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Combating the Lie of Israeli ‘Genocide’ and ‘Ethnic Cleansing’
Ione Belarra, a far left minister in the Spanish government, has accused Israel of committing “genocide” against Palestinians in Gaza. Photo: Reuters/David Canales
No single element of “pro-Palestine” propaganda has gained as much traction as the charge that Israel is carrying out a genocide against Palestinians. The accusation predates October 7, but it has become a staple at anti-Israel demonstrations everywhere; protesters are also pronouncing the Biden administration complicit in genocide for supporting Israel. In November, a group of Palestinians even sued the Biden administration for genocide.
Not content with fabricating and perpetuating the charge that Israel is an apartheid state, South Africa’s ANC Party ramped up its hostilities against the Jewish state on December 29, 2023, when it filed charges of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). On January 26, 2024, the ICJ refused to throw out the case.
Considering Germany’s history, its objection that “This accusation has no basis whatsoever” should hold special significance to the ICJ.
Berlin’s statement that it “firmly and expressly rejects the accusation of genocide that has now been made against Israel,” also acknowledged South Africa’s “political instrumentalization” of the term.
There is no shortage of academics who bolster these claims. A professor of genocide studies named Raz Segal argues that Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute “a textbook case of genocide.” A “historian of genocide” named Omer Bartov warns that while the Netanyahu government hasn’t yet committed genocide, it has shown “genocidal intent, which can easily tip into genocidal action.”
The UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, argued recently that Israelis “see Palestine as the Promised Land, which belongs to them, but this does not mean that they can destroy the Palestinian people.” She also claims that “in the name of self-defense Israel is seeking to justify what would amount to ethnic cleansing.”
The problem for South Africa, the UN, and many academics is that neither the genocide accusation, nor its brother, the ethnic cleansing accusation, stand up to scrutiny.
The word “genocide” was coined by Rafael Lemkin in 1944, when he combined the Greek word geno (race or tribe) with the Latin suffix -cide (from caedere, kill), to denote Nazi Germany’s systematic attempt to kill all Jews and thereby destroy an entire people.
In 1948, the UN approved the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, defining Lemkin’s neologism as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” In addition to mass murder, other indicators of genocide and ethnic cleansing are “measures intended to prevent births” such as forced sterilization, and “transferring children.”
Accusing Israel of genocide is part of a strategy called Holocaust inversion, whereby Israeli counter-terrorism measures directed against Palestinian terrorist organizations are compared to the crimes committed by Nazi Germany.
Thankfully, most people see through the hyperbole and distortion. Biden’s National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, called South Africa’s case against Israel “meritless, counterproductive, and without any basis in fact whatsoever.”
The ICJ case even united 210 members of the US Congress to “vigorously denounce South Africa’s deeply hostile stance towards Israel and thoroughly reject its charge of genocide.”
No data supports the charge of “ethnic cleansing” or “genocide” against Israel. On the contrary, the Palestinian population has grown steadily since 1948, sometimes remarkably so. The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) itself acknowledges that the “Palestinian population has increased 8-fold since the [1948] Nakba.”
This is not what a genocide looks like.
In 2016, the United Nations warned that “rapid growth in the Palestinian population” that it had documented would soon create a “crisis in unemployment” and “a strained infrastructure.”
In 2022, the Arab News reported that “the high growth rate among Palestinians” will “cause concern for Israel.”
This is not how ethnic cleansing works.
Non-Jewish citizens of Israel are treated exactly the same as Jewish citizens by the government, and no one is trying to prevent them from having babies. Arab Muslim citizens of Israel work the same jobs as Jewish citizens. Many volunteer to serve in the IDF, though they are not required to do so. There are Arab Muslim members of the Knesset and the Supreme Court.
The irony of the absurd claim is that Hamas (along with most of the Palestinian “resistance”) harbors verifiably genocidal intent towards Jews.
The Hamas charter states clearly that “Israel will exist and continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.” Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently noted that Israel’s enemies “continue to openly call for the annihilation of Israel and the mass murder of Jews.”
Israel’s enemies have long openly called for the annihilation of the Jewish state and the mass murder of Jews.
