Israel isnt the only nation harmed by Mamdanis genocide charge

When former Mayor Bill de Blasio recently defended current Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s labeling of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a “war criminal,” he pointed to one metric above all: the number of civilian casualties in Gaza.Mamdani and de Blasio are not alone.Throughout the progressive left and much of the press, the accusation of Israeli “war crimes” and “genocide” has quietly transformed into an accepted default narrative.But there’s a vital question almost nobody bothers to ask: If large civilian casualties alone prove war crimes or genocide, where does that logic stop?Harry Truman authorized the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.Franklin Roosevelt directed a total war that leveled German cities.John F.

Kennedy dramatically escalated America’s involvement in Vietnam, a conflict that claimed immense civilian tolls.Would Bill de Blasio call Truman a war criminal? Would Mamdani seek an ICC warrant for FDR?Few Americans would answer yes.Deep down, most people understand that war is judged by context, military necessity and, above all, intent.

Or, at least, they used to.To test these assumptions, we conducted a national survey of 505 Americans.Our results suggest Americans are rapidly abandoning these crucial legal distinctions, driven by a widening partisan and generational chasm.We expected disagreement over Gaza, but we discovered a profound, systemic erosion of basic definitions.A majority of respondents (54.6%) labeled Israel’s defensive response to the Oct.7, 2023, massacre as genocide.But the breakdown reveals a striking ideological split: Democrats and younger Americans are far more likely to adopt a flawed “civilian deaths equals genocide” framework.For a massive swath of the electorate, the traditional legal standards of warfare have completely collapsed into raw body counts.Nor is this true only for Gaza.

Respondents also applied the term “genocide” to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (63%) and even Islamist m...