“Be careful with words, they are dangerous. Be wary of them. They beget other demons or angels. It’s up to you to give life to one or the other. Be careful, I tell you, nothing as dangerous as giving free rein to words.”
—Elie Wiesel, Legends of Our Times (1968)
Every day is marked by somebody or some organization claiming that Israel is committing genocide and perhaps a slew of other war crimes. There are several definitions of genocides, so anybody can pick and choose to indict a person or state. For example, the website of the Legal Information institute at Cornell Law School lists the following definitions:
- 1948 U.N. Convention on Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines genocide as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
- Genocidal intent requires that acts must be committed against members of a group specifically because they belong to that group (ICTR, Trial Judgment § 521). Genocidal intent can, “in the absence of direct explicit evidence, be inferred from” circumstantial evidence (Jelisić, ICTY, Trial Judgment § 47). When proving genocidal intent based on an inference, “that inference must be the only reasonable inference available on the evidence” (Appellate Judgment § 41).
- Under Article 25(3)(e) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, a person who “directly and publicly incites others to commit genocide” has committed a crime against international law. There is no explicit requirement that genocide actually be committed. Conservative interpreters might be quick to assume such a requirement, but the drafting in Art. 25(3)(b) provides that one who “orders, solicits or induces the commission of such a crime” is liable only if that crime “in fact occurs or is attempted.” In other words, incitement to war crimes and crimes against humanity is punishable only if the crime occurs or attempted, but incitement to genocide is punishable regardless of the crime’s actually occurring or being attempted.
According to Cornell Law School, incitement to genocide refers to someone directly and publicly encouraging others to commit genocide. But it has to be a clear and direct call to action, rather than a vague or indirect suggestion. And the interpretation of what constitutes a clear and direct call to action can be quite subjective: the level of directness is judged based on the context and audience for which it was intended. Even if the incitement is not obvious to outsiders, it can still be considered direct as long as the intended audience immediately understands the message (again this allows several quite different interpretations). The claims in this paragraph make clear that one does not need evidence of actual genocide to accuse an entity of genocide.
As I read the above definitions of genocide, I understood the broadened and less rigorous definition accommodates people and organizations who wish to accuse an entity, in this case Israel, of genocide. It provides any accuser with a pick and choose option which would make it easier to accuse a country or a leader. This mishmash of opinions provided opportunities to enemies of Israel to accuse it of committing genocide in Gaza. Among the almost 200 states which are members of the U.N., it is only Israel that is accused of genocide based on the inclusion intent, just saying something nasty about Gazans—or even Hamas—and on desire of an accuser to do so. That nobody else is accused of the possibly worst crime, not even Hamas, should raise suspicions of bias.
Did anybody think about real genocidal states or movements? One state which comes to my mind, and it is surprising it is not mentioned by all these “genocide scholars,” is Iran. Iran always made clear what its intent is—first destruction of Israel, followed by destruction of the U.S. Iran’s hatred goes much deeper than that: it includes an intent to eliminate Jews in general and it attempted genocide by shooting several hundred ballistic missiles at civilian Israeli population centers. Genocide did not happen only because of robust Israeli anti-missile defense. Why is there no concern about the fate of the Druze, Kurds, the Yemeni (not Houthi) population and massacres in Sudan, Syria, or China? Is it because Gazan lives are more worthwhile or because no Jews or Israelis can be found in those areas?
That Hamas’s intent and attempt to commit genocide on October 7 is escaping the label of genocide is quite horrifying, made even more so as quite a few people, and not only Palestinians, consider Hamas’s genocidal action a legitimate defense against the “settler-colonialist” state of Israel. In addition, Hamas and its supporters do not hide their intent to continue in genocidal activities. The confab of terrorists and their supporters at the recent People’s Conference for Palestine in Detroit should terrify every citizen of the Western World and beyond. This meeting was a lovefest of anti-Semites and terrorists. These people are not freedom fighters, they are terrorists and killers. Congressional representative Rashida Tlaib went beyond her usual support of militant Palestinians and lashed out on her colleagues in the Congress for their support of Israel. At the same conference, Nidal Jboor, a founder of Doctors Against Genocide, suggested that political leaders in the U.S., Europe, and Israel need to be taken out and neutralized. And this is just two of the speakers!
