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Today, more than 50 national organizations representing millions of Americans sent a letter to President Trump and presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden, to adopt a more principled foreign policy, one that prioritizes diplomacy and multilateralism over militarism.
Today, more than 50 national organizations representing millions of Americans sent a letter to President Trump and presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden, to adopt a more principled foreign policy, one that prioritizes diplomacy and multilateralism over militarism.
The letter, organized by Demand Progress, states "U.S. foreign policy has been overly focused on confrontation with perceived adversaries and the global projection of U.S. military power. We believe that there is room to act aggressively to reform our foreign policy, with the support of the majority of the people of this country across the ideological spectrum."
"The American people are demanding a fundamental shift in U.S. foreign policy," said Yasmine Taeb, Senior Policy Counsel at Demand Progress. "We are tired of endless wars and a destructive agenda of rampant militarization. A failed post-9/11 agenda has resulted in global instability, countless lives lost, and widespread violations of human rights. By committing to prioritize serious diplomatic engagement and respecting congressional war powers, our leaders can end the forever wars and deliver an agenda more aligned with our values."
"The United States is in dire need of a fundamental reorientation of its foreign policy, away from the goal of dominating the globe militarily, which has mired America in endless wars, and towards a national security strategy centered on diplomatic engagement and military restraint," said Trita Parsi, Executive Vice President at Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. "The COVID pandemic has made it abundantly clear that our excessive focus on foreign military threats - real and imagined - have left us naked and vulnerable for the real challenges of this century - pandemics and climate chaos."
"It's time to turn the page on the disastrous war and regime change policies that have only led to destabilization and suffering abroad. Our policymakers must come to terms with the irreversible trend of public opinion away from interventionism," said Erik Sperling, Executive Director of Just Foreign Policy. "Americans -- and particularly millennials -- aren't falling for fear mongering or calls for nation-building abroad at a time when the challenges facing our nation and world need peaceful and cooperative solutions."
"The coronavirus has changed everything, and our foreign policy priorities must change to reflect the fundamentally new world that we are living in. We can no longer afford to militarize our approach to foreign policy problems - and we have seen first hand how these misguided national security spending priorities have left us ill-equipped to deal with the crisis we now face," explained Dan Kalik, Senior Political Advisor at MoveOn. "A different world is possible. In the past few months, bipartisan coalitions in Congress took steps to reclaiming war-making powers and put a check on unauthorized military endeavors - disrupting the pattern of endless wars. The overwhelming majority of Americans want a new way forward, and this is a moment where Democrats should be leading. We urge Joe Biden to lead - and champion this new approach that our country desperately needs."
"This timely letter reflects the will of most Americans who demand peaceful resolutions to disputes abroad and greater resources devoted to pressing issues at home," said Sina Toossi, Senior Research Analyst at National Iranian American Council Action. "The next administration would be wise to adopt these principles for an enlightened foreign policy that would restore U.S. leadership and foster vitally needed global cooperation to address the challenges of our time."
"The need for America's foreign policy to lead with progressive values has never been more urgent. Across the world, authoritarian leaders are using the coronavirus pandemic as cover to push forward their corrupt agendas which put vulnerable people at risk," said Emily Mayer, Political Director at IfNotNow. "Part of any common sense Middle East foreign policy must include ensuring that our money is funding American values of freedom and human rights -- and our approach to the Israeli government, especially as it inches closer to formal annexation, should be no different. We are proud to be part of this unprecedented coalition demanding meaningful action by our leaders."
The letter, and the full list of signers, can be accessed here, and is also included below.
###
May 11, 2020
Dear Vice President Biden,
We write to you as a broad coalition of organizations representing millions of Americans who care about a principled foreign policy, one that prioritizes diplomacy and multilateralism over militarism.
As the Coronavirus pandemic reveals, our country and many others are woefully unprepared for the crisis that we now face. Without extraordinarily bold leadership, this is likely to be the beginning of a period of profound instability for the entire planet, given the intensifying climate crisis that is also now underway.
We believe that there is room to act aggressively to reform our foreign policy, with the support of the majority of the people of this country across the ideological spectrum. Just as the domestic policy debate has shifted significantly in recent years, the current global context demands that we act boldly to redefine the role of the U.S. in the world.
For decades, U.S. foreign policy has been overly focused on confrontation with perceived adversaries and the global projection of U.S. military power. Doing so has militarized our response to global challenges, distorted our national security spending priorities, toxified our political discourse, and left us woefully ill-prepared to confront the growing transnational threats to human security we face today that do not have military solutions.
