Hillary Clinton’s Genocide Denial and the Crisis of Moral Credibility in American Politics
Her latest decision to accept an invitation from Trump mega donor Miriam Adelson to whitewash genocide is a reminder of why we're in this mess
Hillary Clinton recently (and again) claimed that young Americans—including young Jewish Americans—support Palestinian human rights only because of TikTok.
This framing is deeply troubling. It dismisses the extensive, verifiable evidence of mass atrocities in Gaza and replaces it with an unsubstantiated claim that young people are incapable of independent moral reasoning. It erases the work of more than a dozen credible investigative bodies—including Israeli organizations—that have documented genocide, forced starvation, mass rape, systematic targeting of civilians, and other acts that meet the legal definition of crimes against humanity. It also ignores the fact that for nearly two years, the Israeli government blocked international media from entering Gaza, killed more than 255 journalists in Gaza, and restricted any independent reporting from the ground. But all this speaks to a broader crisis of leadership—failures in leadership that is—that have gotten us into this mess. And until we address this crisis on the tenets of justice, these atrocities will continue unabated to the horrific detriment of us all. Let’s Address This.
The Problem
According to Hillary Clinton, the positions young people hold on Israel and Palestine today are the result of online manipulation, which she claims are “short form videos, some of them totally made up.” Their conclusions are not, Clinton insists, the result of carefully reviewing the overwhelming documentation from international human rights organizations, journalists, medical workers, legal experts, and scholars. She seems to claim that because young people may not know the entire history of Palestine and Israel, or “may not know what river and what sea” are at play, they are not qualified to conclude that what the Israeli government is doing today is unjust, let alone genocide.
In a climate where formal journalism is violently suppressed, social media has become one of the only remaining tools available to document and expose mass suffering. Clinton has refused to acknowledge this reality, raising significant concerns about her assessment of this crisis and her regard for factual evidence.
Worse, her most recent remarks were delivered at an event hosted and funded by Miriam Adelson—a billionaire whose family played a decisive role in enabling Donald Trump’s political rise. A setting that further underscores the disconnect between political elites and the public. For Clinton to condemn Trump’s supporters during her 2016 campaign as “deplorables,” yet now embraces a donor, perhaps thee donor, most responsible for financing much of Trump’s political ascent, illustrates a troubling inconsistency that voters increasingly recognize. It signals that principles are negotiable for those in power, and moral clarity is subservient to political convenience.
Finally, perhaps most egregious about Clinton’s remarks is that she continues to whitewash genocide despite overwhelming and ongoing evidence.
Even As New Evidence Surfaces—Clinton Refuses Acknowledgment
Clinton never bothers to explain what alternative source of accurate information young people are meant to rely on if not social media. Is it Netanyahu—himself an International Criminal Court (ICC) charged war criminal? The Israel Defense Forces (IDF), which by its own internal documents admits at least 83% of the people it killed are civilians? It certainly isn’t the US State Department, which issued two reports under Biden that the Israeli Government is violating international human rights law.
But now, even as legacy media finally begins to report on these atrocities, Clinton is still silent. A recent CNN investigation documented what journalists in Gaza have been reporting on social media for years, that the Israeli military:
Shot starving Palestinians as they attempted to collect flour
Bulldozed their bodies into shallow, unmarked graves
Left corpses to decompose outdoors, as dogs scavenged them
Failed to record the deaths and attempted to conceal the killings
This is the definition of intentional genocide. It is an atrocity. Yet Clinton has offered no comment on these findings, nor on the preceding blackout of media access, nor on the unprecedented number of journalists killed in Gaza. Even after a supposed ceasefire, journalists still cannot independently enter Gaza without direct military escort, and their movements remain tightly controlled.
