Is it fair to label the President, “Genocide Joe?”

The so-called protesters at Columbia and the other colleges, have taken to calling President Biden, “Genocide Joe,” largely for the military support that the President is supplying and has supplied to Israel, in the days following October 7, 2023— the day when Hamas broke into Israel, murdered Jewish men, women and children, took men, women, children and the elderly hostage, and raped Israel women.

While “Genocide Joe” may have a nice ring to it if you are unhappy with our President’s support of Israel, does it have a right of truth to it? I don’t think so.

Taking for purposes of argument the figures of the Gaza Health Ministry as true, Reuters reports that as of April 30, 2024, 35,535 Palestinians have been killed and another 77,704 have been wounded.

Israel says its war is against Hamas. But who elected Hamas? Put Hamas in power? Provides the “warriors” for Hamas?

Prior to 10-7, the Hamas “soldiers,” lived and made their war preparations among the Palestinian civilian population. On that day, the emerged from Gaza, murdered, raped and took hostage. They then slipped back to hide among the civilian population. They now claim, “You can’t retaliate for our war crimes, because if you do, you will kill innocent civilians.”

Hamas, which adhered to no “rules of war” on October 7, now demands that Israel scrupulously abide by all “rules of war,” while all the while hiding among the civilians of Palestine. And all the while continuing to hold non-combatant Israelis as hostages.

Israel, of course, has the power to burn the other cheek. But Hamas could end the fighting in an instant by coming out from among the civilian population, surrendering, and facing a war crimes trial before neutral nations.

When in December of 1941, the empire of Japan executed a sneak attack at Pearl Harbor, the U.S declared war on Japan. The war ended only when the U.S dropped two atom bombs on Japan. It didn’t have to end that way. Japan had beaten back all the way from New Guinea, the Pacific archipelagos, the Philippines to Japan’s home island. We could have invaded and suffered a million casualties, and inflicted millions of casualties on Japan. Or Japan, knowing that it couldn’t win, could have surrendered before the bombs were dropped, Was President Truman “Genocide Harry,” or did he do what had to be done to end the war and avoid far greater casualties?

If Israel quits now, and Hamas survives, how long will it be before Hamas again emerges from among the civilian population and repeats October 7?

I am sorry, but for supporting Israel, I cannot agree with the protesters that President Biden should fairly be called “Genocide Joe.”

But then is there anything President Biden has done that might support labeling him “Genocide Joe?”

President Biden seems to support abortion without any limits. In the words of Vice-President Harris, “Joe Biden and I have a different view … we believe no politician should ever come between a woman and her doctor.” So, if five-minutes before delivery of a healthy, full-term baby, would Biden and Harris really stand by if the mother and her doctor decided to abort/kill a perfectly healthy child?

If it is “genocide” to kill Palestinian civilians who put Hamas in power, and who support Hamas and its October 7th atrocities, how can it be anything but “genocide” to abort an unlimited number of perfectly-healthy children, minutes before they will emerge naturally from the mother wombs?

And then, what about the President turning a blind-eye to the fentanyl crisis at our southern border?

CBS news reports that, “In 2021, 90% of some 80,000 opioid-related deaths involved fentanyl.”

PBS reports, “Drug deaths nationwide hit a new record in 2022. 109,680 people died as the fentanyl crisis continued to deepen, according to preliminary data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”

“In 2023 the overdose death rate topped 112,000 in a 12-month period for the first time," according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.


In the last three years, what has President Biden done to staunch the flow of fentanyl manufactured in China and sent through Mexico into the U. S. to kill nearly 300,000 Americans?

Closed holes in President Trump’s border wall? Declared “war” on the fentanyl smugglers?

If it is “genocide” to supply Israelis with weapons used to kill 35,000 Palestinian civilians, and if the President’s primary duty under the Constitution is to “preserve and protect,” why isn’t President Biden properly labeled “Genocide Joe” for exacerbating problems at the southern border by his acts in furtherance of keeping our southern border wide-open, except at the ports of entry? Or will the label be proper only after 400,000 American die from fentanyl overdoses?

First Published in the Moline Dispatch and Rock Island Argus on May 24, 2024. 
Copyright 2024, John Donald O'Shea