In a recent debate, Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner asserted, “Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, and we shouldn’t be complicit,” adding that “a government that is willing to commit genocide does not deserve U.S. tax dollars.”

In fact, Israeli Holocaust and genocide researchers Amos Goldberg, Omer Bartov, Daniel Blatman, Raz Segal and Shmuel Lederman have all identified Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide.  

Goldberg writes:  “What is happening in Gaza is genocide because the level and pace of indiscriminate killing, destruction, mass expulsions, displacement, famine, executions, the wiping out of cultural and religious institutions … and the sweeping dehumanization of the Palestinians — create an overall picture of genocide, of a deliberate, conscious crushing of Palestinian existence in Gaza.”

Other genocide scholars, including Martin Shaw, author of the book “What is Genocide?”; Melanie O’Brien, president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars; and Dirk Moses, senior editor of the Journal of Genocide Research, have drawn the same conclusion.

The United Nations Genocide Convention placed prevention at the center of international law.  By rejecting credible evidence of genocide, the United States is undermining the postwar promise of “never again.”

Terry Hansen
Grafton, Wis.