And the reaction of many citizens living in Western countries to speeches like this occurring at many demonstrations and “artistic” events is astonishing and terrifying. Not only do they blame Israel and Jews in general for conditions in Gaza, but they are making life for Jews unbearable in their own countries. Eighty years after the end of WWII, open anti-Semitism is back and it is thriving unabashedly among nations without any shame. Hamas is being legitimized if not outright admired, especially by young people.
What happened? Yes, most of the world declared us culpable of severe war crimes; starvation; deprivation of food, water, medicine, and electricity to civilians in Gaza; and of genocide. And we obliged—many of us, we do feel guilt and shame. Some of us agree with accusers and do not even question the premises upon which these accusations are based. Are they supported by solid facts and statistics, by reliable and independent witnesses, medical professionals, journalists and photographers, humanitarian aid workers and organizations? Are interpretations of facts and impressions objective and verifiable? I can say “yes and no” to all of the above.
The photos from Gaza are disturbing and sad. Quite disturbingly, as they are distributed rather rapidly around the world, many turned out to be intentionally mislabeled, attributing the images of emaciated young kids to Israel intentionally starving Gazan children when those children were thin due to certain genetic conditions, and some were sent for treatment in Europe with Israeli help. Other photos turn out be falsified by certain photographers posing Palestinians with empty pots. Several German newspapers, such Bild and Suddeutsche Zeitung, brought these manipulations of truth and reality to our attention. Similarly, CNN and Honest Reporting warned about the image of the emaciated child published in the New York Times weeks ago. Many of the photographers and journalists are affiliated with anti-Semitic and even Islamist outlets.
I am old enough to remember the “classic” examples of falsification by the news industry many years ago. Does anybody remember 12-year-old Muhammad al-Durrah, supposedly killed by the IDF? His “killing” was never confirmed—in fact, the video was proven to be fake. Anybody remembers the so-called Jenin “massacre” of 2002 that was not?
Eighty years after the end of WWII, open anti-Semitism is back and it is thriving unabashedly among nations without any shame. Hamas is being legitimized if not outright admired, especially by young people.
Just to make us feel more guilty, absurd comparisons of the Gaza war with Warsaw ghetto, the Holocaust, and Biafra are calculated very carefully for maximum effect—both to increase anti-Semitism and anti-Israeli hatred as well as Jewish guilt. Why should we believe such a narrative to begin with? The narrative about medical problems and the death toll in Gaza is impossible to verify, the data provided mostly by Hamas via their so-called “health ministry”—data that, indeed, are impossible to verify at all. The descriptions of malnutrition and disease in Gaza by medical and/or public health professionals are based on estimates, narratives coming from Gaza not through real-time observations, statistics, and studies but from Hamas, in whatever form. Earlier this year, a U.N. observer estimated that “14,000” Gazan babies were going to die within the next two days. That did not happen, and the claim was actually retracted.
That almost nobody blames Hamas for the situation in Gaza—and the U.N. for lying about it—is amazing. After all, it is their own people who are responsible for any “famine,” as they are known for infiltrating UNRWA and stealing humanitarian aid (and the U.N. does not object to that). It is Israel that is supposed to supply an enemy with all its needs.
The world knows that even Netanyahu can feel guilty. Some older Jews feel guilty on account of fraudulent equivalencies made between the Holocaust and Gaza, and some of the younger ones reject Israel altogether. This comes from our religion, for our guilt is supposed to be collective—our prayers and narratives said with the congregation on Yom Kippur and on Tish’ah b’Av were developed or evolved over two millennia for the purpose of the congregation, for Jewish communities and individuals, to apply justice, love, and unity to our failings as one people. This our enemies use against us.
This is not to deny the bad reality of civilian life in Gaza. But Israel (with U.S. help) is alleviating it as much as it can. It did not cause or initiate the war; it was Hamas massacring, mutilating, and raping innocent people, including babies, and dragging live people and corpses as hostages off to Gaza. It is Hamas stealing food and using its own people as human shields. And the hostages—what hostages?—they seemed to disappear from the world’s conscience.
