Video advertisement feedback Governor Shapiro: Peaceful protest can be "peaceful protest". Source: CNN Editor's Note: Frieda Ghitis, former CNN producer and journalist and world affairs columnist. She is a weekly opinion writer for CNN, a special columnist for Washington post and a senior columnist for world political commentary. The views expressed in this comment are her own. See more views from CNN. CNN — During a recent visit to Columbia University's student camp, Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota, made a statement that she might consider enlightened. "We should not tolerate anti-Semitism or prejudice of all Jewish students," she declared, "whether they support genocide or oppose genocide." Omar's daughter was arrested during the protest, and he seemed to imply that the students who supported Israeli actions in Gaza were supporters of genocide.
Frida Ghitis Tanya malotte's ideas, slogans and smearing President Joe Biden as "genocide Joe" because he supported Israel (to the delight of former President Donald Trump) are part of a surprisingly successful campaign to portray Israel's defensive war against Hamas as genocide. This accusation is not only absurd, but also outrageous. Incredibly, however, this is a kind of slander that has gained attention.
Yes, after Hamas's attack on October 7th, the Israelis have killed thousands of Palestinians. The suffering of Gaza residents is heartbreaking and frightening. Israel may not be doing its best to reduce the number of civilian deaths. However, it is unreasonable to rashly characterize its military actions as genocide-the degree of human degradation.
Many people, like me, believe that the accusation of genocide is directly related to the slander that has plagued the Jewish population for a hundred years. Since the Middle Ages, this kind of slander has been used to ridicule Jews, and even to find excuses for killing and exile Jews. This is called bloody slander, which has long fueled the obvious immortal fire of anti-Semitism.
The original blood slander claimed that Jews murdered Christians, especially children, so that they could use their blood in rituals. This may sound ridiculous and absurd, but many people have believed it for hundreds of years. Some still do. In 2014, Wolff Blitzer of CNN questioned an Hamas official on the live broadcast, claiming that Jews used Christian blood in the pancakes they ate for Passover.
For centuries, this slander has led to other trite anti-Semitic metaphors-Jews are vampires, vampires and organ harvesters. Since October 7, the images of Jews and the Star of David have appeared repeatedly.
In fact, too many people today are willing to assume the worst motives for Jewish behavior (or in this case, the behavior of the Jewish state), thus making the bloody slander in history the heir to a series of evolving modern slanders, which eventually lead to genocide.
On Monday, April 22, 2024, pro-Palestinian demonstrators at Columbia University camp near Morning Heights, new york, USA. Stephanie Keith/Bloomberg/Getty Pictures Related Articles Viewpoint: What happened at Columbia University is a shame. Nazi Germany tried to exterminate every Jew in Europe, killing 6 million people, including about 1.5 million children. Since then, the word genocide has been written into international law. This is completely different from what is happening in Gaza.
The United Nations Genocide Convention defines genocide as "an act intended to totally or partially destroy a country, a nation, a race or a religious group." The word was coined by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-born Jewish jurist, who began to promote an international law prohibiting such atrocities in the 1930s, when Jews in Eastern Europe suffered a brutal massacre. He fled to the United States and later helped prepare for the Nuremberg trial. Among the millions killed by the Nazis, the Nuremberg trial murdered his family who stayed in Europe.
As early as October 7, it was claimed that Israel had been committing genocide against Palestinians. However, the population of Gaza was estimated to be less than 400,000 when the Israelis seized it from the Egyptians in the war against several Arab countries in 1967. Now it is estimated that there are only more than 2 million. Almost 600% population growth will make it the stupidest genocide in the history of the world.
What about now?
Those who repeat the word "genocide" over and over again turn it into a mantra that goes deep into public consciousness, discrediting Israel and anyone who supports Israel to ignore the fact of this war.
This is not a war for no reason, just like Russia's war against Ukraine. This is not a civil war between rival militias, unlike the civil war that raged in Sudan-by the way, almost everyone ignored this civil war, although the United Nations described it as one of the "worst humanitarian crises in recent years", and a famine could kill 500,000 people.
On Wednesday, April 24th, pro-Palestinian demonstrators confronted officials of the Texas Department of Public Security at the University of Texas at Austin. Jordan von der Haar/Bloomberg/Getty Images/Documents Related Articles Viewpoint: What conservatives don't understand about the protests sweeping the university campus. No, Israel was attacked. On October 7th, Hamas launched a terrible attack on Israeli civilians, killing about 1,200 people, including many women and children, and dragging hundreds of people into Gaza as hostages. Today, dozens of people, including many women and children, are still imprisoned.
Those who constantly claim that Israel's response is an act of revenge, not a strategic defensive war that most Israelis think is to fight against a staunch enemy supported by a powerful country for national survival deliberately distort the facts. In doing so, they abnormally aroused the false bloody desire and grotesque in the same bloody slander prototype.
The massacre in Hamas, its widespread sexual violence, its burning of entire families at home and its vow to do it again-these and other serious threats posed by the organization to Israelis are ignored in the description of the IDF, because they only seek revenge by killing civilians in Gaza.
In fact, it seems that Hamas's actions that triggered this war did not exist in the protesters' minds with seemingly humanitarian thoughts. We don't even know the fate of the hostages still imprisoned in the Hamas tunnel.
