Elder of Ziyon examines those who charge that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza. He has a. word for them — “antisemites.” More on his investigation of their spurious and sinister claims can be found here: “Why accusing Israel of “genocide” is inherently and purely antisemitic,” Elder of Ziyon, November 17, 2024:
The Genocide Convention defines genocide as “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”
“Intent” is a high bar. No one can read minds; unless the accused party specifically says that they intend to wipe out another people, all we have are actions that must be interpreted.
The only way for anyone to determine that Israel’s intent in the current war is genocidal is if they already hate Jews.
By definition, if there are a preponderance of actions and statements that contradict the thesis that Israel intends to destroy all Palestinians or all Gazans, then the charge of genocide is false.
I will not get into all the counter-evidence – anyone can research that Israeli leaders have consistently said that their targets are Hamas and not Gaza civilians, that Israel has facilitated tens of thousands of truckloads of aid, that Israel has been careful to avoid civilian casualties, that Hamas deliberately places its military targets within and underneath apartments, schools, mosques and hospitals making avoiding all civilian casualties literally impossible and that many military experts have praised Israel for its efforts to avoid civilian casualties despite the unique challenges of fighting an enemy that depends on civilians to limit attacks.
However, the people tossing the word “genocide” around discount and ignore all the counterevidence that refutes the charge. They grab onto isolated, out of context statements and incidents and try to build them into an edifice of proof.
I’ll give just one example.
A recently released UN report accuses Israel of using methods “consistent with genocide.” The very first quote they use from an Israeli official as evidence is:
On 9 October, the Minister of Defence of Israel announced a “complete siege” of the Strip with no electricity, no food, no fuel and removed every restriction on Israeli forces so they could “eliminate everything.”
The implication is that Gallant ordered troops to eliminate everything in Gaza and starvation was one of the methods.
These were two different statements.
Israel has been facilitating aid into Gaza since October 21, 2023 – the entire war except for two weeks. Statements made within hours or days after the horrific attacks on October 7 demanding a siege were never meant to be long term policy, and those who pretend that they are are knowingly lying.
The second statement to “eliminate everything” refers only to Hamas and other terrorists. It comes from a YouTube video of Yoav Gallant speaking to troops on October 9. His full statement is,
Take off the gloves kill everyone who fights us, even if it is one terrorist. From the air from the land, with tanks and bulldozers all means. There are no compromises. It won’t be the same again. And Hamas will not be. Eliminate everything, it will take time, it won’t take a day, it won’t take a week, it will take weeks and maybe months.
Gallant is specifically talking about terrorists, not Gaza….
If the IDF is hellbent on committing “genocide” in Gaza, why has it gone to so much trouble to save the lives of Gazan civilians by warning them about sites about to be targeted by the IDF? Why did the IDF drop nine million leaflets, send fifteen million text messages, and make sixteen million robocalls, just in the first six months of the war, to warn Gazan civilians away from danger? Why has Israel facilitated the entry of tens of thousands of trucks full of humanitarian aid into Gaza, if it is determined to commit “genocide”? If Israel is intent on committing a “genocide” of Palestinian Arabs, then what explains the fact that when Israel took over Gaza in 1967, its Arab population was 400,000, and when Israel pulled out in 2005, that population had risen to 1.3 million, that is, more than tripled? And why, when Israel took over the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) in 1967, its population was 900,000, and now three million Arabs live there, would anyone call that “genocide”? Finally, in 1949 the Arab population of Israel was 160,000, and today is two million. Does that qualify as “genocide”?
And what about that key metric for judging wars, the civilian-to-combatant ratio? The UN has said that in all the wars fought since 1945, the average ration was 9:1, or nine civilians killed for every combatant. In Afghanistan, the Americans did much better, attaining a 4:1 ratio, and in Iraq better still, with a 3:1 ratio. In Gaza, according to Hamas, 43,000 people have died. Of that number, the IDF estimates that 19,000 were Hamas operatives. In Gaza before the war, an average of 800 people died each month from diseases and accidents. Assuming that number has held steady in the 13 months of war, 9,600 people in Gaza died for non-combat related reasons. Therefore, we can calculate that 13,400 civilians — the figure arrived at by subtracting 19,000 and 9600 from 43,000 in Gaza — were killed in the war. The civilian-to-combat ratio for the Gaza war is thus 13,400:19,000, which is far less than 1:1. No other army in the world has ever achieved such a result. No wonder British Colonel Richard Kemp, who fought in a half-dozen wars and commanded the British forces in Afghanistan, has said that the IDF is “the most moral army in the world.” And West Point Professor John Spencer has written that “Israel has implemented more precautions to prevent civilian harm than any military in history.” Yet, we are told, despite all of the measures the IDF takes to warn people away from places about to be targeted, despite the fact that Israeli pilots abort half of their missions, whenever they detect too many civilians near the target, we are still told that Israel is committing “genocide.”
Given all that evidence to the contrary, who in his right mind would accuse Israel of “genocide”? No one. But are antisemites in their right minds? You know the answer to that.
Luchtpint says
I live in a city where we have both a Holocaust memorial museum and a monument to commemorate the Armenian genocide. What the IDF is doing can in noway be compared with genocide.
Only the antisemitic, pro-Islamic woke ayatollahs of the West can claim such a fucking reprehensible thing !
ConcernedReader says
I don’t find this or the original article statement to be true.
But that is just how i see it.
There are far too many ignorant folks out there, without any knowledge of history. Everyone learns of Israel, Egypt, Nubia, Babylon and Assyria in school (at least in mine). But only a bit, and only “ancient history” part.
Even about Mohamed and him establishing islam is just barely a not in many books. A few mentions of fights with saracens, then about the seldjuk-turks, and then quite a few about the ottomans.
But what and how all those countries, Morocco, Tunis, Iraq, Iran, Jordan and so on became arabic countries? There is no mention of it.
Hell most folks dont even know that (North) Sudan has arabic as an official language.
Nobody asks and thus to nobody is told what happened to all those indegenious people who lived there.
Most folks dont even know that in Egypt there are 8-10 million christians living as second or third grade citizens simply because of their religion. And that the official language of Egypt is not egyptian but arabic.
Again how did it come to be? Not a single word about it.
How the arabs have destroyed countless indegenous people and probably their genocide goes far beyond anyone can imagine.
So i would blame it more on human ignorance and stupidity and not necessarily on antisemitism.
But that is just my take.
Luchtpint says
In the 21st century, “ignorance” of these things you mention is deliberately cultivated by government institutions, MSM and educational facilities to further a political agenda. An agenda of “white racism”, multiculturalism, cultural relativism, the pathological inclination of furthering the interests of so-called perpetually victimized communities in our societies, retroactive reinterpretation of historical facts, the politicizing of the judiciary, the scapegoating of all non-muslims and clamping down on the freedom of speech.
This is deliberate, systemic and ideologically motivated and anti-semitism is part and parcel of it.
Luchtpint says
And that’s basically why the powers that be at this point don’t give a damn about:
-Christians being persecuted in Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan or Bangladesh (to name just a few)
– Sikhs or Hindus being persecuted in Pakistan or Bangladesh
or even Black African muslims being kept as slaves by their muslim Arab countrymen in Mauritania
And last but not least, there is the inconvenient truth that muslims kill muslims all over the place, not to mention Arab Gulf states exploiting both non-muslim and non-Arab muslim workers alike, who work for a pittance in the UAE and Saudi-Arabia.
Very inconvenient for the Left’s mythology. In their mind, only Westerners and the Jews living among us or in Israel are guilty of discrimination.
This willful ignorance, not stupidity.
somehistory says
It isn’t even “Ignorance.” It’s willful “ignoring.” and covering up. They know, the same as we know. They just have their agenda, and are allowing and even egging on the fighting by sending money and weapons to mozlums and others.
The “powers that be” want a severe reduction in earth’s population….anyway they can get it.
biden, the UK and France know the price for allowing zelenski to use long-range missiles to fire on Russia….putin threatens war…but they are willing to risk WW3 because it fits what they want to accomplish.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
In which city in the world are both these genocides recognized?
gravenimage says
Infidel, I don’t know for certain what city Luchtpint lives in, but my guess would be Washington, DC:
https://www.usa.gov/agencies/holocaust-memorial-museum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide_Museum_of_America#:~:text=The%20Armenian%20Genocide%20Museum%20will,addition%20to%20four%20adjacent%20properties%2C
somehistory says
“The pope called for a genocide investigation in Gaza. Here’s how Israel responded”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/the-pope-called-for-a-genocide-investigation-in-gaza-here-s-how-israel-responded/ar-AA1ujq8T?ocid=msedgntp&pc=HCTS&cvid=5b618a02efeb466a8735851ad7c0c0f0&ei=29
Cynthia says
Leftist Pope=stupid=anti Semitic=evil
abu taleb says
> Only an Antisemite Could Accuse Israel of ‘Genocide’
There 2 more “universal laws” that are similar:
1. Only muslims can kill people (non muslims and muslims too), non muslims can not kill muslims.
2. Only white people are racist, black people are never racist. (east asians are white too, hispanics sometimes white in certain circumstances, even blacks are white too if they are conservatives)
Jim Harmon says
More succinctly, anyone who accuses Israel of genocide is either a cretin or a lying piece of Nazi filth.
gravenimage says
Only an Antisemite Could Accuse Israel of ‘Genocide’
……………………………………….
Spot on.
James Lincoln says
If Israel and its IDF are committing genocide (they are not), they are not doing a very good job at it…
࿗Infidel࿘ says
There is one place in the world where there is a genocide of muslims. Xinjiang. Yet, neither does the OIC, nor any of its members, dare raise it in the UN or anywhere else. The only countries that have – rightly or wrongly – spoken out against it at all are Western countries
That should be enough to tell any casual observer what frauds all these muslim entities are
Tanya Notkoff says
The reality is that people WANT any excuse to hate Israel and us Jews, and if it means taking the lie and running with it, they do. No matter how many times we present all the evidence that destroys their claims of genocide, such as facts laid out in the article, the haters don’t care. They’ll contort themselves to tell me how wrong I am. Many of them have told me how much they “love Jews” while simultaneously calling for the very real genocide of Jews, in so many words.
It should disturb everyone to witness just how easily Hitler succeeded in his quest for genocide, for as much as he did–our numbers have still never recovered!), all with the help of those willing to believe the lies for sake of convenience, reward, and just plain malice. Solomon Asch’s “Conformity Experiment” along with Asch’s student Stanley Milgram’s “Experiment” explains this disturbing behavior, from Asch’s rudimentary line experiment to Milgram’s use of (feigned) torture and those willing to dole out the shocks, as long as they were told they would not be held accountable for their sinister actions!