Los Angeles Times

The problem with rushing to accuse Israel of genocide

- JONAH GOLDBERG fIwerea @JonahDispa­tch

IPalestini­an struggling amid the rubble of Gaza, I would probably think Israel is committing genocide. If I had been a German hiding in Dresden or a Japanese civilian near Hiroshima in 1945, I would probably have felt the same way about the United States. But none of these amount to genocide.

Genocide has a specific definition: “the deliberate and systematic destructio­n of a group of people because of their ethnicity, nationalit­y, religion, or race.” The term was coined by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Jew, in response to Winston Churchill’s observatio­n about the Holocaust: “We are in the presence of a crime without a name.”

In fairness to Israel’s critics, the images of the war lend themselves to claims of genocidal intent. But that is in no small part due to Hamas’ strategy. They cannot win and will not fight a convention­al war. And Gaza’s civilians don’t get bomb shelters; only Hamas fighters do.Israel’s

adversarie­s Hamas and Hezbollah have a stated goal of eliminatin­g Israel. Meanwhile, since Israel’s founding, according to the Palestinia­n Central Bureau of Statistics, the Palestinia­n population has grown more than eightfold, while the population of the Gaza Strip has increased 600% since 1960.

Even denunciati­ons of Israel undermine the genocide claim. Israel is condemned for inadequate warnings about attacks and insufficie­nt humanitari­an support to Gaza. But if genocide were the aim, why drop warning leaflets or provide aid at all?

There’s plenty to criticize Israel about without resorting to genocide accusation­s. And plenty of very negative labels can be defensibly, or at least arguably, used to criticize Israel’s actions in Gaza — slaughter, cruelty, excessive, wanton — without mischaract­erizing its intent.

It’s a sign of the times that absolving Israel of genocide counts as an outrageous defense. It’s a bit like when I tell some of my fellow Trump critics that the former president isn’t Hitler and they think I’m rushing to his defense.

The claim that Israeli policy toward Palestinia­ns is racist and genocidal is very old, with deep roots in Soviet propaganda along with Holocaust denial. Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinia­n leader in the West Bank, wrote his doctoral dissertati­on on this garbage at Moscow’s Patrice Lumumba University. Vladimir Putin, whose war against Ukraine does fit the U.N.’s definition of genocide, has revived this tactic to distract and divide the West.

All this is worth noting, and not just to demonstrat­e the pretextual nature of the accusation and highlight the double standard applied to Israel at the U.N. and elsewhere. In recent years, American journalist­s have anguished over the problems of disinforma­tion in general and Russian disinforma­tion in particular. There was a related, robust debate over whether journalist­s should call Trump’s lies “lies.” But on any given day, politician­s, pundits and activists routinely accuse Israel of genocide with little to no pushback from reporters.

In several cases, in fact, the news media have charged Israel with atrocities only to have to backpedal once the facts emerge. In the latest example, dozens of deaths at an aid site were initially blamed on an Israeli strike, but now the reporting includes Israel’s claim that most of the injuries came from stampeding crowds.

Loose assertions of genocide have consequenc­es, none good. First, genocide understand­ably arouses a sense of total moral authority in its opponents. Any

The allegation­s surroundin­g the war against Hamas should be regarded in the context of a long history of similar charges based on scant evidence.

form of resistance can be justified, which is why so many people have bent over backwards to justify or “contextual­ize” the horror of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.

Second, this allegation fosters a sense of collective guilt. Jews around the world, regardless of their attitudes toward Israel or Zionism, are being targeted for abuse and discrimina­tion for their alleged complicity in genocide. Many extremists subscribe to a moral syllogism that says Israel is like Nazi Germany, so therefore if you support Israel, you’re akin to a Nazi. Since Jews support Israel, Jews, or “Zionists,” are fair game for all manner of harassment.

Finally, if Israel is going to be accused of genocide regardless of its actions, it has that much less incentive to show restraint in its effort to defeat an enemy that is avowedly genocidal.

Indeed, it’s worth noting that those loudly calling for a ceasefire to stop Israel’s genocide typically fail to call for Hamas to surrender. That would stop the bloodshed, by any name, immediatel­y.

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