“Genocide deniers” have been social pariahs since World War II, and rightfully so. The term was first used to describe some fringe political figures on the fascist far right who claimed the Holocaust never occurred. It was a hoax, they insisted, and a slander against the German people. No one, especially no one with liberal views, would have considered joining them as they denied the reality and horror of 20th-century genocide.
The new genocide deniers are a very different breed. They often see themselves as tolerant, open-minded, and liberal. On some issues, they often are. But their reaction to Israel’s violence against Gaza, the 21st century’s most visible genocide, is to dismiss its true nature with the wave of a hand.
The most visible of the new genocide deniers lately has been former pop star Boy George, whose song, “We Will Dance Again,” earned wide publicity for lyrics such as, “You say genocide, I say war/When you’re attacked, that’s what the army’s for.”
(I confess I haven’t listened to the song, nor do I intend to. That’s not based on any moral objections, but on the widely-reported fact that the music was generated with AI. My psyche has been polluted enough by AI music, which is the esthetic equivalent of microplastics in the brain. I don’t need to hear the backing track to respond to the lyrics.)
An entire essay could be written on the words “when you’re attacked,” but anybody who still doesn’t know about the 78-year brutalization of Palestine clearly doesn’t want to know. (For many years, I didn’t know either. Some of us have had to deprogram ourselves.) What caught my eye, however, was that flat declaration—“You say genocide, I say war”—that caught my eye. He’s not calling the reports from Gaza a hoax, but that’s the signature move for the new genocide deniers. They don’t deny reality; they deny the meaning of reality.
These deniers don’t seem to believe that knowledge, research, or legal authority have any bearing on this issue. Anyone with a platform can issue a ruling and expected it to be respected.
While Boy George is the current face of the new genocide deniers, he’s far from alone. Social media is filled with self-declared experts on the subject, from random strangers to pundits with some level of online visibility. Take, for example, the ‘centrist’ blogger Noah Smith, who declared on X that “Israel hasn’t yet committed genocide.”
Noah Smith makes Boy George look like Dag Hammarskjöld. At least the Boy tries to justify his position, however ineptly. Smith apparently thinks a simple declaration typed on his keyboard should suffice. And who is Noah Smith? According to his blog, he’s a former economics professor and columnist. “Basically,” he writes, “I’m just a guy who writes about economics.”
(This serves to strengthen my longtime suspicion—based on personal experience as well as observation—that an economics background is more likely to impede critical thinking than improve it. The smart economists I know have had to deprogram themselves, too.)
What’s especially irritating about Smith’s highhandedness (yes, I’m irritated; why hide it?) is that he’s responding to a reasonable observation by Shadi Hamid, a political scientist who possesses actual expertise. Hamid had tweeted:
“It’s frustrating that a lot of otherwise smart people still don’t know what the legal definition of ‘genocide’ is. It does not mean trying to kill every single member of a group. Pro-Israel commentators keep saying things like, ‘if Israel wanted to, it could have killed every Gazan’ as if this is some sort of defense of Israel’s morality.”
Hamid is right. There isn’t room enough to list all of the official bodies, NGOs, and experts who agree with him, although I have placed a partial list at the bottom of this page. Here is Smith’s full reply:
“Israel hasn’t yet committed genocide. But they very well might, in the near future. And if and when they do, the Palestine movement won’t have any additional accusations to make; they made them all preemptively.”
To the casual reader, this may look like an attempt to be reasonable. It is not. It is an example of what online culture calls “concern trolling,” where the commenter pretends to care about others in order to belittle or dismiss them. And, as Nathan J. Robinson points out, the mention of the “Palestine movement” implies that only pro-Palestinian (or is that “pro-Hamas”?) partisans make this claim.
Some American Jews struggle when they hear the term ‘genocide’ applied to the actions of the State of Israel. This is especially likely if they, like me and many others, were raised with an idealized image of that state. The genocide charge, however well-documented, triggers pain, cognitive dissonance, and—sometimes, tragically—an unwillingness to accept the truth.
The new genocide deniers are different. Many, like Boy George, are not Jewish. What drives them is not a history of generational trauma or a partisan upbringing. They have other motives. Some of them are defending the pro-Israel right. Some are defending the Democratic Party establishment. Some are just in love with their own voices. Whatever their motives, however, they share an arrogant disregard for both the rule of law and the importance of knowledge.
They may not be the brutal extremists of old. When it comes to genocide, however, they are deniers just the same. In the end, to deny a crime is to share in its evil.
The following have affirmed that Israel has conducted genocide in Gaza (partial list):
UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry
International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS)
Physicians for Human Rights Israel
Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières)
B’Tselem (Israeli human rights group)
Amnesty International
Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention
Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor
International Federation for Human Rights
Center for Constitutional Rights
Doctors Against Genocide
Mennonite Central Committee
American Friends Service Committee
United Nations Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People
European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights
Human Rights Watch
Christian Aid
Médecins du Monde
Defence for Children International
Oxfam
Melanie O’Brien, genocide scholar
Martin Shaw, genocide scholar
Omer Bartov, genocide scholar
Charges of genocide against Israel are under review by the following:
The International Criminal Court (ICC)
The International Court of Justice (ICJ)
It's pure willfulness. Reverse the terms Israel and palestine and you'll be swept off your feet by the speed with which they will claim it is genocide.
Self image is the key.
At the end of an incomplete list of atrocities, along with a picture of the denier, put the word "Approved".
Then ask the denier: "May I post this with your endorsement?"
Just thinking there might be a road back to shame.