Politics

Elizabeth Warren suggests Israel is committing genocide in Gaza

"I believe that they will find that it is genocide, and they have ample evidence to do so," Warren, a former law professor, said at a Wayland mosque last week.

By Molly Farrar

April 10, 2024

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Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren told constituents at a mosque in Wayland there is “ample evidence” that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

Warren was answering questions at the mosque last week when someone asked the senator, “Do you think that Israel is committing genocide?” The video of her answer was posted on X by a GBH News reporter. 

Warren told the the crowd that constituting genocide as a legal term is not as important as acknowledging that Israel’s actions in Gaza are “wrong.” 

“It is wrong to starve children, women, and a civilization population in order to try to bend them to your will. It is wrong to drop 2,000-pound bombs in densely populated civilian areas,” Warren said in part. “That’s how I analyze it.”

The crowd spoke up. “You didn’t answer the question,” one person said. “It was a yes or no question,” someone else called out. 

Warren, a former law professor, then said that Israel’s actions could be legally ruled as genocide. According to the Department of Justice, genocide includes “violent attacks with the specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.”

“If you want to do it as an application of law, I believe that they will find that it is genocide, and they have ample evidence to do so,” Warren said, before she was cut off by applause. 

She went on to say that she wants to “get people past a labels argument, which seems to throw up a screen.”

“(I want) to get them to look at the behavior on the ground, get them to look at the children, to get them to look at the moms and the old people and the people who have been displaced and the people who are living outside, and the people who are drinking dirty water,” Warren said.

Biden says more aid needs to get into Gaza

In January, the International Court of Justice said it’s “plausible” that Israel was committing genocide. NPR reported that the court asked for Israel to make immediate and effective measures to get aid into Gaza.

More recently, President Joe Biden called Israel’s handling of the war a mistake as aid struggles to get to Palestinian civilians. Earlier this month, an Israeli airstrike killed seven World Central Kitchen workers. Biden called for an immediate ceasefire in a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week. 

“What he’s doing is a mistake. I don’t agree with his approach,” Biden told Spanish-language broadcaster Univision.

Earlier this week, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told lawmakers that the United States has no evidence that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.