United Nations Falsely Accuses Israel of Genocide: Targeting Children Edition

Astronomer Carl Sagan once said that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. That principle is especially relevant when the claim in question is not merely whether a military has committed wrongful acts in war, but that it has deliberately targeted children as a part of a broader strategy amounting to genocide. In both moral and legal terms, this is among the most serious accusations that can be leveled against any state or armed force. The accusation of targeting children heightens the claim because under humanitarian law, children are treated as a protected category. It also implies a level of moral depravity and legal culpability that international law reserves for the worst of the worst.

Yet a recent United Nations Commission report precisely makes that allegation against Israel in the context of the war in Gaza. It concludes that Israel not only caused widespread death and suffering, but that it formed part of a broader strategy to destroy the future of the Palestinians in Gaza by targeting children as a "biological and social continuity" of that group.  

This is not the first time that the UN has advanced sweeping claims against Israel that later proved controversial or methodologically fragile. The UN falsely accused Israel of causing food shortages of Gaza, implying it was part of some master strategy to starve Gazans. The UN also blindly accepted Gazan casualty statistics that exaggerated children fatalities, with the effect of making it look like the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) were targeting women and children. The UN perpetuating refugee status and Jew-hatred under UNRWA also does not help matters.

This does not by itself prove the UN's latest allegations false, but it does warrant extraordinary caution of what the UN claims. Therefore, it is necessary to determine whether the Commission's findings themselves actually confirm if the IDF deliberately targeted children in Gaza or not. 

To conclude that Israel deliberately targeted children, the Commission would need produce evidence of intent, not merely evidence of harm. In the law of armed conflict, intent may be established from direct proof, whether it is orders, directives, or communications. This was the sort of thing observable during the Nanjing Massacre, the murder of children during the Holocaust, ISIS targeting Yazidi children in Iraq, and the Srebrenica massacre. Alternatively, such intent could be inferred through highly compelling circumstances evidence that excludes reasonable alternative explanations. 

The Commission does not present this kind of evidence. Instead, it infers intent from the scale and pattern of child casualties, assuming that a) each child killed in Gaza was killed by the IDF, and b) the child was targeted simply because a child died. Another way to put it: what the UN Commission does is it makes the evidentiary leap from "children have died in this war" to "Israel is targeting children." But even if one were to acknowledge the existence of large-scale harm, that by itself does not prove intent. 

As I have explained before when refuting false claims accusing Israel of committing genocide, for something to be considered genocide, one would have to be able to infer that genocidal intent is the only reasonable inference from the evidence. Here are some things that the United Nations conveniently leaves out of or minimizes in its reporting that show that is far from the case. 

We have to remember that it was Hamas that started this war by raping, kidnapping, torturing, and murdering over 1,200 civilians. Since 1948, Israel has been surrounded by Arab entities that want to wipe it off the map, including the genocidal entity known as Hamas. That by itself does not give the IDF a carte blanche to do what it wants in response. But what follows points out that genocide is not a reasonable conclusion based on the evidence. 

Civilian casualties are sadly a consequence of armed conflict. Children casualties are going to be an outcome given that about half of Gaza's population is under 18. More to the point, Gaza is one of the most densely populated battlefields in modern history, making this outcome even more inevitable.

There is one other sad truth to acknowledge: not all individuals under 18 in this conflict zone are necessarily noncombatant casualties. Armed groups in Gaza have been known to recruit and train minors to participate in hostilities against Israel. This further underscores why aggregate references to "child casualties" is insufficient, and is one other area in which the UN overstates their case. 

Even if one were to accept the Commission's casualty figures (which again, I would hesitate since the UN has accepted exaggerated casualty numbers before), neither a high civilian death toll nor a particular civilian-to-combatant ratio can substitute for genocidal intent. 

Hamas has a long-standing practice of using its civilians as human shields. The UN also ignores that Hamas has embedded vast tunnel networks, weapons stockpiles, booby-trapped buildings, and command facilities in civilian infrastructure. Without this context, the UN does not capture the complexities that the IDF faces while fighting Hamas and dismisses that these deaths could have been caused by crossfire, militant Hamas activity, or an unfortunate consequence of urban warfare. 

Furthermore, Israel's conduct is inconsistent with genocidal intent. The IDF has put warnings to civilians out before strikes (e.g., evacuation notices, phone calls, text messages), which no other military in history has done because they would lose the tactical advantage and incur military cost. The IDF has also allowed for humanitarian corridors and humanitarian aid to enter to reduce civilian suffering. 

Another point: Israel has a multi-ethnic and multi-religious population that includes about 2 million Muslims who are given equal rights under the law. It would be an odd policy for a government that was intent on exterminating Muslims to simultaneously extend full legal equality to Muslims in its borders. But then again, these are the sort of loops that the anti-Israel side jumps through to believe in this accusation. 

Ultimately, the UN does not prove evidence showing its headline allegation that the IDF is targeting children. All of this context in the previous paragraphs provides a reasonable, alternative explanation for the scale of child casualties in Gaza. However, the report gives those alternative explanations insufficient considerations and jumps straight to genocide as the only explanation, which is out of touch with the reality on the ground. This sort of inferential leap without sufficient evidence not only should give us reason to pause, but for any rational and sane person, it is yet another example that puts the UN's supposed objectivity and impartiality into question.

