A Contemporary Blood Libel

A Contemporary Blood Libel

Robert Spitzer, B’nai B’rith International President

Our people have been the targets of slander throughout history.   One of the worst and earliest recorded case occurred in Norwich, England, in 1144 after the mysterious death of a 12-year-old boy.  Gentiles alleged, without any evidence, that Jews killed Christian children to use their blood to make matzah.   Historians now call that false and incendiary accusation a “Blood Libel.”  This lie  quickly spread across Europe and inspired hatred and violent pogroms throughout the continent.  The staying power of this lie was so great that the Nazis included this Blood Libel in its propaganda campaign against Jews in the 1930’s.

In the wake of the Hamas brutality of October 7^th, 2023, the most recent horrible lie which has been circulated and widely accepted  is that Israel committed “genocide” against the Gazans.    The haters of Israel, who understand that the world rallied around the modern renewal of the ancient Jewish state after the Holocaust, are working to undermine one of the key reasons why the UN agreed that the Jews in the Holy Land needed their own state.

The Holocaust is the most egregious example of genocide in the modern world; the term “genocide” was created to describe the depravity.  It is at the core of the world’s acceptance of the need for a Jewish State.     In a cynical reversal of that sentiment, enemies of Israel, who have realized that they cannot eliminate the State militarily, have undertaken a sophisticated campaign to delegitimize Israel, and the worst and most insidious accusation is that it has committed genocide.

The world’s media loves to inflame readers; violence and controversy are its bread and butter.    The warfare in Gaza has produced regular photos of destroyed buildings and homeless suffering Palestinians.  Urban warfare in a densely populated country results in many casualties.  Hamas intended Palestinians to die in any Israeli counterattack by taking shelter in tunnels below schools, mosques, residential buildings and hospitals.  In effect, the Palestinians were used by Hamas leadership as human shields.   The constant barrage of images of suffering civilians fed right into the Radical Islamic propaganda machine and led to the world’s easy acceptance of the big lie.

One of the world’s greatest experts on urban warfare has clearly rejected the claims of genocide.   Col. John Spencer is the Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the US Army’s Modern Warfare Institute at West Point Academy.  He was an infantry soldier for 25 years including two combat tours in Iraq.   He has concluded that he knows of no modern urban conflict where the civilian to combatant ratio was lower than in Gaza.   Here’s his analysis:

“I am not a lawyer or a political activist. I am a war expert. I have led soldiers in combat. I have trained military units in urban warfare for decades and studied and taught military history, strategy, and the laws of war for years. Since October 7, I have been to Gaza four times embedded with the Israel Defense Forces. I have interviewed the Prime Minister of Israel, the Defense Minister, the IDF Chief of Staff, Southern Command leadership, and dozens of commanders and soldiers on the front lines. I have reviewed their orders, watched their targeting process, and seen soldiers take real risks to avoid harming civilians. Nothing I have seen or studied resembles genocide or genocidal intent.

. . .

War is hell. It is inhumane, destructive, and ugly. But it is not automatically a crime. Nations must not target civilians. They must follow the rules of distinction, proportionality, and take all possible care to avoid civilian harm. Israel is doing that. I have seen it.

. . .

What is happening in Gaza is tragic. But it is not genocide. And it is not illegal.”

https://spencerguard.substack.com/p/im-a-war-scholar-there-is-no-genocide

John Spencer (July 23, 2025)

The accusation of genocide has been given credence in large measure because it has come from sources which the unsophisticated mistakenly believe are unbiased arbiters of truth, such as the UN Human Rights Council (“HRC”) , which in recent years has had exemplars of human rights abusers such as Cuba, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, China, Qatar, and Sudan among its members.  The HRC has only one permanent agenda item, which is Israel/Palestine, when the Moslem members and their allies routinely castigate Israel.   Far from having any credibility, despite human rights violation worldwide, almost all of their resolutions condemn Israel.    The world’s major media outlets accept unfounded claims of famine and genocide without questions, and social media repeats these lies.

Let’s not forget the insidious global propaganda campaign from Qatar, which has been reported to exceed $400 Billion to influence the US government, media, universities and social media companies.    [“Mapping Qatar’s $400 billion Footprint in the US”, Foundation for the Defense of Democracy, June 3, 2026]   Qatar, you may recall, supported Al Quada and  hosted the leadership of Hamas during the Gaza war and funded much of its operations in Gaza before October 7^th.  It’s global television network, Al Jazeera, spews the Muslim Brotherhood brand of Radical Islam.  No wonder the blood libel has spread around the world.

We cannot let this lie go unchallenged.   The Israeli Defense Force is not perfect, but it has ethically outperformed every other military in the world in dealing with a brutal foe bent on Israel’s destruction.    There is only one side in the Gaza war that has singled out one ethnic group for destruction, and it’s the perpetrators of the October 7^th massacre.