I’m Not a Genocide Scholar. And I Still Know This Isn’t One
This is my first post on The Times of Israel blog. I don’t plan to waste your time with polite introductions — I’ll leave that to the diplomats. What I do promise is to write with honesty, to mix science with everyday reality, and to poke at the comfortable assumptions we all like to hold. If it stings a little or makes you laugh, even better. Let’s begin:
When Professor Omer Bartov published his essay in the New York Times declaring that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, it quickly reverberated worldwide. After all, when a renowned genocide scholar makes such a pronouncement, the words carry enormous weight. But weight is not the same as truth. And authority does not equal accuracy. Expertise in one domain does not absolve anyone, even Ivy League professors, from the responsibility to ground their claims in facts, not slogans.
I am not a genocide scholar, but a behavioral scientist who has spent his career studying how people make judgments, how biases distort decisions, and how authority can lead entire societies astray. And from that perspective, I know with absolute clarity: labeling Israel’s war against Hamas as “genocide” is wrong — factually, legally, and morally. My concern here is not to justify Israel’s actions or endorse its policies, but to insist on truth and accuracy in a debate that has become dangerously distorted.
What Genocide Actually Means
The UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948) defines genocide as actions committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. The word intent is not optional. It is the cornerstone.
Stray political statements, however distasteful, are not intent. Irresponsible rhetoric from opportunistic politicians is not a government plan of extermination. There is an immense legal and moral difference between words spoken for domestic politics and the deliberate machinery of systematic annihilation. And that is the very difference between war — tragic, bloody, devastating — and genocide, the gravest crime in human history.
The Reality on the Ground
What is actually happening?
Israel is engaged in a brutal war against Hamas. This terror organization slaughtered, burned, and kidnapped civilians on October 7th, and embeds its fighters and tunnels among civilians, schools, and hospitals, deliberately putting its own people in harm’s way as a method of warfare. The war has led to immense suffering in Gaza. Civilians have paid, and continue to pay, an unbearable price. That is the devastating reality of war.
But extermination? A state policy of deliberate annihilation? The facts simply do not support such a claim. Israel continues to facilitate massive flows of humanitarian aid into Gaza, including food, medicine, water, and fuel, despite knowing much of it will be diverted by Hamas. Israel has also established field hospitals and coordinated evacuation corridors for civilians, even at military risk. Repeated official statements from Israel’s leadership emphasize that the war is against Hamas, not against the Palestinian people. If Hamas is gone, the war will end a second later.
These are not the behaviors of a state intent on genocide. They are the behaviors of a state during an ugly, tragic, and painful war. Not a genocidal one.
Authority Bias, Magnified
Behavioral science offers a lens for understanding how we got here: authority bias.
When someone with a prestigious title makes a declaration, “Professor of Genocide Studies,” “expert witness,” “leading scholar”, we instinctively assign their words a presumption of truth. Journalists, activists, and readers alike take the claim and amplify it, rarely stopping to question whether it is logically or factually sound.
But let’s be honest: authority doesn’t make an argument any more valid. It simply makes it louder. When a professor points to a handful of inflammatory soundbites from politicians and declares this to be proof of genocidal intent, it is political framing, dressed up as expertise.
Why This Matters More Than Ever
The living reality is that Jewish students are attacked on Western campuses, Israelis must hide symbols of their identity abroad, and Jews with no connection to Israel are harassed in the streets simply for being Jewish.
In this context, for respected universities, NGOs, and the New York Times to amplify claims of “genocide” without solid grounding is not just irresponsible. It borders on reckless. It fuels antisemitism. It gives legitimacy to harassment and intimidation. It emboldens those who would rather see Jews as fair game.
At a time when Jews are once again made to feel unsafe globally, to throw around accusations of genocide without meeting the burden of proof is not courageous scholarship. It is, at best, a careless misuse of academic authority. At worst, it is complicity in a moral crime of its own.
This Is Not Just Semantics
Some may argue this is a semantic dispute. It is not. Words matter. To dilute the term “genocide” until it means nothing more than “a war I oppose” is to erode the very protections international law was designed to uphold. If everything is genocide, then nothing is.
But make no mistake: if Israel fails to defeat Hamas, there is no doubt about what will follow. The genocide will come. Not against Palestinians, but against Jews. It already began on October 7th, when Hamas massacred entire families, raped, tortured, and kidnapped indiscriminately. And Hamas leaders have declared openly, repeatedly, and proudly that they will do it again and again until Israel is destroyed. If that is not genocidal intent, what is?
A Final Word
I am not a genocide scholar. But I know when expertise is being misused as a weapon of narrative. I know when bias is paraded as authority. And I know that when the world confuses rhetoric with reality, it not only misrepresents the truth, but it may also endanger the very existence of humanity.
Words matter. Accuracy matters. And in times like these, accuracy, clarity, and good judgment matter most of all.
