The bare minimum expected of a leader of the American left, and a democratic socialist, should be a willingness to say “I endorse the conclusion of mainstream human rights organizations.” Why wouldn’t Sanders be willing to do that? He says that it doesn’t really matter “what you call it,” because it’s horrific. But clearly it does matter to Sanders, because he is making a choice not to use the same language as the human rights organizations. Why is he making that choice? He has not explained.
Sanders is right that the more important debate is about actions rather than language. But genocide is also the supreme crime against humanity, and it is so unanimously reviled that it makes a difference whether we use the term. For instance: there might be a debate over whether we should cut off weapons to a state that has “engaged in war crimes.” (How many? Are they aberrations or policy?) The Allied powers in World War II engaged in war crimes, and many Americans think war crimes can be justified in the service of a noble end. But there can be no debate over whether we should ever arm a state that has engaged in genocide. Genocide has no justification, no mitigation. If a state is committing it, all ties should be cut with that state.
Actually, we can see the difference in Bernie Sanders’ own policy response to Israel’s crimes. He told CNN that “your taxpayer dollars” should not go to support a “horror.” This is true. Sanders, to his credit, has repeatedly proposed a bill that would cut off a certain amount of weapons sales to Israel. Democratic opinion has so soured on Israel that Sanders’ bill attracted a record amount of Democratic support (27 senators, more than half the caucus.) But notably, Sanders’ bill only cuts off “offensive” weapons to Israel, leaving “defensive” weapons sales intact.
We might think that it’s perfectly fine to sell “defensive” weapons. Israel’s “Iron Dome” system, which U.S. taxpayers help pay for, protects the country against incoming missiles, and protection against incoming missiles is surely a good and noble thing. But notably, we have not bought Hamas its own “iron dome.” Or Iran. Or Russia. This is because we do not support the causes for which they fight. We understand in these cases that to help the “defense” is to help the “offense.” If Russia is protected from Ukrainian missiles, it will fight Ukraine more effectively. Likewise, if Israel is protected from Hamas rocket fire, but Gaza is not protected from Israeli missiles, the balance of arms is tilted toward Israel, and they can pulverize Gaza without Hamas being able to inflict similar damage in response.
Tbh, I think a lot of older Jewish people are in a tremendous amount of self denial about the whole scenario. The Jewish community spent generations drilling the idea that being Jewish was basically an antonym to genocide.
I recently listened to an interview of a Jewish professor who specializes in genocide study who talked about his initial internal conflict with admitting what he was witnessing was genocide. The guy did his best not to cry throughout the interview and failed from doing so a couple times. You could still see that he was struggling with a crisis of consciousness and identity, and it was admirable he could overcome it with academic integrity.
It's still not an excuse, but I think it's at least understandable that a people who built a cultural touchstone around their own genocide are largely in a state of disbelief that they are now participating in one.
To add to this, genocide is actually a pretty wide term with a lot of different ways if manifests in the real world. There's everything from the Holocaust, European colonization of the Americas, to the current situation in Palestine. I think it's an easy trap for people to fall into to say that because situations aren't exactly equal that one is a genocide and one is not.
I mean further its not the only one currently or in recent times. There is almost always one going on by the treaty definition. I mean no one uses it with russia on ukraine but it is doing several of the acts of which any meet the definition layed out. Honestly I can't see how any military action can avoid meeting the definition.
Killing members of the group;
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
People definitely use it with regard to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, especially due to removal of children, but also due to their actions in the early stages where, for example, they murdered a very high proportion of the residents of Bucha and other small towns.
Those people must have pretty soft voices as I have never seen the term used. Again though there are a lot of genocides and only some get exposure. That being said it would be real nice to live in a world without all this bullshit. Can't we progress as a species and culture rather than gravitating to the worse.
I don't know of any high-profile people outside of Ukraine who refer to it that way, but those are still not soft voices.
The definition is actually pretty narrow. All of these only count if the intention is to erase the group's cultural identity through these actions.
A single murder can be genocide if it is done in the name of ethnic cleansing. On the other hand, Hiroshima, despite being a war crime, was not genocide since the Americans didn't do it to exterminate the Japanese or to force them out of Japan.
Israel could kill as many kids as they want without it being genocide - again, it would "simply" be war crimes, the settlements, the wholesale demolition and displacement, the fuckery with aid is what makes it genocide.
Same in Russia, the killing and the destruction are only war crimes, the kidnapping of children and the extermination of villages while the leaders say "Ukraine does not exist" is what makes it genocide.