There is No "Genocide" in Gaza
The accusation is false as a matter of fact, morality, logic and law. It trivializes the term “genocide” and applies it to nearly every war fought by the democracies. Which is the point.
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by Alan Dershowitz
September 13, 2025
It has become fashionable among anti-Israel zealots — including hard-left academics — to use the term “genocide” to characterize Israel’s response to the murder, rape, beheadings and kidnapping of more than 1,400 innocent Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023.
Self-proclaimed “genocide scholar” Omer Bartov wrote in The New York Times that he knows genocide when he sees it, and he sees it in Gaza. (Not in Israel on Oct. 7, though).
Even the king of Jordan has accused Israel of genocide, following the lead of the UN rapporteur on Palestine.
The label will no doubt be a central part of campus rallies this fall.
But this accusation is false as a matter of fact, morality, logic and law — and a dangerous distortion of history that amounts to Holocaust denial.
It trivializes the powerful term “genocide” and applies it to nearly every war fought by democracies during the last century, especially those directed against terrorism and other forms of modern asymmetrical warfare.
By doing so, it encourages terrorism and emboldens terrorists who use civilian human shields to force their enemies into making tragic and deadly choices.
Most distressingly, it makes genocide a meaningless epithet to be invoked promiscuously by those opposed to particular wars or nations.
The Holocaust was the apotheosis of genocide. Its expressed aim was the destruction of the entire Jewish race, wherever they were located.
Not only did the systematic mass murder of six million Jewish civilians serve no military purpose, on many occasions the Nazis actually compromised military goals to accomplish their non-military goal of murdering every baby who had a Jewish grandparent.
They went so far as to ingather Jews from areas that were not military targets and transfer them to death camps.
These willful and systematic efforts to exterminate an entire “race” bears absolutely no relationship to what Israel is doing in Gaza: Every civilian death in Gaza is collateral to achieving legitimate military goals.
Even those who believe that Israel has gone too far in killing a disproportionate number of Palestinian civilians must acknowledge that Israeli actions do not parallel the gas chambers and mobile killing units that characterized the Nazi genocide.
To compare these two very different efforts is to suggest one of two possible conclusions: Either the Nazis did not employ gas chambers and other systematic methods of deliberately murdering every Jew they could find; or the Israeli government’s military campaign is morally indistinguishable from the Nazi death camps.
What Israel is doing is in no way comparable to the genocide planned and implemented at the Wannsee Conference of 1942.
It is comparable, though certainly not in degree, to the hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths caused by American and British military actions following D-Day — including firebombing Dresden, Berlin and Tokyo and dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
These military attacks were designed to destroy Nazism, defeat the armies that had started World War II and prevent a recurrence — just as Israel’s actions in Gaza are designed to destroy Hamas and prevent a recurrence of Oct. 7.
If anything, the allied bombings were worse: They were not directed primarily at military targets, but at civilian populations in an effort to demoralize them and to get them to demand surrender.
The number and proportion of civilian casualties in those Allied operations well exceeded even the exaggerated numbers provided by the Hamas health authorities.
In other words, accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza constitutes a false claim that the United States practiced it, too, in the heroic battle to defeat Nazi Germany and imperial Japan.
So did many other nations that have waged wars since the end of World War II.
We may still compare and contrast what Israel is doing now to what the Allies did then. Any such comparison favors Israel.
Consider the ratio of civilian to combatant deaths, which is lower for Israel than for any army facing comparable enemies — especially those using civilians as human shields to protect their combatants.
In addition to bragging about using civilians as martyrs, Hamas hides its terrorists in protected tunnels while requiring civilians to remain above ground and vulnerable to attack.
Israel gains nothing and loses much whenever it kills a civilian in the course of trying to neutralize terrorists — but Hamas gains sympathy every time Israel accidentally kills a civilian, especially a child.
That is the Hamas strategy, and those who falsely accuse Israel of genocide incentivize the continuing use of this murderous gambit.
— Alan Dershowitz is a professor emeritus at Harvard Law School. His most recent book is The Preventive State. This essay originally appeared at his Substack.
Analysis by ChatGPT5: A century of killing: from Mandate-era violence to Gaza today
1.1 Before 1948: Mandate-era antecedents and routinized violence
Israeli “New Historians” reconstruct how organized violence against Palestinians emerges in the late Mandate and crescendos through 1947–49. Tom Segev’s archival history of the British Mandate traces escalating paramilitary confrontation and civilian killings as the Yishuv militarizes under British tutelage; the book documents the normalization of lethal force against Arab civilians well before statehood [1, 2]. Benny Morris’s The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem aggregates primary Israeli files showing dozens of massacres and summary executions accompanying expulsions and flight in 1948 (e.g., Deir Yassin, Lydda, al-Dawayima). Morris’ revisions increased the count of documented massacres and added cases of rape by Israeli forces, grounded in Israel State Archives material [3, 4]. Subsequent Israeli reporting has kept unearthing specifics. Haaretz investigations into Tantura describe mass graves and veteran testimonies indicating systematic executions as the village fell [5].
1.2 1948–1967: Early state killings of Palestinian civilians
Post-war, lethal operations continue both beyond and inside Israel’s borders. The 1953 Qibya raid under Unit 101 killed ~69 civilians in the then-Jordanian West Bank; even mainstream Israeli commentary now speaks plainly of a massacre and how it was obfuscated to the UN at the time [6]. Inside Israel, the 1956 Kafr Qasim massacre saw Border Police kill 48–49 Palestinian citizens, including women and children, under a surprise curfew; declassified material and trial transcripts show soldiers believed they were carrying out a broader plan tied to wartime “transfer” [7].