Meanwhile, the U.S. currently has more than 240,000 active-duty and reserve troops in at least 172 countries and territories. The cost of the U.S. federal government's post-9/11 wars is more than $6.4 trillion. The American people are looking for a leader who will turn the page on 9/11 policies that have resulted in an endless cycle of war, countless lives lost, increased global instability, large-scale refugee flows of the displaced, and the violation of Americans' civil liberties and human rights.
It is time to end our endless wars and adopt a new approach to international relations, one in which the U.S. abides by international law, encourages others to do the same, and utilizes our military solely for the defense of the people of our country.
We hope that in the months ahead you will engage with the American people and groups like ours in a broad discussion on what a more just and progressive U.S. foreign policy should look like.
In the meantime, we call on you to show your support for the following key measures that we, and many advocates around the country, have been fighting for:
Repealing the 2001 AUMF and respecting congressional war powers
Absent a direct and imminent threat to the United States, the President needs to consult Congress and receive authorization for use of military force, as required by the U.S. Constitution and the War Powers Act of 1973. The 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) has been expanded to apply to situations and groups never envisioned by Congress. This has resulted in the United States waging endless war in 80 countries, including lethal strikes in 7 countries and direct combat in 14 countries. We ask that you consult with, and receive required authorization from, Congress prior to engaging the U.S. military abroad and commit to supporting a repeal of the 2001 AUMF and ending all uses of U.S. military force that have not been authorized by Congress in previous Administrations, including putting an end to unconstitutional participation in the Saudi-led war on Yemen. We also urge you to commit to ending any military action upon a majority vote in Congress under the War Powers Act of 1973, as well as commit to signing war powers reform legislation that would appropriately strengthen Congress' role in authorizing and overseeing the use of force.
Reducing the Pentagon budget
We call on you to commit to ending wasteful military spending and reducing Pentagon spending by at least $200 billion annually. The U.S. military budget is well over $700 billion a year currently -- with private contractors reaping much of the benefit -- and even higher when accounting for nuclear weapons spending at the Department of Energy. The unnecessary nuclear modernization plan is expected to cost $1.7 trillion over the next 30 years. Meanwhile funding has shrunk for the U.S. Department of State and critical social safety nets at home. We call on you to reduce the outsized influence of private contractors at the Pentagon, end the production of new nuclear weapons, cancel 'space force', and to prioritize the federal budget towards meeting the basic needs of Americans at home.
Engaging with Iran
The majority of Americans support finding diplomatic solutions to disputes with Iran. We call on you to end the ongoing failed "maximum pressure" campaign, and return to the "Iran Deal" (JCPOA) in exchange for Iran returning to full compliance with the accord, and seek to build on the deal with further negotiations. After returning to the deal, we encourage you to pursue follow-on negotiations with Iran, Saudi Arabia, and other regional actors aimed at resolving conflicts across the region.
Engaging with North Korea
The strategic patience approach to North Korea's nuclear weapons program has failed. While recent diplomacy with North Korea has failed to meet its stated goal of denuclearization, the diplomatic progress should be built upon and pushed further to prioritize both peace and the denuclearization on the Korean peninsula. We urge you to reject pursuing a maximalist approach to the security challenge posed by North Korea and instead focus on confidence-building measures that can move towards normalizing relations, concluding a peace treaty to end the conflict, and eventually freezing and rolling back North Korea's nuclear weapons program.
Supporting a just resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
The U.S. should work to build a future in which all Palestinians and Israelis live under full equality by upholding a foreign policy that centers human rights and dignity for all people. We call on you to use a combination of pressure and incentives, including leveraging the annual $3.8 billion in U.S. military funding to Israel, to get all parties to come to an agreement that upholds U.N. Security Council Resolutions and international law, including non-exhaustively: ending Israel's military occupation; disbanding Israel's illegal settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem; ending the Israeli military blockade of Gaza; and ending all attacks on civilians, be they Israeli or Palestinian.
Opposing regime-change interventions and broad-based sanctions
The military and political campaigns aimed at regime change have borne disaster in Iraq, Libya, Syria, and elsewhere in the past two decades. Meanwhile, broad-based sanctions against countries like Iran and Venezuela have served to impoverish the population at large while not having positive political outcomes - and at times empowering ruling elites. The U.S. should stop seeking to transform other countries through destructive policies and instead work through the United Nations Security Council and other multilateral fora to build global consensus and international legal backing for peaceful, diplomatic solutions to internal and international conflicts.