The Global Human Rights Community Has Reached Consensus — This Is Genocide
As Princeton scholar Dr. Zachary Foster—who is Jewish—recently summarized, even if someone were to disregard all media reporting and all social media content, the conclusion remains the same. That is, every major human rights body that has investigated the facts on the ground has reached the same, evidence-based findings, that what the Israeli government has done and continues to do, is genocide. This indeed includes the findings of Israeli and Jewish led human rights organizations:
Human Rights Watch - Confirms Israeli is committing genocide on Palestinians
Amnesty International - Confirms Israeli is committing genocide on Palestinians
Doctors Without Borders - Confirms Israeli is committing genocide on Palestinians
UN Special Rapporteurs - Confirms Israeli is committing genocide on Palestinians
B’Tselem (Israel) - Confirms Israeli is committing genocide on Palestinians
Yesh Din (Israel) - Confirms Israeli is committing genocide on Palestinians
Breaking the Silence (Israel) - Confirms Israeli is committing genocide on Palestinians
Gisha (Israel) - Confirms Israeli is committing genocide on Palestinians
International Court of Justice - Confirms Israeli is committing genocide on Palestinians
International Criminal Court - Confirms Israeli is committing genocide on Palestinians
All have documented systemic targeting of civilians, forced displacement, widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure, obstruction of humanitarian aid, mass detention, and conditions that satisfy the threshold for genocide under international law. Even now, as the Israeli military proudly boasts about its warcrimes, war hawks like Clinton would rather lecture young people for condemning what they see with their own eyes instead of actually having the integrity to open her own eyes and stand with them.
Apparently, young people are “misinformed” for their outrage at watching a nuclear powered military mow down children aged 8 and 11 years old. Millions of Americans—across faiths, races, and backgrounds—have reviewed this evidence directly. Their conclusions are not the result of manipulation or naivety. They are the result of confronting overwhelming documentation of human suffering and demanding accountability.
How We Got Trump - The Consequences of Abandoning Justice
This section of this article may upset some of my readers—but justice mandates I stay true to my values and speak truth no matter what. In my work, I have repeatedly emphasized a simple principle: societies that excuse mass atrocities abroad invariably weaken their own democratic foundations at home. This is why Dr. King warned, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” A nation cannot enable or dismiss genocide internationally while expecting its institutions to remain strong, its civic fabric intact, or its moral authority respected domestically. Historical precedent is clear. When human rights are selectively applied, and when political leaders refuse to confront abuses committed by allied governments, authoritarian movements grow stronger, not weaker.
As we watch Trump continue to fund Netanyahu to commit genocide. As we watch Trump mass kill now at least 59 fisherman on the mere accusation that they are “narco-terrorists,” essentially waging war without Congressional approval. And as we watch Trump unleash the military on American civilians and disregard due process of law, we see Democrats (and some Republicans like Rand Paul) condemn these actions as war crimes. I agree with them. Yet I refuse to let the conversation end there. Trump’s actions force us to ask tough questions about how we got here in the first place. Tough and uncomfortable questions no one in corporate media is willing to raise, lest they lose access in their journalism. For example…
Why weren’t Dick Cheney and George Bush held accountable for illegally invading Iraq and Afghanistan, and causing a humanitarian catastrophe based on lies and so vast that scholars at Brown University estimate 4.6 million civilian deaths as a result?
Why wasn’t the CIA held accountable when it was confirmed they tortured people in violation of international human rights law and the United States Constitution?
Why wasn’t Obama held accountable for illegal drone strikes on civilians, including the killing of American citizens, where by 90% of those killed were confirmed civilians?
Why wasn’t Biden held accountable for selling weapons to Netanyahu in violation of the Leahy Laws, even after two separate US State Department reports confirmed that Netanyahu is using American weapons to commit war crimes?
And finally, what substantive difference is there between Bush waging illegal war that killed 4.6 million people, Obama illegally launching drone strikes in which 90% of victims were innocent civilians, Biden illegally funding Netanyahu knowing full well he was committing war crimes, and Trump illegally killing Venezuelan fisherman for his made up “war on narco terror?”
