Collectively, humanity understands “genocide” to refer to a particular evil, the special intent to destroy a people based on race, nationality, ethnicity, or religion.
Created to describe the Nazi’s systematic extermination of 6,000,000 Jews, “genocide” has a high evidentiary threshold in law. It’s not merely a descriptor for war or humanitarian crises but presupposes an extreme level of barbarity.
Given these facts, it is disturbing to read opinion pieces in various publications, including the July 15 Mirror op-ed ‘In search of moral clarity (again)’,” that promote unsubstantiated Hamas claims, use ‘‘Palestinian genocide’ as accepted fact, and rely on alarmism, for example, by drawing a parallel between Israel’s 20-month defensive war and the Rwandan genocide, a minimally reported horror that saw 800,000 tortured, raped, and killed within four months.
The Gaza Health Ministry is part of the vast and successful propaganda machine that is integral to Hamas’ power. We should carefully evaluate pro-Hamas claims and make every effort to avoid oversized rhetoric like invoking the Rwandan genocide.
The mainstream media, having published some inexcusably flawed articles, also bear responsibility here. For example, a precipitous and reckless BBC news articles accused Israel of a late-2023 rocket attack on Gaza’s Al-Ahli Hospital. In fact, both U.S. and French intelligence identified a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket failure for the destruction and casualties. When outlets get it wrong, as they often do when competing for “clicks,” especially when relying on sources within Gaza, they do not correct or retract but merely “update” the existing article. The “updates” do not receive attention. Instead, the media often pass the corrections off as a “changing landscape” issue rather than a deficient reporting and sourcing issue.
We see the same incomplete reporting on Hamas’ Gaza Health Ministry death figures. The Associated Press has finally, but not sufficiently, massaged its boilerplate language to try more fully to explain the data.
The Henry Jackson Society published a report identifying multiple anomalies and caveats in the Gaza death data. At the time of the report, Palestinians and AP claimed 40,000 deaths from military operations in civilian areas. They did not identify which dead were terrorists, and they purposefully concealed that Hamas is using schools, hospitals and even U.N. buildings for military command and operations. Hamas has turned civilian infrastructure into legal military targets. In fact, the Jackson Society researchers could attribute more than half of the 40,000 to battlefield deaths, friendly fire incidents involving Islamic extremist munitions (like Al-Ahli Hospital), and deaths unrelated to the war.
It bears repeating that Israel has made unprecedented efforts to avoid killing civilians and been consistent in its war aims to recover the hostages and end Hamas control in Gaza. On the other hand, Hamas and its Palestinian supporters publicly proclaimed their intent to kill civilians and eradicate Jews from Israel, planned the October 7 attack on Israeli civilians for 17 years; and are still holding Israeli hostages. By definition alone, the genocidal entity is Hamas.
I was dismayed that the author of the op-ed suggested we should relitigate the 108- year-old Balfour Declaration as though Israel was some sort of gift to the indigenous Jewish people. The Balfour Declaration was a long-fought for starting point to return Jews to their ancestral homeland. For 3,000 years Jews have lived in what’s now Israel. To suggest it started with Lord Balfour is an argument that fundamentally denies Jewish self-determination. After all, the Balfour Declaration is rooted in World War I and the fall of the Ottoman empire. Borders changed, territory was apportioned to the Arabs, Jews, and many other groups. Yet, I’ve never heard the charge of colonialism levied at anyone except the Jews. Funny about that.
Finally, while I’d like to believe in the best of humanity, according to the latest Palestine Center poll, the “overwhelming majority” of Palestinians don’t want Hamas to disarm. Despite Hamas’ own video evidence, 90% don’t believe Hamas men raped, brutalized, and killed civilians on October 7; most believe the anti-Hamas uprisings in Gaza are contrived; and half don’t support the protests against Hamas’ brutality.
Over the past 100+ years, the Palestinians have insisted on maintaining perpetual refugee status, working toward elimination of Israel, instead of permanently settling in their own sovereign state. The world has logged tens of thousands of diplomatic hours and billions of dollars working towards a two-state solution, which the Palestinians have consistently rejected.
In return, Palestinians and their leaders have given the world only violence, terrorism, and 75+ years of intransigence. It’s something to think about when people tell you they “stand in solidarity with Palestinians.”
Elaine Braffman lives in Woodbridge.
