It was a grim role reversal from the very start. Almost immediately after Hamas\u2019s genocidal massacre of Israeli Jews on 7 October 2023, accusations of genocide were levelled against Israel \u2013 long before Israel went into Gaza to defeat Hamas and liberate the hostages it took.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On 13 October, as Israelis were still reeling from the worst atrocity in their nation\u2019s history, Raz Segal<\/a>, a professor of Holocaust and genocide studies, wrote in Jewish Currents<\/em> that Israel\u2019s initial response \u2013 carrying out airstrikes against Hamas while evacuating civilians \u2013 was \u2018a textbook case of genocide\u2019. Barely a month after the massacre, on 16 November 2023, UN special rapporteurs issued a call<\/a> to the international community \u2018to prevent genocide\u2019. Most absurd of all, South Africa brought a complaint against Israel to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in December 2023 for a supposed violation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. A year later, NGOs Amnesty International<\/a> and Human Rights Watch<\/a> both issued reports charging Israel with genocide against Palestinians. Israel has always firmly denied these accusations, asserting that its military operations are lawful self-defence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These constant accusations of genocide from politicians and NGOs rest on a supposed \u2018scholarly consensus\u2019 of genocide experts. In late August this year, it was widely reported<\/a> that the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) had adopted a resolution categorising the war in Gaza as genocide. Less widely reported was the fact that membership of the IAGS requires no academic credentials \u2013 just payment of a $30 membership fee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In truth, the \u2018scholarly consensus\u2019 stems from a coterie of ideologically motivated academics who have promoted an alternative theory of genocide for decades. These academics have long been known for their hostility towards Israel and what they see as an inordinate focus on the Holocaust in the field of genocide studies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As the genocide libel continues to fuel attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions around the world, it is imperative to critique the use and abuse of this term. To do so, it\u2019s worth looking at the work of the Journal of Genocide Research<\/em> (JGR<\/em>) in particular, which launched<\/a> a forum in January 2024 to discuss the \u2018Gaza genocide\u2019. This forum has provided much of the intellectual fuel for the genocide accusation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The JGR<\/em> is the official publication of the International Network of Genocide Scholars (INOGS<\/a>). The INOGS was founded in 1999 by genocide scholars who explicitly sought to refocus the field away from the Holocaust. As Holocaust scholar Israel Charny put it in a 2016 paper, the minimisation of the Shoah has been central to the INOGS project. As Charny records, the JGR<\/em> has published articles denying that the Nazis explicitly targeted Jews and arguing that the Wannsee conference<\/a>, where the Nazis formulated the Final Solution, was actually developing German policy towards minorities as a whole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The current editor of the JGR<\/em> is Anthony Dirk Moses, a genocide scholar whose work, The Problems of Genocide<\/em>, initiated a fierce debate in Germany in 2021 over the uniqueness of the Holocaust. As historian Verena Buser explains<\/a>, Moses proposes removing the intent to destroy a group from a definition of genocide. In Moses\u2019s view, genocide is a function of the effects of violence against civilians: \u2018What difference does it make to civilian victims whether the violence against them is carried out with genocidal or military intentions?\u2019 (1) Moses based his theory on the concept of \u2018illegitimate permanent security\u2019, in which a state\u2019s pursuit of absolute invulnerability to threats justifies the destruction of its enemies. The idea of \u2018permanent security\u2019 is based on the line of arguments advanced by Otto Ohlendorf, SS-Gruppenf\u00fchrer<\/em> and commander of Einsatzgruppe D<\/em>, at the Nuremberg trials. Ohlendorf claimed that the Jews threatened Germany, which necessitated their complete elimination. Having murdered adult Jews, Ohlendorf argued that he could hardly have been expected to spare the children, as they would grow up to hate Germany and seek revenge. One can already see how Moses\u2019s framework blurs the line between war, however tragic, and the deliberate destruction of a group. This sets the stage for genocide accusations against Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another central player in the INOGS is Omer Bartov, an American-Israeli Holocaust scholar. Since November 2023, he has published three articles in the New York Times<\/em>, claiming<\/a> that, as a scholar of genocide, \u2018I know it when I see it\u2019. While labeling Israeli actions as genocide, Bartov has said the \u2018despicable attack by Hamas must be seen as an attempt to draw attention to the plight of the Palestinians\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The JGR<\/em>\u2019s \u2018Gaza Forum\u2019 articles