I wouldn't necessarily go quite that far, I've definitely heard people use Whites, Jews, Asians, 'Latinos' (I know the last one especially is not exactly the same) without people on the end of it.
The use of the word itself is not necessarily bad but I look at it within context and I think people should be careful about the terms they use. For example, if I hear someone say Jew or the Jews, without people coming after it, I do kind of automatically tense up because of their associated history. I'm either expecting something anti-semitic or....I don't know, just Jew stand-alone almost sounds like its being used as an insult.
Obviously context matters. The context in this case being a well known historian who....if we're being kind, skirts the line of what might be considered racist, continuing to make racist and disparaging comments. Which I'm sure he'll pass off as a misunderstanding.
The genocide comment is one of the sillier ones I've heard from him and would be akin to saying of course there was no Armenian or Jewish genocide because, not only do they continue to exist but they even have their own countries now.
*And yes, the 'damned' is just very very unpleasant.
I don't like your examples. Jews/Hebrews are an ethnic group, Asians is the demonym for people coming from Asia, Latinos are a cultural group made of people coming from the Latin(spanish) world. Whites and blacks are in my opinion not appropriate they don't give you proper informations about the people you are referring too, it's very superficial.