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Tragically, ‘genocide’ has become a meaningless word
One of the hallmarks of our degraded political discourse is the abuse of language. Consider some of the words that have either been drained of meaning or coined in order to mislead: terrorist, racist, fascist, anti-fascist, woke, grooming — and lately, in some cases, antisemitism.
And now, sadly: genocide.
Coined in 1944 to refer to the most heinous of crimes against humanity, the term ‘genocide’ has now become a meaningless shibboleth, a touchstone for virtue-signaling by the Right and Left.
And worst of all, some of Israel’s defenders are now joining in the degradation.
Israel’s critics started it. Israel’s military response to the atrocities of Oct. 7 had barely begun when critics began labeling it a genocide. On Oct. 20, 2023 — just a week into the war — I wrote in this publication that “if ‘genocide’ means any horrible action by one group against another, then it loses its specific moral and legal meaning. It becomes just another word that partisans use against one another.”
That didn’t win me any friends on the Left, but it was true.
But Israel’s tactics and statements of intent changed as the war dragged on. In May 2025, I wrote that Israel’s post-ceasefire tactics, including mass starvation and ‘sociocide’ (the destruction of a society’s physical and social infrastructure), and numerous statements from Israeli politicians in favor of ethnic cleansing, would likely qualify as genocide under the legal definition.
That didn’t win me any friends on the Right or the Center, but it was also true.
In both cases, the question was not whether one supported or opposed Israel’s actions or the suffering of innocent Palestinians. It was whether Israel’s actions were “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”
There was almost no evidence of that in October 2023. There was a lot more evidence of it in May 2025. But it is still an open question, one that should be settled in courts of law.
Recently, however, it has become a litmus test. At political events, Democratic candidates are being asked to raise their hands if they think Israel’s actions in Gaza are genocide or not. Yes or No, those are the only choices available. Not “maybe — it has not been decided in court” or “there is evidence on both sides.” Just up or down. Indeed, the candidates are often not even allowed to speak.
And in progressive spaces, if you don’t raise your hand, you’re out.
This is a spectacular display of the ignorance of the mob. Imagine a forum in which candidates are asked to opine on whether someone has committed second-degree murder or manslaughter, or what the correct ratio of contributory negligence is in a multi-party tort action, or the appropriate emissions levels for sulfur dioxide pursuant to the Clean Air Act. That would be preposterous; these are complex legal questions that require careful deliberation based on the meanings of the statutes in question and the evidence presented on both sides.
Like it or not, the crime of genocide is the same.
The Netanyahu government’s actions in Gaza were, in my view, unambiguously horrifying. At least 70,000 lives were lost. Cities were destroyed; 80% of homes and 70% of farmlands as well. War crimes and crimes against humanity appear to have been committed many times over. It is extremely hard to justify the magnitude of the military action with reference to legitimate military objectives. And, particularly in 2025, several Israeli leaders made statements that would satisfy the ‘intent’ prong of the Genocide Convention if they were deemed to be speaking on behalf of the Israeli government. Even worse, polls from mid-2025 showed that 82% of Jewish Israelis support expelling all Palestinians from Gaza under threat of violence, which constitutes genocide under the legal definition.
But establishing whether that evidence is sufficient to conclude that genocide has taken place is a job of the International Criminal Court (for states) or International Court of Justice (for individuals), not a politician raising their hand at a campaign event.
And now, as if inspired by the ignorance and oversimplification of the Left, a group of centrist rabbis and journalists have joined them in the degradation of language, alleging in a petition now circulating online that “the lie that Israel committed ‘genocide’ in Gaza” is “the latest blood libel to be inflicted on the Jewish people.”
I hasten to point out that this petition does not come from the Hard Right — it includes journalist Yossi Klein Halevi and rabbis Yitz Greenberg and Shmuly Yanklowitz. Many who have signed are friends and spiritual mentors of mine.
Yet it is just as misguided as the misuse of language it seeks to condemn — perhaps even more so, as it now adds “blood libel” to the pile of terms rendered meaningless by misuse.