The so-called “founder of the Palestinian national movement,” Haj Amin al-Hussaini, invited Hitler to expand his “final solution” to the Middle East. As the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem in 1937, he commanded all his “Muslim brothers” in a Proclamation to the Islamic World: “Do not rest until your land is free of the Jews.”
On October 11, 1947, less than six weeks before the UN Partition vote on Israel, the first-ever Secretary General of the Arab League, Azzam Pasha, threatened “a war of extermination and momentous massacre” should there be a Jewish state established “in Palestine.”
Pasha, whose real name was Abdul Rahman Azzam, also gave a hint of the long strategy to come: “The Arab is superior to the Jew in that he accepts defeat with a smile: Should the Jews defeat us in the first battle, we will defeat them in the second or the third battle … or the final one… whereas one defeat will shatter the Jew’s morale!”
When given the opportunity, the enemies of Israel have followed through with their threats. Amos Oz, who lived through the 1948 War of Independence, wrote in his memoir, A Tale of Love and Darkness (2003), that during the war, “Arabs implemented a more complete ‘ethnic cleansing’ in the territories they conquered than the Jews did … The settlements were obliterated, and the synagogues and cemeteries were razed to the ground.”
Even the Palestinian leadership doesn’t believe its own propaganda. Consider the case of Saeb Erekat, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and senior PLO negotiator, who himself charged Israel with genocide. When Erekat was gravely ill in October 2020, he chose to be treated in an Israeli hospital. Would he have done so if he truly believed Israel was guilty of genocide against his people? I doubt it.
Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) Senior Fellow A.J. Caschetta is a principal lecturer at the Rochester Institute of Technology and a fellow at Campus Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum where he is also a Ginsberg-Milstein fellow. A version of this article was originally published by IPT.
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Jewish Synagogue, Holocaust Memorial Vandalized in Poland After Politician Denies Holocaust
An antisemitic slur spray-painted on the ruins of a former synagogue in Dukla, Poland. Photo: World Jewish Restitution Organization
Two Jewish sites in Dukla, Poland, were vandalized over the weekend mere days after Polish member of the European Parliament (MEP) Grzegorz Braun claimed gas chambers at the former Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp were fake and repeated an antisemitic blood libel in a live radio interview.
Vandals spray-painted the word “F–k” followed by a Star of David on the ruins of a former synagogue that was destroyed by the Nazis during the Holocaust, and a memorial commemorating Holocaust victims located at the entrance of the Jewish cemetery in Dukla was defaced with a swastika and the word “Palestine,” according to the World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO). The memorial honors Jews of Dukla and the surrounding areas who were murdered by Nazis during the Holocaust.
The two Jewish sites in Dukla are cared for by the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland (FODZ), which was established in 2002 by the Union of Jewish Communities in Poland and the WJRO to protect and commemorate Poland’s Jewish heritage sites.
“These hateful acts are not only antisemitic, but they are also attempts to erase Jewish history and desecrate memory,” said WJRO President Gideon Taylor in a released statement on Tuesday. “Polish authorities must take swift and serious action to identify the perpetrators and ensure the protection of Jewish heritage sites in Dukla and across the country.”
“The vandalism of Jewish sites in Dukla—with swastikas and anti-Israel slurs—is not an isolated act,” insisted Jack Simony, director general of the Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation (AJCF), in a statement to The Algemeiner. The nonprofit focuses on preserving the memory of the Jewish community in Oświęcim (Auschwitz) and maintains the Auschwitz Jewish Center, the last remaining synagogue in town.
“While we cannot say definitively that it [the vandalism] was sparked by Grzegorz Braun’s Holocaust denial, his rhetoric contributes to an atmosphere where hatred is emboldened and truth is under assault,” added Simony. “Braun’s lies are not harmless — they are dangerous. Holocaust denial fuels antisemitism and, too often, violence. This is why Holocaust education matters … because when we fail to confront lies, we invite their consequences. Memory must be defended, not only for the sake of the past, but for the safety of our future.”
On July 10, a ceremony was held commemorating the 84th anniversary of the 1941 Jedwabne massacre, when hundreds of Polish Jews were massacred – mostly by their neighbors – in the northeastern town in German-occupied Poland. The ceremony was attended by dignitaries and faith leaders including Poland’s Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich and Israeli Deputy Ambassador Bosmat Baruch. Groups of anti-Israel and far-right activists — including MEP Braun and his supporters – tried to disrupt the event by holding banners with antisemitic slogans and blocking the vehicles of the attendees, according to Polish radio.
