Did you know Israel is currently committing genocide against the Palestinian people? If this news is shocking to you, you're in good company, because it's actually not true. While there is no shortage of gullible people who will tell you otherwise, there is no reasonable criteria by which the current war in Palestine can be considered a genocide. At least, ironically, not in the direction it is claimed.
The main problem we have in the Western world is that we are over-blessed. We are over-sheltered, fully protected from the tragic realities of war, while also being ironically under-educated, being highly susceptible to propaganda efforts, especially by a media that is almost entirely unaccountable.
To illustrate this point, consider an article I wrote many years ago. In the article, I showed this image:
As you can see, in the article, my dog looks quite vicious. It doesn't help that she was a Staffordshire bull terrier, a dog that already has a nasty reputation, mainly thanks to the same propaganda that lead to perhaps one of the most ridiculous pieces of legislation my country has ever passed. Namely, the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991.
In the image, the dog genuinely looks aggressive. In reality, however, the photo was taken mid-bark, which she was directly commanded to do so I would throw her ball for her to fetch. She looks aggressive in the photo, but in reality, she was being fully obedient to me, and following my instructions in order to continue the game.
Just as the photo can be used to turn my sweet puppy into a violent, kid-killing machine, so also can current (or even past) events be used to make one thing look like another. Specifically, in this case, it can make the war against a genocidal terror group look like an attempted genocide by an authoritarian state.
Because we are so shielded from the realities of war, all HAMAS (the aggressor in this war) needs to do to make us believe there is a genocide taking place is to point out that civilians are dying as a direct result of Israel's actions. We are often told how many Palestinians are dying (with an emphasis on children, for extra emotional impact), but this alone is insufficient for the charge of genocide.
There are two essential elements in any crime: The Actus Reus ("guilty act") and the Mens Rea ("guilty mind"). If either one of these is altered, so is the crime - if indeed a crime is committed. This is why, for example, there are different types of homicide in UK law.
Unlike national law, genocide is an international crime, which means various countries may have different definitions. However, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which has been signed by 152 countries (including Israel) gives the following definition:
"In the present Convention, 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:
(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;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group." (1).
This definition lays out both the actus reus and mens rea of the crime of genocide. With it, we can determine whether or not Israel is guilty of the crime according to widely adopted international standards. Let's run through each criteria and see if there is any reasonable sense by which Israel may be charged with such a serious crime.
(a) Killing members of the group;
As I have previously alluded to, this is one of the ways in which Israel can be made to appear genocidal. Citing the large number of civilian casualties in this war, HAMAS and their supporters claim Israel must necessarily be guilty of genocide. However, merely killing civilians is not sufficient. That is the actus reus of the crime, but not the mens rea. Both elements must be fulfilled in order to accuse Israel of genocide.
It is beyond dispute that Israel is killing civilians. It is necessary to remember, however, that civilian casualties are a tragic reality of war. To drive this point home, how many German civilians were killed in World War 2? This question is unanswerable, for a number of reasons. There are estimates, but it's hard to say. But do you even know the estimates? If you're a history buff, you might, but the chances are you don't know because you don't care. It was necessary to fight Hitler, the Nazis, and their allies, and most people recognise that. Thus, while we killed German civilians, it was not with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the German people.
The same thing is currently occurring in Palestine. While Palestinian civilians are dying as a result of Israel's acts of war, they are indeed acts of war, and not acts of genocide. Ironically, owing to the need to fight HAMAS, while simultaneously minimising civilian casualties, Israel has developed a tactic known as "roof knocking".
Contrary to the popular claim, Israel has always sought to minimise civilian casualties, both out of pragmatism, and a sense of moral duty. The problem Israel face, however, is that HAMAS are notorious for hiding among civilians. In particular, they hide their weapons in civilian homes, apartment buildings, schools, mosques, and even hospitals.
Realistically speaking, Israel do need the element of surprise when striking terrorists either committing an attack, or in the process of planning one. Otherwise, the strike will miss, the operation will fail, and HAMAS get away with their crimes. However, for strategic military targets, such as locations used to store weapons, set up command posts, or provide cover to dig tunnels, Israel has a little leeway, being able to delay, or even call off an attack, in order to minimise civilian casualties.
To that end, Shin Bet, the internal security arm of the Israeli government, gathered as many phone numbers as it could. These belonged to Gazan home owners, office buildings, and hospitals. Prior to an attack on a target, the IDF would contact the occupants with a warning. In Arabic, the caller would say "How are you? Is everything okay? This is the Israeli military. We need to bomb your home and we are making every effort to minimize casualties. Please make sure that no one is nearby since in five minutes we will attack." (2).
