“Do you think Israel’s government is genocidal?” Corinna Barnard reacts to congressional lawmakers raising this question with university leaders last week.
Rep. Bob Good questioning Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway on May 23. (C-Span still)
By Corinna Barnard
Special to Consortium News
“Do you think Israel’s government is genocidal?”
That’s the question that Rep. Bob Good, a Republican of Virginia, fired at Jonathan Holloway, president of Rutgers, the state university of New Jersey, last week in a U.S. House committee hearing.
Holloway, a scholar of African American history who has been steadily climbing the ladder of administrative positions at top-tier schools, looked stunned.
“Um sir, I don’t … have an opinion on Israel’s um …in terms of that phrase.”
Good: “You do not have an opinion as to whether Israel’s government is genocidal?”
Holloway: “Uh, no sir, I think Israel has a right to exist and protect itself.”
Good: “Do you think Israel’s government is genocidal?”
Holloway: “I think Israel has a right to exist and protect itself, sir.”
Good: “But you will not say Israel’s government is not genocidal. You can’t say that?”
Holloway stuck to his script: “Sir I believe in the government’s right…”
Good, cut him off: “You can’t be that surprised by the topic of the discussion today and you can’t say that Israel’s government is not genocidal. That’s interesting.”
Good has a point.
It is hard to believe that Holloway, or anyone following world events in the slightest for that matter, would not have formed an opinion on whether the Israeli government is committing a genocide.
While Good was trying to wring a “no” out of Holloway, the correct answer for a university president, as a representative of the domain of knowledge, would undoubtedly have been “yes.”
Holloway, center, with U.S. Rep Tom Kean Jr. of New Jersey in February 2022. (Office of Congressman Tom Kean, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)
The 1948 definition of genocide in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide includes:
“Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”
It would be hard for anyone to deny that this definition has been met.
The evidence has been steadily accumulating in the media; via press reports and images and clips on social media showing Palestinians suffering an array of atrocities. As people scroll through them, they intimately witness a detailed hellscape of human suffering.
These horrifyingly graphic accounts may not be sufficient proof for international legal jurists operating under extreme geopolitical pressures. The court will seek additional evidence. But lay people in the court of public opinion should have no doubt about Israel’s alarming violations of every human right possible.
On top of the media evidence, there is also a trail of expert opinion. As early as Oct. 16, 2023, Israeli historian and genocide scholar Raz Segal, termed what Israel was doing in Gaza “textbook case of genocide.”
In January, South Africa sought an order from the International Court of Justice for a “provisional measure” ordering Israel to immediately end its military operation, on the basis of mounting evidence of genocide.
On. Jan. 26, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found “plausible” evidence of Israel committing genocide against Palestinians.
In March, Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, published “Anatomy of a Genocide,” a report in which she found “reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating Israel’s commission of genocide is met.”
On May 20, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said he was seeking an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as leaders of Hamas, on suspicion of committing crimes against humanity.
None of this seems to concern the AIPAC-friendly team running the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce. It continues in its zealous work of cracking down on campus demonstrations in solidarity with Gaza in the name of “stopping antisemitic college chaos,” as it partially labeled the full committee hearing on May 23.
In the aftermath of the ICC prosecutor’s move, the hearing also became a time for marshaling Zionist loyalty oaths out of witnesses as well.
The committee published the following recap of its roughly three-hour session, which it headlined the “Rutgers, UCLA, and Northwestern Edition”:
“For the third time this Congress, the Committee held a hearing with university presidents to fight back against pervasive antisemitism on college campuses. Witnesses testifying included Mr. Michael Schill, President of Northwestern University; Dr. Jonathan Holloway, President of Rutgers University; and Dr. Gene Block, Chancellor of UCLA.”
Each of these university leaders was summoned for failing, in one way or another, to adequately punish, patrol and repress student encampments in solidarity with Gaza.
Holloway had gone so far as to reach a deal with the encampment at Rutgers, in what he defended as a move to “maintain a safe and controlled environment.” The students had 10 demands. Holloway refused these top two:
No. 1 — for the school to divest from Israel and reinvest resources into Newark and the local community and;
No. 2 — For Rutgers to end its relationship with Tel Aviv University.
But the agreement Holloway struck did make eight concessions, including the establishment of an Arab cultural center at Rutgers and “hiring administrators and faculty with cultural competency and knowledge of Palestinian communities.”
