The Israeli Genocide: The Modern Holocaust They Don’t Want You to Acknowledge
Introduction
We are witnessing a genocide unfold in real time. And we are doing so in a global political climate that has allowed the perpetrators to position themselves not as aggressors, but as victims. This grotesque inversion of justice has defined Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestine and has now escalated into a horror that the world watches in silence or, worse, with complicity. With advanced weaponry, surveillance systems, and the full-throated backing of Western powers, Israel is systematically erasing a people.
By the Numbers (as of the date of this publication, May 15, 2025):
61,700 Palestinians killed since October 2023 (very conservative estimate as the numbers are likely much higher) (Al Jazeera, 2025)
15,600 children murdered (airstrikes, malnutrition, lack or denial of medical care)( The Guardian, 2025)
470,000 Palestinians facing “catastrophic levels of food insecurity) (IPC, 2025)
2 million Palestinians facing food crisis or worse (World Health Organization, 2025)
70% of Gaza is now uninhabitable (Reuters, 2025; AP, 2025)
The framing of “Free Palestine” as an antisemitic slogan is not just a cultural distortion, it is a political maneuver meant to suppress solidarity with Palestinians. But even that debate is, ultimately, a distraction. What is at stake is not terminology, but the machinery of ethnic cleansing and apartheid that continues to operate unchecked. While media pundits bicker over slogans, children are buried under rubble. The urgency is not to clarify slogans, but to halt a genocide.
This essay merges two core arguments: first, that the genocide of Palestinians must be recognized as the central humanitarian crisis of our time, and second, that the suppression of language and activism, especially in the West, is not accidental, but strategically orchestrated by pro-Israel lobbying groups such as AIPAC. These efforts have shifted public discourse so dramatically that even acknowledging Palestinian humanity becomes a controversial act.
Apartheid and Genocide by Any Other Name
Numerous human rights organizations including Human Rights Watch and B’Tselem have declared Israel an apartheid regime (Human Rights Watch, 2021; B’Tselem, 2021). The World Health Organization has also condemned the health and human rights catastrophe inflicted upon the Palestinian people, particularly in Gaza (World Health Organization, 2022).
Apartheid, as defined by international law, is not a metaphor. It is a legal term denoting systems of institutionalized racial oppression. Israel fits that definition. Palestinians live under military law, subject to checkpoints, curfews, surveillance, and extrajudicial killings. Israeli settlers, often armed and subsidized, live under civil law with full protections. This two-tiered system based on ethnicity and national origin is the architecture of apartheid.
But the state violence doesn’t stop at segregation. With each military operation in Gaza, Israel executes acts that fulfill the criteria for genocide. Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term, defined genocide as the destruction of the essential foundations of life for a national group (Lemkin, 1944). Israel’s attacks on hospitals, schools, homes, and water supplies make this intent unmistakable. More than half of Gaza’s population is under the age of 18. Bombing it, fully aware of this demographic, is a decision to mass-murder children. That is not defense. That is genocide.
AIPAC and the Engineering of American Consciousness
This humanitarian emergency is not unfolding in a vacuum. For decades, powerful lobbying groups, chief among them the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), have manipulated the American political and media landscape to frame any opposition to Israel as antisemitism (Mearsheimer & Walt, 2007). This has allowed Israel to act with impunity.
AIPAC’s genius lies in its ability to equate the nation-state of Israel with Jewish identity itself. Criticism of Israeli policy is routinely conflated with hate toward Jewish people. This conflation is not only intellectually dishonest, it is deeply dangerous. It shields a nuclear-armed state from accountability while simultaneously trivializing real antisemitism.
By the 1980s, AIPAC had become a bipartisan juggernaut. It groomed politicians, controlled narratives, and ensured that U.S. military aid to Israel was politically untouchable. Any attempt to question Israeli policy, even mild criticism, became political suicide. Campaign donations, media appearances, academic careers, and federal grants all came with an invisible asterisk: never challenge Israel (Khalidi, 2020). We’ve seen time and again how U.S. senators and representatives deflect or avoid questions that challenge Israel’s actions or policies. The alignment runs so deep that lawmakers like Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND) and Representative Kat Cammack (R-FL) openly display Israeli flags in their official congressional offices; an extraordinary gesture for elected officials sworn to represent the United States.
This political pressure has been formalized through anti-BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions. A Palestinian-led global movement that began in 2005 which aims to end Israel's occupation of Palestinian land, ensure equal rights for Palestinian citizens of Israel, and promote the right of return for Palestinian refugees) legislation, loyalty pledges, and campus surveillance (Electronic Intifada, 2021). Groups like Canary Mission maintain public blacklists of pro-Palestinian activists, threatening their job prospects and safety. This is McCarthyism with a Zionist veneer, and its goal is clear: silence opposition, criminalize solidarity.
The Weaponization of Language
Perhaps the most effective tactic in this arsenal has been the manipulation of language. Protests against Israeli aggression are labeled “antisemitic.” Chants like “From the river to the sea” are portrayed as calls for genocide. Even mourning Palestinian deaths is cast as threatening (Jewish Voice for Peace, 2021).
