
No More Excuses for Gaza
Reading through the book: "Genocide Bad" written by Sim Kern and published by
Interlink Publishing, Massachusetts – April 22, 2025, I found out that Sim Kern's "Genocide Bad" is not polite literature. It's a slap across the face. It tears away the comfortable distance that lets people talk about genocide as if it were a word from the past.
Kern's book screams a truth that politicians, pundits, and polite society keep dodging: Gaza is not a "conflict.' It is a genocide in real time. Pretending otherwise is complicity.
A Jewish anti-Zionist activist, Kern does not write like a detached scholar. These ten essays are part history, part testimony, part furious moral argument. They cut through propaganda like a blade. For Kern, Gaza is not a faraway crisis. It is a cage where bombs, blockades, and starvation grind an entire people into dust while the world stands by, wringing its hands and mumbling about "complexity.'
What makes Genocide Bad devastating is its clarity. It dismantles the excuses: biblical entitlement, "self-defense' slogans, the Western addiction to Israel-as-project. Kern shows how the promise of safety for one people has been built on the systematic destruction of another. And there is no academic shield here no safe, neutral tone. This is confrontation: someone grabbing you by the collar and asking, how many dead children will it take before you call it what it is?
There is humor in these pages, but it is bitter the humor of someone who has watched truth twisted into lies. There is history, but never the kind that hides behind footnotes. And there is empathy sharpened into a weapon against indifference. Kern's viral videos and grassroots work for Gaza run through this book's DNA: blunt, accessible, impossible to ignore.
The timeliness of Genocide Bad is also its indictment. These essays make painfully clear that Gaza is a mirror showing the world's moral bankruptcy: neighborhoods turned to rubble, food and water weaponized, children starving on live streams and still the language of "disputes' and "operations' persists. Kern argues convincingly that genocide is sustained not only by those who pull the trigger but also by those who watch, explain, and shrug.
Even the title Genocide Bad is a rebuke. It should not need to be said. And yet here we are, in 2025, still debating whether the word applies while Gaza buries another generation. This book will not allow that luxury. It demands that we drop the euphemisms, call this what it is, and decide which side of history we are on.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Roya News
14 hours ago
- Roya News
TikTok appoints former 'Israeli' army instructor as "hate speech" manager
TikTok is facing backlash over the recent appointment of Erica Mindel, a former instructor in the 'Israeli' army's Spokesperson's Unit, as the platform's new Public Policy Manager for Hate Speech. Critics have raised serious concerns about the potential implications for Palestinian digital freedoms. According to Sada Social, a digital rights organization that monitors violations against Palestinian content, Mindel will be responsible for shaping TikTok's hate speech policies, drafting relevant legislation, and monitoring online trends, particularly antisemitic content. Mindel, who began her role in July 2025, previously served as a contractor for the US Department of State under Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, the Biden administration's Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism. She also held a senior position at the American Jewish Committee (AJC), where she managed high-level advocacy delegations to 'Israel'. In a 2023 AJC video, Mindel described herself as a 'proud' Zionist and recounted her decision to make aliyah and enlist in the 'Israeli' military after graduating from the University of Michigan. She noted that her commitment to Zionism deepened during Operation Protective Edge in 2014, which left more than 2,000 Palestinians dead, including over 500 children, according to Amnesty International. Meet TikTok's New Zionist Censorship Tsar, Erica Mindel Mindel is a former IDF instructor & is now employed to run TikTok's 'hate speech' enforcement. The head of the ADL previously said Israel has a 'TikTok problem'. Now a devout Zionist can censor the platform. — MintPress News (@MintPressNews) July 29, 2025 Sada Social has expressed grave concern about Mindel's appointment, stating: 'Assigning someone affiliated with an army currently under international investigation for genocide in Gaza to lead hate speech policy only entrenches existing biases and undermines the principles of fairness and digital justice.' The organization warned that her military background could further compromise TikTok's handling of Palestinian content, citing its 2024 Digital Index, which revealed that 27% of all digital violations targeting Palestinian voices occurred on TikTok. Sada Social also highlighted TikTok's compliance with 94% of the 'Israeli' government's content removal requests in the second half of 2024, which included the deletion of videos with journalistic value and the removal of accounts belonging to activists and media professionals. Despite global concern, TikTok has reportedly failed to conduct an internal review of its policies, even after evidence submitted to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) by South Africa included footage from the platform showing 'Israeli' soldiers mocking victims and celebrating destruction in Gaza. In light of these developments, digital rights advocates fear that Mindel's appointment signals a narrowing space for Palestinian expression online and a further entrenchment of biased content moderation practices on one of the world's most influential social media platforms.


