David Grossman’s Claim of Israeli Genocide Does Violence to the Meaning of the Word

Let’s take the charge of “genocide” made not just by such obvious antisemites as UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the UN’s Special Rapporteur for Conditions in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, but now, as well, by such people as Israeli writer David Grossman. Grossman is a writer; he should be vigilant in his use of words with such moral weight as “genocide.”

For a charge of “genocide” to stick, there must be intent. During the first six months of the Gaza war, the IDF had dropped nine million leaflets, sent fifteen million text messages, and made sixteen million robocalls, all to warn civilians to leave sites, and buildings, about to be targeted. Does that massive effort to minimize civilian casualties suggest genocide? And when the IDF tells civilians to move out of neighborhoods and even entire cities about to be hit, does that show an intent to commit genocide? David Grossman surely knows that the IDF does not want to harm civilians, though civilians are unavoidably harmed when the battlefield is one of the most densely-populated areas on earth and enemy combatants embed both themselves and their weapons among the civilian population.

What do we know about the numbers of those killed in this war? Hamas now claims that 62,000 people have been killed in Gaza, without distinguishing combatants from civilians. The IDF said early in 2024 — much more than a year ago — that it had killed 20,000 Hamas combatants. That number must surely have gone up; 25,000 (another 5,000 Hamas deaths over more than a year) would be a most conservative estimate. In addition, we know that prior to the Gaza war, each month some 800 people in Gaza died from accidents and disease. There is no reason to think that number of deaths has changed. In the 22 months of war, that means that 17,600 Gazans have died from non-combat-related deaths. The total number of civilians who died in Gaza as a result of the war can thus be calculated as follows: 62,000 minus 25,000 equals 37,000; 37,000 minus 16,600 equals 20,400. Let’s stick with that figure, even though we might also have deducted the thousands of Gazans who died as a result of the terrorists’ own rockets falling short inside Gaza, as happened most famously at the Al-Ahli Hospital, where a rocket launched by Palestinian Islamic Jihad failed to hit Israel, but landed in the hospital parking lot, killing dozens of civilians.

If a total of 20,400 civilians died as a result of combat, why does the world media continue to repeat the Hamas claim that “62,000 people have been killed in Gaza, most of them women and children”? Of those 20,400, perhaps two-thirds — that is, roughly 14,000 — were women and children. To conclude: of the 2.2 million people in Gaza, 20,400 civilians at most died as a result of the war. That is less than 1% of the population. Does that constitute a “genocide”?

David Grossman’s medium is words. His claim that Israel is committing “genocide” does violence to the meaning of the word, and heartens Hamas. And so does everyone who so grotesquely claims that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza. As West Point Professor John Spencer has concluded, “Israel has implemented more precautions to prevent civilian harm than any military in history—above and beyond what international law requires.” Millions of dropped leaflets, millions of text messages, millions of robocalls from the IDF to warn Gazans away from places about to be targeted, testify to that tremendous effort, that the world’s media for some reason never reports on. The fact of that effort shows there has been no “Intent” by Israel to commit genocide. And so does the Israeli effort to provide humanitarian aid to Gazan civilians while trying to prevent Hamas from stealing so much of that aid. The Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has already distributed more than 100 million meals in Gaza. Does that show an “intent to commit genocide”? Finally, does Grossman think that the killing of less than 1% of an enemy’s civilians, among whom the enemy combatants hide themselves and their weapons, can really be called “genocide”?