Israel Recognizing Somaliland and the Awkward Truth About Secession

For most of the world, Somaliland is not even a blip on the radar when it comes to international politics. Formerly a British protectorate, Somaliland voluntarily united with Italian Somaliland in 1960 to form what is known as Somalia. But after years of dictatorship and civil war, Somaliland declared independence in 1991. Out of the wreckage of Somalia's collapse emerged the semi-free, democratic, mostly peaceful nation of Somaliland. It has held elections, collected taxes, and policed its borders. In spite of governing itself for over three decades, the international community has largely pretended that Somaliland is not a real state. 

Israel changed that equation a little over a week ago by recognizing Somaliland. By becoming the first country to acknowledge the nation, Israel took a step that other countries have avoided for years. To be perfectly clear, Israel is not doing this out of the kindness of its heart. It is a geopolitical move in which two rational actors voluntarily enter diplomatic relations. 

Why Recognition Benefits Both Parties

Somaliland sits on the Gulf of Aden, which would give Israel better access to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. This is more useful given that Yemen lies along the Gulf, which would help Israel with maritime security and intelligence gathering. Generally speaking, Israel's diversification of its diplomatic and economic relations has been a part of its international policy. I pointed it out in 2017 with Israel and India, and I would point out that the Abraham Accords are another example of that. 

Israel is not the only one that stands to benefit. For Somaliland to receive recognition from even one state can break the years of diplomatic isolation that has plagued Somaliland. This recognition and subsequent recognition from other nations could improve foreign investment and trade relations, all of which can integrate Somaliland into the global economy and the diplomatic community. This recognition is another reminder that Jews and Muslims can indeed get along, but I will set that aside for the moment. 

The Objections: Borders, Precedent, and Institutional Norms

Mutual benefit is a feature of sound foreign policy, but that did not stop critics from coming out: 

• Somalia believes it is aggression and a violation of their sovereignty. Its claim has nothing to do with governance, consent, or control. It is solely based on legal continuity, not the reality of Somaliland's governance, which I will cover more momentarily. 
• The African Union objects because the borders at the time of independence should be preserved. This is in spite of the fact that Somaliland's borders are by and large the same as they were when it was a British protectorate prior to its unification in 1960. 
• China is upset for two reasons. One is that it has significant investments in the region, and does not want to risk losing money. The second is that it could set precedent or inspire Taiwan or Tibet. 
• The United Nations is less than thrilled because Israel and Somaliland bypassed their institutional norms. I can hardly blame Israel for not wanting to deal with the UN given its long-standing bias. And it is not exactly as if the UN has been there for Somaliland in terms of security or development. This recognition undermines the UN's institutional legitimacy while exposing its limitations. 

Debunking the Criticisms 

When you scrutinize these arguments, they strain credulity. Somaliland has not engaged in war since its independence in 1991, which minimizes the "regional instability" argument. As for the "borders are sacrosanct" argument, critics worry that Somaliland sets precedent other entities to want to secede, such as Scotland, Quebec, or Catalonia. Yet the world accepted the unilateral secessions of Bangladesh, South Sudan, and Kosovo without the outcry that is going on with Somaliland. And yet none of those secessions led to a secession domino effect. 

Somaliland Meets the Montevideo Convention

The reality is that Somaliland has functioned peacefully and autonomously from Somalia for over three decades. When I discussed other countries recognizing Palestinian statehood last September, I brought up the Montevideo Convention, which is the most widely used definition in international law to define a state. To be intellectually consistent, I will use those four criteria: 

Defined territory - Somaliland has a clearly defined territorial claim that corresponds almost identically to the borders of the former British Somaliland Protectorate.

Permanent population - Somaliland has a permanent population over 6 million people who have resided there on a long-term basis.

Capacity to conduct diplomatic relations - Somaliland has maintained informal diplomatic relations with other countries, hosts representative offices, and engages with international organizations. Israel's recognition of Somaliland strengthens the argument for its capacity. 

Single functioning government - Somaliland has had a single functioning government since 1991. It operates under a constitution approved by referendum, holds regular elections, has functioning courts, collects taxes, and maintains overall good control over its borders. This governance has been internal and self-sustaining, and has not needed foreign peacekeepers or international administration.  

Political Reality Trumps Abstract Norms

Ultimately, the objections to recognition are about maintaining territorial claims, avoiding precedent, and defending institutional authority, not about the people or their political reality. Somaliland has existed peacefully and autonomously for over three decades. To deny recognition in the name of abstract principles or potential "inspirations" for other secessions is to ignore the empirical reality on the ground. Pragmatic recognition, as Israel has undertaken, acknowledges what Somalilanders have built: a stable, self-governing polity whose place in the international system is long overdue. Refusing recognition to preserve theoretical rules that are outliving their usefulness is merely authoritarianism disguised as diplomacy. If countries want to operate in the empirical state of what is going on in Africa in 2026, they ought to recognize Somaliland, engage constructively, and let political reality guide diplomacy, instead of clinging onto delusions of what borders should be like.

The Fiction of Palestinian Statehood: Why Recognition Is a Dangerous Illusion

I am sure that pro-Palestine activists are feeling hopeful this week. In a matter of days, there were multiple Western democracies that recognized Palestinian statehood, including Australia, Canada, France, Portugal, and the United Kingdom. This recognition is being hailed as "long overdue" and a "bold diplomatic move." Beneath the ceremonial language and moral grandstanding lies a more profound issue about accountability, legitimacy, morality, and what it means to truly be a state. Having Western democracies recognize Palestinian statehood does nothing to erase these realities, as we will see shortly. 

