I read this X post yesterday and woke up this morning thinking about how important it was and that I should share it here on Substack. Glad to see this longer post explaining the argument. Easier to share and talk about now.
But the legal concept *is* the concept. It was only created, as a legal concept, in about 1942, and it has a pretty clear definition (even if it is still highly contested at the edges).
Your “everyday sense” where it has to be the same as Nazi Germany is just wrong. So posting these screeds about how calling it a genocide is “dishonest” etc.- because you’ve decided that it isn’t, based on your own “everyday” concept that bears no resemblance to the specific legal concept- is nonsense.
If you want to point out that it’s different from Nazi Germany’s genocide, that would be a fair point to make, in case people wrongly conflate the two as you have. But that doesn’t make the people who avoid that mistake, and refer instead to the specific legal concept, liars. They aren’t, and you should stop saying so.
There are plenty of words with textbook or legal definitions—violence, tyranny, fascism, hate speech, terrorism that also have lives in ordinary political discourse. People invoke them every day, often correctly and sometimes loosely. The existence of a legal definition does not mean that its legal meaning is the only legitimate way to understand its use in public debate. That is Russ’s point about genocide. The issue isn’t whether there is a legal definition, or whether something must resemble Nazi Germany to qualify. It is whether invoking the word in this context is a precise description or a rhetorical accusation carrying a toxic moral charge. That distinction is important and simply pointing to the legal definition doesn't resolve it.
But none of those words were created in the 1940s *as* as a legal concept.
‘Genocide’ was, meaning that chastising people for using it in that original and clearly defined sense, because you have decided it requires all additional features of the most famous genocide for some reason, is patently absurd.
And the ICC (and several other relevant authorities) have decided that the charge is plausible and/or accurate, so the idea that it is not “a precise description [but rather] a rhetorical accusation” is, again, patent nonsense. That’s not to say you have to agree with the ICC or anyone else; and it’s fair to argue that *even if* if meets that technical definition, it doesn’t fit the popular conception of the term, and so its use *as* a rhetorical tool is misleading.
But it is a specifically defined and recently created legal concept, and several arguably relevant authorities have decided Israel’s acts and intents have met its definition) or plausibly might have). You can disagree with them, but you cannot pretend that the application of the term is an ill-defined smear, baseless and therefore bigoted fabrication. It’s just a lie.
Reread my post: I am not arguing that genocide lacks a legal definition or that it must resemble Nazi Germany; I am arguing that a legal definition does not settle how a freighted term functions in public discourse, nor does the fact that some legal authorities have applied the term make its use precise rather than rhetorical. Peace out.
If you are going to call what happened Gaza a "genocide" then you have to invent a new word to describe what happened to the Jews in Europe during WWII. These things are obviously not the same.
In Poland lived 3.3 million Jews before WWII and 90,000 after. Those Jews did not harbor genocidal ambitions towards their neighbor, start a war or build a terrorist army and have said army invade a neighbor and take hostages with 1,000 miles of underground tunnels to hide said hostages. Those Jews were just living their lives as Jews and then were killed for doing so. 97% of them murdered.
Hamas says 70,000 people killed out of a population of over 2 million which is 3% of the population. Right there you have a definitional problem if you are saying the murder of 97% of a population who did not start a war is the same thing as killing 3% of a population whose government did start a war. According to the IDF, of the 70,000 approximately 25,000 were militants. There certainly was some Gazans killed by errant missiles and gunfire of Hamas (of course I would argue all of the deaths are a result of Hamas’s war strategy) so that leaves maybe 35,000 to 40,000 civilians killed by the IDF while killing 25,000 militants, which for urban war is a low ration of civilian deaths even if the aggregate number is high.
The Gaza war was a horrible war initiated by the Gazans that identify as Hamas. I don’t make light of 35,000 or 40,000 innocent civilians killed as a result--it is horrific. It is not comparable to what happened to the Jews of Europe. Thus, If you want to describe the war in Gaza as a "genocide" then you need to find a new word for what happened to the Jews in WWII.
Thank you for writing this and putting it out there.
I heard Matti Friedman explain (maybe it was even on EconTalk) something to the effect that this is simply what a war against jihadists looks like, and every single day (after October 7) the Gazan leadership wakes up and decides they prefer to continue the war (with all the death and destruction that they get to use as photo-ops for anti-Israel propaganda), rather than to surrender and live in peace next to a Jewish state.
