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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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Mamdani Says He Will Discourage Use of ‘Globalize the Intifada,’ Reaffirms Commitment to Anti-Israel Movement
Candidate Zohran Mamdani speaks during a Democratic New York City mayoral primary debate, June 4, 2025, in New York, US. Photo: Yuki Iwamura/Pool via REUTERS
Facing mounting pressure from Jewish community leaders, business executives, and fellow Democrats, New York City mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani has moved to clarify his stance on the controversial slogan “globalize the intifada,” signaling he will discourage its use while continuing to back the broader anti-Israel movement it represents.
In a closed-door meeting this week with over 100 business leaders organized by the Partnership for New York City, Mamdani said he will not use the phrase himself and will urge allies to stop using it as well, attendees told multiple news outlets. The candidate, a democratic socialist and state assemblyman from Queens, emphasized that while the slogan has become a flashpoint, his commitment to the Palestinian movement remains unchanged.
The slogan, which gained traction at pro-Palestinian protests worldwide amid the Israel–Hamas war in Gaza, has been criticized by many Jewish New Yorkers who associate it with calls for violence against Jewish and Israeli civilians. “Intifada,” Arabic for “uprising,” is widely known from two bloody periods of sustained Palestinian terrorism against Israelis. Many observers have argued that calls to “globalize the intifada” will encourage activists to take up political violence worldwide, especially against the Jewish community and supporters of Israel.
“I heard from Jewish New Yorkers who told me that phrase brings up very real fear,” Mamdani reportedly said in the meeting. “That’s not the intention I want to convey.”
Nonetheless, Mamdani was clear that he does not view “globalize the intifada” as inherently violent. Instead, he said it symbolizes a transnational protest against what he calls Israeli “apartheid.” He described it as a call for political pressure, boycott movements, and international solidarity, not physical confrontation.
Last month, Mamdani defended the phrase “globalize the intifada” by invoking the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising during World War II. In response, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum repudiated the mayoral candidate, calling his comments “outrageous and especially offensive to [Holocaust] survivors.”
Mamdani’s attempt to reframe the slogan has drawn mixed reactions. Some Democratic leaders have said the clarification doesn’t go far enough.
High-profile Democrats in the US Congress from New York such as Rep. Ritchie Torres, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand have all urged Mamdani to condemn the slogan, arguing that the phrase has violent connotations.
New York City’s Jewish community, already alarmed by a rise in antisemitic incidents since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel, has expressed deep concern over Mamdani’s embrace of language they consider inflammatory. Leaders from groups such as the UJA-Federation and the Anti-Defamation League have called on him to unequivocally disavow the slogan.
Mamdani’s team has pushed back against claims that the phrase advocates violence, pointing to other progressive politicians who have used similar language in solidarity with Palestinian movements. In recent days, his campaign has worked to strike a more conciliatory tone, especially in conversations with Jewish leaders and the business elite.
During the private gathering, which reportedly included executives from Pfizer, Uber, major real estate firms, and banking institutions, Mamdani reiterated policy goals that have rattled the city’s corporate class: tax hikes on high earners, rent freezes, and public investment in city-run grocery stores. He also emphasized his opposition to police budget increases, while pledging to expand mental health crisis response programs as an alternative.
While many attendees remain skeptical of Mamdani’s politics, several expressed cautious optimism after the event.
Mamdani is expected to hold additional meetings with labor unions, faith groups, and small business owners in the coming weeks as he attempts to broaden his coalition ahead of November’s general election. With incumbent Mayor Eric Adams and former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo both running as independents, the race remains hotly contested, although Mamdani is generally considered the frontrunner in the largely Democratic city.
The post Mamdani Says He Will Discourage Use of ‘Globalize the Intifada,’ Reaffirms Commitment to Anti-Israel Movement first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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AMIA Bombing: The Hate That Terrorized Jewish Argentines 31 Years Ago is Just as Present Today
People hold images of the victims of the 1994 bombing attack on the Argentine Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA) community center, marking the 30th anniversary of the attack, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Irina Dambrauskas
This Friday, July 18, marks 31 years since an Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorist drove a van packed with explosives into the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) Jewish Community Center building in Buenos Aires.
The attack murdered 85 people, and injured more than 300. Now, three decades later, the world still remains subject to the reach of Iranian-backed terrorism.
