A Reckoning Within: Israeli Voices Confront Genocide in Gaza

 

A profound crisis has emerged within Israeli and global Jewish discourse regarding the ongoing war in Gaza. Far beyond the simplistic frame of “Israeli views vs. outsiders,” leading Israeli human rights organizations, scholars, former military leaders, and ex-prime ministers have joined a growing chorus describing Israeli state policy as constituting genocide and crimes against humanity, while international bodies and NGOs reinforce these charges with rich documentation. This debate exposes a rift at the heart of Israeli society and Judaism, challenging the “New Antisemitism” narrative—promoted in the U.S. and elsewhere—that treats genocide accusation as itself anti-Jewish. In reality, this is now a deeply intra-Jewish and intra-Israeli confrontation with profound moral, historical, and political consequences.

Israeli Human Rights Organizations and Political Leaders

B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights Israel have issued unprecedented reports and public testimony alleging the Israeli government’s coordinated, deliberate actions to destroy Palestinian society in Gaza and systematically attack its health infrastructure. Their leaders, Yuli Novak and Guy Shalev, cite the UN Genocide Convention and other international legal standards, drawing on extensive firsthand research and evidence from the ground. Former Major General and Knesset member Yair Golan has likewise warned of moral catastrophe and collective punishment, using language previously reserved for academic circles.

Ehud Olmert, former prime minister, published landmark op-eds describing Israel’s war in Gaza as “exterminationist” and denouncing the construction of concentration camps in the Strip, warning of ICJ and ICC prosecution and pariah status for Israel. His condemnation goes beyond critique of Netanyahu, instead indicting the governing ethos and societal complicity. Ehud Barak, another former PM, has characterized Israel as a global pariah and called for nonviolent civil resistance against the government, showing how centrist and center-right figures now voice outrage.

Genocide Scholars and Expert Testimony

Amos Goldberg and Omer Bartov, preeminent Israeli genocide historians, have both changed their positions over the course of the war. Goldberg’s January 2025 video declared Gaza a genocide based on the Raphael Lemkin definition and the convergence of intent and pattern. Bartov, originally cautious, published a widely read New York Times op-ed in July 2025 citing direct evidence of genocidal intent, citing statements from Israel’s top officials and the systematic destruction and deprivation in Gaza. Importantly, Bartov’s public conclusion marks a major shift, as he is Israeli-born, a former IDF officer, and a global authority on genocide; his conversion exposes the depth of the crisis among Jewish intellectual elites.

Shael Ben-Ephraim, an Israeli academic and international law specialist, underwent a dramatic reversal and now documents genocide and concentration camp policies in Gaza, tying decades of territorial fragmentation, denial of Palestinian identity, and state violence to the present moment. Scholars such as Dirk Moses, Raz Segal, Melanie O’Brien, and others amplify this consensus, applying the legal and historical frameworks of genocide studies to the case of Gaza, and pointing out that the patterns in Israeli policy fit not only legal criteria, but also philosophical and historical models of group extermination.

International Human Rights Community

By the end of 2024, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch had condemned Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide, collecting extensive documentation of physical destruction, intentional starvation, attacks on civilian infrastructure, and government policies. Amnesty’s material is especially detailed, offering both legal analysis and humanitarian impact reports that have become key sources for journalists, diplomats, and tribunals worldwide.

New Antisemitism, US Policy, and Repression of Protest

Despite this mounting evidence and the unambiguous public stands of so many Israeli Jews—including top government and military leaders, genocide scholars, and human rights professionals—the US mainstream media and most American politicians persist in presenting genocide accusations largely as expressions of antisemitism, with protesters routinely branded as antisemites. The “New Antisemitism” ethos justifies aggressive surveillance, sanctions, and punishment. University students and foreign nationals lose visas, are detained or deported, and placed on watchlists for protest. UN personnel—Francesca Albanese, Karim Khan, UNRWA officials—have been sanctioned for public statements and investigation, their motives attacked rather than their evidence engaged.

The Intra-Israeli and Intra-Jewish Crisis

These facts reveal a glaring rift between the official narrative of antisemitic motivation and the reality of agonized dissent inside Israel and the Jewish community. Many leading voices specialize in the very fields—genocide, Holocaust history, international humanitarian law, and Jewish ethics—whose insights have global legitimacy. Several have served in the IDF, the Knesset, and Israeli government at the highest levels. Few controversies in modern Jewish history have involved so public an admission of criminality and moral crisis by prominent insiders.

As Rabbi Ismar Schorsch argues, the crisis is theological as well as political. He warns that continued violence will leave Judaism itself “riddled with hypocrisy and contradictions,” severing the covenant and leaving future generations to bear the burden of silence and complicity. Schorsch’s voice, alongside Goldberg and Bartov, underscores the distinctly religious and ethical dimension of the trauma.

