The President Biden-appointed chairman of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday pushed back on allegations of Israel committing genocide in its war with Hamas.
Stuart E. Eizenstat, who was the U.S. ambassador to the European Union under former President Clinton, wrote in an opinion piece for the Jerusalem Post on Tuesday that while Israel is fighting a war initiated by Hamas, “Israel is accused of genocide as it defends itself against an attack that was the single deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.
“I strongly agree with the consistent and prevailing view of the United States government that Israel has not perpetrated genocide,” he continued.
Eizenstat, who has served as the State Department’s special adviser for Holocaust issues from the Obama administration through the current Trump administration, compared the safety of his time growing up Jewish in the U.S. to now, where he said the “world is hardly recognizable.
“Security guards are stationed at Jewish institutions in the US, a measure once only necessary in Europe. Rampant antisemitism and Holocaust denial is proliferating across social media. Israel remains surrounded by Iranian proxies in the Axis of Resistance – the terrorist groups Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis – whose stated goal is the annihilation of the Jewish state,” he added.
“Today, we are witnessing the weaponization of the terms genocide, Holocaust, and Nazi in order to attack the legitimacy of the existence of the Jewish state. This violates the memory of the victims of the Holocaust, is deeply painful to survivors, and fuels Holocaust denial and violent antisemitism, which are currently at their highest level worldwide since World War II,” Eizenstat wrote.
He also noted that he is “deeply saddened that the war has led to the tragic loss of far too many innocent civilian lives, both Israeli and Palestinian, and a grave humanitarian crisis in Gaza that must be addressed immediately. Much more must be done to feed hungry Palestinian children and address the dire humanitarian needs of innocent people.”