Rejecting discriminatory immigration policies and supporting refugees
We call on you to repeal the Muslim, African, refugee, and asylum bans, restore access to asylum, and support a robust refugee resettlement program. This includes a commitment to admit at least 125,000 refugees in your first year in office, increasing refugee admissions every year, and investing in infrastructure needed to rebuild our refugee resettlement program and restore U.S. leadership on refugee protection given that we are now facing the worst global displacement crisis in history. As we urge other countries to admit and protect refugees, the U.S. must also ensure all asylum seekers have a meaningful opportunity to be heard before a judge and utilize community-based alternatives to immigration detention.
Closing Guantanamo
The Guantanamo Bay Detention Center has been a stain on our nation's conscience and the most effective recruitment tool used by violent extremists. We call on you to commit to using any and all options within existing authority to seek lawful disposition for the remaining individuals at the detention center and close Guantanamo once and for all. The long-defunct CIA detention and interrogation program, and at minimum the Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture, needs to be declassified, promulgated internally to reaffirm torture's illegality, and made publicly available.
Ending support for governments that violate human rights
We urge you to prioritize human rights in our foreign policy, with a particular focus on countries with which the U.S. has both leverage and a moral responsibility due to our provision of military or economic aid. Allies of the U.S. should adhere to international law and fundamental human rights norms. The U.S. should stop providing security aid and arms to authoritarian or repressive governments that systematically violate human rights. The U.S. should similarly reassess and downgrade relationships with other governments engaging in widespread systematic repression.
Prioritizing diplomacy and avoid militarizing our relations with other powers such as Russia and China
As Russia and China become increasingly assertive on the world stage, it is critical that you promote diplomatic engagement and avoid further militarization of our relationship with these major powers. Overhyping the threat these countries pose to the United States intensifies fear, racism, and hate domestically. Militarization of our disputes with these nations exacerbate tensions that put the world at risk, while leading to arms races that siphon funds needed for each nation's domestic priorities. As President Reagan said, military conflicts that lead to nuclear war "cannot be won and must never be fought." We urge you to rejoin--and go beyond--nuclear arms reduction agreements that were abandoned. We also urge you to address threats of cyberwarfare and espionage by following the model of the 2015 agreement with China that resulted in an estimated 90 percent drop in Chinese-backed cyber theft of American trade secrets. Instead of reinforcing military confrontation with these rising global powers, we urge you to prioritize investment in the industries of the future to ensure that we remain a global leader in innovation in an increasingly competitive global economy.
Sincerely,
Action Corps
American Friends Service Committee
Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain
Asian American Advocacy Fund
Beyond the Bomb
Cameroon American Council
Center for Economic and Policy Research
Center for International Policy
CODEPINK
Common Defense
Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd, U.S. Provinces
Demand Progress
Equality Labs
The Feminist Foreign Policy Project
Franciscan Action Network
Freedom Forward
The Gravel Institute
Greenpeace US
Historians for Peace and Democracy
IfNotNow
Indivisible
Institute for Policy Studies, National Priorities Project
Institute for Policy Studies, New Internationalism Project
International Civil Society Action Network (ICAN)
Islamophobia Studies Center
Jetpac
Jewish Voice for Peace Action
Just Foreign Policy
MoveOn
MPower Change
Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC)
National Advocacy Center of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd
National Iranian American Council Action
National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance
Other98
Our Revolution
Pax Christi USA
Peace Action
People's Policy Project
Progress America
Progressive Democrats of America
Project Blueprint
The Quincy Institute
Rethinking Foreign Policy
RootsAction.org
September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows
United Church of Christ, Justice and Witness Ministries
Win Without War
Women's Action for New Directions (WAND)
Yemen Relief and Reconstruction Foundation
Yemeni Alliance Committee
Demand Progress amplifies the voice of the people -- and wields it to make government accountable and contest concentrated corporate power. Our mission is to protect the democratic character of the internet -- and wield it to contest concentrated corporate power and hold government accountable.
"This decision will hurt people's financial futures, including their ability to buy a home, care for their families, or even get a job," said the president and CEO of the nonprofit Undue Medical Debt.
A Trump-appointed judge axed a Biden-era rule on Friday that would have removed medical debt from credit reports and barred lenders from using certain medical information in loan decisions.
