'When Genocide Is Permissible' Article Taken Down By The Times Of Israel: Yochanan Gordon's Post Sparks Outrage

Update 4:30 p.m. EDT: Yochanan Gordon, author of the blog post, issued an apology Friday afternoon U.S. time.

In a post on the 5Towns Jewish Times of Long Island, New York, which is owned by his father, Gordon wrote:

"I never intended to call to harm any people although my words may have conveyed that message.

"I wish to express deep regret and beg forgiveness for an article I authored which was posted on 5TJT.com, Times of Israel and was tweeted and shared the world over.

"I never intended to call to harm any people although my words may have conveyed that message.

"With that said I pray and hope for a quick peaceful end to the hostilities and that all people learn to coexist with each other in creating a better world for us all."

Original story:

The Times of Israel, an online news site, quickly took down Friday a blog post titled “When Genocide is Permissible,” in which writer Yochanan Gordon suggested that killing all Palestinians is justifiable. The post sparked immediate outrage on social media, where it trended on Twitter.

“Hamas has stated forthrightly that it idealizes death as much as Israel celebrates life. What other way then is there to deal with an enemy of this nature other than obliterate them completely?” Gordon wrote in the Times of Israel article. “We have already established that it is the responsibility of every government to ensure the safety and security of its people. If political leaders and military experts determine that the only way to achieve its goal of sustaining quiet is through genocide is it then permissible to achieve those responsible goals?”

While you can view the archived “When Genocide is Permissible” piece here, the Times of Israel has since removed the post.

“The contents of this post have been removed for breaching The Times of Israel’s editorial guidelines,” the Jerusalem-based online publication said.

Even though the article was taken down, comments about the piece remain. Many Jews were among those slamming the blog post.

“I just want to apologize for this stupidity. Genocide is NEVER ok and this kid is a dumba--, the fact that it was published was just shameful, and i seriously hope someone got fired,” wrote Chava Weisberg, a self-described “Jewish Zionist.” “Seriously, just like not all arabs are hamas, not all jews (or zionists) [sic] are genocide advocating twerps.”

“It is incredible that a person of the Jewish faith could even consider using the word 'genocide' and questioning whether it is ever permissible,” wrote Mike Farrell-Deveau. “You need to go and take a long hard look at the history of your people in the twentieth century because you do those alive or the millions murdered in world war 2 an utterly disgraceful disservice with this nazi like drivel [sic].”

Twitter users also condemned the piece: