Who Is Yochanan Gordon? 'When Genocide Is Permissible' Writer Took Cues From Father, 5 Towns Jewish Times Founder Larry Gordon

Yochanan Gordon, the Times of Israel blogger whose “When Genocide is Permissible” post was taken down by the online publication amid a backlash over his apparent support for wiping out the Palestinian population, says much of his writing “stems from his father,” according to his bio on the site.

Based on that description, it’s no surprise that his father, 5 Towns Jewish Times founder Larry Gordon, wrote a similar piece in the early days of the latest round of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, although the column did not go as far as to say genocide against Palestinians is justifiable. In a July 18 post in his Long Island, New York, newspaper, Larry Gordon said the idea of innocent Palestinians is “nonsense.”

“And one more thing, on that matter of innocent civilians in Gaza. This has to be the most exaggerated and overblown issue of them all. Having rocket launches [sic] and arsenals stored in your basement or in the backyard of your home, under your shop or in your neighborhood mosque is unlikely to happen on such a wide scale without complicity on the part of the people,” Larry Gordon wrote. “Let’s not buy this wholesale nonsense about innocent civilians. The Hamas leadership is underground or in other countries. Who is forcing locals to keep rockets in their rec (wrecked) rooms? Somehow innocent civilians and stored in home missiles is a difficult image to conjure.”

Even as the Times of Israel deleted Yochanan Gordon’s post, saying it removed the piece “for breaching the Times of Israel’s editorial guidelines,” the article continued to run for a time on the 5 Towns Jewish Times. The Larry Gordon-owned publication eventually also took down “When Genocide is Permissible,” saying the column “dealt with the question of genocide in a most irresponsible fashion.”

While both sites purged the story, Yochanan Gordon continued to defend his views on his Twitter account. When a user responded to his latest tweet, he said, “Every other path to coexistence has failed miserably. [Israel has] been the Jewish homeland for 3,000 years. Do we leave now?”

Gordon’s Twitter account has since been deleted.