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gaza genocide
The Conclusion Is Inescapable: Israel Is Committing Genocide in Gaza
Having named it a genocide, we must use every ounce of our leverage to demand an immediate ceasefire, a massive surge of humanitarian aid facilitated by the UN, and initial steps to provide Palestinians with a state of their own.
Sep 17, 2025
Hamas, a terrorist organization, began this war with its brutal attack on October 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 innocent people and took 250 hostages. Israel, as any other country, had a right to defend itself from Hamas.
But, over the last two years, Israel has not simply defended itself against Hamas. Instead, it has waged an all-out war against the entire Palestinian people. Many legal experts have now concluded that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. The International Association of Genocide Scholars concluded that “Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide.” The Israeli human rights groups B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel have reached the same conclusion, as have international groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
Just yesterday, an independent commission of experts appointed by the United Nations echoed this finding. These experts concluded that: “It is clear that there is an intent to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza through acts that meet the criteria set forth in the Genocide Convention.”
I agree.
If there is no accountability for Netanyahu and his fellow war criminals, other demagogues will do the same.
Out of a population of 2.2 million Palestinians in Gaza, Israel has now killed some 65,000 people and wounded roughly 164,000. The full toll is likely much higher, with many thousands of bodies buried under the rubble. A leaked classified Israeli military database indicates that 83% of those killed have been civilians. More than 18,000 children have been killed, including 12,000 aged 12 or younger.
For almost two years, the extremist Netanyahu government has severely limited the amount of humanitarian aid allowed into Gaza and thrown up every possible hurdle to the United Nations and other aid groups trying to provide lifesaving supplies. This includes an 11-week total blockade in which Israel did not permit any food, water, fuel or medical supplies to enter Gaza. As a direct result of these Israeli policies, Gaza is now gripped by manmade famine, with hundreds of thousands of people facing starvation. More than 400 people, including 145 children, have already starved to death. Each day brings new deaths from hunger.
But it is not just the human cost. Israel has systematically destroyed Gaza’s physical infrastructure. Satellite imagery shows that the Israeli bombardment has destroyed 70% of all structures in Gaza. The UN estimates that 92% of housing units have been damaged or destroyed. At this very moment, Israel is demolishing what’s left of Gaza City. Most hospitals have been destroyed, and almost 1,600 healthcare workers have been killed. Almost 90% of water and sanitation facilities are now inoperable. Hundreds of schools have been bombed, as has every single one of Gaza’s 12 universities. There has been no electricity for 23 months.
And that is just what we know from aid workers and local journalists—hundreds of whom have been killed—as Israel bars outside media from Gaza. In fact, Israel has killed more journalists in Gaza than have been killed in any previous conflict. The result: There is likely much we don’t know about the scale of the atrocities.
Now, with the Trump administration’s full support, the extremist Netanyahu government is openly pursuing a policy of ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the West Bank. Having made life unlivable through bombing and starvation, they are pushing for “voluntary” migration of Palestinians to neighboring countries to make way for US President Donald Trump’s twisted vision of a “Riviera of the Middle East.”
Genocide is defined as actions taken with the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group.” The actions include killing members of the group or “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.” The legal question hinges on intent.
Israeli leaders have made their intent clear. Early in the conflict, the defense minister said, “We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.” The finance minister vowed that “Gaza will be entirely destroyed.” Another minister declared: “All Gaza will be Jewish… we are wiping out this evil.” Israeli President Isaac Herzog said, “It is an entire nation out there that is responsible.” Another minister called for, “Erasing all of Gaza from the face of the Earth.” Another Israeli lawmaker said, “The Gaza Strip should be flattened, and there should be one sentence for everyone there—death. We have to wipe the Gaza Strip off the map. There are no innocents there.” Yet another Knesset member called for “erasing all of Gaza from the face of the Earth.” And, just recently, a minister in Israel’s high-level security cabinet said: “Gaza City itself should be exactly like Rafah, which we turned into a city of ruins.”
The intent is clear. The conclusion is inescapable: Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
I recognize that many people may disagree with this conclusion. 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. That is why I have worked with a number of my Senate colleagues to force votes on seven Joint Resolutions of Disapproval to stop offensive arms sales to Israel. The United States must not continue sending many billions of dollars and weapons to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s genocidal government.
Having named it a genocide, we must use every ounce of our leverage to demand an immediate ceasefire, a massive surge of humanitarian aid facilitated by the UN, and initial steps to provide Palestinians with a state of their own.