For this offense Holloway was summoned to Congress to face the wrath of Rep. Virginia Foxx of North Carolina, chair of the House Education and the Workforce Committee.
“Dr. Holloway, you accepted eight of 10 encampment demands, including an egregious amnesty deal to Rutgers students and faculty involved in the encampment,” Foxx chastised him at the opening of the hearing. “I would like to know what sort of message you think that sends to your Jewish students.”
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Holloway, by the way, and the other witnesses were not legally compelled to attend these hearings, but lawyers are reportedly recommending university leaders to show up rather than risk a possible subpoena to appear. Such a possibility comes with chilling reminders from 1947, when film industry people were subpoenaed by the House Committee on Un-American Activities at the height of the Red Scare and wound up being sentenced to prison and then black-listed. Then the question was “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party of the United States?” Today it’s the one Good was asking Holloway.
Under a steady torrent of hostility during the proceedings, Holloway apparently decided at some point it was better to switch than fight.
“Do you believe that Israel is a genocidal state?
This time, near the three-hour mark, the question came from Missouri Republican, Rep. Eric Burlison. He posed the question — like a lice check — to all three of the university leaders lined up like ducks at the table before him. (“Because that is the propaganda,” Burlison added, to make his position on the matter perfectly clear.)
One by one, first Northwestern’s Schill, then Rutgers’ Holloway and then UCLA’s Block, all answered “no.”
'Do You Believe That Israel Is A Genocidal State?': Eric Burlison Grills… https://t.co/nLD4exZCa4 via @YouTube
— Barry Duffield (@Screenguy69) May 25, 2024
Holloway, whose answer came in a very low voice, has proven his ability to move with the shifting winds, as he showed in a 2017 retrospective about why he had resisted efforts by students at Yale to rename a residential complex named for John C. Calhoun, a staunch white supremacist of the pre-Civil War era. After the university decided to rename the college, he went along, writing:
“After so many years of taking the increasingly uncomfortable position that the name of the college should not be changed, I am certain that the Corporation made the right decision. Moreover, I applaud President Salovey for revisiting last April’s decision with thoughtfulness and patience.”
Defining Genocide
Still from a U.N. film strip on the 1948 Genocide Convention, circa 1949. (U.N. Photo)
Under the current version of the Geneva Convention, the term genocide, more fully,
“means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
- Killing members of the group;
- Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
- Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
- Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
- Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
Bear in mind that the convention does not say that all five of these acts must be met. It says “any” of them committed “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”
For the purposes of people who are just thinking this over and making up their minds — such as university presidents, not international legal jurists — the evidence of all these conditions should be abundant.
As a model for what can be said for each one, consider No. 1 —“killing members of the group … with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”
Israel has largely blocked foreign journalists from covering its assault on Gaza. More than 100 Palestinian journalists have been killed since the assault began on Oct. 7, 2023, according to Reporters Without Borders, which has just filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court “over alleged war crimes committed by the Israeli army against at least nine Palestinian reporters since Dec. 15.”
Media watchdog files ICC case over journalists' deaths in Gaza.
More than 100 reporters have died since the outbreak of the war between Israel and Hamas militants in Gazahttps://t.co/TIuabAV1Jg pic.twitter.com/TKafIdDC3G
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) May 27, 2024
The shortage of reporters to help assess civilian casualties has contributed to a chronic, ghoulish skirmish around the civilian death toll.
The latest round came in early May after the U.N. made a downward revision of the proportion of women and children in the civilian death toll — to 57 percent from 69 percent.
“One could be forgiven for wondering whether the UN had raised about 6,700 Gazan children and 4,500 Gazan women from the dead,” Graeme Wood, staff writer for The Atlantic, complained about the revision in his piece, “The UN’s Gaza Statistics Make No Sense.” He continued:
“OCHA has provided a running body count since the beginning of the Gaza war, and it currently stands at 34,844. This figure was generated by Hamas and is apparently accepted, give or take a few thousand, by Israelis.”
The U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHR, has explained the revision as the result of its switch to using the health ministry’s data — because it has more identification documentation — than that of the Government Media Office, its previous source.
Both the health ministry and the media office are run by Hamas, which has administered the occupied territory since June 2007.
