While the Trump administration in the US escalates a retroactive campaign of punishment against those who protested Israel’s war in Gaza during 2023–2024—deporting students like Mahmoud Khalil and gutting university programs like Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) —an extraordinary reckoning is unfolding inside Israel itself. Outside the US, Western governments, media, and even prominent Israeli figures are openly condemning Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocidal, using language that was unthinkable just months ago. The contrast between the US’s deepening crackdown and the global tide of accountability could not be starker.
Olmert’s Bombshell: “We Are Committing War Crimes”
On May 22, 2025, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert published a searing op-ed in Haaretz, translated and amplified by NYU Professor Monica Marks on X. Olmert’s words are nothing short of historic. He charged that Israel is “intentionally waging a war of annihilation: indiscriminate, unrestrained, brutal, and criminal killing of civilians,” driven not by battlefield mishaps but by a “policy dictated by the government, knowingly, intentionally, viciously, maliciously, recklessly.” “Yes, we are committing war crimes. YES,” Olmert wrote, implicating the highest levels of leadership, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom he calls “the head of the gang.”
Olmert further detailed the deliberate starvation of Gaza: “Yes, we are depriving the residents of Gaza of food, medicine, and minimal means of subsistence as part of a declared policy... adopting a policy of starvation and humanitarian pressure whose outcome could be disastrous.” He also highlighted genocidal rhetoric within Israel, noting that Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan’s call to annihilate Palestinian villages amounts to a “declaration of genocide,” and that such acts are not isolated but widespread: “This is a lie. They are many.”
Yair Golan: “A Sane Country Does Not Make a Hobby of Killing Babies”
Olmert’s intervention came just days after Yair Golan, a former IDF general and current liberal opposition leader, broke Israeli political taboos with his own dramatic condemnation. In a public statement, Golan declared: “A rational nation does not engage in combat against civilians, does not kill infants as a pastime, and does not aim to expel an entire population.” His provocative phrase—“killing babies as a hobby”—drew fierce backlash from the Israeli right, but Golan stood firm, emphasizing that his critique targets the government’s policies, not the military rank and file. He warned that Israel risks becoming a pariah state if it continues down this path, a sentiment echoed by Olmert’s op-ed.
Israeli Genocide Scholars Break Ranks
The reckoning extends to Israel’s intellectual class. Shael Ben-Ephraim, a genocide scholar and host of Israel Explained, publicly reversed his earlier skepticism in an interview with Owen Jones on The Owen Jones Podcast. “I was wrong and Israel IS committing genocide,” Ben-Ephraim stated, citing mounting evidence of systematic atrocities. In a Substack post, he detailed whistleblower accounts from IDF insiders that corroborate these claims, including deliberate policies of starvation and civilian targeting. Ben-Ephraim joins a growing list of Israeli and Jewish genocide scholars—such as Omer Bartov, who by late spring 2024 concluded that Israel’s actions meet the definition of genocide—who can no longer defend Israel’s conduct in light of internal testimonies and undeniable evidence.
The West Responds: Governments and Media Shift
This wave of Israeli dissent is both fueling and being fueled by a dramatic shift in Western capitals and newsrooms:
- Spain: Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez declared Israel a “genocidal state” and joined South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), supporting the application of the Genocide Convention to Israel’s actions.
- France, UK, Canada: These governments issued a joint statement condemning Israel’s conduct and warning of further measures if the war and restrictions on humanitarian aid do not end.
- Financial Times & The Economist: Both published rare, unsigned editorials condemning Israel’s campaign in Gaza and calling for an immediate end to the war.
- Media Figures: Piers Morgan, once a staunch defender of Israel, now agrees with Mehdi Hasan’s characterization of the war as genocidal, reflecting a broader shift in mainstream Western media.
Why Now? Whistleblowing, Legal
What explains this sudden and dramatic shift in discourse? The answer lies in a combination of factors, none of which are credibly linked to changes in Israel’s behavior in Gaza. Israel’s actions have long been characterized by collective punishment, forced starvation, deprivation of humanitarian assistance, and the systematic destruction of hospitals, universities, and infrastructure for water, energy, and medicine—policies that have remained consistent throughout the conflict, which escalated after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, which killed 1,200 people and was widely-- and rightly-- condemned as an atrocity. Instead, the shift appears driven by other forces:
- The growing wave of Israeli dissent is powerfully underscored by a landmark April 2025 report from Breaking the Silence, an Israeli human rights group comprised of IDF veterans. As reported in Common Dreams, the BTS report documents detailed, firsthand testimonies from Israeli officers and soldiers describing the systematic creation of a “kill zone” along Gaza’s border—an area where troops were ordered to destroy all structures and to use live fire to enforce a no-go zone, with civilians, including women and children, routinely targeted. These testimonies reveal orders for “widespread, deliberate destruction” and the indiscriminate killing of anyone entering the perimeter, regardless of noncombatant status. The specificity and gravity of these whistleblower accounts—corroborated by multiple soldiers and published by a respected Israeli NGO—mirror the timing and substance of genocide scholar Shael Ben-Ephraim’s public reversal. Ben-Ephraim, who had previously resisted labeling Israel’s actions as genocide,cited, in an interview with The Guardian's Owen Jones,mounting evidence of systematic atrocities and internal IDF testimony as one catalyst for his change of heart,a shift now echoed by the growing body of credible,detailed reports from within the Israeli military itself.