downplay Hamas\u2019s anti-Semitic and genocidal ideology. Sociologist Martin Shaw<\/a> laments that some \u2018misrepresent Hamas\u2019s victims only as Jews \u2013 when they were primarily targeted as Israelis\u2019. Activist Zoe Samudzi<\/a> says it is absurd to attribute Hamas\u2019s attack to \u2018anti-Semitism inherent to Islam or Arab nationalism rather than situating it in expressed Palestinian opposition\u2019. Journalist Abdelwahab El-Affendi<\/a> takes umbrage at the description of Hamas\u2019s massacre as genocide rather than terror, as Hamas wanted to communicate its displeasure to Israel via mass violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All of this is to distort the true nature of Hamas. It is an Islamic jihadist organisation, sworn to Israel\u2019s destruction. As Meir Litvak, a Middle East expert, puts it:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018In the view of Hamas, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is not merely a territorial dispute between Palestinians and Israelis: it is first and foremost a \u201cwar of religion and faith\u201d between Islam and Judaism and between Muslims and Jews\u2026 It is a war between good, personified by the Muslims representing the party of God (<\/em>hizballah), and \u201cthe party of Satan\u201d (<\/em>hizb al-shaytan) represented by the Jews. Consequently, the conflict is considered an \u201cexistential battle, rather than a dispute over borders\u201d (<\/em>ma\u2018rakat wujud wa-la hudud).\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Elsewhere, freed hostage Eli Sharabi has recounted how his captors<\/a> repeatedly told him that Jews had no place in Palestine and would be sent back to their parents\u2019 or grandparents\u2019 native countries. In 2021, Hamas organised a conference<\/a> on what follows Israel\u2019s destruction, entitled \u2018The Promise of the Hereafter\u2019. And when the late Mohammed Deif, Hamas\u2019s military leader, ordered the 7 October attack in a letter<\/a> to the al-Qassam Brigades, he reminded militants of \u2018Allah\u2019s promise to disgrace the Jews and destroy them at the hands of Allah\u2019s servants\u2019. Omitting Hamas\u2019s clear Islamist and anti-Semitic motives should raise eyebrows as to the credibility of these so-called genocide experts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They not only minimise Hamas\u2019s anti-Semitism, they also downplay the threat it poses to Israel. El-Affendi, Mark Levene<\/a>, Raz Segal<\/a> and other contributors to the Gaza Forum all either imply or state explicitly that Israel is overreacting to 7 October. But even Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar himself believed that the 7 October attack would incite a larger regional war<\/a>, with Palestinians in Judea and Samaria, Israeli Arabs, Hezbollah and Lebanon banding together to overwhelm Israel. Hamas may not have had the actual ability to destroy Israel, but it proved it was capable of wreaking mass death and causing economic and social disruption. These are all very good reasons for Israel to fight a defensive war against Hamas, and it is doubtful that any other state would have accepted a bloody massacre of its civilians with equanimity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Various contributors to the JGR<\/em> forum suggest jettisoning the legal definition of genocide to tailor a new definition to Israel\u2019s measurements. For Shaw, \u2018criticism based on the legal conception of genocide\u2026 did not fully engage with the dynamics at work\u2019. Levene argues for the need to dispense with \u2018the flawed, Holocaust-overwhelmed concept of genocide in favour of a new and distinct approach to international law in which criminality is vested in the quest for permanent security\u2019. International-relations expert Alonso Gurmendi<\/a> even claims that \u2018the conventional concept of genocide\u2019 provides impunity to Israel\u2019s actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This revisionism has now spread far beyond the JGR<\/em>, of course. Amnesty International, in its December 2024 report, claims that current genocide case law provides \u2018an overly cramped interpretation\u2019. It\u2019s a sentiment echoed by Ireland\u2019s deputy prime minister, who at the end last year called for the International Court of Justice to expand its \u2018narrow interpretation<\/a>\u2019 of genocide to cover Israeli actions. Ireland has pushed, in particular, for the ICJ to drop the \u2018only reasonable inference\u2019 test of genocidal intent. This is the equivalent of an accuser changing the definition of a crime to fit the accused.