The rule, enacted under the authority of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, would have removed an estimated $49 billion in medical bills from the credit reports of about 15 million people.
But after a lawsuit brought by two industry groups with the support of Republicans in Congress who attempted to block it, Judge Sean Jordan of the U.S. District Court of Texas' Eastern District ruled that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) had exceeded its authority in introducing the rule.
According to the CFPB, those with medical debt on their credit reports would have received a 20-point boost to their credit scores on average as a result of the rule. It would have led to an estimated 22,000 more mortgages being approved for people struggling with medical debt.
According to a report by the Peterson Center on Healthcare and KFF last year, roughly 1 in 12 adults has over $250 in unpaid medical debt.
"People who get sick shouldn't have their financial future upended," said CFPB Director Rohit Chopra at the time of the rule's passage in January 2025. "The CFPB's final rule will close a special carveout that has allowed debt collectors to abuse the credit reporting system to coerce people into paying medical bills they may not even owe."
The consumer reports industry lobbied furiously against the measure. Two industry groups—the Consumer Data Industry Association and the Cornerstone Credit Union League—brought the lawsuit before Judge Jordan. Meanwhile, reporting from Accountable.US in March revealed that Republicans on the House Financial Services Committee accepted a combined $867,000 from trade groups opposed to the rule.
Using the same talking points as the industry, they then attempted to block the rule, arguing that it would "weaken the accuracy and completeness of consumer credit reports."
However, according to research by the CFPB, medical debt on credit reports often has no bearing on a person's ability to pay back other loans.
Medical bills also frequently contain mistakes. According to a survey by the Commonwealth Fund last year, more than 45% of respondents were billed for a service they thought was covered by insurance. The trade magazine Becker’s Hospital Review, meanwhile, has estimated that 80% of medical bills contain errors that inflate costs.
"Medical debt unjustly damages the credit scores of millions, limiting their ability to obtain affordable credit, rent safe housing, or even get a job," said the National Consumer Law Center after the rule was introduced.
Now, as a result of its being struck down, the 15 million Americans who have medical debt on their credit reports will see an average of $3,200 remaining on their reports that would have otherwise been erased.
"The facts are clear: Medical debt is not predictive of creditworthiness," said Allison Sesso, the president and CEO of the nonprofit Undue Medical Debt, on Monday. "This decision will hurt people’s financial futures, including their ability to buy a home, care for their families, or even get a job—all because they got sick, injured, or were born with a chronic condition through no fault of their own. It will also further decrease their willingness to get the care they need."
The ruling also marks the latest attack by Republicans on the CFPB. In February, the Trump administration attempted to unilaterally and illegally shut down the consumer watchdog agency. His effort to dismantle it was later blocked by a federal judge.
Since its creation in 2011, the CFPB has relieved $21 billion worth of debt for nearly 200 million Americans. It recouped that money from powerful financial institutions and credit card companies that had engaged in predatory practices and saddled Americans with junk fees.
But by cracking down on corporate abuses, it became the bane of Republican lawmakers and their corporate donors. Many top Trump donors sought to kill the CFPB because it was coming after the actions of their companies.
Elon Musk's company Tesla was facing scrutiny over its auto loan policies, which had received hundreds of complaints from customers. His social media company, X, was also being examined for its payment policies.
Another top Trump donor, investor Marc Andreesen, launched a broadside against the bureau when it ordered a payday lending company he'd invested in to pay tens of millions worth of fines for engaging in predatory lending.
"Judge Sean Jordan, a Trump-appointed judge, joined congressional Republicans in making it easier for the Trump administration to raise costs on millions of Americans," said Accountable.US executive director Tony Carrk.
"Not only are they dismantling healthcare for 17 million through their big, ugly betrayal, but they're dooming millions more with low credit scores due to illness and injury," he continued. "Republicans are holding a grudge against the CFPB, and it's costing Americans money."
"The question this drastic firing raises is: Are there even worse ethics problems Bondi is trying to hide?" said one watchdog campaigner.
Further escalating concerns over U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi's control of the Department of Justice, Joseph Tirrell announced Monday on a professional networking website that he was fired as director of the Departmental Ethics Office.
Tirrell shared Bondi's July 11 memo, which misspells his first name and provides no explanation for his dismissal from the DOJ. It states that "pursuant to Article II of the United States Constitution and the laws of the United States, your employment with the Department of Justice is hereby terminated, and you are removed from federal service effective immediately."