Conclusion

It is no longer credible to cast the genocide debate as a clash between outsiders and Israeli society—a binary that never captured reality and is now obsolete. Instead, the voices condemning Israel’s war as war crime, ethnic cleansing, and genocide include the chief actors in the history and destiny of the Jewish State. The drive to suppress or punish protest, branding it antisemitism, stands fundamentally at odds with the testimony of Israeli Jews from across the political and intellectual spectrum, who themselves are wrestling—often in public agony—with the meaning of Jewish ethics, historical memory, and the survival of justice through a period of profound darkness.

The world must now recognize this is a serious intra-Israeli and intra-Jewish moral reckoning, one that challenges the future not only of Israel and Palestine but of Jewish history and conscience itself.

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Endnotes

1. B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights Israel, CNN Amanpour interview and public reports, July 2025, transcript here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNJbNCCejvg&t=515s

2. United Nations, “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,” 1948. https://www.un.org/en/genocide-prevention/documents/about-genocide/Genocide%20Convention-EN.pdf

3. Ehud Olmert, “Enough is Enough: Israel is Committing War Crimes,” Haaretz op-ed, May 27, 2025. https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2025-05-27/ty-article-opinion/.premium/enough-is-enough-israel-is-committing-war-crimes/00000197-0dd6-df85-a197-0ff64a5c0000

4. Ehud Olmert interview, CNN International, July 14, 2025.

5. WSWS, “Former Israeli Prime Minister Olmert denounces Gaza ‘humanitarian’ plan,” July 14, 2025. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/07/15/hitj-j15.html

6. Al Jazeera Liberties, “Olmert Draws Stark Parallels Between Israel's 'Humanitarian City' Plan and Concentration Camp,” July 16, 2025. https://liberties.aljazeera.com/en/olmert-draws-stark-parallels-between-israels-humanitarian-city-plan-and-concentration-camp/

7. Amos Goldberg, video testimony, January 2025; transcript here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKkiKvn2Zt0&t=1s and an more recent statement from July, 2025 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vy1pmFu-goM&t=15s

8. Omer Bartov, “I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It,” New York Times, July 15, 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/15/opinion/israel-gaza-holocaust-genocide-palestinians.html

9. Raz Segal, “A Textbook Case of Genocide,” Jewish Currents, April 2024.

10. Dirk Moses et al., statements in Bartov NYT op-ed; Melanie O’Brien, International Association of Genocide Scholars publications.

11. Bartov op-ed; Segal, Moses, Schabas, Shaw referenced as developing academic consensus.

12. Rabbi Ismar Schorsch, “A Hard Tisha B’Av,” JASS Berlin, July 6, 2025. https://www.jassberlin.org/post/a-hard-tisha-b-av-rabbi-dr-ismar-schorschchancellor-emeritusjewish-theological-seminary-7-6-2025

13. Shael Ben-Ephraim, “I Used To Say Israel Was Not Committing A Genocide In Gaza—I Was Wrong. This is Why,” The Grand Scheme/ Substack, May 1, 2025. https://shaielbenephraim.substack.com/

14. Israeli government statements on self-defense and rejection of genocide charges, see Ministry of Foreign Affairs and IDF spokesperson; referenced passages in Bartov NYT op-ed.

15. Amnesty International, “Israel’s Conduct in Gaza Amounts to Genocide,” December 2024. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/12/amnesty-international-concludes-israel-is-committing-genocide-against-palestinians-in-gaza/

16. Human Rights Watch, “Israel and Gaza: Crimes and Documentation,” 2024. https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/12/04/israel-gaza-crimes-documentation

17. Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur report, October 2024; notes on US sanctions. https://www.un.org/unispal/document/genocide-as-colonial-erasure-report-francesca-albanese-01oct24

18. US media coverage of antisemitism accusations and actions against protesters, see Bartov NYT op-ed; university and legal press reports.

MAGAfication of the federal government: Ripping the band-aid off

Ripping the band-aid off

By now it is clear what djt and MAGA elites are doing. They are gutting the entire federal system that protects and serves average citizens and the public interest. At the same time, they are directing the power and wealth flow from the people and public interest to parts of the government that protects and serves special interests and their wealth. dkt and MAGA elites plan to privatize as much of federal government functions and services as possible, as fast as possible. Services that are not privatizable will just disappear. The impact of the wealth and power flow is going to get very ugly, very soon for a lot of average people. The pain is already starting to be felt.

A personal anecdote: A woman in her 80s living in Oregon and relying on Medicaid just got kicked out. She voted for djt in 2024. She was told she was no longer qualified for Medicaid. She doesn't know exactly why she lost her health care benefits. Presumably she told why she lost her health care in dense legalese that she didn't read or couldn't understand. Her response was sad: "Gosh, I hope this wasn't Trump". It was Trump. The poor dear, she's been MAGAfied & shafted.

Poisoning Medicare

News reporting: MAGA wants to privatize Medicare. The NYT reports (not paywalled) that a new quasi-privatization effort simply adopts barriers to health care access that the private sector already uses. Those barriers are enthusiastically hated by millions of people who have private health care. 

• The Wasteful and Inappropriate Service Reduction Model (WISeR) represents a significant shift in traditional Medicare's approach. AI-powered prior authorization is now required for services previously covered without pre-approval. Starting January 1, 2026, Medicare beneficiaries in Arizona, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, and Washington will face new barriers to accessing certain medical procedures.