40 strikes were carried out using this method. However, as was almost inevitable, they eventually encountered resistance. A family refused to leave, instead climbing to the top of their roof in full sight of the drone. The strike was called off.
This, of course, is problematic. If the IDF refused to strike a target because the civilians refused to leave, then HAMAS' strategy of hiding themselves among civilians works. But the IDF refined their tactics. Another Palestinian refused to leave his home, but he just happened to live next to an empty field. Thus, an IDF helicopter fired a few shots into the field. As was hoped, the occupant fled.
This strategy was developed further to account for the unfortunate reality that not every target would have an empty field to fire into. Instead, Israel modified some small missiles which, aside from being accurate, can be loaded with lesser explosives, as well as, in some cases, detonated mid-air. These would then be fired at the roof (hence the name "roof knocking"), which usually results in the occupants getting the message.
Even this practice, which unfortunately can go wrong, draws criticism. It is alleged that it amounts to an attack on civilians. This ridiculous notion can be immediately dismissed by the simple fact that, aside from not being aimed at civilians, roof knocking is designed to minimise, rather than increase civilian casualties.
With such painstaking efforts being made to minimise civilian casualties, up to and including the invention of brand new strategies to that end, it goes without saying that Israel's intentions are the opposite of genocidal. The aim of genocide is to increase the death and destruction of the victim group, not to prevent such things. One could hardly imagine the Nazis calling off a bombing if it was likely some Jews would be killed.
Roof knocking, as well as several other methods used by the IDF, do minimise civilian casualties, but it's an unfortunate fact of life that in war, civilians die. This is naturally going to become more of a problem as warfare develops. In the beginning of the 19th century, wars typically only had a 5% civilian casualty rate, increasing to 15% during WW1, 65% during WW2, up to a whopping 90%, in some cases, by the 1990s (3).
Estimating the death toll of the current war in Gaza is difficult, both because the war is still ongoing (and thus any report will become outdated fairly quickly), and because of incomplete or inaccurate reporting. Nevertheless, as far as I'm aware, there is general agreement on both sides that the death rate is 2 Gazan civilians killed for every 1 HAMAS fighter. This is less than ideal, and comes to a civilian casualty rate of just under 67%.
When we compare this to other modern wars, this is fairly standard. As shown in the chart below, few wars have a less than 50% casualty rate. The average rate of just these wars is 46%.
It is to be noted, again, that using civilians as human shields is a part of HAMAS' core strategy, and they aren't even shy about it. It is of course beneficial to HAMAS to increase the civilian death rate in order to accuse Israel. However, as Israel are not targeting civilians, and in fact are actively inventing ways to minimise civilian casualties, it is beyond ridiculous to suggest they are even considering genocide, much less actively committing it.
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
This criteria ties in to the above. Obviously, bombings that kill civilians are likely to seriously injure others, and no doubt such things will cause long-lasting mental trauma. Thus, once again, Israel can be accused of doing this. However, just as above, intent matters. By actively taking measures to minimise civilian casualties, Israel has proven beyond all reasonable doubt that they are, in fact, not injuring anyone with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a protected group. Thus, under this criteria, they cannot be reasonably accused of genocide.
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
This criteria is slightly odd, as it includes the mens rea within itself. But without further criticising the UN for this oddity, there are no reasonable arguments that can be made to accuse Israel on the basis of this criteria, as they are not calculating anything to destroy, in whole or in part, any protected group.
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
This is another example of a criteria that is simply not happening. In fact, Gaza's population growth rate currently sits at around 2.88% since 2023 (4). Now, as the Jews are more accustomed to being on the receiving end of genocide, I'm willing to assume they would be quite bad at it if they ever attempted it themselves. However, as Gaza's population is growing at such an incredible rate, and I've yet to even hear the suggestion that Israel is actively trying to prevent births within any protected group, I see no way to accuse them of genocide on this basis.
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
To keep it brief, I have neither seen, nor heard of any accusations of this kind against Israel.
Is Israel committing genocide?
With all of the above in mind, it is literally impossible to reasonably accuse Israel of committing genocide. In some cases, the actus reus is present. As in all wars, civilians are dying as a result of Israel's military actions. However, the mens rea is completely absent. Israel is acting entirely in its own national interests. HAMAS, the true enemy here, are unfortunately known for hiding among civilians, which greatly increases the risk of civilians being killed or injured. However, this is collateral damage, not an active attempt by Israel to wipe out any people group. In fact, the greatest irony is that Palestinians are not a group at all. That's not to say Palestinians do not exist - it is entirely legitimate to identify as a Palestinian. However, there never was a state of Palestine, and the idea of Palestinians being a distinct people group is relatively recent. It wasn't until the turn of the 20th century that Arabs within Palestine would begin calling themselves Palestinians. (5). In effect, this is akin to identifying as a New Yorker. New Yorkers are not an ethnic group, and may in fact be from any number of ethnic groups. In the same way, a Palestinian may trace their roots to a variety of sources.