But this issue goes beyond Israel and Palestine.
Around the world, democracy is on the defensive. Hatred, racism, and divisiveness are on the rise. The challenge we now face is to prevent the world from descending into barbarism, where horrific crimes against humanity can take place with impunity. We must say now and forever that, while wars may happen, there are certain basic standards that must be upheld. The starvation of children cannot be tolerated. The flattening of cities must not become the norm. Collective punishment is beyond the pale.
The very term genocide is a reminder of what can happen if we fail. That word emerged from the Holocaust—the murder of 6 million Jews—one of the darkest chapters in human history. 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.
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Responding to Charlie Kirk's Killing With the Wisdom of Our Inner 3 Year Old
Valuing life and understanding its profound complexity is humanity’s future. Snorting at life, laughing at life, killing it, is humanity’s suicide.
Sep 17, 2025
Charlie Kirk’s killing last week—and the aftermath of grief and political outrage—are too overwhelming to ignore, even though I couldn’t possibly have anything to say that hasn’t already been said.
The best I can do is wander into the spiritual unknown and perhaps ask an impossible question or two. The first one is this: Are words adequate for the exploration of life and death? I ask this question as a writer. To me, words are virtually magical entities. They give us the means to shape, if not the world itself, at least our comprehension of it... and thus we assume we know what’s going on around us.
For instance, here I am, sitting at my desk, looking out my window on a beautiful, blue-sky afternoon. The leaves on the tree in front of me flutter in the breeze. A woman in a red coat walks through the parking lot, which is mostly empty. Everything is calm. The time is 2:43 pm on a Tuesday. This all seems simple enough, right?
But of course this is nothing more than the surface of this moment—a real-life postcard, you might say. Putting it into words, at least in one sense, limits what I see. I see what is “known,” categorize it all as normal—and move on. If I were 3 years old, I’d still be staring at the tree, perhaps one leaf at a time. I could well be lost in its beauty and complexity.
Why is his death shocking while a 5-year-old Palestinian child’s death by bombing, or by starvation, is nothing at all? Is Kirk the only one of them who’s human?
As I return to the news, I’m suggesting that we bring with us our inner 3 year old. The news of the Kirk assassination is given to us with simple us-vs.-them clarity. He was speaking at an event in Utah. Someone fired a rifle from several hundred feet away. He was hit in the neck. He died.
And then it turns political. Well, it does and it doesn’t. Charlie Kirk was a husband, the father of two young children. No matter where you stand in regard to his right-wing, MAGA politics, the horror of his death—the horror inflicted on his family—is explosive. "No!” screams our inner 3 year old. The nation is stunned.
But almost immediately, things turn political. US President Donald Trump and others instantaneously blame the “radical left” and let their hatred spew. Kirk is now their martyr, and they feel they have permission to make the most of his death politically that they can. Eliminate the left. I can feel the joy oozing from their hatred, which gushes like blood from a bullet wound.
All progressives can do is express shock and grief. Kirk’s murder isn’t “political.” He was a human being! And here’s where words can too easily fail us. This isn’t Side A vs. Side B. This is “We are all one” vs. “We’re great and you’re evil, and we’re comin’ for ya.”
But the divide is infinitely deeper even than that. Charlie Kirk’s murder is international news, but it’s also only one murder out of unknown thousands and thousands every day. Why is his death shocking while a 5-year-old Palestinian child’s death by bombing, or by starvation, is nothing at all? Is Kirk the only one of them who’s human?
Killing requires dehumanization. That’s the nature of war—every war. And the larger the number we kill, the easier the dehumanization becomes. Oh, they’re just “the enemy” or, ho hum, collateral damage. Any questions?
And here’s where language deeply, deeply, deeply fails us. “Left” and “right”—life and death—are simply equal opposites, at least in much of the media coverage of this. Nothing could be further from the truth: Valuing life and understanding its profound complexity is humanity’s future. Snorting at life, laughing at life, killing it, is humanity’s suicide.
Here are the words of Zohran Mamdani, New York City mayoral candidate, speaking at a Jews for Racial and Economic Justice award ceremony the day of Kirk’s killing:
Before I begin, I do want to take a moment to address the horrific political assassination that just occurred today in Utah. Charlie Kirk is dead, yet another victim of gun violence in a nation where what should be a rarity has turned into a plague. It cannot be a question of political agreement or alignment that allows us to mourn. It must be the shared notion of humanity that binds us all...
