Good News, Bad News
The good news is that a recent poll shows that half of US adults think that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. The bad news is that 50% think they are not. It is a highly partisan split: “Democrats (77 – 11 percent) and independents (51 – 34 percent) think Israel is committing genocide, while Republicans (64 – 20 percent) do not think Israel is committing genocide”. These numbers are the worst for Israel in the history of such polls. This essay is for the 50% who think Israel is not committing a genocide. It is vital that US opinion come down convincingly on the side of Israeli crimes against humanity because only the United States can stop this.
A Clear Case
In the ongoing slaughter of the people of Gaza it has become apparent that the best friend genocide has is ignorance. Therefore, we need to establish the foundation for those who have shamefully failed to keep up with the moral failing of the 21st. century.
The formal declaration of genocide as put down in the 1948 UN Genocide Convention:
any of the following acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group:
- 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
- Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
- Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group
One of the keys to proving genocide is the issue of intent. As this article points out intent is not hard to prove. There are over 500 statements early on that support the clear intent of Israel to destroy the people of Gaza and either force them from their land or kill them. Here is an updated registry of over 1000 statements of genocidal intent made by officials of the Israeli government. Lest you think that I am relying too much of sources antagonistic to Israel, here is an Israeli source documenting genocidal intent.
Then there is Donald Trump’s sick idea of making Gaza into a Middle East version of his Mar-a-Lago property. Clearly the only way this can happen is to clear out the indigenous population first. To Trump and the Israelis, this is a feature not a bug. This intent is visible in plain sight. If you can read and listen, you will see clear Israeli intent to commit these acts upon the people of Gaza.
That this is a slaughter of epic proportion cannot be denied, even if some will, as I will detail in a bit. According to Al Jazeera as of September 9th., there have been 64,605 confirmed dead, and 163,906 wounded. Nature magazine makes the total even higher, as of June they say it is upwards of 80,000 fatalities. If you desire something more mainstream, Reuters has the total at over 60K at the end of July.
The overwhelming majority of deaths are civilians. At the end of August, it was reported that 83% of fatalities were noncombatants. Propaganda you say. That statistic comes from the Israeli military. The same Reuters article cited above indicates that at least 30% of the dead are under 18 years old. Then there is the issue of the undercounting of the dead because of all the bodies buried under the rubble. It is estimated that this could increase the death toll by 40%.
Where these killings have taken place is also instructive to how wantonly cruel this all is. All along Israel has directed Gazans to “safe zones’ only to attack them there. This continues to the present.
All of this on top of the Israeli systematic destruction of the infrastructure necessary to sustain a population. The medical system, the transportation network, the utilities, educational institutions, even cultural sites have all been shattered. They are intentionally making Gaza uninhabitable.
Then there is starvation. Israel has imposed a blockade of incredible cruelty since almost the beginning. This Amnesty International report details this horror. On top of that the Israeli government reduced the number of food hubs from 400 to 4. All situated close to the border, to more easily push them out of Gaza altogether. This has, as intended, resulted in famine. As if this is not bad enough, the Israelis have taken to shooting people as they desperately seek food at these “aid” stations. They have even hired a US government cutout, the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, to run these sites. A recent report has uncovered that the GHF has hired an anti-Islamic biker gang to provide “security” at what are not aid stations but killing fields. The Israeli Defense Force is the moral heir to the SS.
This brings us to the need to place all this destruction in context. Prior to the Hamas attack on October 7th. the population of Gaza was estimated at about 2.2 million souls. I will use what I think is a conservative figure of 100K deaths. This represents a fatality rate of 4.5%. In the US context of 340 million living in the US today, this would amount to almost 15.5 million deaths. That is a Holocaust by any sane definition of the term.
New Denial, Same as the Old Denial
So, in the face of this unbearable destruction of human life, what do Israel’s supporters say? That is, when they have the moral courage to say anything at all. The responses fall into two broad types: denial, and excuse. The latter is the more prevalent trope as it is all too obvious that there is mass killing going on.
The main form of denial is to challenge the death totals. They usually, and for a time had the mainstream press mentioning that the health service in Gaza is run by Hamas. They claim that the numbers are inflated and made up. A balanced piece from the French publication Le Monde from October 2024 weighs some of the difficulties but concludes the numbers are valid. You can read the whole piece here. Most of these types of claims were made in the first year of the genocide. Since then, the pro-Israel set has quietly backed off these claims. One reason for this is the fact that prior to October 7, 2023, everyone accepted the Hamas run health ministry as a sound source of information. The hypocrisy became a bit too much even for the mainstream US media.