HAMAS: The true perpetrators of genocide
I will stand by what I said in the beginning of this article: There is no shortage of gullible people who will repeat the claim that Israel is committing genocide. In reality, the attempted genocide goes the other way. It is failing mainly due to the weakness of HAMAS, the strength of Israel, and the grace of God. But it is undeniable that HAMAS is a genocidal organisation. When we read their charter (6), we see this very clearly.
The charter begins with a preamble, which includes the words "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it." This follows a quote from the Qur'an, specifically Al-Imran, the third chapter. This is vitally important, because it reveals the explicitly Islamic motivations of HAMAS.
To many people, this fact is intolerable, and pointing it out is inexcusable, but as a culture, we need to get away from this idea that Islam is a religion of peace. The fact is, Muhammad, if he even existed, was a very hateful man, who lead a very violent life. Thus, the Islamic sources record his many atrocities, which Muslims like HAMAS continue to emulate to this very day.
While Muhammad initially sought friendship with the Jews, even affirming the Bible, he eventually came to hate them. Thus, the Islamic sources are filled with anti-Semitism. Muhammad hated the Jews so much, he constantly fought them, committing a number of war crimes against them, and even ascribed them an adversarial role in his eschatology. To that end, the HAMAS charter reads "...the Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to the realisation of Allah's promise, no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said: "The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem)." (7).
The simple fact is HAMAS, if it was able to do so, would commit every genocidal action discussed today, with full intent to destroy the Jews, in part (i.e. the state of Israel), or as a whole. Now let us return to the Genocide Convention, and read article 3:
"The following acts shall be punishable:
(a) Genocide;
(b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;
(c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
(d) Attempt to commit genocide;
(e) Complicity in genocide."
HAMAS is guilty of B through E, and only fails A due to its lack of strength. Yet there is no outcry against HAMAS. Why? For a number of reasons. There are some people who are gullible enough to believe Israel are the aggressors, so of course they won't cry out against HAMAS. Other people are hypocrites, being fully aware of what HAMAS is doing, but hating Israel enough to let HAMAS off the hook. There are, of course, those who are quite happy for HAMAS to commit genocide, so of course they're going to try to make Israel out to be the bad guys.
But what can we expect? When the devil holds the pen, God Himself becomes the villain. Is it any wonder, then, that His people have always been the target of his ire? When we study His word, it's clear that even now, 2,000 years later, He is not finished with the Jews. And while Muhammad's version of eschatology is laughably incorrect, they do have a part to play.
But for now, all you need to concern yourself with is the part they have already played. That part being the manifestation of the Messiah Himself. In due time, God chose a Jewish woman to bear His Son, the perfect Jew, who would take away the sins of the world. In Israel, just outside the Holy City of Jerusalem, Jesus died on a cross for our sins. But He didn't stay dead. By power of God, He rose again, so that we, likewise, can be raised to eternal life. Not by dying in some foolish Jihad, but by "dying to sin". We must repent, and confess Jesus as the risen Lord. In so doing, we will receive an eternal inheritance in a Kingdom greater than anything this Earth has ever known, with the Jewish God as our King. This offer is open to all, Jew or Gentile. Even HAMAS, should they lay down their arms and repent, will be saved. If not? It won't be roof knocking they have to fear.
References
1. UN, Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article 2, December 9th 1948 (link)
2. Katz, Yaakov - How the IDF invented 'Roof Knocking', the tactic that saves lives in Gaza, Jerusalem Post, March 25th 2021 (link)
3. Khorram-Manesh, Amir et al. - Estimating the Number of Civilian Casualties in Modern Armed Conflicts-A Systematic Review, Frontiers in public health vol. 9 765261, 28 Oct. 2021 (link).
4. World Population Review - Gaza Population 2024 (link)
5. Jones, A. Hugh Martin , Kenyon, . Kathleen Mary , Bickerton, . Ian J. , Albright, . William Foxwell , Fraser, . Peter Marshall , Brice, . William Charles , Faris, . Nabih Amin , Khalidi, . Walid Ahmed , Bugh, . Glenn Richard and Khalidi, . Rashid Ismail. "Palestine." Encyclopedia Britannica, January 22, 2024 (link)
6. Hamas Covenant 1988 The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement 18 August 1988 (link)
7. Sahih Muslim 2922, Book 54, Hadith 103 (link)