Recognizing Palestine Will Not Incentivize Good Behavior

I want to start with this point because it is the underpinning argument for such a move. Many in diplomatic circles believe in Palestinian statehood as a moral imperative that will help foster a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine. The argument goes that by recognizing Palestinian statehood, Palestine will decide to play ball and work towards peace. The reality is that recognition without asking for any behavioral change on Palestine's part removes any incentive for it to reform or change, whether that is a demand to disarm, release the hostages, hold elections, reform its education to stop demonizing Jews, or make a concerted commitment to co-exist with Israel. Why implement reform when statehood is being handed to you on a silver platter?  

The idea that the "incentivize good behavior" theory will not end well is not mere conjecture. During the Oslo Peace Accords and the subsequent Camp David Accords, the Palestinian Authority received much of what they requested. They were granted semi-autonomy, international funding, and diplomatic legitimacy in exchange for peace. What resulted? Continued rejection of peace, massive corruption, and a second Intifada. 

Hamas is worse than Fatah. Aside from calling for the extermination of Israel in its initial 1988 charter, Hamas explicitly opposed the Oslo Accords, carried out atrocities, rejected negotiations, and has called for the destruction of Israel. In 2005, Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza to give them a chance to create a state. Gaza was given about two decades to establish a semblance of self-governance. What transpired? Hamas, a terrorist organization, takes over Gaza. Since then, Israel is barraged with rockets and multiple skirmishes with Hamas, and the October 7 attacks in which Hamas kidnapped, raped, tortured, and murdered civilians. The October 7 attacks is the reason why there is presently a war in Gaza. They could have chosen to live peacefully alongside Israel. Instead, it opted to build terror tunnels and focus on exterminating the only Jewish state with war and violence.

These are Palestinian case studies in how appeasement backfires spectacularly. They are also indicative of a larger pattern in the Middle Eastern conflict that dates back to 1948: Belligerent Arab entities attack Israel, Israel fights back in self-defense, Israel wins, Arab entities cry foul when they lose for trying to wipe Israel off the map, rinse and repeat.

Why would a new round of rewards suddenly change their incentive to behave properly? Recognizing Palestinian statehood rewards the absence of political reforms and the commission of human rights abuses against Israelis. In recognizing Palestinian statehood, it sends the message that you do not need to take responsibility or enact political reforms. It means that statehood can be recognized through bloodshed, terrorism, and rejecting your neighbor's right to exist. A worst-case scenario could be a precedent that incentivizes other aspiring states to use violence and bloodshed as a political strategy for future state recognition instead of accountability.

What Exactly Is Being Recognized?

With 156 countries recognizing Palestine as a state, I imagine you are wondering how I could possibly call it a farce or a delusion to recognize a Palestinian state. In part, recognizing Palestine is a classic example of argumentum ad numerum, which is the logical fallacy in which something is claimed to be true simply because a majority of people believe it. Simply because countries declare recognition of a Palestinian state does not make it so. 

While not binding globally, the Montevideo Convention is the most widely accepted legal framework for what constitutes statehood. It is important to apply those same objective standards to would-be states. In Article I, the Convention lays out four criteria: a defined territory; a single, functioning government; capacity to enter into foreign relations; permanent population. The supposed state of Palestine fails on at least three of those criteria. How so?

Defined territory - The West Bank and Gaza are territorially disconnected. The West Bank is governed by the PA (with partial Israeli control, depending on the Area of the West Bank), whereas Gaza is governed by Hamas. Also, there is no universally agreed upon definition of the border because they are disputed territories. 

Single functioning government - Which entity does the Western world recognize exactly? There never has been a sovereign Arab state called Palestine, and there is presently no coherent state. Neither Fatah nor Hamas have complete control over the territory, which is more important considering that the two factions are ideologically and militarily opposed to one another. The Palestinian Authority (PA) lost control over Gaza in 2007. Hamas rules Gaza, but because of its terrorist designation in multiple countries, is not a legitimate governing body under international norms. Abbas is in Year 19 of a four-year term, and he needs to rely on external funding and Israeli security to function. 

Diplomatic relations - Hamas cannot conduct international diplomacy due to being diplomatically isolated with its terrorist designation. While the PA has observer status at the United Nations, it lacks full diplomatic recognition. Between its internal divisions, donor dependency, and lack of institutional coherence, the PA is unable to effectively conduct diplomatic relations. International recognition of a state should follow institutional legitimacy, not the other way around. 

This is not an argument about Palestinian self-determination, although that could be another conversation for another time. This is about whether the entity known as Palestine in its current form is capable of such recognition. Statehood is not merely symbolic, but institutional. Palestine does not have defined borders, a unified government, or the institutional capacity to behave like a responsible member of the international community. Recognizing a state that does not exist in functional terms is as sensical as recognizing the statehood of Narnia. 

Recognition, in this case, is not sovereignty, but rather performative. It does not grant control over borders, airspace, security, or economic independence. Palestine remains a fragmented, dependent, and divided figment of the imagination as far as international relations are concerned. Diplomatic recognition cannot replace actual governance or territorial authority. 

