This post may contain affiliate links. If you decide to make a purchase through these links, I earn a small commission at no cost to you. I do not promote anything I do not believe in or stand behind.
Genocide.
Following the tragic massacre on October 7, 2023, where over 1200 Israelis fell victim to brutal attacks by Hamas militants, accusations of genocide against Israel have become increasingly common. These allegations gained momentum after the Israeli Army launched a campaign in the Gaza Strip aimed at dismantling Hamas and the Islamic Jihad terrorist organizations responsible for these heinous crimes.
How is it that Israel’s actions against Hamas have been interpreted by many world leaders as genocide?
What is genocide?
According to Britannica[1], genocide is
the deliberate and systematic destruction of a group of people because of their ethnicity, nationality, religion, or race. The term, derived from the Greek genos (“race,” “tribe,” or “nation”) and the Latin cide (“killing”), was coined by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-born jurist who served as an adviser to the U.S. Department of War during World War II.
Accusation of genocide are extremely grave and require careful examination to see if these allegations are true or not.
Genocide carries a specific legal definition as outlined in the 1948 Convention of the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Genocide involves specific acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group.
True acts of genocide would have to include things like the wholesale killing of members of a specific people group, imposing measures to prevent births within the group, forcibly transferring children of the group to another group, and things like this.
Not only this, but proving genocide also requires demonstrating not only the acts themselves but the intent behind them. The intent must be to destroy, in whole or in part, a particular group based on national, ethnical, racial, or religious grounds.
It would seem to me that Israel’s actions do not fit this definition. Israel’s response against Hamas is one of self-defense—not the extermination of a people group in the Gaza strip. To accuse Israel of such things is nonsense.
Independent investigations by international bodies, human rights organizations, and impartial observers play a crucial role in assessing allegations of genocide. These investigations should be thorough, transparent, and based on credible evidence.
It’s essential to consider findings from multiple sources to gain a comprehensive understanding of the situation.
The accusation of genocide is old
Bernard Harrison in his book The Resurgence of Anti-Semitism says
Some of the more extreme suggestions which have come to the surface in this way and show signs of establishing themselves almost as idées reçues among educated people in the universities and elsewhere are: that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the most important international issue facing the world today; that the problem is wholly the fault of Israel, and that no responsibility whatsoever attaches either to the Palestinians themselves or to the Arab states; that Israel is by its nature a “racist” or “apartheid” state; that the crimes committed by the Israelis against the Palestinians far exceed the crimes committed by the Nazis against the Jews; that although the Israelis use the sympathy generated by the Holocaust both to justify the existence of Israel and to blind people to the iniquity of their treatment of the Palestinians, they have not only “learned nothing from” the Holocaust, but have become Nazis, or worse than Nazis, in their turn, and have turned Israel into a Nazi state; that all Jews are alike in supporting Israel and being ready to justify any act of any Israeli government; and that “the Jews” are either plotting, or are in the process of carrying out, a “Holocaust”—that is to say, genocide—against the Palestinians.
Harrison also says it so well when he points out that
If by genocide we mean the extermination of an entire people, the second certainly was genocide. But there are substantial differences between it and what happened in Europe between 1933 and 1945. In the latter case the murderers and the victims were fellow citizens, members of the same community. The latter were singled out for extermination by a political movement disposing of an elaborate theory of racial superiority, with the goal of “purifying” the superior race.
That there was no intention to commit genocide, in the sense of wiping out the entire Muslim population of the region, is shown by the fact that the systematic murder of women and children, which formed such an essential part of the Final Solution, was in this case absent.
David Matas, in his book After-Shock, says:
The accusations made against the Jewish state of grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions on the Laws of War, colonialism, war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, foreign occupation, ethnic cleansing, and acts of apartheid are of the same nature, blaming a whole community for either committing or supporting the most heinous crimes. Accusing a whole community is a form of incitement to discrimination, hatred, and violence against that community.
Matas also says it very well:
There has been only one Holocaust, but there have been many genocides. There are many false accusations made against Israel, but the strangest and the cruellest is the charge of genocide. It is strange because it has no basis; there is no external reality on which this accusation hangs. It is cruel because it accuses the Jewish state of the very crime of which the Jewish people were victims; it makes a mockery of their victimization.
The Jewish community is a survivor community, the remnants of the attempted extinction of the whole Jewish people in the Holocaust. To accuse the Jewish state of genocide, the very crime inflicted on the Jewish community not that long ago, is to ridicule the suffering of the Jewish people. Why is this anti-Zionist charge of genocide against Israel being made, despite the repugnance and dismay it generates not only amongst the Jewish community, but also amongst the human rights community?
One answer is that hate promoters move in an unreal world, a fantasy world of their own making. They generate propaganda for the purpose of instilling hatred, not for the purpose of objective analysis. The more heinous the accusation, the more likely it is that hatred will result. A charge of genocide against Israel, if believed, will undercut support for the existence of the State of Israel. So the charge is made. Anti-Zionists wallow in mirror rhetoric. Israel has a law of return. So anti-Zionists both reject that law of return as racist and assert a non-existent Palestinian right of return. Israel was built on the ashes of the Holocaust. So anti-Zionists both deny or trivialize the Holocaust and claim that Israel is guilty of genocide against the Palestinian people.
Whatever language is used in support of Israel, anti-Zionists both reject as applying to Israel and adopt for themselves. To a certain extent, this is just bad writing. People do not like what they see,but they cannot articulate their feelings. Rather than reach for words that describe reality, they regurgitate familiar slogans and metaphors.
