Inventing Reality

The list is quite boring. „Community“ is doing quite the heavy lifting here, lots of creative rabbis, lawyers, executives, publicists, professors, identity advocates.

My personal highlight: Carl Gershman, Founding President, National Endowment for Democracy

The letter on the other hand, is quite something for a person to put their name on it:

Central to the letter is the meaning of the word “genocide” itself. Under the 1948 Genocide Convention, genocide requires “specific intent” to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. This is an exceptionally demanding legal standard that goes beyond knowledge that civilian deaths, widespread destruction or even the destruction of part of a group may result. It requires an intent to bring about the group’s destruction as such. The signatories argue that applying the term to Israel without regard for that standard has turned one of international law’s gravest concepts into a political accusation.

The letter states: “A crucial difference between war as tragedy and war as genocide is intent. In this war, only one side intended to commit genocide, and that is Hamas.”

Ambassador (ret.) Deborah E. Lipstadt, Ph.D. said: “Those who accuse Israel of genocide, a very specific crime with a legally specific definition, are fulfilling the dictum attributed to the Nazi propagandist, Josef Goebbels. “If you tell a lie and keep repeating it enough, people will eventually come to believe it.” By October 10th, accusations of genocide were common, even before Israel set foot in Gaza. Then it was extremist voices who made this charge. Now, people have come to believe the lie and to mindlessly repeat it.”