California Jewish caucus co-chair seeking Pelosi’s seat says ‘genocide’ in Gaza

At 7 a.m. on Sunday, the Atlantic quoted Scott Wiener, a Democratic state senator who is running for the seat long held by Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), calling questions about whether Israel is guilty of “genocide” in Gaza “purity tests to medieval tropes that defined ‘good Jews’ as those who quietly obeyed the authorities and ‘bad Jews’ as those who were too open about their identity.”

“He has also argued that Israel has a right to defend itself, and a right to exist as a Jewish state, and he does not characterize the bombing of Gaza as a genocide—a description that the San Francisco left insists upon,” Helen Lewis wrote in the magazine.

Some nine-and-a-half hours later, Wiener, who co-chairs the California Legislative Jewish Caucus, stated that “I do believe Israel has committed genocide in Gaza.”

He noted that he has accused Israel of “total destruction,” “catastrophic levels of death” and a “moral stain,” but “I haven’t used the word ‘genocide.’”

“As a Jew, I am deeply aware that the word genocide was created in the wake of the Holocaust, which was the industrial extermination of six million Jews,” he said. “For many Jews, associating the word ‘genocide’ with the Jewish state of Israel is deeply painful and frankly traumatic.”

But “despite that pain and that trauma, we all have eyes, and we see the absolute devastation and catastrophic death toll in Gaza inflicted by the Israeli government, and we all have ears, and we hear the genocidal statements by certain senior members of the Israeli government,” he said. “To me, the Israeli government has tried to destroy Gaza and to push Palestinians out, and that qualifies as ‘genocide.’”

Marco Sermoneta, the Israeli consul general to the Pacific Northwest, stated that he is “disappointed” and “saddened” that Wiener “disgracefully chose to abandon facts and amplify Hamas propaganda to score political points.”

“By doing so, he perpetuates a vile blood libel against Israel, whose citizens were the target of Hamas’s stated genocidal intentions, and emboldens the extremists who endanger Jews in California,” he wrote.

Sermonetta added that, “True leadership requires standing up for what one believes is right, rather than pandering to the purity tests of the mobs.”