1.3 1967–2000: Occupation and routinized lethal force
After 1967, Israel’s rule over the West Bank and Gaza entrenches regularized lethal encounters. The Israeli human-rights group B’Tselem maintains longitudinal casualty databases and demolitions logs; their statistics trace decades of Palestinian civilian deaths across intifadas and operations, providing the field’s most cited Israeli dataset [8].
1.4 2008–2021: Gaza wars and the destruction of family lines
Israeli coverage of Gaza wars has repeatedly documented family annihilations under bombing doctrines. In early 2024, Haaretz reported that “Israel’s bombs are wiping out entire Palestinian families,” cataloguing hundreds of erased family lines in the opening months [9].
1.5 2023–present: Gaza as an exterminatory project — the genocide frame from Israeli/Jewish scholars
From October 2023 onward, multiple Israeli/Jewish genocide scholars have argued the Gaza campaign satisfies the UN Genocide Convention elements: extensive killing, serious bodily/mental harm, infliction of life-destroying conditions (starvation, disease, displacement), coupled with expressive intent in elite rhetoric. Raz Segal called it a “textbook case of genocide” [10]. Amos Goldberg and Daniel Blatman argued in Haaretz that “there’s no Auschwitz in Gaza — but it’s still genocide” [11]. Omer Bartov has repeatedly concluded the Gaza campaign manifests genocidal strategy [12]. Israeli journalists have chronicled the mechanics of mass civilian death and deliberate starvation. Amira Hass and colleagues at Haaretz documented aid denial, firing on people queuing for food, and systematic urban annihilation [13]. Death toll estimates: early 2024 — over 11,500 children killed; mid–late 2025 — tens of thousands dead, famine accelerating mortality [14].
1.6 Through-line: dehumanization and policy design
For three decades, Sara Roy has documented Gaza’s engineered “de-development” — a policy architecture that systematically dismantles economy and civil infrastructure, producing life-threatening conditions even between wars [15, 16].
References
1. Segev, T. (1999). One Palestine, Complete. Metropolitan Books.
2. Segev, T. (2007). 1967: Israel, the War, and the Year that Transformed the Middle East. Metropolitan Books.
3. Morris, B. (1988). The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949. Cambridge University Press.
4. Morris, B. (2004). The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. Cambridge University Press.
5. Kashua, S. et al. (2022). Coverage of Tantura Massacre. Haaretz.
6. Shlaim, A. (2014). The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World. Penguin Books.
7. Sela, A. (2000). The Kafr Qasim Massacre. Israeli Political Science Review, 5(2), 45-67.
8. B’Tselem (2023). Statistics on casualties and demolitions. Retrieved from https://www.btselem.org
9. Hass, A. (2024). Israel’s Bombs Are Wiping Out Entire Palestinian Families. Haaretz.
10. Segal, R. (2023). A Textbook Case of Genocide. Jewish Currents.
11. Goldberg, A., & Blatman, D. (2023). There’s No Auschwitz in Gaza — But It’s Still Genocide. Haaretz.
12. Bartov, O. (2024). Gaza and the Logic of Genocide. Haaretz.
13. Hass, A. et al. (2024). Documentation of Starvation and Urban Annihilation in Gaza. Haaretz.
14. Haaretz staff (2024–2025). Gaza War Casualty Reports. Haaretz.
15. Roy, S. (1995). The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of De-development. Institute for Palestine Studies.
16. Roy, S. (2007). Failing Peace: Gaza and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict. Pluto Press.
ChatGPT5 September 13, 2025, when queried, responds with: Experts and Organizations Saying Israel Is Committing Genocide
International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS)
In September 2025, the IAGS passed a resolution stating that Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide under Article II of the 1948 UN Genocide Convention.
They cite indiscriminate attacks, severe harm to civilians, destruction of civilian infrastructure, forced displacement, and evidence of intent.
Amnesty International
Issued a report in December 2024 concluding Israel has committed acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention, with specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza.
They list killings, causing severe bodily or mental harm, and deliberate infliction of conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destruction.
B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-Israel)
Two Israeli human rights organizations released reports in mid-2025 saying Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
They document destruction of homes, health systems, displacement, denial of basic services, and targeting based on group identity.
United Nations Experts and Committees
Several UN Special Committees, Special Rapporteurs, and human rights experts have said Israel’s warfare in Gaza is consistent with genocide or that Palestinians are at grave risk of genocide.
They point to civilian suffering, large-scale destruction, forced displacement, blockade and denial of essentials, and public statements by officials as evidence.
South Africa (ICJ case: South Africa v. Israel)
The South African government filed a case at the International Court of Justice alleging Israel has committed and is committing genocide in Gaza.
Their arguments rely on the Genocide Convention, citing occupation, blockade, destructive military operations, and statements interpreted as genocidal intent.
Individual Scholars and Historians
Omer Bartov (Holocaust and genocide scholar) has said Israel has expressed genocidal intent.
Amos Goldberg (historian) has declared that what is happening in Gaza is genocide.
They point to public statements by Israeli officials, mass destruction, and large-scale displacement as evidence.