I​t’s Time to Broaden Our Definition of Political Violence

A staunch defender of Israel, Shapiro has staked out what is, by now, a conventional position among mainstream Democrats: cracking down on pro-Palestine protests, decrying hunger in Gaza, demanding the U.S. furnish more aid, and calling on Hamas to return Israeli hostages. He’s criticized Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership and the Israeli government’s denial of reports about widespread hunger in Gaza, but remained largely silent as to why at least half a million people are trapped in a famine under total Israeli siege there. “These children in Gaza need to be fed, the violence needs to come to an end, the hostages need to come home, and this war needs to be over,” Shapiro said when asked about Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza City this week. He also said Netanyahu was “taking Israel down a very dark and dangerous path.” In a subsequent interview with Forward, Shapiro reiterated these positions. “The roots of my faith and support of Israel were formed decades ago,” Shapiro added. “I don’t waffle or waver because of what the polling said.” Just 38 percent of Americans overall—and 8 percent of Democrats—now approve of the military action Israel has taken in Gaza, per a Gallup poll released in July.

Israel’s assault on Gaza has by now left more than 65,000 dead since the fall of 2023, most of them women and children. A wide swath of Israeli government officials, politicians, and military leaders—not just Netanyahu—have been explicit about their intent to destroy Gaza as revenge for Hamas’s attacks on October 7, 2023, which killed an estimated 1,200 Israeli soldiers and civilians. Nissim Vaturi, deputy speaker of the Israeli Parliament, posted that day on social media that Israel’s task must be “erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth.” Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich declared this past May that Gaza would be “totally destroyed” in six months.

Violence and famine aren’t tragic forces of nature washing over Gaza, leaving apolitical humanitarian crises in their wake. This is a a genocide. An independent inquiry set up by the U.N. Human Rights Council concluded that Israel has “committed four genocidal acts” in the course of its war on Palestinians, including “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.” Some 70 percent of structures there—hospitals, homes, and schools—have been destroyed. Famine conditions continue to spread throughout Gaza, and more than 2,500 people have been killed attempting to access the minuscule amount of aid that Israel allows to enter.