This is not whatabboutery or comparison of atrocities. This is also not Monday morning Quarterbacking as I condemned each of the aforementioned atrocities in real time, when they happened. And this is certainly not a defense or justification for Trump’s war crimes—which are exactly that, war crimes.
This is documentation that when we make exceptions in upholding justice, we enable extremism to expand. Trump did not magically appear out of thin air—he’s the result of policies that prioritize war and imperialism over justice and diplomacy. The public understands this. People recognize the connection between foreign policy impunity and domestic injustice. They see that when leaders justify or obscure atrocities abroad, it emboldens authoritarian actors internally. Thus, returning to the topic at hand, Clinton’s remarks do more than mischaracterize young Americans—they reinforce the very conditions that allow fascist ideologies to spread. And thus, as a human rights lawyer with a platform and a commitment to actual justice that transcends partisan politics, I refuse to let her cruel and ignorant comments go unchallenged.
Young Americans are not confused about Israel and Palestine. They are responding to documented evidence of genocide and to a crisis of conscience that political institutions have repeatedly failed to address. These young people that Hillary Clinton condemns have already lived their entire young lives watching the United States engaged in one war or another, spending trillions of dollars overseas—all while at home they cannot afford rent, cannot afford college, cannot afford to buy a house, cannot afford to start a family, cannot afford healthcare, and cannot afford to eat. These young people deserve respect for demanding justice, not dismissal or ridicule. Yet dismissal and ridicule is all that Hillary Clinton and her ilk seem to have to offer.
A Final Reflection
The American people are demanding justice because the evidence compels them to do so. They are insisting that human rights remain non-negotiable. Clinton’s comments reveal a profound misreading of this moment and raise significant concerns about the willingness of political leaders to confront the truth.
To quote Dr. King once more, “the time is always right to do what is right.” Hillary Clinton can still use her massive and influential platform to acknowledge her complicity in the atrocities we see leading up to today, and instead work to counter them into the future. Rather than demonize young people, have the humility to listen. Rather than dismiss young people, have the integrity to learn. And rather than pretend Trump emerged in a vacuum, have the decency to understand the role she, and those like her from both parties, played in helping him come to power, and stay in power. (Hint, she could start by refusing to work with the billionaires who bankrolled Trump’s campaign in the first place. That shouldn’t be a high bar to cross, yet here we are).
In the end, we will not see meaningful accountability until and unless we choose to uphold our values without exception—both at home and abroad. Justice is indivisible. And those who ignore this reality, or who trivialize the moral reasoning of the public, undermine the very principles they claim to defend.
Right on the evidence.
But behaviorally, missing the mechanism.
Clinton isn’t confused about the facts. She knows. The entire political class knows. They’ve seen the documentation, the reports, the atrocities.
The issue isn’t knowledge. It’s incentive structure.
She appears at a Miriam Adelson event because that’s where the money is. She dismisses young people because admitting they’re right means admitting complicity.
She blames “TikTok manipulation” because the alternative is confronting decades of policy choices that enabled this.
Behavioral economics is clear: people don’t change positions when evidence threatens their status, wealth, or self-concept. Clinton’s identity is built on being a competent, moral leader.
Acknowledging genocide means acknowledging catastrophic failure. So the brain rationalizes, deflects, attacks the messenger.
This isn’t ignorance. It’s motivated reasoning at scale. The political class can’t admit what’s happening without dismantling the systems that gave them power.
So they don’t.
They blame TikTok, dismiss youth, and continue funding atrocities.
Until the incentives change, the behavior won’t.
That’s not moral judgment. That’s how humans work.
—Johan
Not the way I would have wanted humans to behave, but here to keep it real.
I never worshipped HRC but I did admire her intelligence and knowledge. This lastest stance is horrific and the first thing I thought of was, is Bill in the Epstein files? Is she looking for help to protect him?