Writers such as Wood are careful to point out Hamas’ connection to the Gaza casualty figures, presumably as a skewing risk. But if Hamas has an interest in steering the numbers it’s not clear in which way.
Interesting and depressing point on the Gaza death count by @guillaume_ancel, former French army officer and expert on the estimation of casualties during armed conflicts.
He says that the official count for deaths in Gaza is based on the number of people reaching hospitals but… https://t.co/pWznOixEZZ
— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) May 31, 2024
Ralph Nader, for one, thinks that Hamas would be more likely to want to low-ball the civilian death toll, rather than the other way around. “Hamas keeps the figures low to reduce being accused by its own people of not protecting them, and not building shelters,” he wrote in early March, adding:
“From accounts of people on the ground, videos and photographs of deadly episode after episode, plus the resultant mortalities from blocking or smashing the crucial necessities of life, a more likely estimate, in my appraisal, is that at least 200,000 Palestinians must have perished by now and the toll is accelerating by the hour.”
Even under current tabulating constraints, the figure that Woods cites, almost 35,000, is horrendous. And so is the 16,000 figure mooted in a recent podcast by Netanyahu — whose arrest warrant is being sought by the ICC’s chief prosecutor.
The White House was finally asked the only question that matters on Gaza, a question that will go down in history: "How many more charred corpses does he have to see before the President considers a change in policy?"
Thank you, Ed O'Keefe of CBS News. pic.twitter.com/HA5J9phLoz
— IfNotNow??? (@IfNotNowOrg) May 28, 2024
With all this killing there is also ample evidence — for the purposes of establishing genocide — of an “intent to destroy … the group … in whole or in part.”
This intent has been proclaimed brazenly by numerous Israeli leaders — from the prime minister, the president, culture minister, multiple military commanders, the agriculture minister, finance minister, and many others; down to a “video of soldiers chanting that there are ‘no uninvolved citizens’ in Gaza and that they will ‘wipe off the seed of Amalek.'” All of this is summarized in South Africa’s application to the World Court, beginning on page 60.
The Committee Rules
Nonetheless, the House Education and the Workforce Committee just extracted three “no” responses from reigning members of the U.S. academic elite.
They follow the lead of the U.S. commander in chief.
On May 20, the White House issued a curt statement calling the International Criminal Court’s application for an arrest warrant against Israeli leaders “outrageous.”
Later that day, at an event celebrating Jewish heritage, U.S. President Joe Biden expanded on his defense of Israel.
“But let me be clear. Contrary to allegations against Israel made by the International Court of Justice, what’s happening is not genocide. We reject that. (Applause.) And we’ll always stand with Israel and it’s — in the threats against its security.”
Such statements can only further harden the casing of political favor that Washington has welded around Israel’s commission of rampant war crimes.
The day after the hearings, on May 24, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to stop its assault against Rafah “immediately” to prevent genocide from being committed.
But the assault continues, along with growing condemnations and protests of Israel and more accounts of human agonies.
Israeli bombardment continues to intensify in southern Gaza's Rafah as Israel takes over the Gaza-Egypt border strip.
— in pictures https://t.co/FiAeatBi9x pic.twitter.com/RsjtoFctNI
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) May 30, 2024
For now, the committee is pleased with itself. “Three hearings and seven college presidents later,” it crowed on Twitter/X, “@EdWorkforceCmte‘s antisemitism investigation will not stop until there is accountability.”
Three hearings and seven college presidents later, @EdWorkforceCmte's antisemitism investigation will not stop until there is accountability.
— House Committee on Education & the Workforce (@EdWorkforceCmte) May 24, 2024
But with mounting evidence to prove that Israeli is committing genocide, the tactic of demanding denials from university leaders is dangerous for all involved, given the degree of complicity it represents.
Holloway, during the incident at Yale about renaming of Calhoun College, has shown his ability as a weathervane. But the direction of the winds outside that insular congressional chamber were impossible to detect. In January, the Center for Constitutional Rights warned that the Biden administration was “rendering itself complicit in possible genocide against Palestinians in the occupied territory.”
The same warning could be extended to the team running these hearings and the witnesses who appear before it, putting themselves on the record.
Corinna Barnard, deputy editor of Consortium News, formerly worked in editing capacities for Women’s eNews, The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires. At the start of her career she was managing editor for the magazine Nuclear Times, which covered the 1980s antinuclear war movement.