Just last month, as an American Jewish Committee (AJC) Project Interchange delegation of Consuls General was ending their visit to Israel, our group (including one of the authors of this op-ed, Brandon) abruptly received an alert: an Iranian-made Houthi missile was headed for our area and we needed to seek shelter immediately. Once the AJC group had returned from Israel, millions of Israelis were forced into bomb shelters as the Iranian regime launched hundreds of ballistic missiles at civilian targets across the country. Scenes of blown out and destroyed buildings, eerily reminiscent of the AMIA bombing, were once again seared into memory.
The other author of this op-ed, Jacques, is an Argentine Jew. For him, the AMIA bombing — and the ensuing decades long fight for justice — continues to hit close to home. The bombing shattered more than the AMIA building — it shattered the Argentine Jewish community and its sense of security.
Jacques’ family lived in fear that they too could be the next victims of terror. The AMIA bombing was the single worst act of terrorism against the Jewish people since the Holocaust, a distinction surpassed only by the Iranian regime-backed Hamas slaughter on October 7, 2023.
To this day, those who planned the AMIA bombing are still walking free. In 2024, in a long overdue step, Argentina’s highest federal court officially held the Iranian regime — the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism — responsible. While this is a key step toward accountability for the Iranian regime’s actions and justice for AMIA’s victims, there is still work to be done.
Following last month’s preemptive military action from both the United States and Israel against Iran’s nuclear program — a regime that has consistently declared, “Death to America, Death to Israel” — Argentine President Javier Milei offered a rare moment of moral clarity in an otherwise foggy global response. In declaring that Israel was “saving Western civilization,” he named what too many other leaders refuse to admit — that Iran’s terrorism knows no borders.
But missiles and bombs are not the only threats we face. As in the case of AMIA, the Iranian regime’s and Hezbollah’s activities started with calls to target Jews worldwide. Terror grows in atmospheres where antisemitism is abided.
In sensing the urgency to act to curb rising antisemitism, last year, on the eve of the 30th commemoration of the AMIA bombing, Buenos Aires hosted the signing of the new Global Guidelines for Countering Antisemitism, which to date has been signed by 36 countries, including the United States and Argentina.
The current global rise in antisemitism is especially alarming in the United States. While antisemitism has historically emerged from the far-right and far-left, it is the fusion of far-left ideology and Islamist rhetoric that has been driving much of the recent violence. Consider the recent D.C. shooting after an American Jewish Committee event outside the Capitol Jewish Museum, when the killer proclaimed, “I did it for Palestine” or the assailant in Boulder, Colorado, who threw Molotov cocktails at a rally of Jews calling for the release of the hostages while shouting, “End Zionists.”
Elected leaders must act and speak out with moral clarity – especially in New York, home to the largest Jewish population outside of Israel. There were a record 345 reported antisemitic incidents in 2024 according to the NYPD, more than all incidents against other minority groups combined. And these were just the incidents that were officially reported.
These statistics are entirely unacceptable. Staying silent when antisemitic phrases like “globalize the intifada” are used — an expression that is nothing more than incitement — legitimizes violence. Suicide bombings were the defining feature of the Second Intifada — and of the AMIA bombing itself. It is no wonder that the Jewish community feels more apprehensive with this rhetoric.
Thirty-one years after the AMIA bombing, the lesson remains brutally clear: when terrorists are not prosecuted, they are emboldened. When hateful rhetoric is tolerated, violence follows. When antisemitism is qualified or grouped together with other forms of hate, the call to protect Jewish lives is cheapened. Words may not pull the trigger, but they load the gun.
In the absence of justice, terrorism reigns free without consequence. Silence is complicity. As citizens of the two countries with the largest Jewish populations in North America and South America respectively, we are calling on our neighbors, friends, and leaders to draw a clear line: there can be no tolerance for antisemitic hate, and no haven for those who preach or perpetrate violence on Jews.
The time to stand up is now.
Brandon Pinsker is the Associate Director of the American Jewish Committee office in New York.
Jacques Safra is a Board Member of AJC New York and AJC’s Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Institute for Latino and Latin American Affairs (BILLA).
The post AMIA Bombing: The Hate That Terrorized Jewish Argentines 31 Years Ago is Just as Present Today first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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EU Rejects Sanctions on Israel Amid Diplomatic Battle, PA Condemns Decision as ‘Shocking and Disappointing’
European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas speaks to the media as she arrives at the 5th EU-Southern Neighbourhood Ministerial meeting in Brussels, Belgium, July 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Yves Herman
Israel welcomed the European Union’s decision not to pursue punitive action against the Jewish state over the war in Gaza, calling it “an important diplomatic victory” as some member states push to undermine Jerusalem’s military campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in the war-torn enclave.
On Tuesday, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas announced that the bloc would not impose sanctions on Israel, following a meeting of EU foreign ministers to address the issue.
In a post on X, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar praised the news as the result of a “complex, grueling, and multi-front diplomatic battle.”
“The attempt to impose sanctions on a democratic country defending itself against efforts to destroy it is outrageous,” the top Israeli diplomat said, expressing gratitude to Israel’s allies in Europe who helped block the punitive measures.
ישראל עומדת מזה קרוב לשנתיים במערכה צבאית במספר חזיתות. אבל היא עומדת גם במערכה מדינית מורכבת, מפרכת ורבת חזיתות.
היום השגנו הישג מדיני חשוב כשעלה בידנו להדוף את כל סוגי הניסיונות האובססיביים של מספר מדינות לנקוט סנקציות נגד ישראל באיחוד האירופי. אותן מדינות לא הציעו, למשל,… pic.twitter.com/j4ivwv2WUF— Gideon Sa’ar | גדעון סער (@gidonsaar) July 15, 2025
Speaking at a press conference following the Brussels meeting, Kaja Kallas noted “positive signs” in Israel’s progress toward fulfilling last week’s agreement with the EU to increase humanitarian access to Gaza, while emphasizing that “more concrete steps” remain necessary.
The top EU diplomat stated that the bloc will carefully watch Israel’s execution of the agreement — which aims to open additional crossings, increase aid and food shipments, support critical infrastructure repairs, and protect aid workers.
According to Kallas, if Israel fails to follow through on the agreed measures, the bloc will reconsider imposing punitive actions against Jerusalem, with an update on its compliance to be presented at the next foreign ministers’ meeting in two weeks.
“We will keep these options on the table and stand ready to act,” Kallas said.
During this week’s meeting, the bloc discussed 10 potential measures against Israel over alleged violations of human rights commitments under the EU-Israel Association Agreement — a pact governing the EU’s political and economic ties with the Jewish state — such as suspending trade-related deals and imposing arms embargoes.
Despite efforts by some European countries to undermine Israel’s defensive campaign against Hamas in Gaza, there was not enough support within the EU to take any action, as Jerusalem still retains significant backing among member states.
In an interview with Euronews, the Palestinian Authority’s Foreign Minister, Varsen Aghabekian Shahin, condemned the EU’s decision not to take action against Israel, describing it as “shocking and disappointing.”
“These violations have been unfolding in front of everybody’s eyes. The whole world has been seeing what is happening in Gaza. The killing. The atrocities, the war crimes, the weaponization of food, the killing of people queuing to get a pack of flour,” Shahin said.
This latest anti-Israel initiative follows a recent EU-commissioned report accusing Israel of committing “indiscriminate attacks … starvation … torture … [and] apartheid” against Palestinians in Gaza during its military campaign against Hamas, an internationally designated terrorist group.
According to the report, “there are indications that Israel would be in breach of its human rights obligations” under the 25-year-old EU-Israel Association Agreement.
While the document acknowledges the reality of violence by Hamas, it states that this issue lies outside its scope — failing to address the Palestinian terrorist group’s role in sparking the current war with its invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Israeli officials have slammed the report as factually incorrect and morally flawed, noting that Hamas embeds its military infrastructure within civilian targets and Israel’s army takes extensive precautions to try and avoid civilian casualties.
Following calls from a majority of EU member states for a formal investigation, last month’s report builds on Belgium’s recent decision to review Israel’s compliance with the trade agreement, a process initiated by the Netherlands and led by Kallas.
Last month, Ireland became the first European nation to push forward legislation banning trade with Israeli communities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, an effort officials say is meant “to address the horrifying situation” in the Gaza Strip.
Ireland’s decision comes after a 2024 advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) declared Israel’s presence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem illegal.
The ICJ ruled that third countries must avoid trade or investment that supports “the illegal situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
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