EIGHTY YEARS ago, the Nazis used “The Big Lie” to justify their brutal conquest of various European countries. Hitler and his lieutenants believed that if a lie was big enough and repeated often enough, then many people would accept the lie as truth. Unfortunately, we are now witnessing the return of the big lie, this time from the far left. The false and antisemitic claim is that Israel is pursuing “genocide” in its war with Hamas in Gaza.
Pro-Hamas protesters use the word “genocide” freely, but they apparently don’t know or don’t care to know the actual meaning of the word. According to the United Nations, a genocide occurs when there is “a proven intent on the part of perpetrators to physically destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group... Importantly, the victims of genocide are deliberately targeted ... because of their real or perceived membership of one of the four groups ... (which excludes political groups, for example).”
There is absolutely no evidence that the Israeli government or its defense forces (IDF) have tried to eradicate the people of Gaza. Before the barbaric October 7 attack on southern Israel by Hamas terrorists, Gazans were routinely allowed to enter Israel for life-saving medical treatments. Some of the Israelis who were raped and murdered on Oct. 7 had actually served as volunteer drivers for those Gazan patients.
After the IDF expelled Hamas invaders from Israel, it spent weeks making plans to enter Gaza in order to disarm or kill Hamas fighters and destroy the rocket launchers that had tormented Israeli cities and villages for years. In other words, the IDF intended to counterattack Hamas militants hiding in Gaza, not kill its entire population. This fact alone disproves the libel that Israel has pursued genocide.
The IDF could have used its air superiority to bomb all suspected concentrations of Hamas fighters and avoid the use of ground troops in Gaza, but it did not. Because Hamas fighters hide in schools, homes and even hospitals, an Israeli reliance on air power alone would have resulted in the deaths of many more Gazan noncombatants. To minimize the number of deaths of unarmed Gazans, the IDF sent thousands of young draftees and middle-aged reservists into Gaza for house-to-house urban combat with Hamas. This choice by Israeli commanders has resulted in many more IDF dead and wounded than would have occurred if the Israelis had simply bombed Gaza’s cities into submission in retaliation for the October 7 invasion.
Having entered Gaza to eliminate Hamas, the IDF has warned noncombatants to leave neighborhoods where combat operations are planned. It uses text messages, e-mails, personal phone calls, leafleting, and “knock on the roof” explosives to warn civilians to leave a building or neighborhood in advance of military action. In other words, the IDF gives up the element of surprise to protect civilian lives and puts its own soldiers at greater risk by doing so. A report issued by the Lieber Institute at West Point says that “as a matter of policy, the IDF typically exceeds what the law requires” in order to protect noncombatants.
But what about often quoted casualty figures for civilians in Gaza? If you look at the source for these numbers, it is usually the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry in Gaza. In the United States today, many people disbelieve anything said by members of the opposing party. Why, then, should we believe numbers released by a terrorist group?
During World War I, the Ottoman Turks murdered more than a million Armenians. That was genocide. During World War II, the Nazis and their allies murdered six million Jews. That was genocide. The death of noncombatants in Gaza is not the result of genocide committed by Israel. It is the tragic consequence of the barbaric invasion of Israel by Hamas on October 7, 2023.
Richard England is a retired UNH professor of economics who lives in New Hampshire.
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