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| A false but increasingly used narrative against Israel |
As noted by CNN, here are President Trump’s latest comments
about Israel’s war against Hamas:
Only a few weeks ago, President Donald Trump seemed confident that a deal was just days away—one that would end the fighting in Gaza, secure the release of hostages, and allow aid to flow into an enclave where people are starving.
Now, that optimism has evaporated. This week, Trump pulled back his negotiators from ceasefire talks after the U.S. deemed Hamas neither “coordinated” nor “acting in good faith.” Steve Witkoff, Trump’s Middle East envoy, said he was exploring “alternative options” for securing the hostages’ release.
“I think they want to die, and it’s very, very bad,” Trump said of Hamas before leaving for a weekend trip to Scotland. “It got to be to a point where you’re gonna have to finish the job.”
This is the opposite of what has become the so-called conventional wisdom about Israel these days. Which, to put it mildly, isn’t pretty. That narrative, based on unverified reports from deeply questionable sources - reinforced by carefully selected images of Palestinian suffering, has shifted global public opinion away from supporting Israel - toward sympathy for Hamas-controlled Gaza.
Whether those media distortions are intentional or not is
debatable. But regardless, the net effect has been to isolate Israel
diplomatically and morally. It takes courage for a leader to go against the
tide of public opinion. Say what you will about Donald Trump, but he has the
courage to speak his mind plainly and let the chips fall where they may. Often foolishly. But not this time.
So what about all the criticism being heaped on Israel? Can
it all be made up if everyone seems to believe it? Is Israel really guilty of
genocide?
That word – genocide - is increasingly being accepted
as a description of Israel’s actions in Gaza. One of the most prominent voices
using it is a Jew named Omer Bartov. But Bartov is no ordinary Jew. As Jonathan
Rosenblum recently noted in his weekly column:
Omer Bartov, an Israeli-born professor of Holocaust and genocide studies and the author of respected works on the German army in World War II, published a guest essay in the New York Times last week titled “I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It.”
Well, that should settle it, shouldn’t it?
Except that it doesn’t. Not at all, considering Bartov’s
clear bias, made evident months before the October 7th massacre:
In August 2023, he was one of over 1,500 U.S., Israeli, Jewish, and Palestinian academics who signed an open letter declaring that Israel operates "a regime of apartheid" and calling on U.S. Jewish organizations to denounce it.
Once you know where Bartov is coming from, his ‘expertise’ should hardly be considered impartial. And
that’s deeply ironic, given that genocide is his area of academic
specialization.
But OK. Let’s examine why what Israel is doing in Gaza is NOT
genocide.
First, there is a huge distinction between Israel’s actions
in Gaza and what the Nazis did under Hitler. Hamas brutally attacked Israel on
October 7th, murdering more than 1,200 Jews - including babies burned
alive, raping women, and taking 250 hostages. Israel has no choice but to
attempt to eliminate an enemy committed to repeating such atrocities as many
times as necessary to achieve their goal of destroying the “Zionist entity.”
Israel NEVER targets civilians. Every single civilian
casualty is the tragic result of military actions against Hamas targets
embedded within civilian areas. The destruction of structures like hospitals,
schools, and mosques is not proof of genocidal intent. It’s evidence of Hamas’s
war crimes. These civilian sites were used as weapons caches and command
centers.
The use of hospitals and UNRWA schools for military purposes has been extensively documented and filmed. Under international law, particularly the Geneva Conventions, the intentional placement of military infrastructure in civilian areas is a war crime. The responsibility lies with Hamas—not the IDF.
If anyone is guilty of genocide it is Hamas by sacrificing
civilians to make Israel look bad. They intentionally embed themselves among
women and children, refusing to distinguish between civilians and operatives in
their casualty reports. Which are, unsurprisingly, unreliable.
If Bartov wants to talk about genocide, he should start with
the Hamas Charter, which calls upon every Muslim to seek out and kill
Jews wherever they are.
How have Palestinians actually fared under Israeli rule? Consider
this:
From 1967 to 1993 - when Israel governed the West Bank - Palestinian life expectancy rose from 48 to 72, a 50% increase. Infant mortality dropped by 75%. Literacy rates soared, surpassing those of neighboring Arab states. A 50% increase in life expectancy is a very strange kind of genocide.
What about the UN? Surely they lend credibility to the
charge of genocide?
Hardly. The UN General Assembly passes more anti-Israel
resolutions annually than it does against all other nations combined.
And consider Francesca Albanese, the UN’s Special Rapporteur
on Palestine:
She harbors a fanatical hatred of Israel, refers to terrorists as “human rights defenders,” compares Hamas to Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto, supports BDS, and accuses the U.S. government of being controlled by the “Jewish Lobby.”
Critics—Bartov among them—mock Israel’s claim of being the most moral army in the world. But do they have a point? Let’s look at the views of actual experts in modern urban warfare.
- Col. Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan
- Major
John Spencer, Director of Urban Warfare Studies at West Point
- Andrew
Fox, lecturer at the UK’s Sandhurst Military Academy and veteran of
three Afghanistan tours
All three have been embedded with the IDF in combat. They agree: the IDF has taken unprecedented measures to avoid civilian casualties—even while dealing with an enemy hiding beneath 350–450 miles of tunnels built for over $1 billion.
Spencer has repeatedly noted that the IDF’s civilian-to-combatant death ratio in Gaza is lower than any army has ever achieved in urban warfare.
Compare Israel’s actions to the U.S. and its allies in Iraq under President Obama. According to the RAND Corporation, Mosul was “effectively destroyed.” The Associated Press reported over 9,600 deaths at the central morgue, while Iraq’s foreign minister estimated as many as 40,000. And Mosul had far fewer ISIS fighters than Gaza has Hamas combatants. There were no tunnels, yet American and Iraqi forces relied heavily on airpower with far less regard for civilian safety.
By those standards, if Israel is committing genocide, then
what happened in Mosul was genocide on steroids.
*Yes, I excerpted heavily from Jonathan Rosenblum’s article.
But with good reason. The evidence presented there that Israel is not committing
genocide in Gaza is overwhelming, despite the relentless media coverage,
manipulated imagery, and biased experts shouting otherwise.
Truth is not determined by volume or repetition. It is
determined by facts. And the facts speak for themselves.