Democracy Docket reporter Jacob Knutson noted that "Trump officials have repeatedly referenced Article II to make broad assertions of presidential authority and to justify dismissing federal workers who traditionally have been shielded by civil service protections."
Tirrell wrote in his LinkedIn post that "I led a small, dedicated team of professionals and coordinated the work of some 30 other full-time ethics officials, attorneys, paralegals, and other specialists across the Department of Justice, ensuring that the 117,000 department employees were properly advised on and supported in how to follow the federal employee ethics rules."
Bloomberg had reported on Tirrell's ouster Sunday, and both he and the DOJ had declined to comment. The outlet pointed out that "his portfolio included reviewing and approving financial disclosures, recusals, waivers to conflicts of interest, and advice on travel and gifts for Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, FBI Director Kash Patel, and other DOJ leaders."
Jon Golinger, democracy advocate at the government watchdog Public Citizen, said in a Monday statement that "Bondi's sudden firing of the DOJ ethics adviser shines a bright spotlight back on her own glaring ethical conflicts and how she's handled major DOJ decisions involving her former clients like Qatar and Pfizer."
According to Golinger, "The question this drastic firing raises is: Are there even worse ethics problems Bondi is trying to hide?"
As Bloomberg also detailed:
Tirrell's removal is separate—but potentially related—to the roughly 20 employees involved in Special Counsel Jack Smith's investigations, according to numerous media reports, were also fired July 11.
Tirrell advised Smith's office on ethics matters during his criminal prosecutions of President Donald Trump, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity to share a sensitive personnel matter. That includes Tirrell approving Smith's receipt of $140,000 in pro bono legal fees from Covington & Burling that he disclosed upon concluding his investigation.
The Not Above the Law coalition's co-chairs—Brett Edkins of Stand Up America, Praveen Fernandes of the Constitutional Accountability Center, Lisa Gilbert of Public Citizen, and Kelsey Herbert of MoveOn—said in a Monday statement that "by firing her ethics chief, Pam Bondi is making it clear she answers to Trump and no one else."
"This is the latest move in an alarming pattern of dismantling oversight and erasing accountability from the Department of Justice. Bondi is purging anyone who dares act as a check on executive power to pave the way for more corruption and abuse," the co-chairs continued. "Bondi may be the one who made this latest call, but this administration's culture of corruption starts at the top."
They added that "whether it's using the presidential bully pulpit to raise allies' stock prices, giving special access to Trump meme coin investors, or firing 17 agency inspectors general to stymie government oversight, Trump seems to have perfected the art of using public office for personal profit, and he, Bondi, and everyone else are ensuring that nobody dares lift a finger to stop them."
Under Trump and Bondi, thousands of employees have left the DOJ. CBS News reported last month that the department lost 4,000 workers as part of the Trump administration's "fork in the road" deferred resignation program, and Reuters revealed Monday that 69 of the roughly 110 lawyers in the Federal Programs Branch—which defends the president's policies in court—have quit the unit or announced plans to resign since his November election.
Bondi has been accused of "serious professional misconduct that threatens the rule of law and the administration of justice," including with her day-one memo directing all DOJ employees to "zealously defend" Trump's policies, and has recently faced sharp criticism for the department's handling of documents related to the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
In a clear sign of congressional Republicans' unwillingness to hold the Trump administration accountable, GOP members of the U.S. House Rules Committee late Monday blocked an amendment that would have forced the DOJ to release the full Epstein files to the public.
"My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people."
A leading scholar of the Holocaust and genocide warned Tuesday the continued "silence" of many in his field of study regarding Israel's massacre of Palestinians in Gaza "has made a mockery of the slogan 'never again''" as he outlined in a New York Times opinion piece how he came to conclude that Israel is committing genocide in the besieged enclave.
"I'm a Genocide Scholar," reads the essay's headline. "I Know It When I See It."
Like a number of other experts who were at first reluctant to designate the assault on Gaza a genocide—the term coined by Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin in 1944—Brown University professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies Omer Bartov gradually came to recognize Israel's campaign of targeted starvation, bombings on civilian infrastructure, forced displacement, and other attacks as genocidal violence as he watched the early months of the war in late 2023 and early 2024.
By May 2024, he wrote at the Times, "it appeared no longer possible to deny that the pattern of [Israel Defense Forces] operations was consistent with the statements denoting genocidal intent made by Israeli leaders in the days after the Hamas attack," including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's threat to turn Gaza into "rubble" and his call for Israeli citizens to remember "what Amalek did to you"—a reference to the biblical passage calling on the Israelites to "kill alike men and women, infants and sucklings" in their fight against an ancient enemy.