In this context, language becomes not a tool of liberation, but a battlefield. Activists must tiptoe through rhetorical minefields while the IDF obliterates entire apartment blocks. While the public debates whether “apartheid” is too strong a word, Israel proceeds with ethnic cleansing. This is the ultimate gaslighting: to render your victim voiceless and then punish them for screaming.
Campus speech codes, social media bans, and public smears ensure that the only acceptable form of “discussion” is one that prioritizes Israeli security over Palestinian survival. Media outlets sanitize Israeli violence, reducing airstrikes to “escalations” and mass death to “clashes” (The Intercept, 2023). This linguistic laundering is deliberate. It turns war crimes into misunderstandings and genocide into self-defense.
The Global Consequences of Manufactured Silence
The impact of this silence is catastrophic, not just for Palestinians, but for the moral fabric of the world. The international community, having once said “Never Again,” now issues empty condemnations while arming the perpetrators. The United States, in particular, continues to fund Israel to the tune of billions annually. Its complicity is not passive, it is active (The Guardian, 2025).
Meanwhile, Europe dithers. The UN wrings its hands. Liberal commentators call for “both sides to de-escalate.” But there are not two equal sides. There is an occupier and the occupied. An apartheid regime and a stateless people. A nuclear power and a refugee population. To pretend otherwise is to participate in the lie.
And yet the tide is turning. Young Jews are rejecting the weaponization of antisemitism. Palestinians are telling their own stories on social media. Movements for divestment and boycott are gaining traction worldwide. Even as repression intensifies, solidarity expands.
A Call for Moral Clarity
The question before us is not about terminology. It is about whether we will stand by and watch a people be annihilated. To call for an end to the genocide of Palestinians is not radical. It is the minimum ethical threshold. If we cannot say that, then we have forfeited our humanity.
The phrase “Free Palestine” is not a threat. It is a plea. A cry against annihilation. A demand for dignity. But even if you hesitate to say it, know this: neutrality is not an option. Every moment of silence is complicity. Every equivocation is a green light for further death.
If we are to mean anything when we speak of human rights, international law, or justice, then we must act. Cut the aid. Sanction the regime. Amplify the voices from the rubble. Because genocide is not a debate. It is a crime. And history will remember who spoke—and who stayed silent.
References
Al Jazeera. (2025, May 14). Live: Israel attacks Gaza hospitals as Trump says working to end war soon. Retrieved from https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2025/5/14/live-israel-attacks-gaza-hospitals-as-trump-says-working-to-end-war-soon
Associated Press (AP). (2025). Gaza’s only cancer hospital shuts down as attacks damage facilities. Retrieved from https://apnews.com/article/b32d055195ffec2b349a0948582c68e3
B’Tselem. (2021). A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid. Retrieved from https://www.btselem.org/publications/fulltext/202101_this_is_apartheid
Butler, J. (2016). Parting Ways: Jewishness and the Critique of Zionism. Columbia University Press.
Electronic Intifada. (2021). Reports on anti-BDS legislation and Israeli occupation. Retrieved from https://electronicintifada.net
Human Rights Watch. (2021). A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution. Retrieved from https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution
IPC (Integrated Food Security Phase Classification). (2025, May). Gaza Strip: Acute Food Insecurity Snapshot. Retrieved from https://www.ipcinfo.org/ipc-country-analysis/details-map/en/c/1159596
Jewish Voice for Peace. (2021). Resources distinguishing antisemitism from anti-Zionism. Retrieved from https://jewishvoiceforpeace.org
Khalidi, R. (2020). The Hundred Years' War on Palestine. Metropolitan Books.
Lemkin, R. (1944). Axis Rule in Occupied Europe: Laws of Occupation, Analysis of Government, Proposals for Redress. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Mearsheimer, J., & Walt, S. (2007). The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Reuters. (2025, May 15). Palestinians mark Nakba Day as fears of displacement grow. Retrieved from https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/palestinians-mark-nakba-day-fears-displacement-grow-2025-05-15
The Guardian. (2025, May 15). ‘A grim lottery’: As Israel bombs hospitals, some Gaza children are granted rare exit permits. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/15/a-grim-lottery-as-israel-bombs-hospitals-some-gaza-children-are-granted-rare-exit-permits
The Guardian. (2025, May 15). Middle East crisis live: Israel–Gaza updates. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2025/may/15/israel-gaza-donald-trump-gulf-qatar-uae-iran-middle-east-crisis-live
The Intercept. (2023). Coverage of political repression against Palestinian solidarity. Retrieved from https://theintercept.com
World Health Organization. (2022). Statement on the health emergency in occupied Palestinian territory. Retrieved from https://www.who.int
World Health Organization. (2025, May 12). People in Gaza starving, sick, and dying as aid blockade continues. Retrieved from https://www.who.int/news/item/12-05-2025-people-in-gaza-starving--sick-and-dying-as-aid-blockade-continues