Just to make us feel more guilty, absurd comparisons of the Gaza war with Warsaw ghetto, the Holocaust, and Biafra are calculated very carefully for maximum effect—both to increase anti-Semitism and anti-Israeli hatred as well as Jewish guilt.
I am afraid that recent proclamations of “Gaza genocide” and “war crimes” by Israeli politicians—such as Ehud Olmert, Moshe Ya’alon, and Yair Golan—and by David Grossman, a Israeli prominent writer, and a group of Israeli artists and musicians makes things more difficult for Israel on the world scene and only incites more anti-Semitism worldwide. Do they really believe Hamas propaganda? Do they believe that the establishment of Palestinian state and perhaps sudden withdrawal of the IDF from Gaza will bring peace and justice to the Middle East?
Some people blame poor or even a lack of hasbara—public diplomacy or reactive “propaganda”—by the Israeli government for genocide accusations and an increase in anti-Semitism. This has been considered a big problem for years, as the Israeli government claimed that it actually does not make any difference. I am afraid that it might be correct. The hasbara right after October 7 seemed to be effective and it led to some short-term sympathy, but Hamas and its supporters beat us to people’s hearts very quickly. They were well prepared, as many knew ahead of time what would and did happen. Hamas and its supporters have studied us and the Western world for decades. In some aspects, they understand us better than we understand ourselves. They abuse our sense of guilt, shame, and tikkun olam, and they also got a grasp of hidden anti-Semitism among non-Jews, especially among Europeans. They have been abetted by Qatari funding of universities, Middle East studies programs, and think tanks in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and Europe.
Still, one important thing they are missing: they do not value human life, love, justice, respect for themselves, or other religions or nations. The wave of pro-Palestinian and pro-Hamas protests on campuses has not appeared out of the blue. It is the result of a carefully prepared process over the last couple of decades by faculty, most of them Muslims, if not outright Islamists, and, sadly, quite a few (nominally) Jewish and Israeli professors (people should remember Ilan Pappé, Norman Finkelstein, and Noam Chomsky, all belonging to the older generation). Omer Bartov, the so-called “genocide expert,” is a new addition to this group. Jon Stewart, Peter Beinart, Ezra Klein, and, perhaps most perplexingly, a large group of mostly Reform rabbis, many of them female, seem to lose a sense of Jewish suffering and justice. Do they really feel so much guilt and shame that they basically need to self-flagellate in public? Or, at least for some of them, is it a matter of self-promotion, self-hatred, or an attempt at survival? Who knows? I do not. Unfortunately, the protests of well-meaning hostage families and sympathizers do not help to bring the hostages back. I am afraid they encourage Hamas in their obstinance and refusals to surrender. Why surrender when Israelis push their own government to surrender?
What we are witnessing in the Western world is the perception of Jews as villains as they were portrayed in the Middle Ages. By this I mean that the blood libel is back.
Through this idea of Israel committing genocide, some are accusing Israelis of stealing organs from Palestinian bodies. The call of Irish doctors to not give medications manufactured by Teva, an Israeli pharma company, is outrageous, disgusting, and harmful more to their own Irish kids than to Teva itself. It is a denigration of the medical profession itself, especially when supported by British doctors, and completely unethical. The E.U. and Emmanuel Macron in particular are so obsessed by Gazan suffering that the explosion of quickly spreading vicious and violent anti-Semitism into public venues, such as concerts, movie festivals, and sport events is not even noticed, and it seems to have become a part of public entertainment. Australia, led by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has become one of the most severe critics of Israel, with this accompanied by a marked increase in anti-Semitism, only marginally prosecuted by Australian authorities, and which does not seem to worry the Australian government.
To me, all of this is becoming an echo of Nazi Germany. What is particularly tragic is that these Western countries, instead of helping Israel in dismantling Hamas and bringing additional humanitarian aid to Gaza, found a final solution in supporting a two-state solution. In other words, we are witnessing total impotence and humiliation of the West in exchange for the satisfaction of betraying its only real ally between Greece and South Korea.
