It was always going to be genocide

Activists, demonstrators, bloggers, and journalists have settled on a description of Israel’s fight against Hamas in Gaza.  The word, of course, is “genocide.”

Whatever Israel did or did not do, even before Israel had pulled itself together to do anything, the charge was always destined to be “genocide.”

For Hamas, Islamic Jehad, Mujahadin, and their allies, “genocide” serves well. When you can accuse Israel of the worst possible crime, why accuse Israel of anything less evil?

The actions of Hamas and its allies on October 7 really do fit the definition of a genocidal attack. The attackers killed soldiers, but they also deliberately killed civilians, including babies and old people. They tortured their victims, raped some hostages, paraded their hostages before crowds, with the express goal of completely destroying all Israelis and Jews. Their actions neatly fit the definition of genocidal.

It was not a total genocide, because much of Israel survived, but the goal was genocide.

The accompanying and subsequent rain of missiles from Hezbollah, from Iran, and from the Houthis in Yemen, targeted and continue to target every centimeter of Israel.  That few of these missiles have gotten through does not change the genocidal intent.  When missiles have gotten through, and destroyed civilian housing or hospital buildings in Israel, progressives have not thought it necessary to comment.

For sympathizers of the Palestinian revolution by any means possible, it makes sense to charge Israel with genocide. The charge distracts attention from the literal genocidal actions of their heroes.  It retroactively justifies the murderous actions of Hamas, who killed civilians, but civilians of a group that would in the near future, would be guilty of the worst possible crime.

Clearly, friends of Hamas needed to charge Israel with crimes sufficiently horrifying to justify the kidnapping, torturing, raping, and murdering, accompanied by gleeful video recordings. The friends needed a charge more visceral than “colonialist occupation” and “apartheid.” Even the charge that Israel denied Palestinians full political rights seems too bloodless to justify what Hamas had done. Of all the available charges, the one that fit the need best, inevitably, was “genocide.”

And indeed, the charges of genocide preceded any significant response to the atrocities of October 7.

As Hamas invaded Israel on October 7, 2023, kidnapping, torturing, raping, and murdering, admirers in the West issued statements blaming Israel. On October 7 itself, the Salt Lake City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America expressed “unwavering solidarity with the people of Palestine in their decades long fight for national liberation,” explaining that “It is not terrorism or anti-semitism to fight against this injustice.” The San Francisco chapter waited until October 10 to call on “all those who share of vision of global working-class emancipation to join the fight to end the occupation and decolonize Palestine – from the river to the sea.”

It was inevitable that Israel would be charged with “genocide.”  The charge was ready even before Israel had pulled itself together enough to respond to the atrocities of October 7.  No other crime against humanity would do. Nothing less would do.

1. Because what Hamas and its allies did on October 7 really was genocidal. They gleefully proclaimed that their goal was to murder and humiliate Jews, all Jews, and incidentally, any other Israelis.  They also murdered or kidnapped people who were merely visiting Israel. The words of the Hamas charter make the goal clear. The cry, “God is the greatest,” does not suggest a limited political goal. The actions, killing civilians face to face, do not suggest a limited military goal. The boast, “I have killed ten Jews with my bare hands,” implies genocidal intent. Accusing the Israelis of genocide washes away the stench of what Gazans perpetrated on October 7. Since then, Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah, have launched rockets at every corner of Israel, a genocidal “collective punishment” targeting civilians of every kind. But if Israelis are genocidal, then targeting Israel can feel justified. Genocidal Israelis have no claim on a right to life. What Gazans did becomes retroactively justified if Israelis are somehow uniquely guilty.
2. Because Islamists and progressives do use genocidal slogans. Clever commentators have managed to claim that the slogans “from the river to the sea” and “globalize the intifada” somehow do not imply genocide. It would take more ingenuity to neuter the slogan “Death to Israel, Death to America.” Accusing Israel of genocide diverts the attention from these slogans.
3. Because accusing Israel assuages the conscience of bystanders of the Holocaust. Raphael Lemkin coined the word “genocide,” and persuaded international bodies to forbid genocide, in response to the Nazi eliminationist program aimed at murdering Jews. Ever since the word has entered world vocabulary, a group of Europeans have yearned to charge Jews with genocide. If Jews can be accused of genocide, then perhaps the Nazis were not uniquely evil. Maybe the Europeans, who often did not oppose the persecution of Jews, were after all not worse than those persecuted Jews. If Jews, the victims of an attempt at genocide, could also commit genocide, then, Jews are no more innocent than the rest of us. Who knows, maybe the Nazis had reason to hate Jews.
4. Seeing the Jews as innocent victims of the Nazis would make the crimes of World War II so much worse. So, as Henryk Broder perversely observed, “The Germans will never forgive the Jews for Auschwitz.”  The guilt applies to much of the rest of Europe as well, not just for Germans. The rest of Europe may have reason to feel guilty for their role in failing to oppose the Nazis. If not for Jews, then, Europe would have a much clearer conscience.
5. Because of the delicious irony of blaming Israel for European colonialism. One who feels guilty for the European empires built in foreign lands, for the wealth piled up by these empires, can atone for these empires, not by giving up any of that wealth, nor by benefitting the former colonies, but by pretending that Israel is an empire, and calling for Israel’s destruction. This preemptively justifies genocide against Israel.

So while various international bodies debate about charging Israel with genocide, progressives and others have dispensed with weighing the evidence and simply assumed that Israel is guilty. Further, they have decided to apply the word to Israel and to no other country or organization.  When the word “genocide” now appears in progressive prose, I think it most often refers exclusively to Israel.

Accusing Israel of genocide seems overdetermined.