The Israel-Hamas war has become one of the most polarizing topics in America, and as is usual with controversial issues, the quality of discourse has correspondingly degraded. Words are used loosely and with the intent of provoking outrage rather than making factual statements. There are many examples, such as the incorrect equating of anti-Zionism with antisemitism; the replacement of concrete policy objectives with slogans like “Free Palestine,” “Globalize the Intifade,” and “From the River to the Sea”; and, most prominently, the fixation on characterizing Israel’s actions as genocide.
There is growing consensus among commentators who are otherwise level-headed and evidence-driven that the war in Gaza does constitute genocide, but the way the word is being used reflects a lowering of evidentiary standards and a form of ideological purity test that is damaging to the movement for a peaceful end to the conflict.
I will begin by addressing my concerns about the low evidentiary standards used when characterizing the IDF’s actions as genocide. The UN defines genocide as follows:
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:
- 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 in whole or in part;
- Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
- Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Since the first day of the conflict, the IDF has been committing several of these acts against the nation of Palestine, so that part of the definition is clearly met. What remains up for debate, however, is the part about “intent to destroy.” Intent is one of the most difficult things to prove in law because it’s something that exists in the mind, rather than a fact easily proved by observation or statistics. Genocidal intent is especially difficult to prove because there is a differentiation between dolus specialis, ‘special intent,’ and dolus generalis, ‘general intent.’ In this context, dolus generalis refers to the intent of committing a specific action in a military conflict (e.g. deliberately striking hospitals, as opposed to a rocket missing its target and hitting one), whereas dolus specialis is the intent of actually aiming to destroy a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group in whole or in part through that action. Dolus generalis is easily proved for most of the acts being characterized as genocide – the IDF has itself admitted to bombing civilian infrastructure in Gaza. However, evidence for dolus specialis is much harder to find, and the UN Human Rights Council’s (UNHRC) case claiming to prove it does not meet these high evidentiary standards.
The UNHRC’s investigation was led by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, chaired by a three-member panel of experts on human rights. The Commission concluded that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, and their results have since become part of the basis for many people’s use of the word. Despite the UNHRC’s prestige and credibility, some of the evidence they have used is deeply insufficient to prove genocidal intent. They have relied heavily on statements made by Israeli leaders, poorly linked to intent to destroy all or part of the Palestinian nation. For example, this is one of the quotes cited as evidence of genocidal intent.
At a press conference held in the early afternoon of 7 October 2023, Prime Minister Netanyahu vowed to inflict “mighty vengeance” on “all of the places which Hamas is deployed, hiding and operating in, that wicked city, we will turn them into rubble. I say to residents of Gaza: leave now because we will operate forcefully everywhere.” Although Netanyahu’s statement carefully directed the call for vengeance at ‘Hamas locations’, his use of the phrase ‘wicked city’ in the same statement implied that he saw the whole city of Gaza as responsible and a target for vengeance. He told Palestinians in Gaza to ‘leave now because we will operate forcefully everywhere’, making no distinction between combatants and civilians and knowing that Palestinians in Gaza had nowhere to go.
The use of the phrase ‘wicked city’ is far from evidence of genocidal intent. It is equally probable that it is hyperbole catering to a population enraged by the killing of over a thousand people by a terror attack on the same day. This is not an explicit call to specifically target and kill Palestinian civilians – while it does prove significant animosity towards Palestine, it stops at that. By this standard, Donald Trump could also be accused of harboring genocidal intent towards Iran, since he has made equally violent statements such as these:
A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. (Quoted from NYT)
We are going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks, we’re going to bring them back to the stone ages, where they belong. (Quoted from Al Jazeera)
I could go on producing hyperbolic, violent statements made by Trump, or other war-time leaders in world history. The point stands that military conflicts bring out the worst in people, and political leaders often grow more violent and extreme in their speech as a result. Netanyahu’s remarks, like those of Trump, are violent and reprehensible, likely responsible for encouraging military excesses, but don’t prove they truly wanted a whole civilization to die. By the UNHRC commission’s evidentiary standards, any kind of violent wartime hyperbole could be used as evidence for genocide.
Two of the most famous cases of genocide, with the strongest evidence, are the Holocaust and the Rwandan Genocide. Quotes from prominent leaders were also used in these cases to prove genocidal intent, but the evidentiary standards were much higher. Leading radio station RTLM in Rwanda called to “cut down the tall trees,” a euphemism for killing Tutsis, and “exterminate the cockroaches,” speech much more directly linked to systematic extermination of an ethnic group’s civilian population, a link strengthened by the fact that many of the genocide’s perpetrators were following the guidance of these broadcasts and receiving guidance from RTLM on where civilians were hiding and how to kill them. Similarly, the words of German leaders during the Holocaust left no doubt about genocidal intent: Hitler said in a 1942 speech that “the result of this war will be the complete annihilation of the Jews,” Hans Frank (governor of occupied Poland) said in 1941 “one way or another – I will tell you quite openly – we must finish off the Jews,” and the list of damning evidence is seemingly endless. This kind of speech was also easily distinguished from mere hyperbole by the fact that people acted on these orders, rounding up the entire civilian Jewish population across Nazi Germany and doing precisely what Hitler was calling for. There was an abundance of evidence linking Hitler’s words to the Nazis’ actions, proving genocidal intent through the combination.
