That’s what so many in Ireland wanted to talk about when Trump visited the Old Sod, to protest about, to wax indignant about, to scream about. Not Iran’s economic war against its Arab neighbors and the West. Not Russia’s war against Ukraine. Not the Houthis blocking the Bab-el-Mandeb strait. Not global warming and the floods and fires it generates. Not a runaway AI that, several experts have just warned us, could wipe out all of humanity within a decade. None of that. No, it was all about the “genocide” the colonial-settler apartheid state of Israel is committing.
Here’s how Al Jazeera reported from Ireland the day before Donald Trump arrived: “‘Majority do not welcome him’: Trump heads to Ireland amid fury over Gaza,” by Laura O’Connor, Al Jazeera, September 11, 2026:
Donald Trump is set to arrive in Ireland on Saturday, but most Irish people aren’t happy about it.
A recent poll by the Sunday Independent and Ireland Thinks reported that 69 percent do not support the US president’s visit.
“Thousands of us will march on Saturday because we refuse to normalise a man who has facilitated genocide,” Sean Radcliffe, an economics undergraduate student at Trinity College Dublin, told Al Jazeera.
Taoiseach Micheal Martin “should say it clearly, firmly, and publicly: the United States is facilitating genocide,” added Radcliffe, who is a leader of the student body’s Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions campaign….
And when Trump met Irish President Catherine Connolly, can you guess what she said to him? “War and genocide can never be accepted.”
What is it with the Irish these days? Is it something in the water? Last I looked, the Liffey had not been poisoned with psychotropic drugs, but one never knows, do one?
Let’s go over that “genocide” charge one more time, shall we?
In 1967, when Israel took over Gaza, it had a population of 360,000. Today its population is two million. Is that “genocide”?
During the current war against Hamas,, the IDF has waged a tremendous campaign to keep civilian casualties to a minimum. It has dropped millions of leaflets, sent millions of text messages, and made millions of robocalls, all in order to warn civilians away from sites soon to be targeted. It has also employed the “knock-on-the-roof” technique to alert people living in apartment buildings to leave for their own safety. Is that “genocide”?
During the war in Gaza, the IDF has facilitated the entry into the Strip of 182,000 tons of humanitarian aid — food and medicine. It has also prevented Hamas, whenever it could, from stealing that aid, so that it could reach its intended recipients. Is that “genocide”?
Israel has transported children from Gaza who needed specialized medical care and delivered them to Jordan. Is that “genocide”?
And now for some arithmetic:
According to Hamas, 73,500 people have died in Gaza during the war.
According to Israel, about 25,000 Hamas combatants have been killed.
That means there were 48,500 non-Hamas deaths. Now we need calculate how many of these 48,500 deaths were non-combat related.
Before the war, in Gaza an estimated 7,700 to 8,400 total baseline deaths per year resulted from all non-conflict natural causes (such as age-related illnesses, non-communicable diseases, and normal baseline rates of disease or accidents). So, it is reasonable to assume there have continued to be about 8,000 deaths per year, or 667 per month. During the 35 months of the war, from October 2023 to September 2026, 23,345 (667 x 35) people in Gaza died of non-combat related causes.
So of the 48,500 deaths of non-Hamas people in Gaza, 25,515 (48,500 minus 23,345) died as a result of the war.
How do those numbers stack up against other wars?
The UN has calculated that in all the wars fought since World War II, the civilian-to-combatant ratio was on average 9:1. In Afghanistan, the Americans brought that down to 4:1, and in Iraq, to 3:1.
In Gaza, 25,515 civilians died as a result of the war, and 25,000 Hamas combatants also died.
The civilian-to-combatant ratio in the Gaza war, then, is 25,515:25,000, or about 1:1, a figure that no other military In the world has come close to achieving.
Which leads me to ask again what I asked at the beginning of this piece: Genocide? What genocide?
Hugh Fitzgerald says
In fact, I left ont another statistic that would have made my case even stronger:the number of Gazans killed by rockets and missiles launched by Hamas and Palestine Islamic Jihad. Such deaths cannot be attributed to Israel. For example, the rocket that anded in the parking lot of the Al-Ahi Hospital, and that killed anywhere between 300 (US estimate) and 571 (Gaza Ministry of Health) , was the result not of an IDF weapon but of a rocket launched by Palestinian Islamic Jihad. It has been estimated that 20% of the rockets and missiles fired by the terrorists in Gaza landed inside the Strip, and many hundreds, if not thousands, of Gazas died from those weapons.
Hugh Fitzgerald says
Al-Ahli, not Al-Ali, Hospital. Sorry for that and several other typos..
Stive says
I don’t know how much fluoride is put into Ireland’s water, and the amount is important, but years ago the E.U. stopped fluoride in the water system, except Ireland! Ireland drinks fluoride unlike Europe now. Of course the Irish catholic church may be the most antisemitic church on earth so maybe a role there too ?