Hours later, during a live radio broadcast, Braun falsely claimed the Auschwitz gas chambers were “a lie” and the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum was promoting “pseudo-history.” He also claimed that Jewish “ritual murder is a fact.” Polish prosecutors launched an investigation into Braun’s comments, they announced that same day. Under Article 55 of the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), Holocaust denial is a criminal offense in Poland.
The Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum issued a swift condemnation of Braun’s remarks and said it intents to pursue legal action. The Institute of National Remembrance — which is the largest research, educational and archival institution in Poland – also denounced Braun’s remarks, saying there is “well-documented” evidence supporting the existence of gas chambers. His comments were also condemned by the Embassy of Israel in Poland, Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski and the US Embassy in Warsaw, which said that his actions “distort history, desecrate memory, or spread antisemitism.” AJCF called on the European Parliament to consider disciplinary measures against Braun, including potential censure or expulsion.
Auschwitz Jewish Center Director Tomek Kuncewicz said Braun’s comments are “an act of violence against truth, against survivors, and against the legacy of our shared humanity.” AJCF Chairman Simon Bergson called the politician’s remarks “blatant and baseless lies,” while Simony described them as “a calculated act of antisemitic incitement” that “must be met with legal consequences and universal moral condemnation.”
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Coalition of 400 Jewish Orgs and Synagogues Urge Teachers Union to Reverse Decision Cutting Ties with ADL
Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt. Photo Credit: ADL.
Following a vote by the National Education Association (NEA) on July 6 to end its relationship with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), 400 Jewish communal groups, education organizations, and religious institutions have come together to call for the influential teachers union to change course.
“We are writing to express our deep concerns about the growing level of antisemitic activity within teachers’ unions, particularly since the Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel on October 7, 2023,” the letter to NEA President Becky Pringle stated. “Passage of New Business Item (NBI) 39 at the National Education Association (NEA) Representative Assembly this past weekend, which shockingly calls for the boycott of the Anti-Defamation League, is just the latest example of open hostility toward Jewish educators, students and families coming from national and local teachers’ unions and their members.”
In addition to the ADL, signatories of the letter included American Jewish Committee (AJC), Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Jewish Federations of North America, #EndJewHatred, American Jewish Congress, B’nai B’rith International, CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting & Analysis), Combat Antisemitism Movement, Democratic Majority for Israel, StandWithUs, Simon Wiesenthal Center, Zioness Movement, and Zionist Organization of America (ZOA).
The group told Pringle that “we have heard directly from NEA members who have shared their experiences ranging from explicit and implicit antisemitism within the union to a broader pattern of insensitivity toward legitimate concerns of Jewish members – including at the recently concluded Representative Assembly. We are also deeply troubled by a broader pattern of union activity over the past 20 months that has targeted or alienated Jewish members and the wider Jewish community.”
The letter to Pringle included an addendum providing examples of objectionable rhetoric. These named such incidents as the Oakland Education Association (OEA) putting out a statement calling for “an end to the occupation of Palestine” and the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA) accusing Israel of genocide.
The coalition of 400 organizations urged the NEA to “take immediate action” and suggested such steps as rejecting NBI 39, issuing a “strong condemnation” of antisemitism within the union, drafting a plan to counter ongoing antisemitism in affiliate chapters, and opposing “any effort to use an educator’s support for the existence of Israel as a means to attack their identity.”
ADL CEO and National Director Jonathan Greenblatt wrote on X that “Excluding @ADL’s educational resources from schools is not just an attack on our org, but on the entire Jewish community. We urge the @NEAToday Executive Committee to reverse this biased, fringe effort and reaffirm its commitment to supporting all Jewish students and educators.”
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Zohran Mamdani Won’t Condemn Calls for Violence Against Jews; Why Are Jewish Leaders Supporting Him?