Views expressed in this article and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
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University Worms led by Congressional Scumbags.
I thank God for the Kids!
”Do you think Israel’s government is genocidal?”
…….. AND, before the cock crowed, in the morning, “One by one, first Northwestern’s Schill, then Rutgers’ Holloway and then UCLA’s Block, all answered “no.” PROOF, it’s one colossal can of f/up!!!
AND, the grown, empty, hollow, weasel, warped, little, men, pointlessly revered, are “living” scared shitless of The Zionist Beast that’s “GOT ‘EM” by the balls. The Zionist Beast $queezing any independent thought from the once revered, nka pea brained, grown, empty, hollow, weasel, warped, little, men, OWNED by I$rael. Bringing It, HOME, deception, destruction, death & greed!!! It’s an epidemic outbreak of I$rael’s Zionist influencer, *“Kill, First. Think, Later!”
It’s F.U.B.A.R! As f.u.b./a.r., as referring to Joey R. Biden & Comma La harris as “the commander in chief.”
PUHLEEZE!?! Have we not been f—k— with enough!?! NEEDED: A colossal can of whoop ass, i.e., “let it be,” the UN Security Council’s right f/on decision to hold Israel & the USG, to account for the deception, destruction, & death executed by Israel & the USG.
Imo, “we” are @ an epidemic of discontent. “We” must stand w/the Occupied, against the Occupier, ISRAEL & the USG.” Onward & Upwards!!!
* “Joe Biden Owns This.” Andrew Mitrovica hxxps://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/10/19/joe-biden-owns-this
“Keep It Lit!” TY. Ciao
Shameful displays of cowardice by these university Presidents. If they are fired, people at their level of experience can always find a decent job somewhere. It is not as if they would go begging. No, they sell their souls to keep a lucrative position.
Yogurt is good for the body. Pre digested news is good for corp. business??
I want to take the author to task in not reporting the names of the Congress people and their party affiliation on this particular committee (also not formally named) who interrogated these Presidents. I’ve googled their names and nowhere do I find a complete list of the membership which makes it impossible for us citizens to hold our Reps responsible for their behavior.Which was either McCarthy-istic or silent (condoning) or just.
Are all US universities going in this direction? All geared for jobs in the military industrial complex or some big corporation only? This the result of removing “Civics” in grade school. Real democracy in this country is not happening. Just have to look where the money is going. Very sad. This is why the taped speeches of JFK at his museum are so intelligent and right on as far as the real issues are so far above the US politicians that are with us today. All part of the decay of the USA. Our universities has been under seige.
It is like was the invasion of Iraq or LBJ bombing North Vietnam to get an election boost that was jeopardized by Democratic civil rights policy beginning to flip the south. Or Afghanistan rally having anything to do with the 911 emergency call for a Pearl Harbor like event fervently wished for or Hamas attack.
another US version
‘In the name of God’ -How the U.S. used Indian boarding schools to destroy culture, seize land
hxxps://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2024/sexual-abuse-native-american-boarding-schools/?itid=hp-top-table-main_p001_f008
Whats the cycle for US witchhunts/McCarthy persecutions? 70 yrs? Wheres the Ed Murrow when you need one? When will one of these academics grow a pair and call out these bought and paid for f..kers?
They say a people get the government they deserve. America is determined to prove the point.
Democracy actually takes work and effort from the people for it to function. If the people lack the willingness to pay attention to the politicians, they end up with a bunch of crooks, because the people did not do their part to make sure they voted for honest and good government.
The founding document of America, its declaration of independence, states that a government draws its powers from the consent of the people. Actually, it says “just powers”, but I’d put forward the point that it is all powers. If you doubt this, consider the following. Joe Biden has less than 40% approval. What happens if the other 60% sit down and, “just say no”?
Probably the first thing that happens is that a bit of the 40% says “well, if you are sitting down, so am I.” Even a lot of the people who approve of Joe Biden don’t actually like him and not all will be wanting to do all the work for him. The rest of the people get mad, but then realize that 25% of the people can not make a war economy and a military actually function. The government draws its powers from the consent of the people.
What does this mean? That Americans have the government they deserve, and that the vast majority consent to and approve of, even if they happen to disapprove of the hair style of the current leader. The fact that these fools are in Congress and that there is not a large crowd outside chanting for democracy proves this.
