Philissa Cramer
Bernie Sanders has become the first U.S. senator to label Israel’s conduct in Gaza as a “genocide,” in an essay posted Wednesday to his Senate website.
“The intent is clear. The conclusion is inescapable: Israel is committing genocide in Gaza,” Sanders wrote.
The essay came the same day that another Jewish member of Vermont’s delegation in Congress, Rep. Becca Balint, published her own op-ed calling Israel’s war in Gaza a genocide.
“As the granddaughter of a man murdered in the Holocaust, it is not easy for me to say that,” Balint wrote in the Courier, a nonprofit outlet focused on democracy. “But the trauma of the Holocaust serves as a reminder of the power of speaking out.”
Sanders and Balint, both progressives, are the first Jews in Congress to use the “genocide” term, as the war in Gaza nears its two-year mark. Previously, Democrats Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib and Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene were the only members of Congress to have done so publicly.
Sanders, an independent who leads the Democratic Party’s progressive wing, is a longtime critic of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the far-right ministers he has empowered in his current government. Sanders introduced legislation to halt arms sales to Israel, but he also drew criticism from some of his allies for being relatively slow to call for an end to the war, and since doing so he had refrained from using language about genocide even as it became widely used among his followers.
In his essay, Sanders says Israel had the right to defend itself after Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7, 2023, when it invaded southern Israel, killing more than 1,200 and taking 250 hostages. But he cites Israeli civil rights groups, a scholarly group and a United Nations panel that recently issued genocide pronouncements in saying that the war had gone beyond self-defense and become a campaign with the intent to harm the Palestinian people.
He also cites public comments throughout the war by Israeli leaders that he says provides evidence of intent, required under the legal definition of genocide.
Israel rejects the allegation, saying that it is only trying to dismantle Hamas and noting that if it wanted to kill more Palestinians, it could have. Critics have also argued that both the scholarly group and U.N. panel cited by Sanders and Balint are starkly biased against Israel, and hundreds of genocide and Holocaust experts have called on the scholars’ group to retract its resolution.
Sanders nods to the critics in his essay. “I recognize that many people may disagree with this conclusion,” he says. “The truth is, whether you call it genocide or ethnic cleansing or mass atrocities or war crimes, the path forward is clear. We, as Americans, must end our complicity in the slaughter of the Palestinian people.”
He also notes that “this issue goes beyond Israel and Palestine” at a time when “hatred, racism and divisiveness are on the rise.” Upholding the rule of law around what happens in wars is essential, he writes.
“The very term genocide is a reminder of what can happen if we fail. That word emerged from the Holocaust — the murder of six million Jews — one of the darkest chapters in human history,” Sanders writes. “Make no mistake. If there is no accountability for Netanyahu and his fellow war criminals, other demagogues will do the same. History demands that the world act with one voice to say: enough is enough. No more genocide.”
In her essay, Balint wrote that she believes too much attention to the term is misplaced. “I don’t think it’s useful to fixate on getting other leaders to use the specific word ‘genocide,’” she wrote. “Many Americans do see the profound suffering that Israel is causing but are hesitant to use the label because many Jews still live with the trauma of the Holocaust. More important than the word itself is that we change the conversation and change our policy. That’s what Americans want.”
