{"id":25226,"date":"2025-08-10T15:29:19","date_gmt":"2025-08-10T12:29:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/?p=25226"},"modified":"2025-10-13T10:30:02","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T07:30:02","slug":"indicting-israel-unfairly-defining-genocide-broadly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/indicting-israel-unfairly-defining-genocide-broadly\/","title":{"rendered":"Indicting Israel unfairly: Defining genocide broadly"},"content":{"rendered":"

We cannot be so hard-hearted to deny Palestinian suffering, exacerbated by Israeli operational failures, but we cannot let Hamas destroy us.<\/h3>\n

For decades, the Soviets were the world\u2019s puppeteers, manipulating the West\u2019s \u201cuseful idiots.\u201d Jihadis have seized that mantle. Shamelessly evil, they don\u2019t even bother singing some seductive socialist song. Yet they find it easier duping today\u2019s morally mushier West. Predictably, the Soviets targeted Jews and Israel, calling Zionism \u201cracist.\u201d Today, Jews and Israel remain favorite targets, as jihadi genociders accuse Israel of committing genocide and imposing mass starvation.<\/p>\n

Admittedly, these are painful times for Zionists. Amid epic military achievements safeguarding Israel and the West, Israel is mired in a difficult war against jihadists using their own people for cannon fodder and propaganda points.<\/p>\n

War is hell! Unavoidably, Israel faces morally challenging moments during a war that remains existential: Hamas wants to destroy us, not only our reputation. We cannot be so hard-hearted to deny Palestinian suffering, exacerbated by unintentional Israeli operational failures. Yet we dare not be so softheaded as to fall for the jihadi genociders\u2019 con.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s mind-boggling. Hamas\u2019s charter calls to exterminate the Jews. Seventy-four percent of Palestinians cheered as Hamas marauders and Gazan rampagers yelled \u201cItbah al Yahud\u201d \u2013 meaning \u201cslaughter the Jew,\u201d not \u201cend the occupation.\u201d Nevertheless, by October 8, Israel was accused of \u201cgenocide.\u201d And it stuck!<\/p>\n

I acknowledge Israel\u2019s misfires, our government\u2019s leadership vacuum, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s moral failures to fire rabid ministers. I lament Palestinian suffering in Gaza. But I also recognize that:<\/p>\n

Hamas manufactured Palestinian suffering, from rejecting a two-state solution and proving that conceding territory weakens Israel, to starting this war, cowering behind civilians, and manipulating the food flow;<\/p>\n

recent hostage photos expose what deliberate starvation really looks like, just as Hamas\u2019s October 7 videos demonstrate what genocidal \u201cintent\u201d really looks like;<\/p>\n

Gaza is messy, complicated, confusing, so most remote-control-moralists pronouncing about what\u2019s happening mostly reveal their own biases;<\/p>\n

as Col. John Spencer and other urban warfare experts note, by flooding Gaza with two million tons of food \u2013 82 million meals from the US-Israeli Gaza Humanitarian Foundation alone \u2013 Israel \u201cdelivered more humanitarian aid to Gaza than any military in history has provided to an enemy population during wartime\u201d;<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s terrorist-to-civilian kill urban warfare ratio of one killer per one or two innocents, sets standards America\u2019s moral army hasn\u2019t met;<\/p>\n

with Hamas still holding hostages and amassing weapons, Israel cannot withdraw blithely from Gaza or assume, as many do, that Hamas will ever relinquish every hostage \u2013 Hamas\u2019s only hold over Israel, which keeps polarizing Israel;<\/p>\n

critics should offer realistic alternatives, sparing us performative moral indignation or counterproductive calls for a Palestinian state, which reward terrorism while incentivizing Hamas to dither. Hamas calls these calls \u201cfruits of October 7.\u201d<\/p>\n

Traditionally, the punishment fits the crime, while the accused is innocent until proven guilty. Bash-Israel-Firsters water down crimes like \u201cgenocide\u201d and \u201cstarvation\u201d to fit the punishment \u2013 ostracism \u2013 while Israel is forever guilty, even when proven innocent.<\/p>\n