The global metaphor for evil is Auschwitz. Those who feel hatred but cannot think of words to speak their hatred gravitate to the language of the Holocaust, because those are the words for condemnation that come most readily to mind. In the case of anti-Zionism, this mimicry of the language of the Holocaust is more than just a collapse of the oratorical imagination. It is an indication that anti-Zionism has nothing to say for itself.
The poverty of the schoolyard response to which anti-Zionism succumbs — variations on the theme “So’s your old man” — is not, all the same, the ultimate test of its worth. Its worth has to be determined by external reality. The fact that there was a Holocaust inflicted on the Jewish people and that Israel has not committed genocide against any people tells us what an anti-Zionism that denies these facts is: an ideology of hatred against the Jewish state and the Jewish people.
New accusations of genocide
Brazil’s President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has accused Israel of genocide.[2] President Lula Da Silva compared the war in Gaza to the Nazi Holocaust. I wonder if he is ignorant and uneducated or just a pure anti-Semite—one of the many anti-Semitic voices out there.
To compare the war in Gaza with the Holocaust is to trivialize and mock the Holocaust and the systematic murder of over 6 million Jewish people by the Nazi regime and their collaborators. Lula’s wife, Rosangela Da Silva, has also defended her husband’s statements and continues to accuse the Israeli Government of genocide.
And then we have Francesca Albanese. Perhaps she, together with Antonio Guterres, is the most anti-Semitic person in the world.
She presented her latest report[3] in which she tries hard to prove that Israel is committing genocide. Her numbers come from ohchr.org, an organization under the umbrella of the UN which is perhaps the biggest anti-Semitic organization in the world.
Albanese’s report argues that Israel’s actions, particularly its military assault on Gaza, are aimed at physically destroying the Palestinian people group. She fails to see that Israel aims only to destroy Hamas – not all Palestinians. Unless of course she is confusing the Palestinian people with Hamas.
Albanese claims there is evidence to suggest (not prove) that Israel has committed acts of genocide. She liberally uses words and expressions in her report such as “ethnic cleansing”, “Israeli occupation”, “colonization”, “de-civilianization”, “Israeli settlers”, “mass deportation” etc.
Other major voices come from South Africa (a country with an infamous anti-Semitic reputation), Ireland and America.
Some of their accusation against Israel alongside genocide are:
The purposeful withholding of humanitarian assistance to civilians. The targeting of civilians and of civilian infrastructure. The indiscriminate use of explosive weapons in populated areas. The use of civilian objects for military purposes. The collective punishment of an entire population[4]
Really?
Albanese’s report lacks sufficient evidence to establish the legal criteria for genocide. It is obvious that her report is biased and that she is blinded by her own anti-Semitism.
American-Israeli historian and politician Michael Oren writes in his book ‘Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America and the Middle East’ that “great wars in history eventually became great wars about history.”
Michael Oren, through his statement, points out that objective history is impossible. The wars in the past are difficult to understand and people usually end up fighting about what actually happened because they look at the same events from different perspectives.
But I think we could say that it’s inherently anti-Semitic when so-called historians, scholars, politicians, journalists and other leaders from different backgrounds single out Israel for criticism, whilst ignoring or downplaying similar actions by other parties in the Middle East.’[5]
Anti-Zionists criticize only Israel and imply that other groups involved in Israel’s conflicts are innocent. Moreover, anti-Zionists are generous in using offensive and hateful words and symbols like the ones connected to the Nazis. They are not interested, for the most part, to see things from Israel’s point of view and are quick to label Israel as a ‘criminal state’ without applying reasonable objectivity.
Out of their genuine desire to reject the truth, and from a desire to demonize Israel by any ways and means, they accuse Israel of acts of genocide, colonialism, terrorism, war crimes, apartheid, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and racism. They deny Israel the right to self-defense and promote their toxic propaganda in order to get as much support as possible from anyone interested.
In other words, they try to humiliate Israel and the Jewish people with their agenda. That is especially seen among the Muslim nations who continually accuse Israel of ‘occupying the West Bank and denying the rights of the Palestinian people.’
Matas says: ‘the mantra that Israel sits in illegal occupation of territory is so often repeated that it has become one of those catchphrases that people utter unthinkingly.’[6] Therefore, the Palestinians and their supporters see no other option but to wipe Israel off the map. And that is exactly what Hamas tried to do on October 7, 2023. And Hamas, Iran and the other enemies of Israel will do everything they can to try and destroy Israel.
Could it be that those who accuse Israel of Genocide are actually the ones who have the Genocidal agenda?
Do you agree?
Let me know if there is anything special going on in your life or if you want prayer! Share this post with your friends and don’t forget to leave a comment.
If you plan on writing a book or if you know of someone who wants to write a book-check this link from Self Publishing School! (affiliate link)
P.S. Whenever you use the links and the banners on my blog to buy something on Amazon USA, or you use other affiliate links on my blog, I receive a small commission at no cost to you. I do not promote anything I do not believe in or stand behind.
[1] https://www.britannica.com/topic/genocide
[2] https://apnews.com/article/israel-brazil-palestinians-gaza-holocaust-netanyahu-lula-3816f5b18bcb4922898f79824c6f3350
[3] https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/hrbodies/hrcouncil/sessions-regular/session55/advance-versions/a-hrc-55-73-auv.pdf
[4] https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-794044
[5] Harrison, Bernard, The Resurgence of Anti-Semitism, Kindle, loc. 1730.
[6] Matas, David, Aftershock: Anti-Zionism & Anti-Semitism, Kindle, loc. 1277.

I am a blogger, writer, pastor, Director of Zion Romania Bible School, husband to Olguta, a father and, most importantly, a child of God. I also completed my studies at the King’s University where I earned a B.A. in Theology with a concentration in Messianic Jewish Studies. I love Israel and I love the ‘Jewishness’ of the Bible.
Leave a Reply