The word Genocide has become a leitmotif when Israel is being discussed among foes. It has become the main recurring excuse to accuse Israel in this current exponentially growing campaign of delegitimization, demonization, and double standards. After all, any leader, government, or people group committing genocide against another people group is indeed guilty of murder and should be stopped at any cost, but before we dig deeper, let’s define the meaning of the word genocide.
The word “genocide” was coined in 1942 by Polish Lawyer Raphael Lemkin and didn’t exist prior to World War Two. As a result of the Holocaust, the word was established as a legal term for an international crime (1948).
According to the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948), “Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
• Killing members of the group;
• Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
• Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
• Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
• Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
Based on this widely accepted definition of genocide, several acts are punishable:
• Genocide
• Conspiracy to commit genocide
• Direct and public incitement to commit genocide
• Attempt to commit genocide
• Complicity in genocide
According to genocidewatch, genocide is a process that includes ten stages, not necessarily happening in a linear fashion. Some of the stages overlap, some last longer, some build upon the previous ones. They are Classification, Symbolization, Discrimination, Dehumanization, Organization, Polarization, Preparation, Persecution, Extermination, and Denial. It could easily be argued that the main goal of any genocide is the complete extermination of an ethnic group deemed inferior by the genocidal party.
If you ask the global community, the answer is almost always yes! In fact, when checking Wikipedia for a list of genocides in all of human history—not my go-to source for reliable data, by a long shot—I was exposed to the “Gaza Genocide” on their landing page as Wikipedia cleverly chose to list the genocide in “reverse chronological order,” a very odd way to list things. This allowed them to expose the viewer to the Palestinian narrative upon landing on the page. Was that a bit devious or agenda-driven? I think it was!
Undeniable examples of genocide include the Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide, the Srebrenica Genocide, the Sudan Genocides, the Rwandan Genocide, and many others. The question remains, “Is Israel currently committing genocide against Palestinians?”
First, in all fairness, the question needs to be asked in a slightly different way: “Is Israel currently committing genocide against Palestinian Arabs?” The reason why this is important is that the accusation of genocide as it is currently presented is built upon the false premise that the Palestinians are a people indigenous to Eretz Yisrael.
In a nutshell, the term Palestine dates back to the Jewish revolt of AD 135 when the region of Israel was renamed Palestina and Jerusalem was renamed Aelia Capitolina by the Romans to humiliate the people and de-Judaize the Land of Israel. The term survived history and continued being used to describe a geographical area inhabited by Palestinian Arabs and Palestinian Jews. No issue so far.
By 1948, Israel becomes a modern nation, and by the early sixties, Yasir Arafat is “installed” in the region as the leader of the Palestinian people, and all of a sudden, the terms “Palestine” and “Palestinian” take on a more geopolitical meaning, and that is when we need to stop using the terms because they have morphed etymologically.
Now, a fair approach would be to assess if Israel is committing any of the crimes that define genocide, but it needs to be done with no preconceived ideas, agenda, or warped worldview, if at all possible.
A recurring theme under the genocidal agenda is a deliberate intent to kill an ethnic group by any means possible. The Nazi Holocaust is the epitome of a genocide as Hitler’s executioners kept re-inventing their killing methods from starvation in ghettos to forced labor camps, to asphyxiation by carbon monoxide inside sealed vehicles, to mass executions in front of large graves, to gas chambers. Expediency was always of the essence for the Nazis.
If Israel was really interested in committing genocide, they could have carpet-bombed the Gaza Strip on October 8, 2023, and be done with it, but that is not the modus operandi of the Jewish state—the only democracy in the Middle East. Instead, Israel sends messages to the enemy’s side in Gaza and Lebanon to facilitate the voluntary evacuation of innocent civilians–something that simply doesn’t exist anywhere else in conventional warfare.
The messages are sent on social media or dropped leaflets from the sky. What happens next is entirely in the hands of the recipients or, unfortunately, in the hands of Hamas/Hezbollah blocking traffic or the evacuation of civilians. Death tolls of civilians could be avoided by a large percentage if they were able to freely move, which is rarely the case. The enemies of Israel send an altered message not based on facts, such as Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International, claiming, “As the number of deaths and injuries continue to rise, Amnesty International is urging both parties to comply with their obligations and ensure that civilians in both countries do not further pay the price of reckless military action.”
They are definitely drinking the Palestinian narrative’s proverbial Kool-Aid with no desire for the truth to be shared. The agenda of elimination of Israel and the Jews is so painfully clear. They are joined by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF/Doctors without Borders) in their goal to demonize and delegitimize Israel.
Additionally, Israel has sent a tremendous amount of humanitarian aid and food to Gaza and also allowed for other countries to contribute. TheMedialine News outlet confirmed that, “Israel has provided food, electricity, water, and medical care to Gazan civilians despite UN inefficiency and Hamas sabotage. Official reports no outbreaks of severe contagious diseases among the Gazan population.”
So, no unnecessary, arbitrary killing of innocent civilians, no starving of the population, but what about the Gaza birth rate? Remember that one of the methods for a successful genocide is control of the birth rate along with the killing of other people. Does Gaza have a case for reduced birth rates in the Strip since October 7, 2023, that would be a result of genocide? Is Israel “Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group”? The answer is an absolute NO!
SaveTheChildren.org (not a friend of Israel) recently posted, “The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. Children are literally starving. Markets are empty, food is unavailable, and malnutrition is widespread — not only among children, but also among pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers, and the broader adult population,” but they also estimated that 50,000 babies were born in Gaza within the first 9 months of the conflict, so which is it? We are now approaching the end of the third year, and birth stats are undoubtedly higher.
If Israel is truly committing genocide—and they are not—they are doing a very poor job at preventing the growth of the “Palestinian” population in Gaza. That being said, that region is a war zone, and there has been a lot of destruction of infrastructure, so the conditions for giving birth are less than optimal. Keep in mind that Hamas has a habit of stuffing weapons inside hospitals. Why is the world not talking about all the other conflicts on the planet and not exposing the true genocides taking place? No Jews, No News! That’s why.
Deep at the heart of it, people must know that they are buying and selling lies about Israel and the Jewish people. Not everyone is that evil. They are being manipulated by evil people and, too often, too lazy or busy to verify if the statements they make or actions they take are justified. Is there a certain amount of cognitive dissonance that would lead to a change of heart in the right direction? I am not sure about that, but I do know that while Israel is not perfect, an honest investigation of the parties at play will result in exonerating Israel and finding Hamas and Hezbollah guilty of genocide. Unfortunately, that narrative doesn’t sell because the world continues to fulfill the end-times prophecy of Zechariah 12:3 and increasingly turns against Israel. It is highly irrational but so fulfilling for Israel’s foes.
The evangelical end times remnant must unite against the poison of satanic antisemitism. Our numbers are getting smaller by the day, and our friends are becoming new enemies overnight, but like we read in Judges 6-7, Gideon’s army ended up a lot smaller than what Gideon had envisioned, and yet, he and his men were on God’s side.
Which side are you on?