As much as I abhor what the IDF is doing in Gaza, I don’t think Netanyahu’s speech is strong evidence of genocidal intent, when compared to the evidentiary standards used in the past. And while the Commission wasn’t relying on this quote alone, I invite the reader to read the relevant section of the report and judge for themselves whether all the cited quotes, taken together, are anywhere near as direct a link to genocidal intent as the rhetoric of the Holocaust and Rwandan Genocide were. I thought not, but unfortunately this would be closer to a whitepaper than a blog post if I considered each quote one-by-one, so I will leave that task to the more energetic readers.
The Commission’s report also extensively cites damage to hospitals, schools, and other civilian infrastructure as evidence of genocidal intent. Their logic rests on the assumption that
Mens rea can also be established through indirect evidence based on the “objective probability of these conditions leading to the physical destruction of the group in part.”
By this standard, the Allied forces’ carpet bombing in World War 2, the Soviet-Afghan War, and other conflicts could as easily be used to establish mens rea for genocidal intent. Military forces often show callous disregard for civilian life and target civilian infrastructure to decrease morale, and this occurs even in cases that historically haven’t been considered genocide, as with the cases mentioned. Granted, the Commission isn’t considering the acts alone but also the speech and political climate motivating them; however, the Commission fails to show that the bombing of civilian infrastructure is directly motivated by the kind of ‘annihilation rhetoric’ being pushed by specific sectors of Israeli society, rather than the unfortunately frequent tendency of generals to target civilian infrastructure to hasten the end of a war. As such, the destruction of civilian infrastructure can’t be used as conclusive evidence of genocidal intent in this case, and it is as easily attributable to callousness and/or targeting civilians to accelerate the capitulation of Hamas (one of the stated goals of the IDF’s campaign). By no means are Allied actions in World War 2 or the Soviet-Afghan War shining examples that the IDF should seek to replicate – extensive war crimes were committed, and the targeting of civilians was wrong. I’m not trying to condone their actions by saying “look others have done it!” but rather point out that it’s possible they are doing it as a horrific strategy of ‘total war’ meant to hasten the end of the conflict, rather than genocidal intent of truly destroying the entire nation of Palestine.
The Commission also claims that children were directly targeted by the IDF, citing the fact that out of the 60,199 Palestinians killed (as of 31 July 2025), 18,430 were children. While this is a horrifying statistic, it seems much less like direct targeting when one considers that 47.3% of the population in Gaza is under 18 (in comparison, the UN found 30% of casualties were children), according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health’s own numbers. In this context of warfare in densely-populated urban areas, Hamas staging attacks out of colleges, hospitals, and children’s playgrounds (i.e. Israel can’t attack Hamas without attacking some civilian infrastructure, even if the current campaign is excessive and paying little regard for precision and protection of civilian life), and a large population of children, the high number of children being killed is weak evidence for proving direct targeting. Hamas’ crimes by no means justify the IDF’s own crimes, but it does provide another explanation for why the IDF is attacking so much civilian infrastructure and killing so many children, as opposed to the UNHRC blaming it on genocidal intent. The IDF is guilty of callousness, a lack of respect for civilian life, and insufficient measures to protect civilians, and the Israeli political establishment is guilty of making violent, provocative statements that have likely worsened IDF callousness and incited some soldiers to deliberately target civilians. However, the claim that the Israeli state is directly targeting children does not have enough evidence.
I want to particularly emphasize the historical precedent for scorched-earth tactics and atrocities against civilians often being unlinked to genocidal intent. The British destroyed farmland in their counter-insurgency operations in the Malaysian Emergency (1948-50) and in the Second Boer War, with the intent of denying food to the militant forces, but their actions had an equally devastating impact on the civilian population, many of whom died of starvation. The Allied forces in World War 2 bombed civilian infrastructure and deliberately targeted civilians to try hastening the capitulation of Japan and Germany. When fighting the mujahideen, Soviet forces in Afghanistan committed many massacres against civilians, used bombs that children often mistook for toys, and bombed crops and irrigation systems. None of this excuses the IDF’s actions, but it does show that all of this has been done before without genocidal intent. Counter-insurgency operations lead to demoralized, weary troops who often vent their frustration on the civilian population, a problem exacerbated in this case by Israeli propaganda and the atrocities of Hamas that have caused so much Israeli animosity towards the Palestinian population as a whole. In addition to the issue of undisciplined troops, the deliberate targeting of civilians, on direct orders of military leadership, is often used as a tactic for hastening the capitulation of enemy forces through demoralization, denial of food or humanitarian relief to combatants, and reduction of civilian support for enemy forces. This behavior is wrong in the current conflict and has been wrong throughout history, but it shows that the IDF’s actions could be motivated by inhumane military strategy and not by genocidal intent – there is plenty of historical precedent for this, and the UNHRC has not adequately shown that this alternative explanation is less plausible than their own.