Some historians have made it clear that the founders established the structures we currently work within that serve the property owning class. That’s a distortion from the get go – favoring the “landed” gentry – witness, for example, the gross inequity of 2 Senators/state that drastically short changes the power of one man one vote for Californians compared to the exaggerated power of the single voter in
Wyoming. The weightedness of money empowerment has only intensified. No accident that over half of our Congress are millionaires. Obviously, money is influence – or there wouldn’t be battalions of lobbyists descending on Congressional reps like leeches on a hairless dog in a swamp. And, now that the lords of justice consider money equal to speech, those with the do re me control the media, legislation, and most egregiously University presidents and University Boards (education). Education is not infotainment. A democracy requires an educated citizenry. When the corporate controls the sluice gates of genuine news, guess what kind of news becomes unavailable? And what is the quality of the decisions made where infotainment is your source for information? You say Americans have the government they deserve. As though none of the above influences how one votes. or the quality of governance the citizen gets. Really?
“The inability of the liberal class to acknowledge that corporations have wrested power from the hands of citizens, that the Constitution and its guarantees of personal liberty have become irrelevant, and that the phrase “consent of the governed” is meaningless, has left it speaking and acting in ways that no longer correspond to reality. It has lent its voice to hollow acts of political theater, and the pretense that democratic debate and choice continue to exist.
The liberal class refuses to recognize the obvious because it does not want to lose it’s comfortable and often well-paid perch.”
-Chris Hedges
Death of the Liberal Class p.9,10
Mr. Holloway should have answered that he is not a legal expert and that he is deferring the question to legal opinion of the ICJ. But of course, the genocide apologists in the government want “yes” or “no” answers. In that case, he should have answered “maybe”.
However, the more certain members of Congress push their modern day witch hunt, the more they elevate antisemitism. This is a natural reaction because people with even a moderately developed moral compass can see what is happening in Palestine. Average people do not understand why Zionist-Israel is getting a free pass for mass slaughter and protection from their government. And this will happen on a global level. I feel sorry for my Jewish friends and the many righteous Jews who will eventually have to deal with this.
I was thinking about the same lines. E.g. “What makes you think that findings of ICC and ICJ are not valid? Lacking other expert opinions, I cannot proclaim that it does not happen.”
Another example: “As you know, before becoming university president, I had executive positions that did not give me expertise on this issue. If you are genuinely interested if genocide happened, or what are the reason to believe that it happen and the reason not to believe, I would recommend talking with two professors with opposite views, for example prof X and prof Y from my university. I must tell you in advance that university administration does not see reason to terminate either of those two professors.”
I would be more optimistic. According to Zionists, (a) they represent all Jews, non-Zionists are Jewish heretics (b) Israel, right or wrong, represents “elevation” of Jews (aliya), and Jews outside Israel have to agree with the majority within Israel. And those are the people that manipulate our political system. In the same time, “heretics”(a.k.a. self-hating Jews) are very visible among the opponents of genocide, and prior to that, settlements and repressions necessitated by settlements etc. Therefore most of the public sees the difference.
Why “heretics” do exist? In part, Jews or part-Jews (like myself) are naturally more interested in what happens in Israel, and thus, on the average, are more informed, and to many what they know is revolting. But the worry you expressed may be a factor as well (speculative but possible).
don’t you think, mr holloway and the rest,
should have shown some backbone and
should have answered: “YES!” because yes,
what israel engages in is, in fact, genocidal?
remember b. netanyahu before the UN general assembly, in
september 2023, showing a map of “the new middle east”:
PALESTINE WAS NOT ON [T]HIS MAP ANYMORE.
what does that tell us? what should it have told us?
did we hear any outcries of indignation, rage? none! why not?
as to the general state of things: i feel sorry for the countless numbers
of people who are being mutilated, traumatized by events, and will be
for generations to come – including israelis – because of all the truths
that were withheld from people, the pain inflicted, and the potential
for more hatred, despair and still more wars to be fought …
one famous man who dreamt of “PEACE FOR ALL TIME!” had to die
a few weeks after he spoke these encouraging words, because — as all
warmongers know so well: “PEACE DOES NOT PAY.”
I would give anything to have the opportunity to answer that asshole’s question – and you can guess what it would be.
That’s why people like us would never get invited in the first place …
Remember, this is a dog and pony show, for the rubes back home and for the masters watching from the gallery. They do their research and know who they are inviting.