At that point, about 1 million Palestinians had been ordered to the so-called "safe zone" of al-Mawasi—which was then targeted in numerous attacks.
Months after one top Israeli official called for the "total annihilation" of Gaza—home to more than 2 million people—Bartov concluded that the government's "actions could be understood only as the implementation of the expressed intent to make the Gaza Strip uninhabitable for its Palestinian population."
He wrote that his interpretation of Israel's actions is now that Netanyahu's government wants "to force the population to leave the strip altogether" and "debilitate the enclave through bombings and severe deprivation of food, clean water, sanitation, and medical aid to such an extent that it is impossible for Palestinians in Gaza to maintain or reconstitute their existence as a group."
"My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people," wrote Bartov, noting that his assessment is that of an expert who grew up in a Zionist home, spent the first half of his life in Israel, and served in the IDF as well as researching the Holocaust and other war crimes.
"This was a painful conclusion to reach, and one that I resisted as long as I could," wrote Bartov. "But I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognize one when I see one."
He added that his conclusion is supported by the destruction of an estimated 174,000 buildings, or 70% of those in Gaza; the killing of more than 58,000 people, nearly a third of whom have been children and nearly 900 of whom were under one year old; and the extermination of more than 2,000 families in their entirety.
CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour noted that Bartov spoke to her last December about his conclusion that Israel is committing genocide.
"If you look at the pattern of what the IDF has been doing, not only has it been moving the population around, every safe zone... tends to get also bombed and shelled," he said at the time. "But also systematically destroying universities, schools, mosques, museums, and hospitals, of course—anything that makes for the health and also the culture of a group, and therefore, by now we have a population that is being completely debilitated."
Bartov published his essay as the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said it had recorded the deaths of 875 Palestinians who were killed while seeking aid, with the vast majority killed at or around aid hubs set up by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a U.S.- and Israel-backed privatized aid group that has been rejected by the U.N. due to its lack of neutrality.
"The latest deadly incident happened at around 9:00 am on Monday, July 14, when reports indicated that the Israeli military shelled and fired towards Palestinians seeking food at the GHF site in As Shakoush area, northwestern Rafah," said the OHCHR on Monday of an attack that killed at least two people and injured nine others—days after a hospital in Rafah received more than 130 patients, the majority of whom suffered gunshot wounds they'd sustained while trying to access food distribution sites.
Last May, former Human Rights Watch executive director Aryeh Neier—who was also reluctant to apply the term "genocide" to Israel's attack on Gaza—said Israel's "sustained policy of obstructing the movement of humanitarian assistance into the territory" was what finally convinced him the assault is a genocide.
While backing the militarized GHF aid operation, Israel has continued to block humanitarian assistance from entering Gaza through crossings and has prevented experienced aid groups from distributing food to starving Palestinians.
Israel "has always insisted that any threat to its security must be seen as potentially leading to another Auschwitz" and has portrayed its attack on Gaza—which it and its allies in the U.S. and other Western countries have persistently claimed it is targeting Hamas—as a fight against an enemy comparable to the Nazis.
"The daily scenes of horror in Gaza, from which the Israeli public is shielded by its own media's self-censorship, expose the lies of Israeli propaganda that this is a war of defense against a Nazi-like enemy," wrote Bartov.
Progressive political strategist Waleed Shahid suggested Bartov's conclusions flew in the face of recent comments by U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who in March said the term "genocide" as it related to Gaza should be rejected as antisemitism.
Bartov warned that the refusal of many Holocaust scholars and the political establishment in the U.S.—the largest international funder of the IDF—to confront the reality of Israel's attack on Gaza could ultimately make it impossible "to continue teaching and researching the Holocaust in the same manner we did before."
"Just as worrisome is the prospect that the study of genocide as a whole will not survive the accusations of antisemitism, leaving us without the crucial community of scholars and international jurists to stand in the breach at a time when the rise of intolerance, racial hatred, populism, and authoritarianism is threatening the values that were at the core of these scholarly, cultural, and political endeavors of the 20th century," wrote Bartov.
He expressed hope that "a new generation of Israelis will face their future without sheltering in the shadow of the Holocaust, even as they will have to bear the stain of the genocide in Gaza perpetrated in their name."
"Israel," he added, "will have to learn to live without falling back on the Holocaust as justification for inhumanity."