Genocide in Gaza?

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On November 3, 2023, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) published a video in which she accused Joe Biden of supporting “the genocide of the Palestinian people.” On March 22, 2024, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) said on the floor of the House of Representatives: “If you want to know what an unfolding genocide looks like, open your eyes. It looks like the forced famine of 1.1 million innocents. It looks like thousands of children eating grass as their bodies consume themselves, while trucks of food are slowed and halted just miles away.” Late in April 2024, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota) suggested that some Jewish students were “pro-genocide.”

Tlaib, Ocasio-Cortez and Omar, the founding members of the far-left “Squad,” were considered radical, but many others who were thought to be more mainstream agreed that Israel’s defensive action in Gaza was a massive humanitarian crisis that had to be curtailed before it attained its goal of completely destroying Hamas, or else an unprecedented catastrophe would ensue.

“The United States is unequivocal; international humanitarian law must be respected. Too many innocent Palestinians have been killed,” declared Vice President Kamala Harris on December 2, 2023. “Frankly, the scale of civilian suffering and the images and videos coming from Gaza are devastating.” Two days later, the Associated Press (AP) reported that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and what it called “a robust group of Democratic senators” were “done ‘asking nicely’ for Israel to do more to reduce civilian casualties in Gaza.”

These senators “warned President Joe Biden’s national security team that planned U.S. aid to Israel must be met with assurances of concrete steps from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-right government.” Sanders thundered, “The truth is that if asking nicely worked, we wouldn’t be in the position we are today.” AP added, “It was time for the United States to use its ‘substantial leverage’ with its ally, the Vermont senator said.”

Worried about losing their far-left base, Biden and his handlers heeded their warning. After a few months of steadily increasing pressure, the American delegation at the United Nations allowed the Security Council to pass a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, knowing that this would enable Hamas to survive and regroup. Shortly thereafter, the White House announced that during an April 4, 2024 phone conversation, Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “to announce and implement a series of specific, concrete, and measurable steps to address civilian harm, humanitarian suffering, and the safety of aid workers. He made clear that U.S. policy with respect to Gaza will be determined by our assessment of Israel’s immediate action on these steps.” Secretary of State Antony Blinken added: “Look, I’ll just say this: if we don’t see the changes that we need to see, there will be changes in our policy.”

The U.S., the United Nations and the world at large were relying on casualty figures from the Gaza Ministry of Health, which was controlled by Hamas. Yet a study published in Fathom Journal in March 2024, “Statistically Impossible: A Critical Analysis of Hamas’s Women and Children Casualty Figures,” explained just one instance of many in which these figures proved unreliable: “Perhaps the most bizarre examples of disinformation occurred in early December, when the GMO [Hamas’ Government Media Office] was the leading provider of Gazan casualty statistics. Between 1 December and 8 December the recorded number of dead men declined from 4,850 to 3,499, with multiple individual declines occurring over the period (2 December, 5 December, 8 December). It was the statistical equivalent of the resurrection of over a thousand men!”

Another study found that “according to the media reports methodology, only 1,192 men had been killed in northern and central Gaza as of March 18, despite four and a half months of heavy ground fighting….Five days later, that number inexplicably decreased to 1,170—a feat that would have required 22 men to somehow come back to life by March 23 in order to reconcile the central collection system data with the overall claim.”

Finally, in May 2024, the UN tacitly admitted that its data, which had gone around the world, was faulty. On May 6, it claimed that the Israelis had killed over 9,500 women and over 14,500 children. Two days later, however, it was reporting that only 4,959 women and 7,797 children had been killed. No explanation was given for the discrepancy, but it was likely that the UN had found it impossible to ignore the growing number of studies proving that the Hamas figures it was endorsing were fabricated.

The charge of genocide was never anything more than an obscene libel. John Spencer, chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute (MWI) at West Point, analyzed the IDF’s actions in Gaza and reported in late March 2024 that “Israel has implemented more precautions to prevent civilian harm than any military in history—above and beyond what international law requires and more than the U.S. did in its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”[1] Likewise, the British Colonel Richard Kemp stated in early April 2024 that in Gaza, “the ratio of deaths of civilians to military personnel was far lower than in other wars where armies had not been accused of war crimes, adding that he was ‘not aware of any war crimes [committed by the IDF].’”[2]

The ancient antisemitic charges are repurposed against Israel, and new ones added. Yet upon examination, they have no more substance than any of the others. Lack of evidence, however, never stops the left from disseminating its propaganda.

[1] John Spencer, “Israel Has Created a New Standard for Urban Warfare. Why Will No One Admit It?,” Newsweek, March 25, 2024.

[2] Gaby Wine, “Hundreds show solidarity with Israel at 6-month vigil in St John’s Wood,” The Jewish Chronicle, April 7, 2024.