What about the genocide in Gaza? Great question.
It seems pretty clear that one side in the Gaza war meets the criteria for genocide spelled out in the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide is available. Let’s get to the details.
What is Genocide?
To constitute genocide, there must be a proven intent on the part of perpetrators to physically destroy a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. Cultural destruction does not suffice, nor does an intention to simply disperse a group.
This article is part of our series, Radical Listening — Ideas for Productive Conversations About Israel and Being Jewish.
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What do the numbers say about genocide in Israel proper?
The Muslim population of Israel numbered 1,746,000 at the end of 2022, up 2.2% from 2021. The growth rate is 2021 was 2.3%. Data from the Central Bureau of Statistics CBS are available here.
The Christian population of Israel (of whom 75.3% are Arabs) numbered 187,900 at the end of 2022, up 1.3% from 2021. Data from the CBS are available here. Adding the Christian Arabs (141,489) to the Muslim Arabs, we get a total Arab population in 2022 of 1,887,488 inside Israel.
Compare this to the 152,000 “Arabs and Others” in Israel in 1950 (data from the CBS 1950 Statistical Yearbook, page 12). Since 1950, the Arab population has increased more than twelvefold.
So, no genocide for Israeli Arabs.
What do the numbers say about genocide in Gaza?
The population of Gaza (according to the CIA World Factbook) currently numbers 2,141,643. In 1950, the population was 250,000. In 1970 (after the Six-Day War), the population was 340,000. Since 1950, the Gaza population has grown by a factor of 8.5. Just since 1970, Gaza has seen its population increase by 630%. Gaza population data from Statista.
So, no genocide in Gaza.
Benchmarking against US population growth
The US population in 1950 was 151,325,798 (US Census Bureau) and 341,963,408 in 2023 (CIA World Factbook). While the US population grew by 250%, the Gaza population increased by 850%, and the Arab population in Israel by more than 1,200% in the same period.
So, no genocide in Gaza or for Arabs in Israel.
Benchmarking against world population growth
The world’s population reached 8.0 billion in mid-November 2022, compared to an estimated 2.5 billion people in 1950 (United Nations population data). While the global population grew by 320%, the Gaza population increased by 850%, and the Arab population in Israel increased by more than 1,200% in the same period.
So, no genocide in Gaza or for Arabs in Israel.
So, who is genocidal?
The UN Convention on Genocide requires acts committed with intent.
Guess who meets the requirement for intent? (Hint: they wear green headbands, kidnap and murder babies, hold mentally ill Israelis as hostages, and have made their intents clear since their founding in 1987.)
Genocidal intent in the Hamas founding document
There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.
This is not new. It can be difficult for Western ears, but Hamas has been consistent in its messaging. In 2014 The Atlantic published What Would Hamas Do If It Could Do Whatever It Wanted? The article’s thrust is that we can understand what Hamas wants by studying its theology, strategy, and history. The bottom line:
a frank and open call for genocide, embedded in one of the most thoroughly antisemitic documents you’ll read this side of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Hamas is, at least, consistent
In retrospect, the surprise should not be what Hamas did and hopes to do in the future. Their genocidal messaging has been public and consistent.
the original covenant spells out clearly Hamas’s genocidal intentions. Accordingly, what happened in Israel on Saturday os completely in keeping with Hamas’s explicit aims and stated objectives.
Some demonstrators in the US and Europe claim that the chant from “The River to the Sea” is not genocidal. It should be taken as a metaphor. Really? The Hamas Covenant explicitly calls for the destruction of Israel as an essential condition for the liberation of Palestine, unrestrained and unceasing holy war (jihad), and dismisses the possibility of any negotiated resolution or political settlement of Jewish and Muslim claims to the Holy Land
So, there is a party here with genocidal intent and genocidal actions. Spoiler alert: it’s not Israel.
If you want to chant a slogan, go with Stop the Genocide From Gaza.
Don’t believe a Zionist?
Don’t believe anything that you read or hear from a Zionist? Go straight to the source. The original Hamas Covenant in English is available from the The Avalon Project at the Yale Law School Library: Hamas Covenant 1988 (yale.edu).Some numbers from actual genocides
- Rwandan genocide in the 1990s: at least 60 percent of Rwandan Tutsis were murdered.
- Khmer Rouge genocide in the 1970s: close to 99 percent of Cambodian Viets were murdered.
- Nazi Holocaust 1939-1945: more than ⅔ of the Jews in Europe were murdered by the Nazis.
If Israel stopped fighting, what would Hamas do?
Now that you know what Hamas wants, what do you think their next step would be if Israel stops fighting before they are removed as a force in Gaza?
