Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) accused Israel of violating international law in Gaza in a debate with Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.) on Thursday, but declined to say if he thought the Jewish state had committed “genocide.”
Ossoff, who is Jewish, was asked about the “betrayal” felt by many Jews in the state due to his votes to block arms shipments to Israel and if he agreed with the growing number of Democrats who accuse Israel of “genocide.”
“The question of genocide is a question of whether a government has the specific intent to destroy a national or ethnic group, and that is a question for the International Criminal Court,” Ossoff said. “There is no doubt in my mind that Israeli forces prosecuting the war in Gaza violated the law of armed conflict and international humanitarian law.”
Israel is not a party to the Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court, an independent judicial body in The Hague. The Jewish state has rejected the court’s efforts to assert jurisdiction over its conduct in Gaza.
The Trump administration imposed sanctions on the ICC on Friday, citing an executive order that accused the court of illegitimately targeting the United States and Israel.
Jewish groups, including the Jewish Community Relations Council of Atlanta and the local Anti-Defamation League and American Jewish Committee chapters, condemned Ossoff in 2024 for voting to cut off the sale of tank shells and mortar rounds to Israel.
In 2025, when he voted against a sale of rifles to Israel, he accused the country of causing the “starvation of children” in Gaza.
Ossoff, who is frequently discussed as a potential Democratic candidate for the presidency in 2028, said at the debate on Friday that he would “make no apology” for his votes.
“I care deeply about the security of the Israeli people, among whom are members of my family,” he said. “I also care about innocent Palestinian life.”
Polls suggest Ossoff has about a 10-point lead over Collins, a two-term congressman whose district covers the mostly suburban and rural area between Atlanta and Augusta.
Ossoff hammered Collins repeatedly in the debate for his connections to a former staffer who made pro-Nazi posts on social media and for the views of Collins’s son-in-law, an alt-right influencer who frequently posts anti-Israel statements and has used Nazi imagery to do so.
“You’ve hired half the Third Reich to staff your congressional office,” Ossoff said. “Imagine running for the U.S. Senate while neo-Nazi propaganda is disseminated to an audience of millions from your home. That’s Mike Collins.”Collins denied being a bigot and said that he had told his son-in-law that antisemitism and racism were wrong.
He then tried to tie Ossoff to controversial left-wing figures, like antisemitic podcaster Hasan Piker and Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Dr. Abdul El-Sayed.
“He doesn’t denounce anybody or anything or condemn them, because he’s part of them,” Collins said of Ossoff. “That’s not me. When I had things happen, I’m a businessman. I fired them. I got rid of them. Don’t need ‘em.”