Although the information and actions of campus protests vary from school to school, we have never heard protesters shouting that Hamas should release hostages or accept a ceasefire. On the contrary. Israeli accusations sometimes include praise for Hamas, and some main organizers of student protests also agree with one of Hamas's goals-ending the Jewish state. As US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said recently, "When it comes to Hamas, the world has remained almost deafening silent, which still shocks me."
Accusing Israel of genocide and putting all the responsibility for stopping the war on this Jewish state and all the responsibility for death on this Jewish state is even more shocking, because Hamas, which is recognized as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and many other countries, according to its founding charter, its clear goal is not only to destroy Israel, but also to kill Jews. This is the definition of genocide.
Austin, Texas-April 24: On April 24, 2024, in Austin, Texas, mounted police tried to contain demonstrators protesting the Gaza War at the University of Texas at Austin. Students walked out of the classroom, and protests continued to sweep across university campuses all over the country. (Image courtesy of Brandon Bell/Getty Images) Brandon Bell/Getty Images Related Articles Viewpoint: Why did the Gaza War throw the campus into chaos? However, the casualty figures in Gaza were obtained by those who reported to Hamas, and Hamas has ruled Gaza as a dictatorship for nearly 20 years. They are repeated regularly, without obvious doubt, and are often not specifically attributed to Hamas's sources. I don't know how many people died. But there is reason to believe that Hamas has a motive to exaggerate the figures.
Nevertheless, the death toll, even the death toll counted by Hamas, does not mean a genocide. The total number of the terrorist organization is estimated to be about 35,000. The Washington Institute for Near East Policy and other think tanks and researchers dispute this figure, which includes Hamas fighters. This means that the number of civilian deaths, regardless of the total number, is actually lower.
In contrast, in Mosul, Iraq, Coalition forces drove the "Islamic State" out of a city with a population of about 600,000 at that time. Estimates of the exact death toll vary, ranging from 9,000 to 40,000 (the latter is estimated by Kurdish intelligence). The lowest figure is the same as the total death rate reported by the authorities in Hamas, Gaza, which does not distinguish between civilians and Hamas soldiers, while the highest figure is four times higher.
I don't remember hearing the word "genocide" there, and I don't remember hearing it in any battles that killed more than 500 thousand people in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, Israel has been repeatedly discredited by this condemnation.
Jack Tapper of CNN recently asked Lieutenant General Mark hertling, a well-known senior American military leader, whether he thought that Israel was waging war by the same standards that the United States would use-weighing the military value of the target against the risk to civilians. His answer is: "Yes, I like it."
On April 30, 2024, demonstrators supporting Gaza Palestinians set up roadblocks in Hamilton Hall of Columbia University in new york, an academic building occupied in the past student movement. Alex Kent/Getty Images Related Articles Viewpoint: Biden needs to deny the protesters. The death of any innocent civilian is a tragedy. There have been too many deaths in Gaza. When I saw these photos and heard the stories they experienced, my heart ached. But Israel is fighting a war different from any in recent years. Urban fighting is notoriously difficult and cruel to civilians. This situation was magnified in Gaza, because Hamas deliberately surrounded itself with civilians and hid in tunnels. They knew-as it turned out, this was accurate-that the high death rate would turn global public opinion against Israel and create pressure to stop the war, so that Hamas could survive and continue fighting.
South Africa filed a lawsuit in the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide, which is the latest manifestation of blood relatives' slander. As the former president of the court just explained, the court's response was misreported. It found that Palestinians had a "plausible right" to avoid genocide. Many people mistakenly reported that the court said that South Africa's allegations of genocide were credible in themselves.
The current government is not helpful to Israel's image. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has joined some extremist ministers in his alliance, and their remarks and actions are abhorrent. But what they say is not a national policy. In fact, some Israelis themselves-including high-profile politicians-condemned them in the strongest terms. This is why Omar's efforts to clarify her defamation of Jewish students by pointing out such remarks after being under pressure are not credible.
One of the areas where Israel failed was the delivery of food to the region. According to the United Nations, some parts of Gaza, especially the northern part, are facing hunger or are already in famine. Anyone who dies of hunger is appalling, and Israel should have improved the operation of checking childbirth long ago. But the terrible situation is hard to prove the intention of genocide.
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In a lawless war zone without police protection materials, the distribution of aid materials is very difficult, and Hamas sometimes seems to try to make things worse. According to the State Council, Hamas has "intercepted and diverted" food aid. According to James McGoldrick, the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator, trucks carrying food were looted, robbed or otherwise attacked, but he did not specify which organizations were responsible. On Sunday, Hamas fired rockets at a major aid crossing, killing four Israeli soldiers and disrupting the delivery of humanitarian aid. Even the docks built by the United States to increase the transportation of aid materials have been attacked.
It is fair to criticize Israel in many ways. Its command of this war can and will cause controversy in the next few years. However, protesters called Israel's self-defense war a genocide, and politicians accused Israel's supporters of supporting genocide. Even journalists and other observers accepted this assumption so much that they let this accusation go unchallenged-this often happens-and this is another ugly example of the resurgence of the oldest hatred-anti-Semitism in the 21st century.