Human Rights Watch Founder — and Holocaust Survivor — Accuses Israel of Genocide on CNN
Aryeh Neier, the co-founder of Human Rights Watch and a survivor of the Holocaust, accused Israel of engaging in genocide in Gaza in an appearance on CNN.
Neier sat for an interview with Fareed Zakaria on Sunday to discuss his conclusion, which he first revealed in an extensive piece in the New York Review of Books, that Israel’s response to the October 7 attack, a bombing campaign that has killed tens of thousands of people and allegedly sparked a famine in parts of Gaza, amounts to genocide.
During Neier’s tenure as the director of Human Rights Watch, he only once labeled a crime as such — Saddam Hussein’s attempt to eliminate the Iraqi Kurds in 1988.
On CNN, Neier said he initially did not endorse South Africa’s charge of genocide against Israel in the International Court of Justice.
“I thought Israel had a right to retaliate against Hamas, and I thought Israel had a right to try to incapacitate Hamas so that it would never be able to do anything like that again,” he said. “But I was disturbed by some of the actions of Israel, by the use of very large weapons, 2,000 pounds bombs which are utterly inappropriate in a crowded urban area.”
Despite finding its retaliation to have gone “far overboard,” Neier did not initially conclude Israel engaged in genocide. That is, until months of Israel’s “severe obstruction of the delivery of humanitarian assistance” led to famine in Gaza.
“I am now persuaded that Israel is engaged in genocide against Palestinians in Gaza,” he wrote in the NYRB. “What has changed my mind is its sustained policy of obstructing the movement of humanitarian assistance into the territory.”
Zakaria questioned Neier on Israel’s defenses against charges of genocide, as well as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim Israel has a moral army.
Neier — who, in his piece in the NYRB, argued the reported death toll of around 34,000 in Gaza is likely an undercount given the bodies trapped under the rubble — noted the severe toll in the densely packed enclave. He also pointed to the Israeli settlers attacking aid trucks and destroying desperately needed humanitarian assistance with impunity, as well as the killings of Palestinians in the West Bank. The IDF, Neier said, has aided the settlers in those crimes.
Zakaria asked Neier about Netanyahu’s claim that the ICC is antisemitic because it requested arrest warrants against him and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on charges of war crimes.
“The use of the term antisemitism to attack those who criticize Israeli policies degrades the concept of antisemitism,” he said. “Antisemitism has been a great scourge, but it doesn’t insulate the Israeli government from being held to the same standards as that other governments have to be held to around the world.”
Watch above via CNN.
