Deconstructing the Genocide Blood Libel

Strap in. This is going to be a long read, but it’s worth it.

Our community is very familiar with the murder of 6 million of our people during the Shoah.

The word Genocide was first conceived and used by Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin a year before the death camps were revealed and the war ended. The United Nations, following on from the revelations of the Nuremberg trials of Nazis in 1946, created a definition accepted into International law in 1948, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. You may read the articles of the convention here: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Convention_on_the_Prevention_and_Punishment_of_the_Crime_of_Genocide

Many of us have encountered this word over the last 16 months. Many of us have encountered it before then.

The original formulation of the 1948 Convention was aimed at preventing, and if necessary punishing, those responsible for events like the Shoah, or the Armenian genocide perpetrated by the Turks in 1915-1917 which involved the killing of more than 1,000,000. Other actions which are clearly reflective of the terminology set out in the 1948 Convention include; the 1994 genocide of Tutsi Rwandans by the Hutu majority, with between 500,000 and 660,000 killed and several hundred thousands of women raped; the murder of almost 2,000,000 Cambodians by the Khmer Rouge; and the systematic killing of more than 300,000 Darfuri in Sudan by the Islamic fundamentalist Janjaweed and their allies.

Does the 1948 Convention apply here, specifically Article II, which states: “...any of the following 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;”?

The key operative word in Article II is ‘intent’. Is it credible to assert that without a legislated direction, without an articulated policy, without orders to the military, without utilizing its clearly enormous capacity to effect that ‘intent’ with exponentially higher numbers, Israel can be accused of this? It would have to be the least effective and most poorly executed genocide ever conceived. Intent goes not only to ‘destruction’, it also demands clarity on what the assumed victims are. Are they combatants? Non combatants? Are the ‘intended’ the whole national, ethnical, racial or religious group, with only a part being attacked as per a) b) and c)? Does part c) apply when combatants are purposefully embedded within that population, controlling all aid and humanitarian relief, operating from schools, hospitals, mosques, and other humanitarian areas? The questions go on, and with each one, the nature of the tragic consequences of Hamas’s murderous invasion of October 7th grows further and further from the definition per Article II.

Did the International Court of Justice find that Israel was committing genocide? What was its finding?

Contrary to what you have read, heard, and been told, the ICJ did not conclude that Israel was committing genocide in the case brought by the government of South Africa. As articulated clearly by Joan Donoghue, President of the Court, to the BBC in a 2024 interview, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3g9g63jl17o The court ruled that the Palestinian people had a plausible right to protection from genocide. That’s it. Watch the video. Read her words. So, no. That’s not what the ICJ found or ruled. Contentions to the contrary are false and libelous.

Why is this label used against Israel, but not, for example, against Syria where the Assad regime murdered more than 500,000 in a 12 year period?

The selectivity of the United Nations and its various arms, like the UNHRC, the ICJ and ICC, and of course the General Assembly, has a long history. My friend Hillel Neuer and his incredible organization UN Watch unwatch.org have been chronicling the ratio of actions, votes, investigations and prosecutions against Israel in these international fora for decades. The incontrovertible findings are that Israel is measured by a double standard as against any and every other state. The ‘Why?’ is a bit more complicated to understand than the statistics.

In the post 1967 world, the Soviet Union found itself in a position to assert influence in the oil producing states of the Arab world, to sell arms, station troops and weapons, and thwart American interests. To do so, it began a campaign in academia, civil society and international fora to delegitimize the Jewish state, which it saw as the linchpin of US influence in the Middle East, and Jewish/Zionist identity, which it saw as counter revolutionary and centered in the seats of power and influence like New York and London.

One of the early manifestations of this was the 1975 UN General Assembly resolution 3379 defining Zionism as Racism. It was rescinded decades later, but the die was cast. Twenty five years later, at the Durban Conference Against Racism in 2001, Iran led a further UN foray into antisemitism, violence,and demonization of Israel and Jewish sovereign self determination. And throughout the intervening generations of academia, course after course, professor after professor (Chomsky, Said, Finkelstein, Massad etc.) department after department and academic association after association accepted and repeated these Soviet calumnies even after the Soviet Union collapsed on itself.