None of the evidence I have adduced above is mentioned in the petition. There is no mention of the inhabitability of Gaza today, or the insane plan to ethnically cleanse the territory and replace it with Trump-branded resorts. There are no citations to Ben Gvir and Smotrich’s clear statements of genocidal intent or the Israeli public’s support for genocide. Only Israel’s case is made.
Which would be fine, if the petition were a blog post in defense of Israel. But it is much more than that. It is a claim that to use the word genocide is, itself, a blood libel — a baseless, hateful and antisemitic claim.
Why is this helpful, in any way? What could this hateful, factually-challenged slander possibly hope to accomplish?
There are many thoughtful, reasonable people who believe Israel committed genocide in Gaza. There are many thoughtful, reasonable people who believe it has not. Scholars of genocide have made strong arguments on both sides, both backed up by evidence. This is a close case, a serious matter, and a serious charge. Denigrating the “other side” in such brutal and absolutist terms accomplishes nothing.
On the contrary, this petition is so extreme and so preposterous that, in attempting to exculpate Israel, it makes Israel look more guilty. There are arguments to be made in defense of Israel’s actions, and the petition makes some of them. But this accusation is so outlandish that it makes it look like Israel can’t possibly prevail on the merits and must, instead, depict its opponents as bigots.
It also defies common sense. Those who have accused Israel of genocide include many Jewish scholars, religious leaders, journalists and activists. Are they all complicit in vile, murderous acts of antisemitism? What about the Israeli organization B’Tselem and several Jewish progressive organizations? Perhaps they, like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Physicians for Human Rights are deluded, or wrong or careless about the facts. Perhaps they are all jumping on some progressive bandwagon, or improperly focused on Israel, or whatever. Fine. But blood libel?
Moreover, as Shaul Magid has recently written, the refusal even to engage with the horrors of Gaza — except in one self-congratulatory line about internal disagreement being “a sign of moral health” — itself bespeaks a profound loss of conscience. The level of destruction relative to legitimate military goals and the overt statements of genocidal intent by some Israeli leaders demand more than that. They demand teshuvah, not tochechah — introspection, not rebuke.
All of this degradation of discourse is deeply regrettable. The Left was wrong to make the word “genocide” into a Yes/No test of one’s political acceptability, and these would-be defenders of Israel are wrong to make it a test of whether one is an antisemite.
The accusation of ‘genocide’ is not a card played at a political poker game. It is a grave moral and criminal charge, rooted in the Holocaust, and it warrants a serious and objective investigation. Not the further diminishment of our humanity.
The post Tragically, ‘genocide’ has become a meaningless word appeared first on The Forward.
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Iranian Regime Uses HispanTV to Spread Antisemitic Propaganda Across Latin America, ADL Warns
Iranians attend an anti-Israel rally in Tehran, Iran, April 19, 2024. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
As the Iranian regime escalates its campaign of disinformation against Israel, Tehran is now flooding Latin America with antisemitic propaganda and pro-terrorist messaging, using outlets such as HispanTV to reach millions of Spanish-speaking audiences and reshape public perceptions in the region.
On Tuesday, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) released a new report detailing a dramatic rise over the past two years in antisemitic and anti-Israel content on HispanTV, the Spanish-language network run by the Iranian regime as part of its coordinated disinformation campaign across Latin America.
With the capacity to reach nearly 600 million Spanish speakers through satellite, cable, livestreaming, and social media, ADL characterizes HispanTV, which launched in 2012, as “the world’s leading platform for peddling antisemitic hate and disseminating anti-Israel prejudice and incitement across Latin America and the wider Spanish-speaking world.”
According to the report, HispanTV consistently disseminates content that reinforces long-standing antisemitic stereotypes about Jewish influence, spreads conspiracy theories, fuels the demonization of Israel, and glorifies Iranian-backed terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.
The study notes that the network’s hateful content has escalated sharply over the past two years, especially in the wake of the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
“HispanTV consistently frames Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attacks as legitimate and praiseworthy acts of resistance worthy of celebration,” the report says. “This reframing is essential to the channel’s ideological project, converting mass violence into a foundational myth of liberation.”
Across its broadcasts, HispanTV portrays Jews and Zionism as “an omnipresent, evil force” manipulating governments through a coordinated malicious scheme, reinforcing deeply entrenched antisemitic stereotypes about Jewish influence and power.
