I'm Not As Open-Minded As I Used To Be

On drawing red lines during a war.

I’m not as “open-minded” as I used to be.

This puts me in a somewhat awkward position as someone who has long argued that basically nothing — and no one — should be beyond the pale when it comes to debating, short of actual, current members of terrorist organizations and admitted white supremacists.

Wisdom of Crowds is against consensus, so we seek out difference even when it’s uncomfortable. That’s the point. But I’ve also long argued that we all have red lines; the only question is where to draw them. And that’s an intensely personal decision. (It’s similar to democracy. All democracies are majoritarian; it’s only a question of how large the majority needs to be. In America, if two-thirds of both houses of Congress and three-quarters of states wanted to, they could repeal the Bill of Rights. American democracy relies on the assumption that a large enough crowd would never do something so unwise).

For much of the Gaza war, I was reticent to use the word “genocide.” Not because I didn’t think it was a genocide — I thought it indeed met the legal definition, which you can read for yourself here — but because I wasn’t sure if using the word made strategic sense. Persuasion isn’t necessarily why I write. But, at the same time, persuasion is nice if you can manage it.

I was worried that the use of a word so historically and politically charged could alienate people who would otherwise be open to my arguments. So I thought it might be better to use terms like “war crimes,” “mass atrocities,” and “ethnic cleansing,” all things which Israel — beyond a shadow of a doubt — has been committing.

The problem with the word “genocide” is that most people don’t actually know what it means or what the legal definition happens to be. They hear the word “genocide,” and they immediately think of the worst cases of mass extermination of the 20^th century, primarily the Holocaust but little else. The Holocaust, correctly, is viewed as singular and incomparable.

But there’s also the fact that a country, Israel, that was forged in part as a response to genocide is itself committing a genocide, which is a difficult thing for many otherwise well-intentioned people to process. It brings to mind Edward Said’s famous remark that the Palestinians were — and still are, decades later — “the victims of the victims.”

There comes a point, though, where shielding people from uncomfortable truths becomes counterproductive and self-defeating. Words have meaning, and they should be used when they describe reality. Otherwise, we’re in denial, and atrocities at this scale shouldn’t be denied. Just because a particular word or term causes offense doesn’t mean we shouldn’t use it. What’s changed recently is that Israeli leaders — including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and not just the far-right members of his cabinet — have come out and said the quiet part out loud, with a newfound, brutal honesty. There was barely a pretense before. But now there’s not even that.

Let’s not mince words: Ethnic cleansing of Palestinians is now the official policy of the Israeli government. It’s not about returning the hostages or defeating Hamas. Netanyahu recently told lawmakers at parliamentary committee meeting: “We are demolishing more and more homes; they have nowhere to return to … The only natural outcome will be a desire among Gazans to emigrate. Our main problem is finding countries willing to take them.”

Statements like these — and there are many others — are important because they demonstrate intent, and “intent” is the most difficult thing to prove when it comes to genocide.

Even the Trump administration seems to grasp the Israeli government’s current intentions, even if they might not acknowledge it explicitly. When Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, says that “Israel is not ready to end the war. Israel is prolonging the war, even though we do not see where further progress can be made,” he is getting at something important.

Where does all of this leave us?

I don’t think everyone needs to use the word genocide, but I would ask readers to consider the definition according to the UN’s Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and to think carefully about whether Israel’s actions meet the definition. Is Israel “killing members of the group” with the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group”?

As The Economist recently reported, new research suggests that as many as 109,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel — representing 5 percent of the pre-war population. This would be analogous to 17 million Americans killed. If a foreign country killed 17 million Americans with an express intent to ethnically cleanse the territory, I’m pretty sure we’d be calling it a genocide.

Or at the very least, they’d call it “ethnic cleansing” and they would consider it a mass atrocity, a mass killing, or some other euphemism.

Which brings me back to my original point about open-mindedness. I have generally been willing to debate people — on Wisdom of Crowds and elsewhere — who supported Israel’s war and were, it seemed to me, rather indifferent to the killing of Palestinians. Now, I’m not so sure. Because, now, there is no denying it: if you support Israel’s ongoing war, you are also a supporter of ethnic cleansing (if not genocide).

And I think atrocity denial of this sort is my red line.

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