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For these genocide experts, politicians and NGOs, the smoking gun of Israel\u2019s genocide is a highly selective and teleological view of Zionism itself. Mark Levene states that genocidal logic is inherent in Zionism \u2013 \u2018the notion that somehow the indigenous population might be whisked away\u2019. Historian Elyse Semerdjian<\/a> points to political Zionism\u2019s father, Theodor Herzl, and his supposed plans to deport local Arabs. Martin Shaw argues that today\u2019s genocide is merely the continuation<\/a> of the genocide that began with what Arabs called the Nakba<\/em> (catastrophe) \u2013 a reference to the displacement of over 700,000 Palestinians following Israel\u2019s independence from late 1947 onwards. What such an account tends to ignore is the fact that Israel was fighting Arab armies and local Arab gangs, which had launched a war against it after it declared independence. Quite how that can be deemed an Israeli genocide is unclear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite a continuous Jewish presence in the land of Israel, and Zion\u2019s key role in Jewish thought and ritual, the genocide accusers paint Israeli Jews as European settlers pushing out indigenous Middle Eastern peoples. Israel is therefore \u2018a settler-colonial state\u2019, they say. This is a gross distortion of history. The 1947-48 war did lead to the mass displacement of Arabs (and Jews, too). But as historian Benny Morris has shown, there was no deliberate expulsion policy by the Jewish leadership. An order dated 24 March 1948 from Israel Galili, head of the Haganah National Command, explicitly instructed brigades to protect Arab communities within the Jewish state, except in rare military emergencies. Later, brigade leaders had the authority to expel or retain Arab populations based on local circumstances, resulting in different outcomes: in Haifa, Arab leaders requested evacuation despite Jewish appeals to stay; in Tiberias, no expulsions occurred; in Jaffa, flight followed military pressure; and in Safed and Acre, most departures were not due to explicit expulsion orders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The rest of the evidence of Israel\u2019s genocidal intent is shoddy. The academics rely heavily on misrepresented quotes by Israeli leaders. One of their favourites is Israel\u2019s then-defence minister, Yoav Gallant, stating that Israel is fighting \u2018human animals\u2019. They claim that Gallant was dehumanising all Gazans, preparing the ground for their murder. Yet the full quote shows that Gallant was referring to Hamas:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018I have released all restraints\u2026 You saw what we are fighting against. We are fighting human animals. This is the ISIS of Gaza. This is what we are fighting against\u2026 Gaza won\u2019t return to what it was before. There will be no Hamas. We will eliminate everything. If it doesn\u2019t take one day, it will take a week, it will take weeks or even months, we will reach all places.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Another heavily relied-upon quote is a statement<\/a> from Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on 28 October 2023, in which he told the public, \u2018Remember what Amalek did to you\u2019. In Jewish discourse, Amalek represents ultimate evil, hatred and commitment to the destruction of the Jewish people. Inscribed on the Holocaust memorial<\/a> in the Hague, only a short distance from the ICJ, is \u2018Remember what Amalek did to you\u2019. It is doubtful that even the Israelophobic scholars would understand this as public incitement to genocide against Germans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This anti-Israel clique is also determined to undermine international law, especially the laws of war. The academics claim that Israel may not even be entitled to act in self-defence against Hamas terrorists. According to one so-called expert, even acknowledging Hamas\u2019s well-documented and systematic use of human shields<\/a> is \u2018the logic of genocide\u2019. Philosopher Jessica Whyte<\/a> approvingly quotes US-sanctioned UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese\u2019s March 2024 report, in which she says that Israel\u2019s adherence to international law is in fact \u2018humanitarian camouflage\u2019 for its genocidal violence in Gaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, there is the crux of the genocide argument against Israel \u2013 namely, that it has intentionally created \u2018conditions of life\u2019 that threaten to destroy Palestinians in Gaza. To make their case, anti-Israel academics uncritically cite casualty reports provided by Hamas, despite serious reasons to doubt their accuracy<\/a> and the fact they do not distinguish between combatants and civilians. Moreover, the civilian death toll is not necessarily indicative of non-compliance with the laws of war. An attack would be legal even if a high number of civilians were killed and injured, assuming that the value of the military target was proportional. Without being privy to that information, there is no way to assess the legality of an Israeli attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The war in Gaza has certainly led to widespread devastation of homes, schools, hospitals and farmland. Yet urban combat is inherently destructive, as seen in the Western coalition\u2019s operations against ISIS in Iraq and Syria in the mid-2010s. In 2016-17, Mosul, a key ISIS stronghold, faced a military operation by a coalition including the US, the UK and France. Military experts have described the battle for Mosul as the heaviest urban combat<\/a> seen since the Second World War, leaving over 80 per cent of Mosul uninhabitable. The scale of devastation was likened to that of Dresden during the Second World War, with then US secretary of defence James Mattis calling the campaign against ISIS a \u2018war of annihilation<\/a>\u2019. Raqqa, another ISIS city, was rendered \u2018unfit for human habitation\u2019, with approximately 80 per cent of the city damaged or destroyed. The US military fired more rounds in