Natan Sharansky, a hero of the Jewish people, Prisoner of Zion, renowned author, former Deputy Prime Minister of Israel, and human rights activist wrote of the “3 D’s” demonstrating when anti-Zionism becomes antisemitism. Demonization, Delegitimization, and Double Standards (as in the Syria example, in the question above). The United Nations and its agencies have been engaged in all three.

Why have South Africa, supported by the likes of Ireland and Spain, taken Israel to the International Court of Justice with this accusation?

South Africa has a network of alliances that include Russia, Iran, Venezuela, and until recently Syria. It is ruled by descendant parties of the ANC or African National Congress - now led by Cyril Ramaphosa - which throughout its years as an insurrectionist and terrorist resistance to the racist White South African government built and maintained close alliances with the PLO, PFLP, DFLP and other Palestinian terror organizations. It has lionized Yasser Arafat and it has, in the years leading up to 10/7, declared its sympathy for and assistance to Hamas rule in Gaza.

The leaders of Ireland and Spain have demonstrated antagonism to Jewish communities, including, a week ago, a diatribe against Israel by the President of Ireland who usurped the national ceremony observing International Holocaust Remembrance Day to do it and had silent Jewish protesters dragged out. British Jewish Historian Simon Sebbag Montefiore has recently written a damning article about the antecedents of modern Irish antisemitism and its influence on Irish politics. https://www.thefp.com/p/the-deep-roots-of-irish-antisemitism

Spain’s Pedro Sanchez (appointed, not elected) leads a weak government of radical socialists propped up by communists, Basque and Catalan separatists, and according to an article in the Jerusalem Post in April 2024, is also supported by Iranian financing. He is an ideologue voicing the exact narrative created by Soviet propagandists in the 70’s. And all three of these leaders are beholden to the activist classes in their streets. It’s a perfect storm mixing international and local varieties of antisemitism with deep seated alliances with Palestinian militants and terrorists over a period of decades.

Why did Amnesty International, in its ‘report’ accusing Israel of genocide, need to bury deep in its assessment (pg 101) the following statement: “Amnesty International considers this an overly cramped interpretation of international jurisprudence and one that would effectively preclude a finding of genocide in the context of an armed conflict.” when describing how they insist on defining genocide outside of the language and international legal authority of the 1948 Convention?

Amnesty demonstrated a tiny bit of honesty in the midst of its ‘whole cloth’ fabrication of a case against Israel. As very clearly articulated in think-tank Just Security’s analysis, https://www.justsecurity.org/105790/critical-amnesty-international-gaza-genocide/ Amnesty’s report is replete with assumption, inaccuracy, missing data, context and rationality. Most important, Amnesty comes to the conclusion itself that it would be impossible to find that Israel is committing genocide based on the existing 1948 UN Convention on Genocide, so a change in the definition to enable such an accusation to stick must be demanded. Think about that. Read it again. Amnesty can’t legitimately apply the current legally binding definition, so it sidesteps and says the real definition has to be changed to fit their agenda. It’s ridiculous. But it does follow quite logically from Amnesty’s own decades long campaign to delegitimize Israel.

Now, this is a good place to stop to make an important point. There may indeed have been individual actions or orders in Gaza which may have constituted war crimes. There are few armed conflicts in the last 80 years which have not had such concerns. If indeed there are legitimate claims, Israel’s military operates under the terms of its ‘Sanctity of Arms’ (Tohar Haneshek) protocols, and it has a JAG corps which investigates and prosecutes such eventualities. Israel also has an independent judiciary (still) and a system of jurisprudence on par with most democracies. It has and it exercises the capacity to do justice. In any case, the possibility that war crimes may possibly have been committed is a completely different matter, in scale, in intent, and in law than an accusation of genocide.

In the context of armed conflict described above by Amnesty, what do subject matter experts in urban warfare have to say about Israel’s conduct and the proportion of non-combatants killed during the Gaza campaign?

