On September 9, 2004, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to deliver much-anticipated testimony on the crisis in Sudan’s western region of Darfur. Eighteen minutes into his remarks, he became the first executive branch official in U.S. history to declare an ongoing conflict a “genocide.”

The horrific atrocities committed against the Sudanese should be labeled as genocide. But why is the U.S. unable to apply that same standard to Israel?