Symbolic Recognition Undermines Real Diplomacy

If the goal is to help the Palestinian people, this is a lousy way of going about it. I do not say so simply because recognizing Palestinian statehood will do nothing to stop the fighting in light of the fact that Israel views this as too existential without seeing an actual good-faith effort from the other side. State recognition does not empower the moderates or the ones that would actually like to engage in a two-state solution. It entrenches Hamas and Fatah, the powers that have prolonged the conflict. The October 7 attacks were not a one-time outlier. They are part of a decades-long pattern of aggression and rejectionism towards the state of Israel, a pattern that symbolic recognition does nothing to break. 

By recognizing a state without actual governance or a peace agreement, it turns statehood into an empty gesture. Bypassing negotiations with state recognition removes leverage, thereby deepening division instead of resolving it. In short, it short-circuits the peace process instead of engendering it. If anything, it gives corrupt and violent actors the ability to pose as legitimate governments while perpetuating the conflict and oppressing its own people. Diplomacy without standards is merely performative. 

Symbolic Recognition Shows Western Moral Confusion

Recognizing Palestinian statehood creates a catch-22 argument. If Palestine is to be recognized as a state, it means that by definition, they must be held accountable as a state. After all, if they merit statehood, then they are sovereign enough to be held accountable for carrying out the October 7 attacks against Israel, thereby instigating this current war. If the developed world absolves them of responsibility, that means that by the standards of international law, Palestine does not meet the threshold for statehood. If the leadership is not responsible, they are not functioning as a state, which begs the question of why recognize their statehood in the first place. 

Statehood is more than airing a grievance; it is about moral and institutional legitimacy. You cannot have it both ways by demanding statehood while absconding from the responsibilities of statehood. This would mean that Palestine is not held to any standards while Israel is held to mythical double standards. 

By recognizing Palestinian statehood, these nations have shown how morally insincere they are. They say they want peace, but they cannot grapple with the consequences of legitimizing the terrorist organization Hamas or the fact that even Fatah does not want to have Jews in their midst. Ultimately recognizing statehood is to legitimize a dysfunctional, violent, and unaccountable leadership. Granting statehood would promote neither peace, justice, nor reform. It acts as a signal to bad actors that violence and bloodshed are acceptable forms of political strategy. This level of appeasement from Western powers will only perpetuate an unfortunate predicament in the Middle East. 

A Famine of Truth: Hamas and the U.N. Are to Blame for Food Shortages in Gaza

Fighting between Israel and Hamas has been ongoing for over two years in the Gaza Strip and there seems to be no end in sight. There are still 50 hostages being held by Hamas, in addition to the loss of life of Israeli soldiers. The Palestinian side has not only experienced a loss in civilian life, but food insecurity has also been an ongoing issue for Gazans throughout this conflict. Starvation of civilians is as heartbreaking as it is inevitable in a war zone, and it has made rounds in the news cycle once again.

This past Tuesday, the United Nations sounded the alarm that famine in Gaza is imminent. The famine warnings are bad enough that France, Germany, and the United Kingdom called for a ceasefire this past Friday. The mainstream media condemned Israel, including such outlets as the Guardian, CNN, NBC, and the New York Times. Of course, you did not see that sort of condemnation with the economic sanctions on Syria making lives more difficult for Syrian civilians, but I digress.

The famine accusation is nothing new. The World Health Organization said back in March 2024 that it was "imminent." In January 2024, the United Nations said that Gazans were facing famine in January 2024, although the UN's Famine Review Committee later got around to admitting in a May 2024 report that the allegations of an ongoing famine are unsubstantiated, as was a follow-up November 2024 report. Yet neither the United Nations nor the WHO have formally declared a famine as of date, in spite of warning about it for months. This might be because there has not been a famine. As we will see shortly, the situation on the ground is more complex than the mainstream media lets on. 

Let us start with how the people of Gaza got into this mess in the first place. Hamas, the de facto ruling power in Gaza, started a war with Israel by raping, kidnapping, and murdering civilians on October 7, 2023. If Hamas did not instigate a war with a superior military power by committing the worst pogrom against Jews since the Holocaust, this suffering in Gaza could have been avoided. After all, in what other conflict or war in history has the "international community" asked a country to feed its enemy after the enemy attacked its civilians? Were the Allied powers supposed to provide humanitarian aid to Nazi Germany? Do we expect Ukraine to feed Russians after Russia started the Russo-Ukrainian War? I do not think so. 

One could argue that because Israel has a genocidal neighbor on its western border intent on wiping out Israel, Israel has no moral obligation to help out such an enemy. This also does not take into account the reality that Hamas could have ended the conflict months ago by returning the hostages, but has not done so. Gazans could live in peace with their Israeli neighbors, but choose not to because the majority of Gazans would rather not have an Israeli nation exist. Even if you want to cite the Fourth Geneva Convention (Article 23) as a basis for Israel to help facilitate humanitarian aid, there is still a minor wrinkle in all of this: Israel has been and continues to facilitate the distribution of humanitarian aid to Gazan citizens. 

From January 2024 to July 2024, Israel supplied 478,229 metric tons of food to Gazans (Fliss-Isakov et al., 2025). This is the equivalent of about 3,000 calories a day, which is above the average recommended caloric intake is in the United States. It is not merely Israeli data that confirms the entry of 1.9 million tons of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip. The U.N. database for Supplies and Dispatch Tracking (see below) shows that humanitarian aid has been entering the war zone throughout the conflict. 