• Millions of older adults (like me! 👍) chose traditional Medicare specifically to avoid the prior authorization hassles associated with private sector, for-profit Medicare Advantage plans. Now the same restrictive practices and barriers are coming to traditional Medicare. That eliminates one of its primary advantages. 

• The program uses artificial intelligence algorithms similar to those that have faced significant criticism in Medicare Advantage plans. Studies show that AI tools have been "accused of producing high rates of care denial, in some cases 16 times higher than is typical". These systems have been subject to multiple high-profile lawsuits because they enable fast, easy denial of many claims.

• Special interests get rewarded for denying medial care. Contracted companies get a percentage of the savings generated from rejections. That is a direct financial incentive to deny claims for profit. This puts companies at direct odds with clinicians and patients. Profit over patient care is the goal.

• The wealth and power flow: The program transfers decision power from Medicare beneficiaries and their doctors to private technology companies with profit motives. This incentives prioritizing profit over patient care. The same companies that manage prior authorization for criticized Medicare Advantage plans can now their reach into traditional Medicare. Consumers will be shafted, but companies will profit nicely.

It's clear that we're going to get MAGAfied whether we like it or not. I'm not gonna like it. But I'm just a pipsqueak with no power. I don't have the hundreds of millions of dollars it takes to buy government services, perks, benefits and protections from djt. Bummer!

Q: How much did insurance companies have to spend on "free speech" buying $TRUMP meme coin and donating to his campaign**, library and whatever else djt wants to spend money on himself for?  

** Regarding his political campaign, one can reasonably presume it's for when he illegally runs for his 3rd term on office. That's just fair & balanced.

Blog note: Getting back to normal

Welp, ladies 'n germs, it looks like my experiment in reaching out to the MAGA side is pretty much done.

I banned MC because I got tired of his insults and bad faith trolling. I submitted a post for LATW this morning before banning MC, but it got blocked or hung up. I presume I'm kaput there. 

The experience was useful but unpleasant. Most or nearly all MAGA people see me as a radical leftist who insults, lies and Dog only knows what else. I get lots of insults from that crowd, but essentially no useful feedback. They don't challenge my fact assertions or point out flaws in my reasoning. Instead they just criticize and insult me.  

I dug deep into the situation with Pxy. It made some interesting comments about the MAGA mindset, which I posted here two days ago.

The research confirms what you've experienced firsthand: MAGA operates within what scholars call "epistemic closure" - a completely self-contained information ecosystem where any challenge to their worldview is automatically interpreted as evidence of the conspiracy [or false belief] they believe in. …. This isn't mere bias - it's what researchers call "truth subversion": deliberate practices designed to destroy the very concept of shared factual reality.

That sounds right to me. With those MAGA folks there definitely is little shared factual reality with the rest of us. Also hardly any trust or good will, but plenty of negative vibes and ill-will. 

In all of this, I've been doing a lot of deep diving with Pxy. 👍 It also said that me continuing to try to make my fact and bias error reduction set better is at a point of diminishing returns. It's something about asymptotically impossible or whatever. So I'll just leave it alone for a while .... probably. 🤪

The quickening pace of America's rising dictatorship and falling democracy: Election subversion

US Constitution, Article I, Section 4: The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.

The New Republic, and other sources, report about MAGA efforts to undermine and subvert the 2026 mid-term elections. As usual, election subversion efforts are cynically claimed to be innocent attempts to make elections fair and honest. To djt and MAGA elites "election integrity" is code for dictatorship with  sham elections. In this new anti-elections effort, djt targets mail-in voting. 

His "Lies Antisocial" post reads in part: 

“ELECTIONS CAN NEVER BE HONEST WITH MAIL IN BALLOTS/VOTING, and everybody, IN PARTICULAR THE DEMOCRATS, KNOWS THIS,” he wrote on Truth Social. “I, AND THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, WILL FIGHT LIKE HELL TO BRING HONESTY AND INTEGRITY BACK TO OUR ELECTIONS.”

djt is cynically lying about what he is doing and why. He wants to stop mail-in voting by applying illegal federal authority. This amounts to an explicit, unconstitutional takeover of elections by djt and our now authoritarian, fully corrupted and MAGAfied federal government. 

• djt's claim that states "are merely an 'agent' for the Federal Government" contradicts constitutional separation of powers. That is an affirmative lie. 

• Legal experts have described the proposed EO as "blatantly unconstitutional" and "an authoritarian takeover of our election system".

• The Constitution explicitly grants election authority to states and Congress, not the president. Article I, Section 4 of the Constitution says the states have the authority to regulate elections, not the president, but that may be changed by Congress.

• Article I, Section 4 is fundamental to the federal system's balance of power between state and federal authority over electoral processes. It gives states initial control but also gives Congress ultimate oversight over its own elections.

Folks, this is very, very bad. In his boundless power lust, djt is making his run at setting up a kleptocratic American dictatorship. That is coming despite the blatant unconstitutionality and illegality of what he is often doing. djt's authoritarianism cannot get much clearer than this.