The responsibility for this war lays with the antizionist ideology, not with the fact that Jews want to live with self-determination rather than as a tiny oppressed minority in a vast sea of Arab Muslims who consider them inferior and who lack the modern liberal democratic concept of human rights.
To your question about what I would do if 250 of my friends were abducted and held in this kind of scenario, I think I’d use intelligence services and send in some special forces to attempt to locate and extract them.
I wouldn’t level the entire region with a multi year bombing campaign. Especially not of people in the situation of Gaza, who are already blockaded in to one of the densest regions of the planet, and who, unless there is some sort of ethnic cleansing, I’ll have to live next to forever.
It seems like the current strategy is to just make it abundantly clear to those people that you will be a powerless underclass forever and anything that the extremists among your population do will be repaid to all of you 1000 times greater.
Instead of trying to build a future where the normal people in that population can eventually become part of it, the solution seems to be to just bash them into submission again and again and leave them no route to advance their lives.
least we forget: civilian Gazans participated in the Oct. 7 pogrom; cheered in the streets; held and tortured hostages; sexually abused young women and young men. Gazans are no more innocent than Germans were in WWII. Peace will never be achieved through negotiations with Islamists. until the other side surrenders unconditionally, you can't build toward a lasting peace. this last attempt at peace is a joke and will result in more, not less, civilian casualties. Hamas will surrender when the IDF takes the last gun from the last dead terrorist's hand.
Well done, Russ Roberts. Unfortunately, we live in a world where a man who claims Israel is guilty of genocide can be elected mayor of one of our largest cities. Which only goes to show, I suppose, that the wildly naive and gullible are still eligible to vote.
Agree completely, Andy. It may be that we are indeed “dumbed down” to that level - or effectively brainwashed into looking for and only accepting that kind of simplistic “oppressed - oppressor” narrative. I’m just paranoid enough to think this was the whole purpose of “public education” in the first place.
It’s wrong to displace innocent people by destroying their homes, hospitals, schools, water infrastructure, etc. The claim that everyone else is lying or taking things out of context is. Blatant falsehood. There are five specific war crimes listed in the charges against Netanyahu: starvation, deliberately directing attacks against civilians, targeting medical responders, persecution of civilians based on political views, and murder. This is dishonest Zionist propaganda or foolishness
““much of Gaza has been leveled which is horrifying for the many innocent Gazans who did not vote for Hamas in 2005” maybe a throw away line, but an election vote 21 years ago is troubling standard to assess accountability and whether someone is deserving of such devastation
Thanks for opening this "ugly can of worms." The truth is that we need to have more discussions of these issues where people can respectfully debate the issues without getting called names. When I saw what happened on Oct. 7, I was horrified. My knee-jerk reaction was that Israel should just bull-doze all of Gaza into the sea. But I knew that (1) this was a knee-jerk reaction; and (2) it was far from the right action for a number of reasons. At first, Israel (and when I say this, I mean its leadership) seemed to react with at least some restraint. Ok, they have the right to defend themselves. However, over time it was clear that Israel was reacting in a manner that was wholly disproportionate and far from defensive.
By just over 100 days in, world opinion was starting to go against Israel. On 1/19/2024 Ezra Klein spoke with Thomas Friedman. Klein pointed out that in just over 100 days since the Hamas attack 64% of Gazans reported that a family member had been killed, nearly the entire population had been displaced, and around half the buildings on the strip destroyed or damaged. Friedman discussed the quite different response that India had to the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai. India did nothing, because retaliation would reduce the impact of the attack and lose site of how vile it was. The analogy does not mean that Israel should have done nothing, but rather that what they did do did exactly what was avoided by India's choice. Friedman said "And it’s sometimes hard for me, as somebody who’s fundamentally sympathetic to Israel and who believes that America should support Israel in areas of legitimate self defense, to look at what has been done in Gaza and see something that we should still be supporting." So this is the problem. Israel made a choice that has resulted in massive destruction and human cost. That was not the inventible result of war--that was the result of Israel's choices. We all know that Hamas doesn't care about Gazans. We know they want them to be harmed. Israel knows that too, so this destruction was an explicit choice made by Israel. Israel was fully aware of the devastation they were wreaking on innocent human beings. It was not the unfortunate consequence of war. And if nothing else, I think we can all agree that at least children are innocent, though we might argue over the age.
