“About a quarter [of Americans] (27%) say Israel is going too far in its current military operation, while about as many (25%) say it is taking the right approach; 16% of Americans say Israel is not going far enough militarily.” So more Americans support Israel’s campaign than do not.[1]

“81% of American Jews support Israel continuing its military operation to ‘recover all Israeli hostages and remove Hamas from power.’” Which implies the vast majority of “prominent American Jews” are not calling this genocide.[2]

And on this last point, this is hardly a “textbook example of genocide” when scholars of genocide contest this label[3], it is outright rejected by the US State Department[4], and casualties fall within the expectations of urban warfare experts[5]. The textbook example of genocide is the Holocaust.

All this hyperbole and generalization, just like we saw in Paul Graham’s tweet, makes it impossible to have productive discussions.

[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/12/08/americans-vi...

[2] https://jewishinsider.com/2023/12/poll-overwhelming-majority...

[3] https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/how-to-define-genocid... and https://time.com/6334409/is-whats-happening-gaza-genocide-ex...

[4] https://www.reuters.com/world/us-not-seeing-acts-genocide-ga...

[5] https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/07/opinions/israel-hamas-gaza-no...