John Spencer, a retired US Army officer and professor at West Point, will be speaking in our community in March, brought by the Holocaust Museum and co-sponsored by Federation. Spencer has written extensively and spoken in podcasts, TV and in front of thousands across the globe on this issue. First, he says, the only comparable battlefield in the last 100 years was the Battle of Manila in 1945 when the Japanese Army defended every inch of the old city against the Americans. The number of dead civilians was 100,000 in one month. The number of Japanese killed was 16,000. Other than that there is nothing truly comparable to the labyrinth of Hamas tunnels under Gaza anywhere.

Vital to understanding the nature of the Gaza war, and to be able to compare it with other battles where there was no false accusation of genocide, is the combatant:civilian ratio in casualties. According to the UN, the average - in aggregate - of wars in the last 80 years is as much as 9:1. Nine civilians to one soldier killed. In the war against ISIS, in the battle of Raqqa, that ratio was about 4:1. So, what about Gaza?

  1. Taking the Hamas Health Ministry figures at face value (which shouldn’t be done - would you take the word of a rapist or a torturer? But in any case) the total number of Gazans killed is about 50,000 since October 7th.
  2. The estimated nominal death rate before 10/7 was 2.9/1000, which makes for about 6,600 people per year. Extrapolated to 16 months that is 9,800 who would have died of natural causes, accidents, crime, etc. in any case.
  3. The IDF estimates it killed 20,000 Hamas and other combatants since it entered Gaza, and an additional 1,500 inside Israel on 10/7 and the days following. That is 21,500
  4. As the smaller scale blood libel of the Al Ahli Hospital rocket impact (via Islamic Jihad) indicates, of the 13,000 rockets fired at Israel since 10/7, it can be estimated that about 15% (2000 rockets) have misfired and fallen in Gaza, according to research from Human Rights Watch (November 2023). This would indicate a significant number of fatalities which have been estimated at over 1000, but for our purposes let’s say 1000.
  5. Statistics recently released by the Hamas Health ministry indicate a 5.4:1 ratio of children losing their fathers as over mothers. This shows that fighting-age male fatalities are the highest by a factor of 5.
  6. Given that 31,700 of the 50,000 fatalities can be accounted for as a) natural deaths in a population of 2.3 million, b) combatants, c) those killed by Hamas and Islamic Jihad fire, the combatant:civilian ratio in Gaza is possibly, even likely, less than 1:1. But let’s say, for argument’s sake, the number is 1:1.
  7. That number is lower than UN estimates of all 20th and 21st century conflicts by a factor of NINE.
  8. That number is lower than the US and its allies against ISIS by a factor of FOUR.
  9. The conclusion that Professor Spencer comes to is that Israel’s conduct in prosecuting this war against an invader - who raped, butchered, tortured and kidnapped, who operated from a 350 mile long tunnel system embedded under 2.3 million Gazans, who articulated their hope that there would be many casualties among their people as a weapon against Israel - was better and less lethal than ANY OTHER MILITARY IN THE WORLD.
  10. Spencer concludes that the accusation of genocide given these circumstances and these statistics is not only absurd, it is mendacious and purposefully weaponized to demonize and delegitimize the Jewish state and her defenders.

Does and did Israel have the means, weapons, opportunity, and rationale to simply sit on the borders of Gaza and use artillery and airstrikes to accomplish what it is being accused of (and much more) without risking a single Israeli soldier? Why did it not do so?

Israel has, and has had, the means, weapons and opportunity to destroy Gaza and its inhabitants without sending in a single soldier for many, many years. Less than 400 miles away, Hafez Assad did exactly that to rebels in Hama in 1982, and he killed 30,000 before sending in the bulldozers. Israel didn’t do it and wouldn’t do it because it is contrary to Israeli ethos and Jewish values. There has never been a government policy or a military order articulated that contemplated the destruction, in whole or in part, of Gazans or Palestinians.

Does the legitimacy, divisiveness, coarseness or potential criminality of the Netanyahu government and/or some of its leaders have any bearing on the accusation of genocide?

