Letter from Larry Shapiro to Michael Smerconish, CNN, on the False Genocide Accusation Against Israel

Dear Mr. Smerconish,

On your Saturday Sept 19th show, you stated that accusing Israel of carrying out a genocide was not controversial and Macklemore should not have been stopped from appearing in Boston.

As a Jewish person, accusing us of carrying out a genocide is very controversial, and very libelous, and sickeningly ironic, because it is our people who have faced genocides and attempted genocides, the last on Oct. 7, 2023.

Accusations against Jews for killing innocents, particularly children, have been going on for centuries and have been used to justify the murder of Jews.

The biggest outrage of all is not the muzzling of Macklemore, but the millions of Americans who have adopted the "Jews kill innocents" mantra, that if continuing to metastasize could have terrible consequences.

As an a educated man, you will have access to dictionaries, so you should know that the definition of genocide is the deliberate act of or attempt to wipe out a whole people. For an actual genocide to take place there would have to be mass graves, locations where mass killings took place, and evidence of intent. None of these exist in Gaza. There is plenty of evidence of Hamas' intent to commit a genocide on Israelis, but that seems to be more welcomed than condemned.

You know very well that had Israel wanted to wipe out every Gazan, it had the means to do so, but instead of mass murder it chose to send thousands of tons of food aid to Gaza, dropped leaflets and phoned individual Gazans to get out of their buildings targeted by the IDF. It was not always easy to get the civilians to leave. Hamas did everything it could to keep them in the buildings hoping for mass casualties, knowing that they could use this information to influence people in the West to loathe the Jewish state. The idea that Hamas wants its own people to die is so alien to us in the West, that most of us are in denial, including TV news hosts like yourself who should know better. Hamas's strategy has worked as one can see from your evidenceless acceptance of an Israeli committed genocide.

I invite you to study this issue, perhaps consulting with Col (ret) John Spencer who runs the Urban Warfare Studies program at West point. He has published a lot of information on the subject of Israel's role in Gaza and for your information stated that, "Israel has implemented more measures to prevent civilian casualties than any other military in the history of urban warfare".

Mr. Smerconish, it is outrageous that you choose to live in denial of this evidence of Jewish humanity.

Respectfully yours,

Larry Shapiro, Calgary, Alberta Canada