Zohran Mamdani. Photo: Ron Adar / SOPA Images via Reuters Connect
In the wake of Zohran Mamdani’s surge in New York City politics, a disturbing trend has emerged: prominent Jewish leaders are being urged to join “Jews for Zohran,” a newly formed effort to legitimize a candidate whose record and rhetoric are alarmingly out of step with Jewish communal values.
In a city that’s home to the largest Jewish population outside of Israel — and where antisemitic incidents are on the rise — this is a profound mistake.
Mamdani has refused to explicitly condemn the slogan “Globalize the Intifada,” which has been widely understood as a call to violence against Jews. His defenders insist it’s a symbolic plea for Palestinian rights. But nuance offers little comfort when the phrase glorifies violent uprisings, and is routinely chanted alongside calls for Israel’s destruction.
Institutions such as the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and watchdogs like StopAntisemitism.org have made it clear: attempts to sanitize violent language must be firmly rejected.
Mamdani’s vocal support for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement is equally troubling. BDS does not merely critique Israeli policy; it seeks to economically isolate and politically delegitimize the Jewish state. When a candidate stands against the most visible symbol of Jewish survival — Israel — while brushing off violent slogans as misunderstood metaphors, we must ask what message this sends to our communities.
The answer should be clear. Jewish New Yorkers were the targets of over half the city’s reported hate crimes last year. From Crown Heights to Midtown, visible Jews have been harassed, assaulted, and mocked. Mamdani was flagged by national antisemitism monitors in December for promoting material that mocked Hanukkah. This is not abstract. This is personal, present, and dangerous.
Yes, Mamdani has pledged to increase hate crime funding from $3 million to $26 million. But that’s not enough. The Jewish community — especially now — needs more than budgetary gestures. We require moral clarity, as Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel powerfully stated: “Morally speaking, there is no limit to the concern one must feel for the suffering of human beings, that indifference to evil is worse than evil itself….”
Moral clarity demands more than financial promises, it requires principled rejection of rhetoric that endangers Jews. Belonging isn’t forged by slogans; it’s proven through sustained empathy, shared responsibility, and unwavering commitment to safety.
Calls for Jewish leaders to publicly support Mamdani, including those made to officials like Brad Lander and Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), aim to provide political cover for a candidate whose worldview clashes with core Jewish values. These aren’t harmless endorsements. They’re symbols. And symbols matter.
Endorsing Mamdani sends a troubling signal: that political convenience or progressive branding outweighs communal safety and historical memory. When Jewish leaders align with someone who flirts with the delegitimization of Jewish statehood and refuses to condemn slogans rooted in violence, they are telling our adversaries that our moral lines are negotiable.
New York’s Jewish community has long been a moral compass in American politics. What happens here echoes across the nation. If our leaders can be cajoled into supporting a candidate like Mamdani, what message does that send to Jews in swing districts, smaller cities, and across college campuses? It normalizes equivocation. It emboldens the fringe. It tells the next generation that Jewish dignity is up for debate.
This is about more than Mamdani. It’s about whether Jewish pride and Jewish safety remain non-negotiable pillars of our political participation. Some have argued that this is simply politics as usual — that strategic alliances are part of coalition-building. But the Jewish people know better than most that what begins as a small compromise can metastasize into a much greater danger.
Former Democratic Councilman Rory Lancman said it best: “If ever there was a time to put principle over party, this is it.” He’s right. And that’s why this moment requires Jewish leaders to speak not just as political actors, but as moral stewards.
Jewish leaders are free to engage with any candidate they choose. But engagement is not endorsement. One can listen, challenge, and debate without aligning oneself publicly with a candidate whose positions cross communal red lines. Outreach does not require complicity.
If Jewish political figures join “Jews for Zohran,” they risk helping mainstream dangerous ideologies. They risk fracturing communal unity even further at a time when Jewish communal unity is our best defense. They risk allowing today’s ambiguity to become tomorrow’s regret.
Jewish history teaches us the cost of silence, of appeasement, and of looking away. We cannot afford those mistakes again — not in this city, not in this era; history is beginning to repeat itself and we cannot allow that to happen.
To every Jewish leader now weighing their public stance: choose principle. Choose safety. Choose the kind of moral leadership our tradition demands; reject the logic of “Jews for Zohran.” The stakes are too high — and the message matters.
Samuel J. Abrams is a professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence College and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
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