If Israel were using starvation as a weapon, they would not have been facilitating the entry and distribution of humanitarian aid into Gaza. If Israel wanted to starve the Gazans, they would simply cut off their food supply and let them die. And if Israel were hellbent on destroying Gaza, there are more effective ways that do not endanger Israeli lives than fighting a defensive war. The claim that Israel wants to commit genocide against the Palestinians is simply fallacious (see here, here, and here), especially since you do not send humanitarian aid to or feed a population you are trying to wipe off the planet. Israeli and UN data show that using starvation as a weapon is far from what is happening. Plus, I have pointed out how Israel has taken more precautions than any other army in history to minimize civilian suffering, thereby further diminishing the "Israel is out to get them" argument.

If Israel is helping out, then why are Gazan civilians still starving? Last Friday (July 25), there were 950 trucks piled with 2,500 tons of food sitting idle in Gaza. The U.S.- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which began operating in May 2025 to help distribute humanitarian aid to Gazans, offered to distribute the food sitting in the warehouses. However, the United Nations refused the GHF's help. This incident is but one example of what the situation faces with respect to food distribution.

It does not surprise me that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinians in the Near East (UNRWA) does not want to help GHF with the task alleviating starvation in the Gazan war zone. As I brought up last year, UNRWA has sowed the seeds of victimhood and anti-Semitism that have allowed for Hamas to proliferate. Unlike other refugee organizations, UNRWA is not mandated to help resettle refugees. If anything, UNRWA has structural incentives that discourage it from resolving the crisis because expanding refugee rolls perpetuates UNRWA's large budget and continued donor funding. That same mechanism is in play with the food shortage. 

UNRWA's institutional survival is contingent upon a large, dependent population. Crisis perpetuation attracts more humanitarian aid, not to mention that UNRWA is deeply entangled with the local power structures in Gaza, i.e., Hamas. Essentially, UNRWA's financial structure and institutional incentives do not reward resolving starvation, but rather reinforce a cycle of dependency and suffering. This refusal to work with outside humanitarian distributors underscores how UNRWA's operational control, as well as its incentives to maintain a dependent population, can obstruct effective relief delivery, even amid starvation.

It is not only UNRWA that reinforces suffering in Gaza. While the people of Gaza bear responsibility for electing Hamas and enabling Hamas' extremist ideology to flourish within Gazan society, they also live under an authoritarian terrorist organization that suppresses dissent and leaves few viable political options available, all of which fuel a cycle of violence and hate. It is especially sad for the children living in Gaza because they did not vote Hamas into power and cannot leave Gaza even if they wanted to leave. It is Hamas' violence and extremist ideology that help perpetuate the conflict in the Middle East. 

That extremism includes such tactics as stealing humanitarian aid meant for civilians and profiting off of those commandeered goods, which the Left-leaning Washington Post got around to admitting to last week. As I have brought up before and as the Henry Jackson Society illustrates in its April 2025 report on the topic, stealing humanitarian aid is part of Hamas' greater modus operandi of using Gazan citizens as human shields. 

In addition to stealing humanitarian aid, Hamas commits such acts as using humanitarian zones for military purposes, launching rockets from civilian sites, has a tunnel network built under civilian infrastructure, and use civilian structures as combat and weapons storage. By doing so, they garner international support, which is seen by the response of many in the West. 

[7/31/2025 Addendum: After writing this post, this UN database that has been monitoring UN aid since May 19, 2025 was brought to my attention. It turns out that 85 percent of the collected aid, in terms of tonnage, was intercepted, either by crowds or armed individuals. This is not coming from the Israeli government, but on the United Nation's website for all the world to see. Some journalistic scrutiny instead of posting Hamas lies would be helpful.]

Delivering humanitarian aid in a war zone is difficult in the best of circumstances. Since it is compounded by UNRWA's incompetence and Hamas' extremism, it makes the suffering of Gazan civilians all the worse. As long as the world believes Israel is responsible, Hamas will continue to benefit from the moral cover, international funding, and political oxygen it needs to maintain power and bring suffering to the Palestinians that human rights activists claim to care about so much. If the world actually cares about Palestinian suffering, it has to confront Hamas' culpability with such substantial action as targeted sanctions on Hamas leadership or an independent humanitarian oversight mission. Until then, Gazan citizens will continue to suffer: not because Israel is starving them, but because Hamas is using their starvation as a weapon of war. 

No #MeToo for Israeli Women: The International Community Turned a Blind Eye to Hamas' Sexual Violence on October 7

 October 7, 2023, was a horrific day for Israel. A barrage of militant Hamas terrorists crossed into Israeli territory to carry out the worst pogrom against Jews since the Holocaust. Not only was there murder, kidnapping, and torture, but Hamas terrorists also used sexual violence against Israeli women. If this attack had happened in any other country, I imagine that advocates against sexual violence would not have equivocated and would have spoken up right away against such atrocities. However, since the October 7 attack took place in Israel, the "international community" took a different approach. 

In its press release on October 13, 2023, UN Women did not acknowledge the sexual assault of Israeli women and mostly talked about the humanitarian situation in Gaza, which is peculiar since Israeli Defense Forces did not have a physical presence between 2005 and October 23, 2023 when the IDF launched its full-scale incursion in Gaza. It took UN Women nearly two months to issue sort of any condemnation. When it did, UN Women could not help but partake in false equivalence. To its credit, the United Nations did eventually get around to admitting in 2024 that there are reasonable grounds that sexual violence took place in multiple places by Hamas on October 7. 

