How Mayor Mamdani’s Big Lie Endangers Civilians, Including Palestinians
Rewarding Israel’s restraint with the lie of “genocide” threatens civilians by discouraging the IDF and other armies from implementing protective measures not required by the laws of war. Mayor Mamdani should stop pushing the Big Lie, if not for the sake of his Jewish constituents who are endangered by it, then for the sake of Palestinians, who it also threatens.
It is obvious how Mayor Mamdani’s Big Lie—i.e., that the Jewish State committed genocide in Gaza—poses a direct threat to Jews, including those in New York City who the Mayor has promised to protect. It is foreseeable that Jews, who identify with and support Israel, will come under attack by those who are brainwashed into believing the Jewish state is genocidal.
But the genocide blood libel also creates frightening risks to others. Ironically, it imperils Palestinian civilians—and by extension every civilian caught in a conflict zone around the world.
The starting point for understanding the danger of the Big Lie is that the laws of war indisputably permit armies to kill civilians (within limits) when necessary to achieve military aims. From time immemorial, and even more so since the invention of firearms, artillery and bombs, incidental harm to civilians has been inevitable in war. Article 51, Paragraph 5 of the Geneva Convention’s 1977 Additional Protocol requires only that an attack on the enemy be expected to cause civilian deaths at a level not “excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.” (This is referred to as “proportionality,” a principle that is often misunderstood in the context of the laws of war.)
One of the factors a commander may lawfully consider in evaluating the military advantage of an attack is how to improve the security of the attacking soldiers. Employing greater force helps achieve this goal, and thus is often permissible despite exposing civilians to more danger.
As a result, the uncomfortable truth is that Western armies save civilian lives not primarily by adhering to the laws of war (which, as noted, permit killing significant numbers of civilians), but more so by voluntarily acting with more restraint than the laws of war require.
That the IDF goes above and beyond the requirements of the laws of war cannot seriously be disputed, given the extremely low civilian-to-combatant death ratio it achieved in Gaza despite fighting in some of the most vexing urban combat conditions in human history.
As John Spencer, Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at West Point, has explained throughout the war that Palestinian terrorists started on October 7, 2023, the IDF has taken more steps to reduce harm to civilians than any military in modern history—for example, forfeiting the element of surprise by announcing where it would operate; providing safe routes, combat pauses and humanitarian zones protected by the IDF against Hamas attacks intended to prevent civilians from fleeing; evacuating civilians through IDF lines; clearing terror infrastructure with infantry rather than standoff weapons; empowering legal advisors emplaced in the targeting process to overrule military commanders to protect civilians (something the US military does not allow); vaccinating Gazans; coordinating massive deliveries of humanitarian aid; and more. Many of these protective measures were undertaken voluntarily without any requirement under international law, and, as Spencer has pointed out, they are steps that even enlightened Western militaries like that of the United States undertake infrequently, if ever.
These protective measures exposed Israel’s soldiers to greater risk and unquestionably led to more IDF deaths and injuries than necessary. Why would the IDF put its soldiers in more danger than the laws of war require? An important reason to engage in conduct that surpasses the requirements of international law is to make it all but impossible for others to later accuse IDF soldiers of having violated the laws of war.
Therein lies the perversity of the Big Lie: by falsely accusing Israel of genocide, Mayor Mamdani and others like him remove an important motivation for Israel to absorb the additional, punishing cost of going above and beyond legal requirements to reduce civilian harm. If the IDF is accused of genocide despite its unprecedented restraint, having literally sacrificed its own soldiers to save Gazans, the IDF (and the Israeli public) will of course be considerably less motivated to continue those protective measures. By pushing the Big Lie, Mayor Mamdani and others like him should expect to be directly responsible for greater death and suffering of Palestinian civilians.
Fortunately for Palestinians, Israel has other reasons to continue exceeding the requirements of international law. The IDF’s lofty moral code, The Spirit of the IDF, emphasizes that IDF soldiers “will only exercise their power or use their weapon in order to fulfill their mission and only when necessary,” “will maintain their humanity during combat,” and will “maintain their humanity and dignity” at all times. Profound respect for human life is embedded deeply in Judaism and in the ethos of the IDF. Further, Israelis have enough experience with war to understand that soldiers who have gone above and beyond to preserve human life, including of an enemy’s civilian population, will complete their service with a clean conscience, facilitating a smoother transition to healthy and productive civilian life. In that sense, taking extra risks to protect Gazans, costly as it is, does benefit Israel.
Still, when the reward for restraint is the lie of genocide, one cannot rule out some impact on Israel’s willingness to take risks that international law does not require. Moreover, other countries and their armies are watching. The lesson they are learning from the Big Lie is that they might as well do the minimum, rather than the maximum, to safeguard an enemy’s civilian population. We can expect, in future conflicts around the world, for the civilian-to-combatant death ratio to be far greater because of the malicious propaganda targeting Israel and the IDF.
Before continuing to push the Big Lie, New York’s Mayor and his political allies should carefully consider how it will harm Palestinian civilians and other civilians around the world in the years to come.