The Commission’s argument doesn’t rely on individual pieces of evidence – it sees the combination of all these facts as sufficient to conclude there is genocidal intent. However, the existence of a cohesive and plausible alternative explanation, even for all of this taken together, undermines the strength of their inference. I’m not contesting that war crimes and atrocities against civilians have been committed, but rather that the sole explanation is genocidal intent, rather than a combination of inhumane military calculations, collective punishment, a lack of accountability for war crimes as well as tacit encouragement, and disregard for civilian life.
The Commission’s full report is 72 pages long and can be found on the UN website. There are many other facts used as evidence of genocidal intent, but I don’t have the time to go through all of their evidence, so I will cut it short here. I will concede that some of the evidence is strong and suggests a high probability of genocidal intent, but much of it is also weak evidence that ignores the many other explanations for high civilian casualties and the historical precedent of targeting of civilians often being unlinked to genocidal intent. I think individuals should be able to opine, with a healthy degree of doubt, that there is genocidal intent with some evidence to back it up – however, there isn’t enough evidence for a court or prominent institution to definitively make that conclusion, and it was wrong for the UNHRC to publish a report that did so, heavily relying on reasoning I find unpersuasive and neglect of the many factors complicating the protection of civilians.
Many of my readers will likely disagree with my above assessment of the UNHRC report, and some will take that as a reason to assume we have polar opposite views on the Israel-Hamas war. This is a mistake – I, and others skeptical of the ‘genocide’ label, have much more in common with the people claiming there is a genocide taking place than those denying the committing of any war crimes at all. Given the specific definition of ‘genocide’ and the high evidentiary standards needed to prove ‘intent to destroy,’ I am unwilling to use that word, but I am outraged, as any sane observer is, at the lack of accountability for IDF soldiers’ war crimes, the Israeli government’s dehumanization of Palestinians, the insufficient effort invested in facilitating aid delivery and protecting civilians, the disregard for civilian life, and all the other horrible things the Israeli state is doing in Palestine. Despite acknowledging all of this, in today’s political climate, many other Israel-critics will ignore all of this overlap of goals and zero in on my discomfort with using the word ‘genocide.’
The critical discourse on the Israel-Palestine conflict has devolved into witch-hunting and ideological purity tests. A large number of Americans are not significantly enough invested in the issue to care what someone else believes in, but among the people critical of Israel’s military actions and closely following the conflict, there is a growing tendency to attack anyone who doesn’t use the same vocabulary and doesn’t believe in certain core markers of being anti-Israel enough. 77% of Democrats believe Israel is committing genocide, according to an August 2025 Quinnipiac University poll, and many of them are quite adamant that the other 23% must also believe Israel is committing genocide, or else they are pro-Israel, or pro-genocide, or just generally a bad person. I have seen many Israel-related conversations, with otherwise usually intelligent people, decay into ideological purity tests once doubt is expressed about the genocide claim or support is expressed for Zionism defined purely as ‘Israel’s right to exist.’ While I can’t find statistics on the frequency of such interactions, my personal experience and related statistics on political polarization (e.g. attitudes towards children marrying people supporting a different party) make me suspect this is a large but insufficiently reported issue.
The ideological purity test is generally a sign of bad-faith debating, a left-wing counterpart to the “owning the libs” mentality as opposed to genuine interest in finding common ground between people who really do agree on a lot of things. But it is especially damaging in the context of discourse on the Israel-Palestine conflict because the forces that reason and basic humanity face are so powerful, and this kind of ideological purity testing alienates a lot of people who are currently essential to promoting better discourse and pushing for an end to the violence in Gaza. Campus protests with slogans like “globalize the intifada” and “from the river to the sea” alienate many people who abhor the IDF’s actions in Gaza but believe that Israel should still exist, and the animosity towards genocide skeptics has the same effect.
That is why I urge that we don’t get bogged down in semantics. It should not matter so much what words we use to denounce the violence, be it ‘genocide’ or just ‘war crimes,’ as the fact that we agree that something terrible is happening and we should act to stop it 1. I believe in precision with the use of words, which is why I hesitate to call this a genocide, but I also believe that a shared goal of ending violence is more important than endless flame wars over what specific words we are using to pursue that goal. I will gladly work with someone who calls this a genocide but otherwise has views largely compatible with my own (read: does not believe in ‘from the river to the sea’ and/or condone Hamas) – I hope others will show a similar willingness to work with people sharing their support for human rights, regardless of minute disagreements. This is a time for unity among sane observers, not further infighting and purity testing.
While doing research for this post, I came across this great Politico article that makes almost the same point about the importance of not getting overly absorbed in fighting over the use of specific words. I recommend reading it.↩︎