Raqqa over five months than any marine artillery battalion since the Vietnam War. Yet despite the scale of devastation visited upon Iraqi and Syrian cities, no serious accusations of genocide were ever levelled at the Western powers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The goal of the genocide libel, repeated and repackaged by myriad academics and journalist is to legitimise the dissolution of the Jewish State. Just as the 7 October massacre was rationalised by the supposed \u2018context\u2019 of Israeli oppression and occupation, the eradication of Israel will be painted as just recompense for their \u2018genocide\u2019 in Gaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most of the same claims that originated in the JGR<\/em> have found their way into other, seemingly authoritative sources. Earlier this month, a UN commission of inquiry, set up by the UN Human Rights Council, issued a report finding Israel guilty of genocide. The commission\u2019s lead members, Navi Pillay, Miloon Kothari and Chris Sidoti, have a long history<\/a> of anti-Israel posturing. While the factual basis of the report is beyond the scope of this essay, the genocide claims have been conclusively debunked in a 300-page paper<\/a>, led by Israeli professors Danny Orbach and Yagil Henkin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Orbach and Henkin show that claims of deliberate starvation in Gaza before March 2025 are based on flawed data. Furthermore, they explain how UN agencies and human-rights groups have created an \u2018echo chamber\u2019 through circular citations and ignored corrections. Surveys indicate very few non-violent child deaths, contradicting starvation claims and instead pointing to disruptions in the medical system caused by the war and Hamas\u2019s misuse of health facilities. Indeed, Hamas\u2019s tactics include an unprecedented 500-kilometre tunnel network integrated into civilian infrastructure and the use of human shields to inflate casualties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moreover, Orbach and Henkin find no evidence of systematic civilian targeting or deliberate bombings. They note that isolated potential war crimes exist but they are outliers, not indicative of Israeli policy. Most of the UN report\u2019s claims lack forensic proof and rely on unreliable sources. IDF measures, such as unprecedented evacuations and vetoed strikes for proportionality, aim to reduce harm, though some cases do suggest negligence on Israel\u2019s part.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The UN report regurgitates many of the JGR<\/em> Gaza forum\u2019s themes. It dismisses the idea that Hamas posed an \u2018existential threat to the State of Israel\u2019. It implies that the 7 October massacre was a natural response to \u2018the fact that [Israel] has taken [Palestinian land] by force and is unlawfully occupying and settling Palestinian territory by continuing violence, denying the rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination\u2019. And it also relies on the same misinterpreted and misrepresented remarks from Israeli politicians, from Netanyahu\u2019s Amalek comment to Gallant\u2019s \u2018human animals\u2019 statement, in order to establish Israel\u2019s supposed genocidal intent. For the UN commission, even humanitarian measures like letting civilians escape are \u2018proof\u2019 that Israel is committing genocide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Underlining the UN report\u2019s lack of credibility, it features truncated remarks by Israeli president Isaac Herzog in the immediate aftermath of 7 October, when he said that \u2018it\u2019s an entire nation out there that is responsible. It is not true, this rhetoric about civilians who were not aware and not involved. It is absolutely not true.\u2019 It omits the rest of Herzog\u2019s words<\/a> in which he stressed that: \u2018There is no excuse for murdering innocent civilians in any way in any context. And believe me, Israel will operate and always operate according to the international rules. And we do the same in this battle, too.\u2019 In any case, belligerent rhetoric during wartime is hardly proof of genocide. President Obama spoke of the war against ISIS in terms of \u2018eradicating a cancer\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The genocide accusation has consequences. It has already fuelled lethal attacks on Jews around the world, including in Washington, DC<\/a> and Boulder, Colorado<\/a>. And yet the supposed consensus around Israel\u2019s genocide stems from a small cadre of highly partisan academics who have long ago decided upon Israel\u2019s guilt. Their theory is unfalsifiable, as even Israel\u2019s adherence to international law is taken as proof of genocide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For these experts, Israel essentially \u2018had it coming\u2019. They claim that the 7 October massacre was the end result of decades of \u2018Jewish supremacy\u2019 and occupation, despite the fact that Israel completely left Gaza in August 2005. They have convinced themselves that the supposed genocide in Gaza is an essential feature of Israel itself, a desire inherent to Zionism. They are certain above all that Israel is evil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is not an academic theory or analysis \u2013 it is a comprehensive belief system. And it is thoroughly delusional.<\/p>\n\n\n\n