My daughters were in their teens on Oct. 7th and during the first few months after. They looked at what Hamas did and were horrified. They then looked at what Israel was doing and were horrified. They see no justification for either. It took me longer, but at this point I too see no justification. If I knew a person who was killed by Hamas or Israel, I would be blaming both and I would expect both to be held accountable. So that is what I expect now. Unfortunately, justice rarely prevails in these situations, so it likely won't happen. However, I question the humanity of anyone who can look at either what Hamas did or what Israel did and somehow justify it. That is not meant as an insult, but rather as genuine concern for the human race.
And if 250 of my friends and family were taken hostage, I would not want tens of thousands of innocent people to be starved, killed, and maimed, or their houses destroyed to save that 250.
Russ, thank you for writing this. I discovered you about 10 years ago thanks to Jonah Goldberg and have been an avid listener to EconTalk ever since. Glad to find you on Substack as well.
Very good essay. Genocide is a very serious word at risk of losing its horrifying meaning. I have yet to meet anyone who accuses Israel of genocide who has even a cursory knowledge of actual genocides (including the Holocaust). They invoke other things that were never genocides, and I can’t tell if they actually believe those non-genocides were genocides or if they’re deliberately trying to sand down the meaning (probably depends on the person). But as soon as they’re confronted with, for example, the genocide of Bosnian Muslims by Serbs, or the Hutus massacring the Tutsis in the 1990s, they grow quiet or equivocate in a way that reveals they don’t understand the true depravity of genocide (i.e. forced impregnations, shooting pits, burying survivors alive, hacking families to death). Trying to make genocide into a continuum that “just” includes brutal war or ethnic cleansing removes all meaning and dignity to victims of all these things, including genocide. I’m truly sick of hearing the word because I rarely ever hear it used appropriately anymore.
Excellent, Russ Roberts.
I read this X post yesterday and woke up this morning thinking about how important it was and that I should share it here on Substack. Glad to see this longer post explaining the argument. Easier to share and talk about now.
But the legal concept *is* the concept. It was only created, as a legal concept, in about 1942, and it has a pretty clear definition (even if it is still highly contested at the edges).
Your “everyday sense” where it has to be the same as Nazi Germany is just wrong. So posting these screeds about how calling it a genocide is “dishonest” etc.- because you’ve decided that it isn’t, based on your own “everyday” concept that bears no resemblance to the specific legal concept- is nonsense.
If you want to point out that it’s different from Nazi Germany’s genocide, that would be a fair point to make, in case people wrongly conflate the two as you have. But that doesn’t make the people who avoid that mistake, and refer instead to the specific legal concept, liars. They aren’t, and you should stop saying so.
There are plenty of words with textbook or legal definitions—violence, tyranny, fascism, hate speech, terrorism that also have lives in ordinary political discourse. People invoke them every day, often correctly and sometimes loosely. The existence of a legal definition does not mean that its legal meaning is the only legitimate way to understand its use in public debate. That is Russ’s point about genocide. The issue isn’t whether there is a legal definition, or whether something must resemble Nazi Germany to qualify. It is whether invoking the word in this context is a precise description or a rhetorical accusation carrying a toxic moral charge. That distinction is important and simply pointing to the legal definition doesn't resolve it.
But none of those words were created in the 1940s *as* as a legal concept.
‘Genocide’ was, meaning that chastising people for using it in that original and clearly defined sense, because you have decided it requires all additional features of the most famous genocide for some reason, is patently absurd.
And the ICC (and several other relevant authorities) have decided that the charge is plausible and/or accurate, so the idea that it is not “a precise description [but rather] a rhetorical accusation” is, again, patent nonsense. That’s not to say you have to agree with the ICC or anyone else; and it’s fair to argue that *even if* if meets that technical definition, it doesn’t fit the popular conception of the term, and so its use *as* a rhetorical tool is misleading.
But it is a specifically defined and recently created legal concept, and several arguably relevant authorities have decided Israel’s acts and intents have met its definition) or plausibly might have). You can disagree with them, but you cannot pretend that the application of the term is an ill-defined smear, baseless and therefore bigoted fabrication. It’s just a lie.