As late as April of this year Israel was still claiming that the death count was inflated, but this is taken as a very unserious claim by most. This piece by the BBC does contain an Israeli claim along these lines but is mostly deflected by the other sources in the article. Nobody really denies the death toll anymore, and most understand that the total is likely far higher because of the uncounted dead buried in the rubble.
There is also a denial claim that there is starvation occurring in Gaza. These are outright lies promulgated by Israel. They often claim that enough food is getting into Gaza. This came to light in the aftermath of the awful murder of Charlie Kirk. About a month ago he interviewed a Rabbi about the claim that the starvation was a myth. This Rabbi is typical of the Israeli response, all the way to Prime Minister Netanyahu himself. The claim made here is that 500 trucks is enough to feed all of Gaza for a week. The UN estimates that it takes 600 trucks daily to keep Gaza fed. Significantly less than that is coming in today via the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation referenced above. Then there is the claim made in this same video that many of those dying have underlying health issues. Apparently, these propagandists think very little of the intelligence of their audience. It does not take a MD to figure out that people with underlying health issues are the first to die of malnourishment. Anne Frank technically died of typhus. Does that mean the Nazis were not responsible for her death? The level of moral depravity here is astounding. There is zero factual doubt that Gaza is experiencing a famine perpetrated by the Israeli military.
Let’s turn to the excuse factory that is the Israel Lobby. First, they claim that all deaths are the fault of Hamas, because of the October 7th attack. This lacks moral cohesion. Hamas is a resistance group fighting an unlawful occupation of their land by Israel. That means this conflict did not start October 7, 2023, but rather May 14,1948, when Israel was illegally founded. This does not mean that Hamas has carte blanche to do whatever it wants. It intentionally targeted noncombatants which is always a crime. It does mean that the greater moral opprobrium must fall on Israel as aggressor and occupier.
One interesting thing the pro-genocide group claims is that first, October 7th. was a massive moral atrocity. Then they claim that of the 60K Palestinians they admit having killed, 20K are militants. That is a ratio of 2 civilians for every militant, which they deem acceptable. Interestingly, on October 7th. 1200 were killed, 400 of whom were military and security personnel. Guess what civilian to military kill ratio that is? Right, 2 to 1. This is not to justify Hamas, or such a vile kill ratio, but to point to the hypocrisy of Israel and its supporters who so casually denigrate Palestinian lives.
Anyway, none of this can justify such a disproportionate response as we have seen Israel deliver. Especially by making Gaza unlivable. Just war is a heathen standard as I have argued previously. Yet, by any measure of just war there is a need for proportionality. Israel has far exceeded even this lamentable measure. Killing 100K+ innocents in response to an attack that killed 1200 is off the charts bloodthirsty. Even heathens must reject this lame ass excuse. Then there is the human shield excuse. This claims that it is Hamas’ fault for placing itself within and amongst the civilian population. That Hamas may do this to some extent is likely. That, however, does not justify the leveling of all Gaza by Israel. There is proportionality rearing its ugly head again. Also, there is the fact that over the decades Israel herded these people into one of the most densely packed enclaves on the planet. Where exactly is anyone supposed to go in such a small area.
This excuse is further eroded by the fact that Israel does not have the right under international law to attack Gaza in this way. State to state defense is covered in the UN’s Article 51. This does not apply here because Gaza is illegally occupied territory. Israel has the absolute obligation under international law to protect civilians under its occupying control. Pop! There goes another excuse. One after another these insipid excuses fall by the wayside. What remains is an aggressive expansionist power, hellbent on conquering all this land and expelling its residents. This has been the long game for Israel from the beginning. If you don’t believe me, then believe the Israeli historian Simha Flapan and his The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities.
The reason these people deny, disparage and excuse this genocide is the same reason why the deniers of the Nazi holocaust deny that monstrous event, hatred of people they consider less than fully human. The have reduced them to a subhuman status and treat them as other. All for the sake of stealing their land. I wrote about this phenomenon specifically recently. In fact, the form of argument is the same in both cases of denial. Deny the events, claim exaggeration, then offer excuses. So, we should expect the same level of moral depravity from Gazan genocide deniers as we would from Nazi Holocaust deniers.
It is incumbent upon any thinking people to stay apprised of such important events, particularly those that are aided and abetted by their own government. Raising the all too low number of 50% understanding that Israel is committing genocide requires acknowledgement of the plain facts. Have enough faith in God to use the reason He gave you.
Praise Be to God