- Imminent International Legal Judgments: Anticipation of rulings from the ICJ and International Criminal Court (ICC), which may formally label Israel’s actions as genocide or crimes against humanity, is forcing Western governments and institutions to reposition themselves. Former EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell’s May 9, 2025, statement in The Guardian, accusing Israel of genocide and ethnic cleansing, underscores this pressure.
- The Scale of Atrocities: The most recent siege, coupled with deliberate policies of starvation and forced displacement, has made continued denial impossible for many observers, as evidenced by the growing chorus of voices from within Israel and abroad. Organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have long documented these war crimes, and their findings are now being echoed by establishment figures and scholars.
The US Stands Firm: A Crackdown Deepens
While the global discourse shifts toward accountability, the US under the Trump administration has doubled down on its repression of dissent. Students like Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University lead negotiator in pro-Palestinian protests, were deported—Khalil on March 14, 2025, with the White House tauntingly posting “SHALOM, MAHMOUD” on social media. Rümeysa Öztürk, a Fulbright scholar and Ph.D. student at Tufts University, faced arrest for writing an op-ed criticizing Israel in her school paper. Dr. Rasha Alawieh, a Brown University physician and professor with legal status, was deported despite a judge’s order after authorities found images of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on her phone without legal grounds. Universities have also been targeted: Columbia University lost $400 million in federal funds for alleged “deliberate indifference” toward Jewish students since October 7, 2023, as reported by The Guardian on May 23, 2025, despite DOJ concerns over the legality of such investigations. On May 22, Harvard’s SEVP was declared illegal by the DHS, blocking the enrollment of its 7,000 international students, with the DHS justifying the ban as addressing ‘antisemitism’ and ‘pro-terrorist conduct’—a tactic that exemplifies the administration’s equating of legitimate protest with terrorism. A federal judge temporarily blocked the ban on May 23, 2025, prompting a White House spokesperson to mock Harvard for ‘filing frivolous lawsuits’ instead of addressing ‘anti-American, anti-Semitic, pro-terrorist agitators.’ This response doubled down on the administration’s 'pro-terrorist' student protest groups narrative
As Jason Stanley noted in The Guardian in March 2025, this crackdown often labels Jewish and non-Jewish protesters alike as “antisemites” or “Hamas supporters,” weaponizing a 2019 executive order—renewed and expanded by Trump on January 30, 2025—to target dissent. The administration’s broader agenda of rooting out “improper ideology” and “DEI” initiatives has further entrenched this repression, showing no signs of abating despite global shifts.
Conclusion: The Walls of Denial Are Crumbling
As Israeli leaders, scholars, and whistleblowers break their silence, and Western allies and media outlets abandon their previous caution, Israel and the US find themselves increasingly isolated in their categorical rejection of genocide allegations. Inside the US, the Trump administration’s crackdown on dissent—through deportations, arrests, and defunding—stands in stark contrast to the global shift toward accountability, a stance unlikely to change soon given the influence of pro-Israel lobbying groups like AIPAC and the ADL, and Trump’s public dismissal of the ICJ as “a joke.” Yet, this growing isolation may erode the US’s moral authority on the global stage, as the world prepares for a historic reckoning—one that will be judged not only in courts of law but in the court of public conscience.
Endnotes
- Monica Marks, X post, May 24, 2025.
- Translation of Ehud Olmert’s op-ed originally published in Haaretz on May 22, 2025.
- NPR, "These students protested the Gaza war.Trump's deportation threat didn't silence them," May 21, 2025
- “Brown University physician deported over Hezbollah images,” PBS News, March 18, 2025
- Shael Ben-Ephraim, interview on The Owen Jones Podcast, Acast, accessed May 24, 2025.
- Common Dreams report on BTS Report,Israeli Troops Blow Whistle on War Crimes In Gaza 'Kill Zone,' Common Dreams, April 7, 2025
- Breaking The Silence, The Perimiter: Soldiers Testimonies from the Gaza Buffer Zone: 2023-2024, released April 2025
- Haaretz, "Breaking The Silence is a Legitimate Outlet for Israeli Whistleblowers," March, 2016
- Josep Borrell, “Israel committing genocide in Gaza, says EU’s former top diplomat,” The Guardian, May 9, 2025
- “Palestinian Genocide Accusations,” Wikipedia entry, accessed May 24, 2025.
- “Judge Blocks Trump Administration’s Ban on Harvard Accepting International Students,” The Guardian, May 23, 2025.
- Includes details on Columbia University’s $400 million funding cut and the Department of Health and Human Services’ citation for “deliberate indifference” toward Jewish students.
- Jason Stanley, “Trump’s Crackdown on Universities Targets Pro-Palestinian Protesters,” The Guardian, March 2025.
- “Trump Order Targets Pro-Palestinian Activists to ‘Combat Antisemitism’,” The Guardian, January 30, 2025.
- “Palestine Legal: Trump’s Executive Order Aims to Punish Protests of Israel’s Genocide in Gaza,” Palestine Legal, February 20, 2025.
- “Trump Calls ICJ ‘A Joke’ Amid Gaza Genocide Case,” The Times of Israel, January 2025.
- United Nations, “Gaza Death Toll Surpasses 40,000 Amid Ongoing Conflict,” UN News, accessed May 24, 2025.
- ACLU, "Writing an Op-Ed is Not Ground for Deportation," ACLU News & Commentary, April 14, 2025
- Dept. of Homeland Security, "Harvard University Loses Student and Exchange Visitor Program Certification for Pro-Terrorist Conduct, DHS Official Gov't Website, May 22, 2025New York Times,
- "Brown University Professor is Deported Despite a Judge's Order," NYT, March 16, 2025