Many of the dupes keep overreaching \u2013 because it\u2019s hard to indict a democracy defending itself after being attacked and trying to minimize civilian damage. Proving starvation with pictures of children suffering genetic diseases, or spreading videos showing the well-fed arms of Hamas torturers off camera abusing truly starved Israeli victims, shows you\u2019re working a weak hand.<\/p>\n

Genocide is SICK: systematic, intentional, comprehensive killing. It\u2019s Hutus slaughtering 800,000 Tutsis in 100 days, Nazis planning a \u201cFinal Solution\u201d to kill all Jews. In November 2023, the genocide scholar Omer Bartov warned in The New York Times that constantly labeling \u201catrocious events\u201d genocide \u201cobfuscate[s] reality.\u201d Genocide \u201caims at destroying\u201d a \u201cpopulation wherever it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI) acknowledges that genocide designations require \u201cspecific intent, or dolus specialis… the intention to destroy, in whole or in part, a protected group as such.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet, suddenly, in the Times, Bartov accuses Israel of genocide without proving anything systematic or comprehensive. His article ignores the many Gazans Israel tried saving, without admitting that these wartime tragedies occurred in military theaters, not \u201cwherever\u201d Israelis encounter Palestinians.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, PHRI\u2019s report concludes: \u201cgenocidal intent may be inferred from the pattern of conduct.\u201d Stretching, it targets Israel\u2019s \u201ccampaign to delegitimize Gaza\u2019s health system.\u201d PHRI admits, however, that \u201cthere are cases suggesting that Hamas may have unlawfully used medical infrastructure to shield military objectives,\u201d then contradictorily claims \u201cIsrael has not provided sufficient evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Actually, reporters proved that Hamas used hospitals to hold hostages, hide weapons, build bunkers. Yet Israel\u2019s actions, when the jihadis mocked international law, supposedly reflect \u201cgenocidal intent.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/span>
Hamas terrorists carrying clubs and firearms secure trucks carrying humanitarian aid. Photo by Majdi Fathi\/TPS- IL<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Even more egregious, the novelist David Grossman pronounces \u201cgenocide\u201d based on \u201cwhat I\u2019ve read in the newspapers… and talking to people,\u201d while Israel studies professor Dov Waxman claims: \u201cIsrael\u2019s actions are having a genocidal impact.\u201d Deeming the impact \u201cforeseeable,\u201d Waxman decides \u201cone can reasonably infer genocidal intent from Israel\u2019s conduct in Gaza.\u201d<\/p>\n

No longer methodical mass murder, \u201cgenocide\u201d is now thought crimes, \u201creasonably infer[red.]\u201d<\/p>\n

Similarly, The Washington Post quotes the PHRI\u2019s Guy Shalev intent-shopping: \u201cThe systematic destruction of the healthcare system, the denial of access to food, the blocking of medical evacuations, and using humanitarian aid to advance military objectives \u2013 all indicate a clear pattern of conduct, a pattern that reveals intent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Did Nazis, Hutus, Turks, use \u201chumanitarian aid to advance military objectives\u201d? Actually, they offered no humanitarian aid!<\/p>\n

Col. Spencer writes: \u201cGenocide is not defined by a few comments taken out of context… or by how war looks in headlines or on social media. It is defined by specific intent….\u201d<\/p>\n

Thoughtful people must wonder: Why water down genocide\u2019s definition to damn Israel? As usual, critics of Israel\u2019s actions could choose many words. Their \u201cstarvation\u201d and \u201cgenocide\u201d libels oversimplify maliciously, conscripting millions into this jihadi-orchestrated, media-fueled mass witch burning.<\/p>\n

Originally published in JPost<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We cannot be so hard-hearted to deny Palestinian suffering, exacerbated by Israeli operational failures, but we cannot let Hamas destroy us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25227,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","topics-swords-of-iron","library-op-ed","library-publications"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25226"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26318,"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25226\/revisions\/26318"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}