Yes, a dog and pony show is what it is. Jonathan Holloway is a pathetic person who is being used by powerful and unscrupulous people for such a show.
Questions not being asked are ” Do Palestinians, including Gazans, have the right to defend themselves?” “Do occupiers have the right to mistreat the occupied by denying them basic human rights?” Has it gone beyond this to the committing of war crimes by the occupier?
“The declarations of American statesman are not as candid as Hitler’s were in his day. But candor is not essential to us here. It is enough that the facts speak; the speeches that come with them are believed only by the American people. The rest of the world understands well enough..”
-Jean-Paul Sartre
On Genocide p.72
“Declare you are beaten or we will bomb you back to the stone age.”
-Ibid p.72
But, as far back as Malcolm X, it was pointed out that guys in sandals and black pajamas were beating the high-tech American military machine. Just because you’ve been bombed back to the Stone Age, that don’t mean you can’t win.
Joe Biden has been trying to bomb Yemen back to the Stone Age for a decade now, as well as trying to starve them into submission. And yet, they have taken down 6, yes six, of America’s high-tech $20million drones, and claim to have just hit the aircraft carrier with a missile. Through their actions they have imposed a partial blockade on Israel. Not bad for people who were bombed back to the Stone Age a decade ago. The people in sandals still keep winning over the people with the expensive toys.
We are talking about the collective punishment of non-combatants.
The millions of dead and wounded in Vietnam, The 4.5 million people who have died in the Middle East post 9/11 and the tens of thousands who have died so far in Gaza have not “won” anything.
Wow, truly profiles of courage by the esteemed presidents of these august institutions. My God, what are these cretins afraid of? Is losing a job and being demoted to “only” being a tenured university professor really worth selling your soul and morality like this??
They sold their souls years ago. You don’t get to be a well-paid, head of corporate training school, without selling your soul. Its like any other mid-level corporate job. You don’t get it if the Bosses can sense that you still possess a functioning soul. To even get on the short list for these corporate jobs, a person would have needed to a have established a track record of soulless obedience to the corporate Bosses.
They are afraid of losing their seat at the head of the table, and it is informative that even genocide isn’t out of the question in keeping it. Today Palestine, what about tomorrow?
It seems that such people very likely might have forcibly learned as children that they dared not question or challenge or talk back to their parents, or say or do anything that might offend their parents, or anybody in a position of authority over them. And they have since not dared to question or challenge anybody else in a position of power or authority over them. That is one of the consequences of abuse, mistreatment, or humiliation of children. This is documented by the late writer and psychotherapist Alice Miller in her books and in her online articles. Particularly of interest is her now online book titled For Your Own Good and subtitled Hidden Cruelty in child-rearing and the roots of violence. The book is available online.
She has a section on Germans, both high officials and ordinary people, who participated in the Third Reich, and she has an entire chapter on Hitler.
And I will also add that this is a reason why I think the commandment to “honor your father and mother” is wrong. Any abusive, controlling, or narcissistic parent can invoke the commandment, as a cheap way to shame one’s child in order to get their way or to avoid dealing with any issues the parent might have, or just to have power over one’s children. Going against one’s parents is going against God, breaking a commandment from God. (I would think that a good parent would be able to deal with any issue without needing to bring in God or any alleged commandment from God.)
Call it whatever you want…to me MASS KILLINGS are MASS KILLINGS and must not be condoned, regardless who the mass murderers are.
Rather stunning is to consider the converse — that the modern argument is that some people appear to have a right to commit mass killings because of who they are.
This is the result of the now constant assertions that one group of people, one Identity, has rights and powers and privileges. Now it has reached the point where it you are the correct Identity, you get a right to kill, in large numbers. With no limits upon what you can do. This is of course the old right-wing class system, but now reformulated into Identities. One Identity has the right to kill. Another Identity has only the right to powerlessly submit. This is the world of the modern Democrats.
I was just listening to Dire Wolf, and Jerry Garcia’s refrain of “Pleeee-aaaaa-sssse … don’t murder me.” In a world where some groups have a right to kill, you can hum it, while watching for pigs on the wing.
A land of a class-less society where all people are equal is something different, and could have once been described as The American Dream.
“the modern argument is that some people appear to have a right to commit mass killings because of who they are.”