Neither Amnesty International nor Human Rights Watch (HRW) were much better in terms of being able to unequivocally condemn Hamas. HRW could not sufficiently condemn Hamas for its barbarism shortly after the attack, and did not even address Hamas' sexual violence. It took HRW until June 2024, or nine months later, to come out with a report acknowledging the sexual violence during the October 7 attacks. In contrast, HRW has swiftly condemned the sexual violence in Congo, in the DRC, and Sudan . 

On October 13, 2023, Amnesty International could not clearly criticize what Hamas did without condemning Israel in a manner that was tantamount to victim-blaming. Amnesty International unequivocally and quickly reported on the rapes committed by Tigray fighters in Ethiopia and the gang rapes of Rohingya women in Myanmar without equivocating. In contrast, Amnesty's December 2023 report on what happened on October 7 only confirmed one rape, which as we will see shortly, is an understatement of what happened.

This brings us to the Dinah Project, which is an Israeli group founded to advocate for the victims of conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) during the October 7 attacks. Last week, the Dinah Project released a report entitled A Quest for Justice: October 7 and Beyond. Not only does this report extensively document over 15 cases of CRSV committed by Hamas and provides a legal framework to hold Hamas accountable. It makes the argument that the acts of CRSV were not individual acts. Instead, the sexual violence was a deliberate, ideologically motivated, and systematic tactic central to Hamas' genocidal goals, something which I have brought up before. 

This blatant one-sidedness is not new. In 1975, the United Nations passed a resolution falsely stating that Zionism is racism. Although the resolution was overturned in 1991, that animus remains to this day. It does not matter that there are actual human rights abuses taking place in the world. Israel is disproportionately vilified with such false accusations as apartheid, occupation, and settler colonialism. A few months ago, I had to refute Amnesty International's claim that Israel was committing genocide (see here, here, and here). 

So why the tempered or delayed responses from human rights organizations? Why are there so many on the Left, the Far Left in particular, who ignore the mounting evidence of sexual violence against Israelis and are incapable of condemning the terrorist group Hamas? Why is Israel subject to such frequent, intense, and disproportionate condemnation while so many of these critics ignore real human rights abuses and oppression? Shortly after the October 7 attacks, I asked myself why the "progressive" Left would be on Hamas' side because it was perplexing to me (see here and here). After examination, I was able to get past why the "progressive" Left would not side with a minority group that has been persecuted for centuries. 

With identity politics leading the way, the "progressive" Left can only see in terms of the oppressor and the oppressed in very black and white terms. For them, Israel is the oppressor. Acknowledging Hamas' usage as a weapon of war would have refuted the oppressor/oppressed dichotomy favored by many international actors. Moreover, the state of Israel is a repudiation of victimhood. Israel shows that a minority as oppressed as the Jews can overcome discrimination, stigma, and genocide to the point of creating a flourishing state. Leftist ideology loses credibility if minorities overcome adversity because it means we humans are not merely victims of circumstances. 

In contrast, the Palestinian cause is the personification of victimhood, which is why the Far Left clings to it so dearly to the point where Hamas can do no wrong and Israeli victims' suffering does not release them of being supposed "oppressors." Pro-Palestinian individuals cannot view Hamas as anything but virtuous. To do otherwise would be admitting that their worldview is not only wrong, but morally depraved. Conversely, if the Far Left has excused the likes of Stalin and Mao Zedong killing millions, why would they have moral qualms with the sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas? 

Anti-capitalist sentiment could explain why the Far Left would defend Hamas rapists and not care about Israeli victims. Earlier this month, the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) released a report entitled Forever Occupation, Genocide, and Profit. This UNHRC report was incapable of acknowledging that Hamas started the current war, that they systematically carried out murder and sexual violence, or that there are still hostages. What did the report conclude? "The enduring ideological, political, and economic engine of racial capitalism has transformed the Israeli displacement-replacement economy occupation into an economy of genocide." Much like I argued in 2023, Jews and the state of Israel personify capitalism and all the evils that anti-capitalists see in capitalism.

Whether Israel is viewed as oppressor, capitalist, or rejector of victimhood that the Far Left loves all too much, this is how "human rights advocates" can reach such a level of moral distortion. What Israel represents to these people is so reprehensible that they can contort facts and their perception of current events to believe that rape is resistance. The #MeToo movement died shortly after the October 7, 2023, because of these double standards. Major human rights organizations have failed in their respective missions. It is this overall indifference towards the suffering of Israeli women that caused the Dinah Project to come into being. 

We live in troubled times with anti-Semitism that I previously thought was relegated to history books. Yet we are seeing and documenting horrid anti-Semitism in real time. We are seeing that sexual violence does not matter if the victim is Israeli or Jewish. We see that it has lamentably become acceptable to attack and murder Jews across the world in order to "globalize the intifada." As a survey from the Anti-Defamation League shows, it is how the United States has stooped low enough where 24 percent of Americans found that violence against Jews is "understandable." 

