Of all the economic and other news items in the last day or two, I don't want anyone to miss the important words of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
Mr. Austin said at a Senate Armed Services hearing that there was no evidence Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians during the Hamas war in Gaza. Now, the question was asked by Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Mr. Austin said: "We don't have any evidence of genocide being committed."
According to reports, Cotton repeated the question. Secretary Austin replied, "We don't have evidence of that to my knowledge," and, further, Cotton mentioned that Austin has been accused of "greenlighting genocide," and Mr. Austin responded by saying this:
AUSTIN: What I would say, Sen. Cotton, from the very beginning, is we committed to help assist Israel in defending its territory and its people by providing security assistance, and I would remind everybody that what happened on Oct. 7 was absolutely horrible and, you know, numbers of Israeli citizens killed, and then a couple of hundred Israeli citizens taken hostage… American citizens as well.
COTTON: So, you deny the accusation that you greenlit genocide?
AUSTIN: I absolutely deny it.
Well, I’ll tell you, against the backdrop of recent actions and statements by President Biden and his various minions suggesting the administration is betraying Israel, and walking away from Israel's commitment to destroying Hamas, and all the various attacks on Israel about civilian casualties and deaths and famine, most of which are not true, and when they are true, Israel has apologized, but Hamas uses Palestinian human shields, and they — Hamas — are the ones committing war crimes, not Israel.
So, Defense Secretary Austin's statement in front of the Senate today was a very welcome development, in my judgment, and Sen. Cotton also mentioned that Austin's statement was a lot better than CIA Director William Burns' and National Intelligence Director Avril Haines', both of whom dodged the question at an intelligence committee hearing last month.
Now, of course, Israel is going after Hamas because they're cutthroat terrorists and murderers, and, as Secretary Austin just said, what happened on Oct. 7 was absolutely horrible, but Israel has no intention of destroying Palestinian civilians, though unfortunately they are blamed for this by people on the far-left who don’t know what they’re talking about, and it’s not true. It has never been true.
Then I went and looked up the legal definition of "genocide," and I found it. Section 1091 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code defines "genocide" as "violent attacks with specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group."
Israel has not done this. Lloyd Austin is correct and Lloyd Austin's defense of Israel is just what Joe Biden should be doing and should have been doing and saying all along. I'm now waiting for Joe Biden to publicly back up his defense secretary.
Then we're all waiting for Mr. Biden to let Israel finish off the job by destroying Hamas, who are uncivilized barbarians and deserve to be destroyed.
This article is adapted from Larry Kudlow’s opening commentary on the April 9, 2024, edition of "Kudlow."
