‘Outright denial’: Genocide prevention group slams Hillary Clinton’s Gaza remarks

A prominent genocide prevention group has termed Hillary Clinton’s recent remarks on Israel’s war on Gaza as “outright genocide denial”, in a statement released on Tuesday.

The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention and Human Security said Clinton had misdiagnosed Israel’s battered reputation among Americans during her talk at the Israel Hayom Summit on 2 December.

In her talk, the former US first lady and secretary of state said Israel “has the worst PR of any group”, blaming TikTok, in particular, for presenting what she called “pure propaganda”, referring to Israeli violence against Palestinians during its genocide in Gaza.

“Secretary Clinton’s framing is not at all an accurate reflection of why Americans are growing more critical of Israel,” the institute said. 

The institute added that Americans did not fall prey to propaganda, but rather to years of videos “uploaded by Palestinian journalists, ordinary people trying to survive in Gaza, IDF soldiers, and ordinary Israelis themselves”, referring to the Israeli army in using the acronym "IDF".

“There has been no convincing refutation of the sheer amount of raw evidence of genocide coming out of Palestine. Young people in the US are not stupid or gullible. They simply reject genocide - something the Secretary might consider doing as well.”

Israel is currently occupying 56 percent of the Gaza Strip and has killed more than 360 people since the “ceasefire” was announced on 10 October, with violations occurring daily.

Over 71,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s war on the enclave, which has been widely recognised as a genocide by the United Nations, several states, world leaders, historians, and leading human rights organisations, including the Lemkin Institute.

The Lemkin Institute was founded in 2017 as The Iraq Project for Genocide Prevention and Accountability by Elisa von Joeden-Forgey and Irene Victoria Massimino, both recognised scholars with an expertise in genocide, colonialism, and international law. 

It is named after Raphael Lemkin, a Polish lawyer who coined the term “genocide”.

The Lemkin Institute grew out of the initial project to encompass a broader mandate and is now a member of Global Action Against Mass Atrocity Crimes, a network of states, civil society groups, and academic institutions that aim to prevent atrocities.

‘No longer fooled by genocide denial’

Clinton’s opinions have already drawn widespread backlash, condemnation, and mockery online. 

Clinton characterised people’s positions as a “serious problem for democracy”, remarking that when she attempted to have “reasonable discussions” with young people, it was challenging because “they did not know history, they had very little context, and what they were being told on social media was not just one-sided, it was pure propaganda”.

She also accused young Jewish Americans of being ignorant, saying social media influenced “not just the usual suspects, but also young Jewish Americans who don’t know the history and don’t understand”.

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Several Jewish Americans online challenged Clinton’s assertion, calling it "offensive".

The institute noted that Clinton did not make any mention of the “reality of genocidal violence” but was instead primarily concerned with the optics of the situation.

“Her concern is, rather, in her words, ‘the narrative’ - the fact that these crimes are no longer hidden and are now being live-streamed and documented in real time, making it harder for her and others to control it,” the statement said.

“Many carefully researched reports by international organizations have established that Israel’s crimes meet the international legal threshold for genocide. We encourage the former Secretary to read them.”

The statement also pointed out that it was ironic to blame TikTok for disseminating what she characterised as anti-Israel propaganda when TikTok has been documented and widely criticised for censoring pro-Palestinian content. 

“In July of this year, TikTok appointed an ex-IDF instructor as its new manager of hate speech,” the Lemkin Institute said.

The institute accused Clinton of lamenting the notion that people now have a broader range of information to access. 

“What truly seems to unsettle Secretary Clinton is not ‘misinformation,’ but rather the fact that younger generations are no longer consuming a single, state-controlled narrative. They are accessing unfiltered images and testimonies that challenge decades of political messaging.”
The institute said that young people are “no longer fooled by genocide denial” and are “tired and appalled by the continued genocides around the world”.

“Secretary Clinton’s remarks are not only inaccurate - they are also a shameful example of the lengths to which people complicit in genocide will go to deny its existence.”