently asserted that Israel had perpetrated an ethnic cleansing campaign in northern Gaza.
“Ambassador Lew’s callous dismissal of this shocking report by a US-backed agency exposing Israel’s campaign of forced starvation in Gaza reminds one of the old joke about a man who murdered his parents and then asked for mercy because he is now an ‘orphan,’” CAIR said in a statement.
“To reject a report on starvation in northern Gaza by appearing to boast about the fact that it has been successfully ethnically cleansed of its native population is just the latest example of Biden administration officials supporting, enabling, and excusing Israel’s clear and open campaign of genocide in Gaza,” the Washington, DC-based group continued.
On Monday, FEWS Net, a US-created provider of warning and analysis on food insecurity, released a report detailing that a famine had allegedly taken hold of northern Gaza. The report argued that 65,000-75,000 individuals remain stranded in the area without sufficient access to food.
“Israel’s near-total blockade of humanitarian and commercial food supplies to besieged areas of North Gaza Governorate” has resulted in mass starvation among scores of innocent civilians in the beleaguered enclave, the report stated.
Lew subsequently issued a statement denying the veracity of the FEWS Net report, slamming the organization for peddling “inaccurate” information and “causing confusion.”
“The report issued today on Gaza by FEWS NET relies on data that is outdated and inaccurate. We have worked closely with the Government of Israel and the UN to provide greater access to the North Governorate, and it is now apparent that the civilian population in that part of Gaza is in the range of 7,000-15,000, not 65,000-75,000 which is the basis of this report,” Lew wrote.
“At a time when inaccurate information is causing confusion and accusations, it is irresponsible to issue a report like this. We work day and night with the UN and our Israeli partners to meet humanitarian needs — which are great — and relying on inaccurate data is irresponsible,” Lew continued.
Following Lew’s repudiation, FEWS NET quietly removed the report on Wednesday, sparking outrage among supporters of the pro-Palestinian cause.
“We ask FEWS NET not to submit to the bullying of genocide supporters and to again make its report available to the public,” CAIR said in its statement.
In the year following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7, Israel has been repeatedly accused of inflicting famine in Hamas-ruled Gaza. Despite the allegations, there is scant evidence of mass starvation across the war-torn enclave.
This is not the first time that FEWS Net has attempted to accuse Israel of inflicting famine in Gaza. In June, the United Nations Famine Review Committee (FRC), a panel of experts in international food security and nutrition, rejected claims by FEWS Net that a famine had taken hold of northern Gaza. In rejecting the allegations, the FRC cited an “uncertainty and lack of convergence of the supporting evidence employed in the analysis.”
Meanwhile, CAIR has been embroiled in controversy since the onset of the Gaza war last October.
CAIR has been embroiled in controversy since the Oct. 7 atrocities. The head of CAIR, for example, said he was “happy” to witness Hamas’s rampage across southern Israel.
“The people of Gaza only decided to break the siege — the walls of the concentration camp — on Oct. 7,” CAIR co-founder and executive director Nihad Awad said in a speech during the American Muslims for Palestine convention in Chicago in November. “And yes, I was happy to see people breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land, and walk free into their land, which they were not allowed to walk in.”
CAIR has long been a controversial organization. In the 2000s, it was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing case. Politico noted in 2010 that “US District Court Judge Jorge Solis found that the government presented ‘ample evidence to establish the association’” of CAIR with Hamas.
According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), “some of CAIR’s current leadership had early connections with organizations that are or were affiliated with Hamas.” CAIR has disputed the accuracy of the ADL’s claim and asserted that it “unequivocally condemn[s] all acts of terrorism, whether carried out by al-Qa’ida, the Real IRA, FARC, Hamas, ETA, or any other group designated by the US Department of State as a ‘Foreign Terrorist Organization.’”
The post Controversial Islamic Group CAIR Chides US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew for Denying Report of ‘Famine’ in Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Jewish Civil Rights Group Representing Amsterdam Pogrom Victims Slams Dutch Court for ‘Light Sentences’
Israeli Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters are guarded by police after violence targeting Israeli football fans broke out in Amsterdam overnight, in Amsterdam, Netherlands, November 8, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ami Shooman/Israel Hayom
The international Jewish civil rights organization legally representing more than 50 victims of the attack on Israeli soccer fans that took place in Amsterdam last month has joined many voices in lambasting a Dutch court for what they described as a mild punishment for the attackers.
“These sentences are an insult to the victims and a stain on the Dutch legal system,” The Lawfare Project’s founder and executive director Brooke Goldstein said in a statement on Wednesday. “Allowing individuals who coordinated and celebrated acts of violence to walk away with minimal consequences diminishes the rule of law and undermines trust in the judicial process. If this is the response to such blatant antisemitism, what hope is there for deterring future offenders or safeguarding the Jewish community.”
On Tuesday, a district court in Amsterdam sentenced five men for their participation in the violent attacks in the Dutch city against fans of the Israeli soccer team Maccabi Tel Aviv. The premeditated and coordinated violence took place on the night of Nov. 7 and into the early hours of Nov 8, before and after Maccabi Tel Aviv competed against the Dutch soccer team Ajax in a UEFA Europa League match. The five suspects were sentenced to up to 100 hours of community service and up to six months in prison.
The attackers were found guilty of public violence, which included kicking an individual lying on the ground, and inciting the violence by calling on members of a WhatsApp group chat to gather and attack Maccabi Tel Aviv fans. One man sentenced on Tuesday who had a “leading role” in the violence, according to prosecutors, was given the longest sentence — six months in prison.
“As someone who witnessed these trials firsthand, I am deeply disheartened by the leniency of these sentences,” added Ziporah Reich, director of litigation at The Lawfare Project. “The violent, coordinated attacks against Jews in Amsterdam are among the worst antisemitic incidents in Europe. These light sentences fail to reflect the gravity of these crimes and do little to deliver justice to the victims who are left traumatized and unheard. Even more troubling, they set a dangerous precedent, signaling to future offenders that such horrific acts of violence will not be met with serious consequences.”
The Lawfare Project said on Wednesday that it is representing over 50 victims of the Amsterdam attacks. It has also secured for their clients a local counsel — Peter Plasman, who is a partner at the Amsterdam-based law firm Kötter L’Homme Plasman — to represent them in the Netherlands. The Lawfare Project aims to protect the civil and human rights of Jewish people around the world through legal action.
Others who have criticized the Dutch court for its sentencing of the five men on Tuesday included Arsen Ostrovsky, a leading human rights attorney and CEO of The International Legal Forum; Tal-Or Cohen, the founder and CEO of CyberWell; and The Center for Information and Documentation on Israel.
The post Jewish Civil Rights Group Representing Amsterdam Pogrom Victims Slams Dutch Court for ‘Light Sentences’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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