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By Aaron Bandler
(January 13, 2026 / JNS) It feels necessary, due to political pressure, to accuse the Jewish state publicly of committing “genocide” in Gaza even though that charge is untrue, a New England legislator told JNS on background.
“I don’t think that ‘genocide’ is a term that can be used in the moment, in the fog of war,” the legislator told JNS. But there has been “so much mounting pressure” after lawmakers in the legislator’s state began accusing Israel of “genocide,” the lawmaker said.
“Nobody was going to engage with me, or even talk to me, or not just throw me in some bucket if I wasn’t willing to say that,” the legislator told JNS. “They didn’t want to hear anything else that I wanted to say. They just wanted to hear whether or not I was going to use that word.”
The legislator also felt such pressure from news outlets that reached out for comment on the matter, the person said.
“Depending on how you answer this question, are you going to be able to stay relevant in this conversation or be able to offer anything to this conversation unless you use this word they want to hear or not hear?” the legislator said.
The lawmaker added that the situation in Gaza is not a major issue for constituents and that colleagues in the state are in the same position, but “what becomes very apparent is that it doesn’t matter.”
“You can use that word, and I did, and it really made absolutely no difference in their narrative,” the legislator told JNS.
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Mort Klein, national president of the Zionist Organization of America, told JNS that the legislator “said the hidden truth out loud.”
“The dangerous, Islamist and media inspired evolving U.S. culture has made it ‘cool’ and almost obligatory to promote ugly propaganda lies against the Jewish state,” Klein said.
“This reminds me of the widely believed insane lies in the Middle Ages that Jews poisoned the wells to kill Christians and that Jews murdered Christian children to use their blood to make matzah,” he said. “We need political and religious and media leaders to forcefully and repeatedly repudiate these lies or it will lead to tragic consequences.”
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