This may be among the most difficult questions I’m often asked. It is difficult because good people with empathy, values, and love for Israel have been angered by many things that the current Israeli government has attempted or contemplated since it was elected. It is difficult because there have been individuals in the government who express values that are alien to many of us. It is difficult because the Israeli electorate clearly doesn’t see the world like many in our community, and they elected a government that some among us don’t like. It’s difficult because while he is Prime Minister, Mr. Netanyahu is also on trial for alleged criminal activity.

All this said, the most important criticism I have is that Mr. Netanyahu was Prime Minister for 13 and a half of the 15 years leading up to 10/7. Many in the Israeli security establishment have expressed their regrets at the security failure, taken responsibility, and several have resigned their posts. He has done none of these things.

Even so, as I have demonstrated above, the genocide accusation is both absurd and mendacious, and it would be so if anyone else was Prime Minister. It has no bearing whatsoever.

Why are millions of people around the globe, including tens of thousands right here in the US, prepared to level this accusation without knowledge of the Convention, without factual knowledge of the conflict, or even a modicum of understanding of the relevant geography? What motivates them?

Sadly, for many, the answer is rank antisemitism. It is and has been a festering sore on the conscience of the world for too long for us to be surprised by it.

  1. It is articulated by political leaders, religious leaders, social media influencers, student activists, academics, and the media. Its reach is exponentially larger and wider than it has ever been in our history.
  2. There are elements of both Islam and Christianity as well as the entirety of socialism which see themselves as supersessionist of the value system that birthed them all and by virtue of that see it necessary to diminish, denigrate, or destroy that which they have come to replace. There are also those in both Islam and Christianity who reject this approach, and we thank them for their friendship.
  3. In particular, what has emerged from socialism has taken on a value system which sees Jews as oppressors; which sees Jews as imperialists and colonialists even though they are on their own ancestral aboriginal homeland; and which is prepared to deny facts and evidence because it doesn’t fit their worldview or philosophy.
  4. Some are truly ignorant of the facts, and are essentially a mob - either throwing paint on synagogues in London, occupying buildings and blockading Hillels at Columbia, chasing Jews down and beating them in Amsterdam, or trying to carry out a pogrom in Dagestan. Some are ‘caught up’, but all are dangerous adversaries and they won’t stop just because we want them to.

Who benefits from a global campaign smearing Israel in this way?

Let’s recall what happens when Jews are accused of killing non Jews in a cruel way. This is the blood libel. In 1144, the Jews of Norwich were accused of killing a young boy and using his blood for rituals. Others across Europe and the Middle East were accused of such things right up to the Damascus affair of 1840. In every case this led to the mass murder of Jews, the expropriation and theft of their property, their expulsion from their homes, and often rape and assault of Jewish women. Thousands - tens of thousands - of Jewish lives were taken because of blood libels. It is the single most effective way to demonize and delegitimize Jews and the Jewish state.

Cui Bono? Who Benefits?

Ideologues such as those promoting the ‘Jews as oppressor, imperialist, racist, colonizer, capitalist, exploiter’ narrative I described above.

Old fashioned white nationalist Nazi thugs on the extreme right see their dreams legitimized when we are delegitimized.

Islamic fundamentalists see the expression of their deepest prejudices and motivations, as the Hadith in Sahi Bukhari and in Sahi Muslim state: The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. "O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him." – But the tree Gharqad will not say, for it is the tree of the Jews." For those motivated by these Hadith, a blood libel legitimizes their intentions.

And lastly, the advocates of current Palestinian national aspirations. As one of my favorite Israeli writers, Haviv Rettig Gur, has articulated, as long as Palestinian national identity is predicated on the destruction of what they see as the temporary Jewish presence in Israel, rather than on building the institutions of statehood of their own, this cycle will continue. And right now, they are using the tool of the blood libel as a means to garner allies and sympathy and resources to achieve their goal.

Thank you for reading this far. I know it is a long and complex piece, but it is worth it to truly understand what we’re confronting.

Our goal is to articulate our pride, to refute the lies, and to convey the message that we are not going anywhere. Neither are our children or theirs. Jews and the Jewish state will not cower, and we will not be silent in the face of weaponized words and dangerous lies.