This week Netanyahu and the Israeli legislature announced a full ground invasion of Gaza in which they will displace the remaining Palestinians under the same old excuse of “eradicating Hamas.” Only a handful of politicians have had the courage to speak up and condemn this genocide and ethnic cleansing. Why?
I want to give you the case study of Delegate Sam Rasoul, a Palestinian American member of the Virginia State Legislature who has been vocal throughout his career on ending Israel’s illegal operations and genocide in Palestine, and ending antisemitism in all its forms. Yet, for these two principled stances, he’s currently facing relentless attacks—not just from Republicans—but from fellow Democrats.
The Background
Though I grew up in Illinois, I graduated from law school in Virginia, and in my decade there even ran for Congress—winning the Democratic nomination back in 2020. I know Virginia politics fairly well. And right now, I am watching, mortified, as Virginia Democrats are attacking Delegate Sam Rasoul for his principled stances of ending genocide and ending antisemitism.
Perhaps even more shocking, the Virginia Democrats attacking Sam are themselves silent on his condemnation of antisemitism, and worse, silent on the actual genocide of Palestinians, funded by American dollars. Even now as Netanyahu and the Israeli government announce yet another illegal invasion of Gaza, with a sinister plan to move civilians into concentration camps, there is complete silence from those upset at Delegate Sam Rasoul’s condemnation of Israel’s illegal acts.
It is utter hypocrisy and cowardice.
I thought about writing a detailed piece demonstrating that Delegate Rasoul’s stances—which condemn the Israeli government built on the 130 year old political ideology of zionism—are principled stances every person committed to human rights would agree with. But I don’t even think that is necessary. Instead, I have a better idea.
To illustrate the utter absurdity of the attacks on Delegate Sam Rasoul, I present to you five quotes below. One is from Delegate Rasoul, and the other four are not from Delegate Rasoul. In fact, the other four are from Israeli and Jewish scholars of genocide and/or the Holocaust. As the reader, see if you can distinguish or identify which quote belongs to Delegate Rasoul, and which belong to Jewish scholars?
The Quotes In Question
Quote 1: “Israel will no longer be able to draw on the credit of having been the state that was created after the Holocaust as an answer to the Holocaust. You cannot continue to use this argument following the mass killing of another group. My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people.”
Quote 2: “An examination of Israel’s policy in the Gaza Strip and its horrific outcomes, together with statements by senior Israeli politicians and military commanders about the goals of the attack, leads to the unequivocal conclusion that Israel is taking coordinated action to intentionally destroy Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip. In other words: Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”
Quote 3: ”After 22 months of the most horrific crimes, there is no doubt that Israel is conducting the most evil cleansing in human history as we watch it play out minute by minute. Jews are standing up to this horror to say ‘not in our name.’ This was never about religion, rather a supremacist ideology created to destroy and conquer everything in its way. This is Zionism, which is making the world less safe for Jews.”
Quote 4: “The evidence shows a deliberate and systematic dismantling of Gaza’s health and life-sustaining systems – through targeted attacks on hospitals, obstruction of medical aid and evacuations, and the killing and detention of healthcare personnel. Silence in the face of genocide is not an option. We want to stress: confronting genocide is not only the responsibility of legal and political institutions. Confronting it demands urgent action from the global community.”
Quote 5: “When Zionism becomes co-extensive with Jewishness, Jewishness is pitted against the diversity that defines democracy, and if I may say so, betrays one of the most important ethical dimensions of the diasporic Jewish tradition: namely, the obligation of co-habitation with those [who are] different… Zionist ideology aspires to appropriate Jewish identity and to impose a nationalist interpretation of Judaism on all Jews. Zionism should be totally rejected.”
Conclusion
Politicians who refuse to speak out against Israel’s genocide reveal much about themselves. And politicians who condemn the public servants who loudly speak out against Israel’s genocide reveal even worse about themselves. The truth is painfully clear—those attacking Sam Rasoul aren’t really outraged by his words. How could they be, when his words align almost exactly with those of Israeli and Jewish scholars, Holocaust experts, and human rights leaders? If quoting Israeli genocide scholars is now grounds for condemnation, then the outrage isn’t about the content—it’s about who is speaking. And in this case, the “offense” is that Sam Rasoul is a Palestinian Muslim daring to tell the truth.
That’s not moral outrage. That’s racism. That’s Islamophobia. That’s bigotry. And worst of all, it’s whitewashing genocide.
Delegate Sam Rasoul should be praised for following the lead of Jewish and Israeli scholars who are risking their careers and reputations to end this mass slaughter. He is doing what any public servant should do—speaking truth to power, defending human life, and rejecting all forms of hate.
Those smearing him are not defending democracy, or Jews, or safety. They are defending an ideology of supremacism that has already brought death to tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians—and untold trauma to Jewish people who refuse to have genocide carried out in their name.
If “Never Again” is to mean anything at all, it must mean never again for anyone. Otherwise, it’s just an empty slogan—a hollow shield for the powerful to hide behind as they commit the very crimes it was meant to prevent.