Given the entrenched hatred for Israel and for Jews in multiple international organizations, I remain skeptical as to whether the victims of the October 7 attacks will receive the justice they deserve. Until the world can view Hamas as the Islamist, regressive, homophobic anti-Semites that they are, and until people can realize that it is the Palestinians who embody everything the anti-Zionists accuse Israel of, most people will continue to cling to the moral inversion in which it is "understandable" to attack Jews and where #MeToo does not apply to Jews or Israelis. Even so, I hope that the Dinah Project is a first step to pursue justice for those who suffered at the hands of Hamas terrorists and could also be used as a framework to legally punish anyone who commits sexual violence in conflict. There is no acceptable instance in which rape is resistance. As we move forward, let us not forget who stood up for victims of sexual violence and who stood on the side of genocidal rapists.

Iran Is a Legitimate Threat to Israel, But Should the U.S. Have Bombed Iran's Nuclear Facilities?

About two weeks ago on June 13, Israel initiated a surprise attack on Iran known as Operation Rising Lion targeting top military officers and scientists, much like it did when Israel targeted Hezbollah operatives in September 2024. Iran fired missiles on Israel and there have been airstrikes since. These past few days have been an escalation of the animosity that has existed between Israel and Iran since the Iranian Revolution of 1979. 

Iran has financially backed Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Houthis. Then there was the Iranian attacks on the Israeli embassy in Argentina in 1992 and the 1994 AMIA bombing in Argentina, the latter of which was the largest terrorist attack in Argentinean history. On top of the proxy conflicts and historical tension, Iran has called for Israel's destruction multiple times over the past few decades. 

Israel attacked Iran on June 13 because Israel reportedly wanted to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon that would annihilate Israel. This would make sense because the UN nuclear watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) submitted a report a day before Operation Rising Lion showing that Iran was in breach of its non-proliferation obligations. President Trump initially said that he will help Israel "if needed." And help he did. 

On June 22, the United States military carried out Operation Midnight Hammer to attack three nuclear facilities: Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. The White House is claiming that Iranian nuclear capabilities have been obliterated. Although Trump announced a ceasefire the following day, it is neither clear whether there will be further attacks from Israel or Iran, nor is it clear whether Iran's nuclear capabilities are decimated. As of now, the ceasefire is holding, but it is too soon to tell. Similar to what I pondered three years ago with Ukraine, the question I ask now is whether the United States should have militarily gotten involved in Iran. 

The answer depends in part on how much damage was done to Iran's nuclear facilities. Damage assessments are still preliminary. An initial assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) said that it was only delayed by a few months. On the other hand, the CIA released a statement saying that it would take years for Iran to rebuild. If Iran's nuclear capabilities remain largely intact, it could risk greater regional tension and drag the United States in yet another war in the Middle East. If their capabilities truly were hindered, then this limited military intervention could have prevented World War III. 

Whether the United States should have carried out Operation Midnight Hammer also depends on how the United States, Israel, and Iran will respond. If the United States gets further involved in terms of actual fighting, then it makes Trump look bad since Trump promised in his last presidential campaign that he would not start any new wars. To reiterate, Israel views Iran as an existential threat. While the IDF preliminarily finds that Iran's capabilities have been set back for years, Israel might escalate if it perceives that Iran has not been adequately incapacitated.

As for Iran, the Iranian government has already passed legislation to prohibit the IAEA from entering Iran.  Iran does not have the capability to attack the United States directly. Iran tends to avoid conventional conflict and instead advances its regional operations through propaganda and proxy operations. As such, Tehran could attack the Strait of Hormuz, which could send oil prices soaring. Tehran could also attack U.S. military installations in the Middle East, much like Iran attempted on June 23 with Operation Glad Tidings of Victory when it unsuccessfully sent missiles to the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar. Domestically, I understand that Iran is militarily weakened and economically pummeled. At the same time, that desperation could encourage the Ayatollah to tighten the screws on its citizens. 

This is a roundabout way of saying that this conflict is very much developing and much is up in the air. Even if Iran has been hobbled, Iran remains a threat. I do not want another war in the Middle East, much like most Americans. Cato Institute calculated that if the war with Iran created displacement at the same rate as Syria, that would mean 23.4 million civilians, which would increase the worldwide refugee population by 76 percent. It would be a tragedy indeed. Ultimately, I hope that further conflict and bloodshed is avoided in the Middle East. Whether that ends up being the case is something that only time will tell.

"Free Palestine" Rhetoric Has Become a Free Pass to Justify Anti-Semitism and Attacking Jews

October 7, 2023 was a horrific day for Israel. Hamas militants crossed into Israel to carry out the worst pogrom against Jews since the Holocaust. They carried out unspeakable acts against humanity: rape, kidnapping 251 civilians, murdering over 1,200 civilians, torture, decapitation. In terms of per capita death rates, October 7 was the equivalent of September 11 about 15 times over. The bodies of the murdered were not even buried and yet the pro-Palestine "activists" were already out protesting against Israel. This first wave of post-October 7 Jew-hatred broke out before the Israeli Defense Forces even entered Gaza, which tells you how much the motives are about hating Israel and Jews. Since October 8, 2023, these protestors have been out in full force across the planet. 

Fast-forward to May/June 2025. In a two-week timespan, there were two violent and unfortunate anti-Semitic attacks that made international news. The first was the murder of two Israeli embassy staff members outside of the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington D.C. The murderer was screaming "Free Palestine" as he was being arrested for this heinous act. 