The report also finds that another central theme in the network’s coverage is the glorification of terrorist groups, depicting them as “extraordinary examples of heroism and bravery,” celebrating attacks that killed civilians, and vowing continued violence until the “complete annihilation of the occupants” — an apparent reference to Israel.
“The Iranian regime’s media outlet is spreading classic antisemitic conspiracy theories and anti-Israel propaganda to potentially millions of people across Latin America and beyond, making the Islamic Republic a destabilizing force not only in the Middle East, but across the Spanish-speaking world,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement.
“With antisemitism already at historic levels globally, Tehran is funding a massive media propaganda operation that is priming the pump for spreading antisemitism and hate against Israel and Jews the world over,” he continued.
While systematically undermining Israel’s right to exist — depicting the Jewish state as a “colonial,” “genocidal,” and “terrorist” project — HispanTV presents the Iranian regime as a principled alternative to Western democracies and positions Tehran as the leader of the “Axis of Resistance,” according to the ADL’s newly released report.
The Iranian network also depicts Jews and Israelis as “operating a highly organized global disinformation apparatus designed to deceive the world and justify genocide,” minimizing or outright denying the reality of antisemitism.
The ADL argues that the lack of decisive action by governments, international bodies, and corporations has allowed the Islamic regime to leverage HispanTV to disseminate its hateful conspiracies around the globe.
“If this threat is not seriously addressed, the result will likely be the radicalization of Spanish-speaking audiences across Latin America and beyond,” the report says.
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US Justice Department Launches Investigation Into Antisemitism at Lincoln Memorial University Medical School
US Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon at the Justice Department in Washington, DC, US, Aug. 7, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kent Nishimura
The US Department of Justice has opened an investigation into Lincoln Memorial University (LMU) in Tennessee for allegedly having “engaged in discrimination against its Jewish students” over several years, the agency announced last week.
The investigation, which will receive support from the US Department of Health and Human Services, was prompted by complaints that high-level officials at the LMU DeBusk College of Osteopathic Medicine “intentionally” prevented Jewish students from finishing final exams — an action that could lead to academic failure as well as squandering tens of thousands of dollars in tuition fees.
According to WBIR-TV, a local news outlet based in the city of Knoxville, LMU enacted a new policy which proscribed granting students exam exemptions based on their observing religious holidays. Two Orthodox Jewish students studying medicine are known to have been disproportionately impacted by the dictate, and, according to Rabbi Yossi Wilhelm of Chabad of Knoxville, their qualifications for becoming doctors were allegedly called into doubt by a college official who implied that religious observance is disqualifying.
“This Department of Justice is fiercely committed to shutting down the concerning outbreak of antisemitism that has been spreading on college campuses since the Hamas attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023,” Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general of the civil rights division of the Justice Department, said on Friday when the investigation was announced. “When colleges and universities single Jewish students out for adverse treatment, they are in clear violation of our civil rights laws and of this nation’s promise of equal opportunity for all Americans.”
Paula Stannard, director of the civil rights office of the Department of Health and Human Services, added, “All students should be free to learn and train in environments free from discrimination. Antisemitism has no place in our nation’s educational or medical training institutions, and OCR [the Office of Civil Rights] will work to ensure that federal civil rights laws are fully enforced.”
In a statement to The Algemeiner, Lincoln Memorial University denied discriminating against anyone, citing its “belief that every single person, regardless of race, situation, or background, deserves the right to a quality educational experience.”
It continued, “We would never intentionally discriminate against any member of our community, and we do not believe we did so as has been alleged in the concerns under investigation by the Department of Justice. Educating our future leaders is why we exist. Any decision that is made is always with the goal of providing the best education for each and every student.”
Antisemitism in academic medical centers located on college campuses is fostering noxious environments which deprive Jewish health-care professionals of their civil right to work in spaces free from discrimination and hate, according to a study by the StandWithUs Data & Analytics Department in May.