We hold a common belief in the shared dignity of every person on this planet, and the refusal to draw a line in the sand, as it so often is done, when it comes to Palestinian lives...
We know, because the United Nations tells us, that by the end of the month, millions will be facing starvation, if they are not starving already. This is not accidental. This is not due to a freak blight. This is not because the world now lacks the means to feed the hungry. It is because those decisions made by the Israeli government and by our government here continue to ensure that that is a reality. And if that does not stagger the conscience, what will?
Let me repeat these words: “the shared notion of humanity that’s behind us all.”
Our inner 3 year old knows this. How do we start embracing it politically? Humanity is a collective entity. We can’t kill our enemy without eventually killing ourselves.
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All Hands on Deck: a Letter From the Veterans’ Boat on the Gaza Flotilla
As veterans, we’ve put our lives on the line for the Empire; it’s past time we do the same for humanity and ourselves.
Sep 17, 2025
Nine of us veterans arrived in Barcelona on August 27. We were mostly strangers meeting for the first time, with a couple of exceptions. We began to bond immediately—which was fairly easy considering our common bonds of being veterans sailing for peace.
Two Marine veterans had served together with HMX-1, presidential helicopter. There are two combat veterans. And then there’s me. That’s all that’s left as of today, as four veterans have had to leave the boat for a variety of reasons, including the inherent delays associated with the historical size of the flotilla.
In Barcelona, our days were full of training protocols; preparing travel documentation and our “SOS videos” for our anticipated illegal kidnapping. We also had time for bonding, and we took advantage of the luxury of eating out.
The send-off from 10,000 beautiful people in Barcelona was such a heart-filling experience, it’s difficult to limit to words. Only to be outdone at Carthage by the compassionate people of Tunisia—a crowd of 20,000 from all over the country. And now in Bizerte, Tunisia, hundreds still remain on shore, allowing their support to be felt by just a glance.
As veterans we know that the war machine runs on the deaths of innocent Indigenous people all for the glory of the almighty dollar, which is the only God the war pigs serve.
We have added a journalist from Mexico and one from Finland. We had also temporarily added another sailor to our crew, but his expertise was needed on another boat. He literally just left—change is constant, that’s for certain. We just got another participant from the Finnish delegation, so we are back at 12. So we’re set with our final manifest, we’re told.
Our medic—who is an expat living in Norway, was a combat medic in Ukraine and a musician-artist and former orthodox priest.
Boat life is never dull, and there’s seemingly always necessary chores to be done. From cooking to cleaning to sail and boat repairs to man-overboard drills, drone and interdiction drills, and multiple meetings a day. Being in port and on still waters makes boat life easier. But added chores like refilling our food, water, and fuel supplies try to offset that advantage.
For our first leg of the voyage, the seas were pretty rough; almost everyone was sea sick with exception of the captain. Three of us got IV’s in Carthage. I was treated in a Tunisian hospital and was told the government would foot the bill.
We are leaving port today [Sunday, September 14]; at least the sailboats are. A Zionist-owned yacht bribed port officials yesterday and took the fuel we intended to use for our fleet.
There are variations on how long it will take to get to Gaza—from 10-14 days. So likely the 24-28 of September.
I’d like to add that this isn’t about us, but about our innocent human siblings being slaughtered in Gaza. And that’s exactly what we’re pleading for—ALL EYES ON GAZA as the Axis of Evil is expediting their ethnic cleansing that has been intensified these last two years on the tail end of 77 years of apartheid, occupation, and murder. As veterans we know that the war machine runs on the deaths of innocent Indigenous people all for the glory of the almighty dollar, which is the only God the war pigs serve.
We need all hands on deck. This is not a drill. Humanity is literally at stake, in Gaza/Palestine and at home, in the states. As veterans, we’ve put our lives on the line for the Empire, it’s past time we do the same for humanity and ourselves.
“What do we want? Justice. When do we want it? Now! And if we don’t get it. SHUT IT DOWN.” It’s not just a chant. It’s a creed. We shut the war machine down now, or we perish.
There’s much more to relay and convey. I’ll be posting more content routinely to social media for this last leg, and hopefully the seas will cooperate (check out @veteransforpeace on Instagram).
All my best,
Phil Tottenham
9/15/2025
P.S. All the boats from Tunisia and Barcelona have met up and are setting sail for Gaza. We will be meeting up with the fleets from Italy and Greece on our way. We should be somewhere around 40 boats.
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