Bob Sanders, a retired reporter, is a new member of Vermont/New Hampshire chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace. Contact him at bob.gns@gmail.com.

Genocide. It’s the worst violent act you can commit, to wipe an ethnic group by killing its people. It is also an emotionally charged term, particularly to us Jews who were arguably its greatest victims during the Holocaust. How dare anyone charge Jews, of all people, of committing such a despicable act?

When I heard that word to describe Israel’s destruction of Gaza, I recoiled. Like every Jew, I was brought up learning about the monstrous crime of the Nazis. I too thought, and still think, “Never again,” not to Jews, not to anybody.

Yes, Israel in its massive overreaction to the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, is engaging in the wholesale desolation of Gaza, disregarding civilian life, destroying its hospitals, bombing fleeing refugees, and blocking humanitarian aid.

But how could you compare this excess brutality to the killing of six million and the gas chambers?

What Israel was engaged in was war crimes, perhaps, not genocide. That’s going too far.

And yet, when I saw the United Nation definition, the definition that Israel is being charged with by South Africa under international law, I had to reconsider.

“A crime committed with the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, in whole or in part.”

Article continues after...

Yesterday's Most Read Articles

Neighboring landowner objection stalls Steeplegate redevelopment approval

How has Hopkinton, one of the smallest public schools in New Hampshire, become such a lacrosse powerhouse?

In Franklin, a Hometown Hero remains busy, 12 years after retiring from the U.S. Postal Service

Women at work on Warren: New combined salon, spa, DIY and retail space opens in former Peter’s Images location

For some older Jewish professors at Dartmouth and UNH, opposition to campus arrests feels personal

New Hampshire Harm Reduction Coalition provides kits for safer drug use

Your Daily Puzzles

Cross|Word

Flipart

Typeshift

SpellTower

Really Bad Chess

Look at what Israel is doing, not what it is saying.

Hamas and other groups might want to destroy Israel from the “River to the Sea” but Israel is actually doing that to Gaza. It is not just the 30,000 (and counting) killed directly (more than 25 times those killed in the Hamas attack). It is the intentional destruction of infrastructure, health care, utilities, communications, that could cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands. It is not war against Hamas, but the Gaza people who happen to be living under Hamas, and had not voted for that group in nearly a decade.

My first reaction is that what Israel is doing is ethnic cleansing. Israel obviously didn’t care whether Palestinians lived and died, it just wanted them out of the way, and if they didn’t flee fast enough, too bad for them. Settlers are already eyeing the territory.

But Israel doesn’t let the Palestinians go, and even if they did, no country is stepping up to take them. These people are trapped, relatively defenseless. Israel hasn’t put people in concentration camps. It has turned the entire Gaza Strip into a concentration camp. This isn’t so much a war as a massacre. Sure, it doesn’t seem like they are aiming to kill every last Palestinian, but you remember the last words of the UN definition: in whole or in part. Israel is killing those living in Gaza in part, a substantial part.

We don’t know Israel’s real intent. The Nazis kept the final solution a secret. It was only later that we knew they really were trying to wipe out all of the Jews. But we do have statements from top officials, that certainly lend credibility to the charge of genocide.

Deputy Speaker of the Knesset Nissim Vaturi: “Now we all have one common goal — erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth.”

Oct. 9, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant: “No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly…Gaza won’t return to what it was before. We will eliminate everything.”

Oct. 17, Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir: “The only thing that needs to enter Gaza are hundreds of tons of explosives from the Air Force, not an ounce of humanitarian aid.”

Is it genocide? I’m still not sure. Certainly, it’s not on the scale of the Holocaust. But whether it is or not, it’s definitely bad enough. As Jews we can not allow this to happen in our name, and as U.S. citizens we cannot allow our tax dollars to be used for this.

It’s a mystery to me that the U.S. needs to send arms to Israel, when it could make its own. It is the only country in the Middle East with nuclear weapons for God’s sake. Unlike Ukraine, Israel is currently waging war against a people, a group of terrorists at most, not a nuclear superpower.

We must speak out for a cease fire, humanitarian aid, and the end of military support for Israel. We must do it now, not just for the sake of the Palestinians, but for ourselves, to live with ourselves. Because how, as Jews, can we remain silent?