“Academia today is increasingly cultivating an environment which is hostile to Jews, as well as members of other religious and ethnic groups,” StandWithUs director of data and analytics and study co-author, Alexandra Fishman, said in a statement at the time. “Academic institutions should be upholding the integrity of scholarship, prioritizing civil discourse, rather than allowing bias or personal agendas to guide academic culture.”
Titled “Antisemitism in American Healthcare: The Role of Workplace Environment,” the study includes survey data showing that 62.8 percent of Jewish health-care professionals employed by campus-based medical centers reported experiencing antisemitism, a far higher rate than those working in private practice and community hospitals. Fueling the rise in hate, it added, were repeated failures of DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) initiatives to educate workers about antisemitism, increasing, the report said, the likelihood of antisemitic activity.
The study is not StandWithUs’s first contribution to the study of antisemitism in medicine. In December 2024, the Data & Analytics Department published a study which found that nearly 40 percent of Jewish American health-care professionals have encountered antisemitism in the workplace, either as witnesses or victims.
The study included a survey of 645 Jewish health workers, a substantial number of whom said they were subject to “social and professional isolation.” The problem left over one quarter of the survey cohort, 26.4 percent, “feeling unsafe or threatened.”
The issue is currently being investigated by the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce, with a focus on the University of California, Los Angeles’ (UCLA) David Geffen School of Medicine, the University of Illinois’ College of Medicine, and the University of California, San Francisco’s School of Medicine.
“This investigation will aid the committee in considering whether potential legislative changes, including legislation to specifically address antisemitism discrimination, are needed,” education committee chairman Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI) wrote in a letter to Steven Dubinett, dean of UCLA’s Geffen School. “The committee has become aware that Jewish students and faculty have experienced hostility and fear at the hands of peers, colleagues, and administrators at UCLA Med, and it has not been demonstrated that the university has meaningfully responded to address and mitigate this problem.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Captain of Israeli Olympic Bobsled Team Responds to Swiss Commentator’s Claims He ‘Supports Genocide in Gaza’
Milano Cortina 2026 Olympics – Bobsleigh – 2-man Heat 2 – Cortina Sliding Centre, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy – February 16, 2026. Adam Edelman of Israel and Menachem Chen of Israel react after their run. Photo: REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha
The captain of Israel’s bobsled team competing in the 2026 Milano Cortina Olympics in Italy has responded to remarks made by a commentator on the Swiss network Radio Télévision Suisse (RTS) who claimed the athlete should have been banned from the Olympics because of his “support of the genocide in Gaza.”
Commentator Stefan Renna made the remarks as Adam Edelman, an American-Israeli, and his teammate Menachem Chen performed their two-man bobsleigh run on Monday, in which they finished in last place. Renna said on air that Edelman is a “self-defined ‘Zionist to the core’” who had posted “several messages on social media in support of the genocide in Gaza.” The commentator also claimed Edelman had poked fun at a “Free Palestine” demonstration.
Renna further commented that Edelman had “said the Israeli military intervention was, I quote, ‘the most morally justified war in history.’” He also said Edelman should have been barred from the Milan-Cortina Games just like the International Olympic Committee banned Russian athletes if they made comments in support of the war that started after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. “This just goes to show that sport is obviously eminently political,” Renna told viewers.
A clip featuring the commentary was removed from the RTS website on Monday night because it was not “appropriate” for a sports broadcast, a spokesperson for the network told Deadline.
Edelman took to social media to respond to the RTS clip and the comments made about him.
“I am aware of the diatribe the commentator directed towards the Israeli bobsled team on the Swiss Olympic broadcast today,” he wrote on Monday. “I can’t help but notice the contrast: Shul Runnings [the team’s nickname] is a team of 6 proud Israelis who’ve made it to the Olympic stage. No coach with us. No big program. Just a dream, grit, and unyielding pride in who we represent. Working together towards such an incredible goal and crushing it. Because that’s what Israelis do. I don’t think it’s possible to witness that and give credence to this commentary.”
Edelman also reposted a comment from US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, who said the RTS broadcast was “beyond disgusting” and that the “Jew-hating” Swiss commentator “spewed bigotry and bile” as the Israeli team competed.
The Israeli bobsled team is competing in the final two-man run on Tuesday and the four-man run later this week.