It is more atavistic than modern, going back to small groups, villages or rowing bands that maintained ecological balanced by occasional killings of members of other bands — that forces sufficient spacing between the groups and avoids exhaustion of resources. When people raised enough food to form larger groups, this sometimes lead to mass killings, perhaps overriding taboos requiring justification by visions of a prophet or shaman.
So my question would be: do we have taboos, like against mass killings? Do we have prophets or shamans urging to commit those killings? We do, but the “modern aspect” is that they do not announce themselves with “Hi, I am your prophet (or shaman)”.
“One Identity has the right to kill. Another Identity has only the right to powerlessly submit.”
Sounds more like a caste system. Is that the outcome of identity politics?
Right on Vera Gottlieb! And an accomplice to a mass murderer is a murderer on a grand scale and must be held account-able.
I agree completely Lois G – let’s hope it happens soon!
Our politicians love to mince words, but “genocide”, “ethnic cleansing” and “forced expulsion of people from their homes and nation” are all crimes along a continuum, all crimes against humanity.
from politics.stackexchange.com:
“If you look at legal definitions, the case is abundantly clear. The Rome statute of the International Criminal Court lists crimes that constitute genocide in Article 6, and crimes that constitute Crimes against Humanity in Article 7. The “Deportation or forcible transfer of population” is listed in Article 7, not 6.
A different case is looking into the literature of sociology and historical science. There the case has been made that ethnic cleansing, forced expulsion and genocide intertwine. Some authors try to establish a relationship between those terms that keeps clear qualitative boundaries, but others see a sort of “continuum”. Wikipedia has a long footnote citing various authors. One position is issued by Martin Terry:
Ethnic cleansing is probably best understood as occupying the central part of a continuum between genocide on one end and nonviolent pressured ethnic emigration on the other end.
Carrie Booth Walling voices the opposite position:
It is important – politically and legally – to distinguish between genocide and ethnic cleansing. The goal of the former is extermination…Ethnic cleansing involves population expulsions, sometimes accompanied by murder, but its aim is consolidation of power over territory, not the destruction of a complete people.
The most extreme position is denying there is a meaningful distinction to be made. Martin Shaw is quoted to say:
How could ‘forced deportation’ ever be achieved without extreme coercion, indeed violence? How, indeed, could deportation not be forced? How could people not resist? How could it not involve the destruction of a community, of the way of life that a group has enjoyed over a period of time? How could those who deported a group not intend this destruction? In what significant way is the forcible removal of a population from their homeland different from the ‘destruction’ of a group? If the boundary between ‘cleansing’ and genocide is unreal, why police it?” “
One longs for a Joseph Welch “At long last, have you left no sense of decency?” moment in these intimidation hearings. Interesting how the original HUAC was most infamously concerned with supposed allegiance of various individuals to foreign powers instead of the US, while this modern day version REQUIRES fealty to a foreign government.
Now that Trump has been convicted, let us hope the ICC will begin naming US officials starting with Biden and crew as complicit in genocide before the election. Expose this whole sorry lot of gangsters and their financiers to the world. That would silence the lesser evil types who have gone along with covering up this genocide.
??
Honestly, ICC is a political beast (so is our SCOTUS), so the fact that it acted (and taking a lot of time, I must to say) and how it acted reflects a hidden international consensus that the carnage in Gaza has to stop. Ideally (I am projecting thoughts the actors within this international consensus) this carnage would stop already, as it happened in the previous cases of Middle East war. But no such prospects are in sight, so we have to do something that would achieve it, even though many of us will need to reverse our rhetoric.
In the action of ICC you can observe meticulous cover for their behinds, prior warrant on Putin, concurrent request for Hamas leaders, and narrowing the material accusations toward Israel to those with best documentation, mostly purposeful starvation. Contrast it with much more “speculative” accusations toward Hamas. That does not satisfy ardent Zionists, but European governments are not ardent Zionists (with possible exception of UK, but even there, I somewhat doubt their sincerity).
The leadership of ICC consist of defenders of international status quo, complete with Western domination. Letting Israel to “complete the job in Gaza” is a real danger to “a wider conflict”, severe loss of persuasive capability of Western governments in interactions with non-Western ones and their own population, and further crumbling of the status quo. Needless to say, those limited goals would be only compromised by a legal crusade, even though it would be justified.