Accusing Israel of genocide is factually wrong - opinion

I condemn in the strongest terms the killing of any innocent Israeli or Palestinian, regardless of the circumstances.

However, righting the wrong in any violent conflict is never served by quickly jumping to conclusions and accusing one party or the other of committing crimes on the scale of genocide – of which Israel stands accused. By definition, the Israeli invasion of Gaza and its continuing unfolding havoc and devastation do not meet the criteria of genocide.

The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in 1948, defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;  (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

The assumption is that clauses A and B apply to the Israeli army’s efforts to capture or kill Hamas operatives, as in pursuing that, thousands of innocent Palestinians were killed. And, no doubt, had Israeli forces been more cautious, especially at the initial stages of the war, many Palestinian lives would have been spared. But sadly, Hamas’s unfathomably barbaric attack brought to life images of the Holocaust to many Israelis [reminding them of the promise “Never again!”]. Even if some would argue that it appeared that some of the initial bombings were carried out with little consideration of the collateral damage they could cause, the intention, which is critical to the definition of genocide, was to eliminate Hamas terrorists, not the civilian population of Gaza.

One such horrific case is an Israeli air strike in Rafah on May 26, which hit a camp sheltering displaced civilians in Tal al-Sultan and reportedly killed at least 46 civilians, including 23 women, children, and older people. Irrespective of how heart-wrenching the Israeli strike was, it is not akin to genocide.

Examining historical precedent to understand current events 

It is essential to distinguish what constitutes genocide by its definition and consequences. One modern genocide occurred in Bosnia and Herzegovina in July 1995 at Srebrenica. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) ruled that “the intent to kill all the Bosnian Muslim men of military age in Srebrenica constitutes an intent to destroy, in part, the Bosnian Muslim group within the meaning of Article 4 and therefore must be qualified as a genocide.” Up to 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were lined up and executed, nearly 2,000 are still missing, and up to 30,000 Bosnian Muslim women, children, and elderly persons were forcibly transferred.

Another fitting example is the Armenian Genocide which occurred between 1915-1918, when Armenians were forcibly deported from the eastern part of the Ottoman Empire, including through forced marches where they faced starvation and massacres. Those who survived the marches were sent to concentration camps near modern Turkey’s southern border with Syria.

Over 1 million Armenians died over the period, with the rest of the Armenian population living in the diaspora. Currently, over 30 countries recognize the Armenian Genocide.

And, of course, in the Holocaust, 1933-1945, six million Jews and five million non-Jews were murdered over this period by Nazi Germany, including Roma, Sinti, homosexuals, religious leaders who refused to support the regime, and people with disabilities. The Auschwitz camps alone were responsible for the execution of 960,000 Jews from 1940-1945.

These acts against other groups of different ethnicities were characterized as genocides because they were “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”

ISRAEL HAS no intention of destroying the Palestinians, “in whole or in part.” Its intention has been, and continues to be, to destroy Hamas as a terrorist organization. What is deeply troubling, however, is the frequent nonchalant association of “genocide” with Israel as if it were a given – often to cheering audiences without giving the matter and its implications serious thought.

In mid-May, I attended the Mailman School of Public Health graduation ceremony at Columbia University. I was shocked to hear the speech delivered on behalf of the student body. The speaker accused Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians, at five points in her presentation, to the cheering of several thousand students, guests, and faculty members.

To level such an accusation in such a setting at an Ivy League university with a significant Jewish student body was appalling.

The normalization of associating genocide with Israel, as if it is a matter of fact, is extremely dangerous, mainly because the majority of non-Jews do not differentiate between Israeli Jews and Diaspora Jews, which risks, in this case, the safety of Jewish students.

Moreover, this sort of narrative, casually expressed, gives free rein not only to the Jews’ traditional enemy, white supremacists but also to other non-Jews who need an easy way to express their innate hatred of Jews – and gives rise to endemic antisemitism.

Thus, although antisemitism has existed since time immemorial, the current spike in antisemitism is not accidental. The Gaza war and the escalating tragic death toll of Palestinians give further credence to the antisemites’ contention that the Jews are the real enemy.

Sadly, extremist right-wing Israeli officials, such as Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, add fuel to the fire of antisemitism when they recklessly call for ridding the Land of Israel of all Palestinians.

In March, South Africa submitted a case to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accusing Israel of genocide, requesting that the court order Israel to end its military operations in Gaza.

In January, the ICJ determined in an order that it does have standing to “entertain the case,” which is not a ruling – just an acknowledgment of South Africa’s standing to present the case.

In essence, the ICJ has not ruled that Israel has committed genocide but rather that it must take all possible measures to prevent genocide from taking place, which in some way, may well be attributed to the dangerously loose tongues of Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, who put Israel to shame in the eyes of the international community.

Israel is not committing genocide against the Palestinians, but unless they embrace humanity and peaceful coexistence, the continuing violent conflict and losses on both sides will be tantamount to nothing less than mutual suicide.

The writer is a retired professor of international relations, most recently at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He taught courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies.