People say Israel committed genocide.
“That makes me, a Jew in the Diaspora, uncomfortable.
“It may even make me unsafe.
“So please, stop saying that Israel committed genocide.
“Have some empathy for Jews in a time of anti-Semitism.”
Wrong move!
The charge of genocide against Israel should not matter to me primarily because it makes me “uncomfortable.” That’s a dodge.
And it won’t work.
To say that the genocide charge should be put aside due to discomfort or to anti-Semitism is a concession to the view that Israel actually is committing genocide.
That is a betrayal of the word, the reality, and the history.
But first, this “uncomfortable” strategy is tactically flawed. Put the shoe on the other foot. Say that Ukraine is accused of committing genocide. When it’s brought up, Ukrainian Americans feel uncomfortable. Would that justify a shutdown on the genocide charge against Ukraine? Of course not. The instinctive and moral response would be: Genocide is the worst crime! It must be stopped! If someone gets uncomfortable along the way, so what? That pales in comparison to a mass murder taking place, which must be stopped.
That is how someone who actually believes Israel is committing genocide would think. So what’s the answer? Not the “uncomfortable” and “empathy” tactic. Either own up to a genocide — or refute it.
That is the only workable response for Diaspora Jews in the current climate: refute the genocide charge against Israel.
How is that done? Come back to the betrayal of the word, the reality, and the history.
The word: “Genocide” is an intent to exterminate an entire group, and an effort to actualize the intent.
Israel has no such intent. It went to war in Gaza as a matter of self-defense. By definition, self-defense cannot constitute an intent to exterminate an entire group. When Israel declared war on Hamas after Oct. 7, it was not for revenge, not for retaliation, not tit-for-tat. It was for self-preservation. No country can survive if its citizens think that its enemies right next door (as close as Aurora is to Denver) retain the capacity to commit atrocities at will.
Hamas’ target on Oct. 7 was not southern Israel. It was all of Israel. It was only because Israel stopped Hamas that Hamas did not go further north into Israel. Hamas’ intent was to kill all Israelis.
As if that were not enough, Hamas’ intent was to be a vanguard, to spur Hezbollah and Iran to attack Israel massively and overwhelm it.
That was Hamas’ genocidal plan on Oct. 7. Say it out loud. Israel’s massive response against Hamas in Gaza was self-defense — not only to defeat Hamas but to forestall additional, massive iniquity by Hezbollah and Iran.
Israel’s war in Gaza was to kill Hamas operatives and to take out its weapons. Nothing more. No “genocide.” No war on Gazans. Israel had to act massively against Hamas because Hamas made it perfectly clear on Oct. 7 that it could and would act massively against Israel. Put it plain: Hamas’ murders, body-burnings, rapes and arsons on Oct. 7 showed what Hamas could do and would do.
No sane nation would just take it, or would respond “proportionately.” To respond “proportionately” would mean leaving Hamas in place. The body politic of Israel, or of any nation, could not function under that continuing threat.
For the sake of the truth, for the sake of Israel, and for the sake of the non-Orwellian use of language, this truth must be stated, not evaded or smoothed over by references to empathy or even to anti-Semitism. Israel has not engaged in any attempt to exterminate an entire group. To hide this critical fact behind a view that Jews should not confront politicians who make the genocide charge is not only wrong but ineffective.
The reality: The tremendous suffering in Gaza was spurred not by Israel, but by Hamas’ strategy, starting with Hamas’ attempt at genocide on Oct. 7, 2023 and continued by Hamas’ leader Yahya Sinwar’s statement and strategy that Palestinian deaths in Gaza are “necessary sacrifices.”
Unpack that.
Sinwar meant that Hamas would maximize its atrocities against Israel (murder, rape, body burning, kidnapping) so that Israel would have to respond against Hamas. The only place to do that is in Gaza. And since Hamas would fight from within Gazan homes, hospitals, mosques and UN facilities, the “necessary sacrifices” of Palestinian lives would be the result of Israel being unable to kill Hamas operatives without also killing civilians.
Those Palestinians civilians were Sinwar’s “necessary sacrifices.”
And useful sacrifices. In perfect cynicism, Sinwar meant: Let us sacrifice our own fellow Palestinians to give Israel a bad name around the world.
It is Israel’s job, and the job of the Diaspora’s defenders of Israel, to be up front in articulating Sinwar’s ultra-cynical strategy.
That, and not Israeli genocide, is why there has been so much suffering in Gaza.
Don’t hide that.
It’s the truth. To say the truth is the only strategy that ultimately has a chance of defeating the genocide charge against Israel. Smart people of good will can understand that the horrible suffering in Gaza was designed by Hamas to be done by Israel.
Jewish people should not believe that by coming onto other strategies — don’t make Jews uncomfortable, don’t stoke anti-Semitism — the genocide charge will go away or, at least, the anti-Semitism will decline.
Quite the contrary.
The critical fact is, anti-Semitism is stoked by letting the genocide lie go unrefuted.
That’s the main cause of anti-Semitism today: the view that Israeli Jews and by association all Jews are evil.
The history: The Holocaust was genocide, in intent and effect. Hamas’ intent is spelled out in its charter. And the effort is there: on Oct. 7, and in all Palestinian terrorist attacks that preceded it and came after it. Ditto for Iran and Hezbollah.
Former President Bill Clinton recently said it best: “I think part of it is that Hamas did not care about a homeland for the Palestinians; they wanted to kill Israelis and make Israel uninhabitable.”
© IJN 2026