First of all, what is “genocide”? Genocide is defined in international law as “the deliberate attempt to erase a national, ethnic, religious or racial group.”

So it appears that the evidence of genocide is the elimination of or at least the drastic reduction of a people group and/or the existence of the intent to eliminate a people group.

Regarding Gaza, the evidence of the drastic reduction of the population is non-existent. The infographic shown indicates that the population of Gaza has increased commensurate with the other populations of the region. If a short timeframe snapshot of the population of Gaza for the ten months since October 7^th were to indicate a population decrease it would be a result of the conflict. But I submit that it is not genocide, it is suicide: Hamas is in full control of the disposition of the hostages and the belligerence. If they would release the hostages and negotiate a surrender, the war would end immediately. Furthermore, if the nations and Gazans themselves would put the pressure on them to do so, it would likely increase drastically the probability of them doing so.

Now let’s look at the other evidence of genocide: the existence of the intent to eliminate a people group.

What is Israel trying to do in Gaza?

Israel’s three goals of war in Gaza as articulated by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are:

1. Eliminating Hamas and its infrastructure.
2. Freeing hostages.
3. Ensuring Gaza will never again pose a threat to Israel

One could ask isn’t “eliminating Hamas” the same as “the deliberate attempt to erase a national group”?  Before answering that question, let’s understand why Israel has adopted the above three goals.

Let’s ask, “Why these three goals?”

I think the answer is simple:

Because Israel wants to survive in a hostile neighborhood of nations.

Hamas and Hezbollah have publicly communicated declarations in their charters that call for the destruction of Israel and the Jews.

This is tantamount to declaring the intent to commit genocide.

So, for the Jews in Israel the issue is not academic, it is existential. Israel MUST prevent Hamas and any potential partners from perpetrating genocide against the Jews and Israel.

And the Jews, with their long history of persecution at the hands of many regimes, understand that the threat is not just to Jews in Israel, but includes Jews worldwide.

Further, as we all know, Hamas does not only threaten Israel, it threatens the US, the West in general and any other country or people group that supports Israel.

This is threatening global genocide! This should be obvious to everyone on the planet. Calling for “death to Israel”, “death to America”, and “death to the West” is simply and clearly threatening out-and-out genocide. Surely we all understand that acting on any one of those death threats would definitely constitute “a deliberate attempt to erase a national group”.

In view of the foregoing, Israel has to eliminate Hamas and its partners and they have to ensure that Hamas and its partners can never get back into the position that they can do October 7^th again, a thing that they have vowed to do again and again and again.

Is “eliminating Hamas” the same as “the deliberate attempt to erase a national group”.

Well, “eliminating Hamas” doesn’t necessarily mean killing them all does it. It certainly means removing their weapons and any infrastructure they use to maintain their power.

It would be nice if they one day decided that they were wrong in attacking Israel and willingly gave up their weapons and power base. But unfortunately, they don’t appear to be willing to do that, and therefore removing their power to commit the genocide they threaten requires force and inevitably killing those who insist on carrying out their genocidal plans. Once enough weapons, infrastructure and belligerents are eliminated, one could say that Hamas, as a viable threat, is eliminated.

Note that none of this means going in there and randomly killing everyone in sight. It means carefully planned, focused maneuvers on belligerents only, while trying to keep them separated from non-belligerents in a dense urban setting. This is all the while Hamas imbeds itself in the civilian population and wears civilian cloths on purpose to actually create civilian casualties to use to accuse Israel of genocide. Is not this a kind of perverted reverse genocide?

Then comes the really hard part: ensuring Gaza will never again pose a threat to Israel. This will involve the “deradicalization” of Gazans. This is a very complex and spiritual problem, however.

I’ve been referring to Hamas along with its partners for a reason. Not only does Hamas cooperate with other radical groups with similar agendas, but it has become abundantly clear since October 7^th that a majority of the people of Gaza themselves agree with and participate in Hamas and its activities. It turns out that they took part in the massacres of Oct 7^th and currently support, Hamas in its belligerence against the IDF and Israel.

Understanding how Israel can achieve it’s third goal is beyond the scope of this discussion but suffice it to say that until the Gazan’s themselves decide to stop the threat, intent and practice of genocide against the Jews, killing will go on in Gaza. Is this killing genocide? I submit that no, it is not but it is necessary to prevent a genocide that it is clear to the discerning world is intended, planned and ready to be implemented wherever and whenever a defense against it is deficient.