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Joshua Scheer
Former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman has delivered a rare rupture in official Washington’s script: accusing Israel of carrying out a genocide in Gaza—and acknowledging that the United States is not a bystander, but a participant in its outcome.
Speaking to Bloomberg, Sherman pointed directly to the policies of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, arguing they have driven the devastation in Gaza while fueling wider instability across the Middle East. This is not the language of ambiguity or “both sides”—it is an indictment from within the establishment itself.
More damning still, Sherman underscored the uncomfortable truth at the heart of U.S. foreign policy: Washington’s actions are inseparable from its alliance with Israel. That relationship, she suggested, is no longer politically or morally sustainable without serious reassessment.
Her comments carry unusual weight. Sherman is not an outsider—she helped shape U.S. diplomacy at the highest levels. And her warning comes as global outrage grows over the scale of destruction in Gaza and the mounting civilian toll.
According to Gaza health authorities, at least 817 Palestinians have been killed and 2,296 wounded in reported Israeli violations of a ceasefire agreement since it took effect—figures that continue to climb as the violence grinds on.
International pressure is now building to force a reckoning: calls are intensifying to condition U.S. support for Israel on adherence to international law. The question is no longer whether the world is watching—it’s whether Washington will finally be forced to see what it has helped make possible.
In the full interview, former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman—no outsider, but a career diplomat and reliable mouthpiece of empire—did not arrive at the word lightly. She is not a campus protester, not an antiwar dissident, not someone who has challenged the foundations of U.S. power. She is a lifelong architect and defender of it. That is precisely what makes her admission so jarring: Israel, she said, has “in essence created a genocide in Gaza,” and the United States helped pave the road that made it possible.
Let’s be clear—this is not an endorsement of Sherman’s worldview. She has spent decades advancing the very system now producing this devastation. But when even a figure so deeply embedded in that machinery begins to name what is happening, it signals something deeper than dissent—it signals rupture.
This is the moral collapse Washington keeps trying to launder as strategy. Gaza has been demolished, civilians slaughtered, hospitals and homes reduced to rubble, and still the political class hides behind euphemism while the dead pile up faster than the truth can be spoken. Sherman’s words matter not because she stands outside power, but because she doesn’t. They expose what official Washington already knows and refuses to confront: this is not an accident, not collateral damage, not a tragic excess of war. It is the destruction of a people—enabled, armed, and excused by the United States.
When a figure like that uses the word “genocide,” it punctures the careful language Washington relies on to avoid accountability. But it also reveals the limits of insider critique: naming the crime without challenging the structure that enables it. Her words expose a truth the political class already understands—that U.S. power is deeply entangled in this devastation—yet still stops short of confronting what that means. And that is the real indictment: not just what has been done, but how fully it has been absorbed into the logic of empire itself.
More from the interview
“Genocide” from inside the system
Sherman—no outsider—says Israel has “in essence created a genocide in Gaza,” and admits the U.S. helped create the conditions for it. U.S. power ≠ strategy
She warns Trump’s approach is “tactical” and impulsive, lacking any real long-term strategy—despite massive military escalation. Iran cannot be forced to surrender
The idea that Iran will simply capitulate is fantasy—its nuclear knowledge, regional ties, and strategic posture cannot be bombed away. War is weakening U.S. global dominance
Allies are drifting, trust is collapsing, and countries are turning toward China—accelerating a shift away from U.S. power. China and Russia are the real winners
The war strengthens China economically and geopolitically, while also giving it justification for its own future military actions. Strait of Hormuz = permanent leverage
Even after military strikes, Iran retains the ability to disrupt global trade—meaning the U.S. cannot fully control the situation. Negotiations are not about trust—only power
Sherman bluntly states diplomacy isn’t about trust but managing competing interests between adversaries. U.S. foreign policy built this crisis
She acknowledges decades of American decisions—from coups to wars—helped create today’s instability. Both parties share blame
Republicans and Democrats alike failed to create stability in the Middle East, with Iraq and failed diplomacy fueling long-term chaos. Even insiders are “angrier” now
Sherman admits growing anger and fear over the global cost—economic, political, and human—of current U.S. policy.
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