Al Bawaba
19 hours ago
- Al Bawaba
Iran jails senior official over comment on Sinwar
ALBAWABA - A story from Israel's Channel 12 says that an Iranian judge has given Abdolreza Davari, a former top Interior Ministry official, six months in jail for posts on social media that were critical of the late Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. Also Read Israeli airstrikes pound southern Lebanon Davari is famous for making controversial comments online about Iran's political elite. He used to work as an adviser to the interior minister and as deputy head of the official state news agency. The case started with a post Davari made on X (now Twitter) in September 2024. It made fun of Sinwar's reasons for attacking Israel and suggested that the two might have been working together. He wrote that Sinwar had learned Hebrew while being locked up in Israel and was acting as a go-between for Palestinian inmates and Israeli officials. Davari also said that the attack raised "serious question marks," saying that it looked like it was started without consulting with the leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, Hezbollah in Lebanon, or Iran. The post was taken down later. In addition to giving Davari a six-month jail term, the court also fined him money, took away his phone, and told him he couldn't use any social media sites. Davari is also being investigated in a different case because of things he said about a past head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization. This makes his legal problems even worse. The decision shows that the Iranian government is becoming more strict about public criticism and opposition, especially when it comes to important people in the region like Sinwar, whose death earlier this year is still being felt all over the Middle East.


Al Bawaba
a day ago
- Al Bawaba
Netanyahu gambles on his last chance to prevent the collapse of his rule
Published August 1st, 2025 - 08:51 GMT ALBAWABA - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in danger of losing his weak government, so he has promised to slowly take over parts of the Gaza Strip if Hamas doesn't agree to end the fighting within days. The move comes as his minority government, which has only 50 seats now that ultra-Orthodox parties quit, faces growing problems within the country and pressure from other countries. Haaretz says the takeover plan seems to be less about security and more about making friends with far-right groups. In particular, it seems to be an attempt to make Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich happy, since his Religious Zionism party has threatened to leave the government if aid keeps coming into Gaza. Netanyahu told his security cabinet about the plan on July 28. Hamas would have a short time to agree to a halt, and if they didn't, Israel would start taking over land, starting with buffer zones and then moving north. According to Channel 12, Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer gave the plan to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Netanyahu said the White House showed approval. President Trump, on the other hand, was not at the meeting. According to political expert Wissam Afifa, the move was a "political gamble." He said that Netanyahu is using annexation as a bargaining chip to keep his government together instead of a real security plan. Netanyahu has been quietly told by Smotrich that he will judge him "by actions, not words." Meanwhile, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called for Hamas to be destroyed, Gaza to be fully occupied, and a lot of Palestinians to be forced to leave their homes. The world cares about the two-state solution again. Is it too late? 'Canada condemns the fact that the Israeli government has let the situation deteriorate in Gaza to this extent,' said Prime Minister Mark Carney. Opinion piece @ishaantharoor — Ashis Basu 🇨🇦 (@BasuAshis) August 1, 2025 Other far-right and Likud lawmakers have asked the defense minister to let people visit the borders of Gaza, calling it the "heartland of Israel." Some even said that "just as much as Tel Aviv does," Gaza is part of Israel. The language shows that divisions are rising in Netanyahu's government, where far-right ministers are using the war to push for extreme territory goals. Observers say that the danger of annexation shows that Israel's war goals have changed from beating Hamas to taking control of more land. After almost two years of war, famine, and siege, Gaza is now being talked about by the government as land that should be added to Israel, not just as a security problem. According to researcher Firas Yaghi, the move is part of a larger plan for the United States and Israel to work together to change the area. He said that annexation could reduce the size of Gaza, force many of its people to move, and make security plans like those in the West Bank. But Afifa called the plan a "admission of failure" because it shows that Israel can't do what it says it can do, which is to end Hamas's rule or get the prisoners back. He said that instead, Hamas could use the fear of annexation to get people around the world to oppose Israel's war and see it as an attempt to take over more land. Effects on the law and relations Any attempt to take over Gaza would have very bad legal effects. Under Israeli law, land that has been seized cannot be given back without the approval of 80 Knesset members or a national vote, which have never happened before. Some people in Israel have also said that the plan is not possible. A minister told Haaretz that annexation was "not on the agenda." Avi Issacharoff, a security expert, called the threat "one of the dumbest empty threats I've heard" and said it would cause a backlash around the world without putting any pressure on Hamas. On a global level, support for recognizing Palestine as a state is growing. Before the UN General Assembly in September, nine countries are expected to say they recognize the Palestinian Authority. French President Emmanuel Macron and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer have both said they will recognize the Palestinian Authority if Israel does not change its mind. Legal experts say that any transfer would be against international law because Gaza is still controlled land even though Israel left it in 2005. The International Court of Justice has said that East Jerusalem, Gaza, and the West Bank are all controlled areas that are governed by the UN. © 2000 - 2025 Al Bawaba (