Reread my post: I am not arguing that genocide lacks a legal definition or that it must resemble Nazi Germany; I am arguing that a legal definition does not settle how a freighted term functions in public discourse, nor does the fact that some legal authorities have applied the term make its use precise rather than rhetorical. Peace out.
If you are going to call what happened Gaza a "genocide" then you have to invent a new word to describe what happened to the Jews in Europe during WWII. These things are obviously not the same.
In Poland lived 3.3 million Jews before WWII and 90,000 after. Those Jews did not harbor genocidal ambitions towards their neighbor, start a war or build a terrorist army and have said army invade a neighbor and take hostages with 1,000 miles of underground tunnels to hide said hostages. Those Jews were just living their lives as Jews and then were killed for doing so. 97% of them murdered.
Hamas says 70,000 people killed out of a population of over 2 million which is 3% of the population. Right there you have a definitional problem if you are saying the murder of 97% of a population who did not start a war is the same thing as killing 3% of a population whose government did start a war. According to the IDF, of the 70,000 approximately 25,000 were militants. There certainly was some Gazans killed by errant missiles and gunfire of Hamas (of course I would argue all of the deaths are a result of Hamas’s war strategy) so that leaves maybe 35,000 to 40,000 civilians killed by the IDF while killing 25,000 militants, which for urban war is a low ration of civilian deaths even if the aggregate number is high.
The Gaza war was a horrible war initiated by the Gazans that identify as Hamas. I don’t make light of 35,000 or 40,000 innocent civilians killed as a result--it is horrific. It is not comparable to what happened to the Jews of Europe. Thus, If you want to describe the war in Gaza as a "genocide" then you need to find a new word for what happened to the Jews in WWII.
Thank you for writing this and putting it out there.
I heard Matti Friedman explain (maybe it was even on EconTalk) something to the effect that this is simply what a war against jihadists looks like, and every single day (after October 7) the Gazan leadership wakes up and decides they prefer to continue the war (with all the death and destruction that they get to use as photo-ops for anti-Israel propaganda), rather than to surrender and live in peace next to a Jewish state.
The responsibility for this war lays with the antizionist ideology, not with the fact that Jews want to live with self-determination rather than as a tiny oppressed minority in a vast sea of Arab Muslims who consider them inferior and who lack the modern liberal democratic concept of human rights.
To your question about what I would do if 250 of my friends were abducted and held in this kind of scenario, I think I’d use intelligence services and send in some special forces to attempt to locate and extract them.
I wouldn’t level the entire region with a multi year bombing campaign. Especially not of people in the situation of Gaza, who are already blockaded in to one of the densest regions of the planet, and who, unless there is some sort of ethnic cleansing, I’ll have to live next to forever.
It seems like the current strategy is to just make it abundantly clear to those people that you will be a powerless underclass forever and anything that the extremists among your population do will be repaid to all of you 1000 times greater.
Instead of trying to build a future where the normal people in that population can eventually become part of it, the solution seems to be to just bash them into submission again and again and leave them no route to advance their lives.
least we forget: civilian Gazans participated in the Oct. 7 pogrom; cheered in the streets; held and tortured hostages; sexually abused young women and young men. Gazans are no more innocent than Germans were in WWII. Peace will never be achieved through negotiations with Islamists. until the other side surrenders unconditionally, you can't build toward a lasting peace. this last attempt at peace is a joke and will result in more, not less, civilian casualties. Hamas will surrender when the IDF takes the last gun from the last dead terrorist's hand.
Well done, Russ Roberts. Unfortunately, we live in a world where a man who claims Israel is guilty of genocide can be elected mayor of one of our largest cities. Which only goes to show, I suppose, that the wildly naive and gullible are still eligible to vote.
“Which only goes to show, I suppose, that the wildly naive and gullible are still eligible to vote.”
Or that today many people prefer immoral, simplistic oppressor- oppressed ideology and no longer hold broadly Judeo-Christian values.
Agree completely, Andy. It may be that we are indeed “dumbed down” to that level - or effectively brainwashed into looking for and only accepting that kind of simplistic “oppressed - oppressor” narrative. I’m just paranoid enough to think this was the whole purpose of “public education” in the first place.
It’s wrong to displace innocent people by destroying their homes, hospitals, schools, water infrastructure, etc. The claim that everyone else is lying or taking things out of context is. Blatant falsehood. There are five specific war crimes listed in the charges against Netanyahu: starvation, deliberately directing attacks against civilians, targeting medical responders, persecution of civilians based on political views, and murder. This is dishonest Zionist propaganda or foolishness
Thank you, Russ.
Amazing article. Thanks for this.
Excellent post. Sadly, they have chosen “us or them” and there is no talking them out of it, only choosing.
Thanks Russ, for a difficult and heartfelt post.
““much of Gaza has been leveled which is horrifying for the many innocent Gazans who did not vote for Hamas in 2005” maybe a throw away line, but an election vote 21 years ago is troubling standard to assess accountability and whether someone is deserving of such devastation
I was trying to say they have no culpability. Will re-word.
Thanks for opening this "ugly can of worms." The truth is that we need to have more discussions of these issues where people can respectfully debate the issues without getting called names. When I saw what happened on Oct. 7, I was horrified. My knee-jerk reaction was that Israel should just bull-doze all of Gaza into the sea. But I knew that (1) this was a knee-jerk reaction; and (2) it was far from the right action for a number of reasons. At first, Israel (and when I say this, I mean its leadership) seemed to react with at least some restraint. Ok, they have the right to defend themselves. However, over time it was clear that Israel was reacting in a manner that was wholly disproportionate and far from defensive.
By just over 100 days in, world opinion was starting to go against Israel. On 1/19/2024 Ezra Klein spoke with Thomas Friedman. Klein pointed out that in just over 100 days since the Hamas attack 64% of Gazans reported that a family member had been killed, nearly the entire population had been displaced, and around half the buildings on the strip destroyed or damaged. Friedman discussed the quite different response that India had to the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai. India did nothing, because retaliation would reduce the impact of the attack and lose site of how vile it was. The analogy does not mean that Israel should have done nothing, but rather that what they did do did exactly what was avoided by India's choice. Friedman said "And it’s sometimes hard for me, as somebody who’s fundamentally sympathetic to Israel and who believes that America should support Israel in areas of legitimate self defense, to look at what has been done in Gaza and see something that we should still be supporting." So this is the problem. Israel made a choice that has resulted in massive destruction and human cost. That was not the inventible result of war--that was the result of Israel's choices. We all know that Hamas doesn't care about Gazans. We know they want them to be harmed. Israel knows that too, so this destruction was an explicit choice made by Israel. Israel was fully aware of the devastation they were wreaking on innocent human beings. It was not the unfortunate consequence of war. And if nothing else, I think we can all agree that at least children are innocent, though we might argue over the age.
My daughters were in their teens on Oct. 7th and during the first few months after. They looked at what Hamas did and were horrified. They then looked at what Israel was doing and were horrified. They see no justification for either. It took me longer, but at this point I too see no justification. If I knew a person who was killed by Hamas or Israel, I would be blaming both and I would expect both to be held accountable. So that is what I expect now. Unfortunately, justice rarely prevails in these situations, so it likely won't happen. However, I question the humanity of anyone who can look at either what Hamas did or what Israel did and somehow justify it. That is not meant as an insult, but rather as genuine concern for the human race.
And if 250 of my friends and family were taken hostage, I would not want tens of thousands of innocent people to be starved, killed, and maimed, or their houses destroyed to save that 250.
Russ, thank you for writing this. I discovered you about 10 years ago thanks to Jonah Goldberg and have been an avid listener to EconTalk ever since. Glad to find you on Substack as well.
I found your column here spot on.
"See" you on Monday. : )
Very good essay. Genocide is a very serious word at risk of losing its horrifying meaning. I have yet to meet anyone who accuses Israel of genocide who has even a cursory knowledge of actual genocides (including the Holocaust). They invoke other things that were never genocides, and I can’t tell if they actually believe those non-genocides were genocides or if they’re deliberately trying to sand down the meaning (probably depends on the person). But as soon as they’re confronted with, for example, the genocide of Bosnian Muslims by Serbs, or the Hutus massacring the Tutsis in the 1990s, they grow quiet or equivocate in a way that reveals they don’t understand the true depravity of genocide (i.e. forced impregnations, shooting pits, burying survivors alive, hacking families to death). Trying to make genocide into a continuum that “just” includes brutal war or ethnic cleansing removes all meaning and dignity to victims of all these things, including genocide. I’m truly sick of hearing the word because I rarely ever hear it used appropriately anymore.