The second attack took place in Boulder, Colorado. There was a rally for the hostages who have been held captive in Gaza for over 600 days. The assailant threw Molotov cocktails at the participants. The savage seriously injured eight participants, including an 88-year Holocaust survivor. As he threw the Molotov cocktails, he was screaming "We need to end Zionists." These attacks got me thinking a lot about the rhetoric used by pro-Palestine protestors and how it influences anti-Semitism and violence against Jews in the Diaspora. Let us examine the most commonly used rhetoric.  

"Globalize the Intifada". The word intifada comes from the Arabic انتفاضة, which is derived from the Arabic verb that means "to shake off" or "to get rid of." Within the political context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there have been two intifadas. The First Intifada was in the late 1980s to early 1990s, whereas the Second Intifada took place in the early 2000s. In both intifadas, there was political violence against Jews that resulted in over 1,000 Jewish deaths. Suicide bombing was commonly used during the Second Intifada. Since intifada against Israel has historically meant indiscriminate violence against Jews, does it surprise anyone that globalizing the intifada would translate into violence against Jews, Israelis, and pro-Israel institutions across the world?   

"From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free". It would behoove us to ask which river and which sea. Answer: the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. What country is between those two bodies of water? Israel. This is not a call for a two-state solution, but to extend the clout of this proto-state (if you can call it that) by eliminating the state of Israel. At a bare minimum, this translates into the ethnic cleansing of Jews. More likely, it is a call for the genocide of the Jewish people, especially after the pogrom of October 7 and the uptick of anti-Semitism afterwards. This phrase ends up being problematic in practice because it is ultimately not about a call for justice or equality; it crosses the line into bona fide anti-Semitism and the political extremism of eliminating the world's only Jewish nation-state. 

"Resistance by any means necessary." This little beaut is commonly used by anti-Israel group Within Our Lifetime - United for Palestine (WOL). Hopefully, this one should not require that much explanation. Any means necessary means the ends justify the means. This includes multiple acts of violence, whether that is slaughtering children and the elderly, suicide bombings, shootings, and setting synagogues on fire. If you have any doubts about that, October 7 and the subsequent rise in anti-Semitism across the global should have settled that "any means necessary" literally means "any means."

False accusations of genocide and settler colonialism. Genocide and settler colonialism are evils in the world. The problem in this instance is that Israel is guilty of neither. When you are under the delusion that Israel is committing genocide (see my three-part refutation of the false genocide accusation here, here, and here), this sort of accusation fuels the flames of Jew hate. Why? 

It does not matter that the Jews are indigenous to Israel (also known as Judea) or that Israel has legal rights to the land under international law, thereby refuting the "settler colonialism" argument. If your take is mistakenly that the "evil Jews" are the most heinous human rights violators out there (especially when you are ignoring actual violations of human rights), then you might be inspired to do something drastic about stopping these misperceived injustices, as was the case in the Washington DC and Boulder attacks. 

Postscript

As I pointed out last October, anti-Semitism has been on the rise and at significantly higher rates than anti-Muslim crimes. Anti-Semitism has only gotten worse since the war between Israel and Hamas began in October 2023. Let there be no mistake. Words have power. When pro-Palestinian protestors chant "From the river to the sea" or "Globalize the intifada," what they are doing is endorse, glorify, and encourage the bloodshed of Jews and Israelis. It is the public celebration of mass murder.  

What is jarring is that this rhetoric has become normalized and covered up with the excuse of "We're not anti-Semitic, just anti-Zionist," a phenomenon I explored in 2016. It does not matter what your views about Israeli policy are. It is possible to criticize the Israeli government without calling for its eradication. Israeli citizens do so frequently. Far too many on the pro-Palestine side has gone beyond mere political disagreement about Israel's foreign policy and venturing into bona fide anti-Semitic territory. What makes this even more horrifying is that these slogan gain traction and become normalized, thereby making the speech seem like "mere rhetoric" or "protected dissent" (e.g., Farrand, 2023; Álvarez-Benjumea and Winter, 2020). Obviously not every chant of "Free Palestine" results in violence. However, using militant and existential slogans in mainstream protest culture blurs the line between protest and atrocity. 

To those skeptical of rhetorical causality: Yes, we cannot trace a single murderer's inner logic perfectly. But we can observe when violent actors adopt the same slogans, when media hesitate to condemn those slogans, and when protests precede violence like they did shortly after October 7, 2023 (even before the Gaza operation began), that ends up being the evidence of rhetorical facilitation, not mere correlation. If we are to live in a free, democratic society, support for violence against Jews needs to be deemed as abhorrent and unacceptable. Anything less is letting the terrorists win.  

Anti-Semitism across the world has become loud, brazen, unapologetic, and violent in a way that is giving me a taste of how Jews felt in 1930s Europe as the Nazi Party ascended to power. It is even worse when the "mainstream media" sanitizes the anti-Semitism in its reporting and parrots Hamas propaganda without doing a basic fact-check, which begs the question of how much the likes of BBC, Washington Post, and New York Times can be held accountable for spreading libel. It is even worse still because the pro-Palestine attempts to normalize violence against Jews as a form of being a freedom fighter or social justice warrior. What is scary about this framework is that it is working. The silent majority across the world has kept quiet as jihadism and anti-Semitism become palatable and trendy.

Yes, I am for the First Amendment right of peaceful protest, even that of pro-Palestinian protestors who I have come to view as the modern-day equivalent of Nazis. Where the present situation gets murky in practice is when the anti-Semitism of these chants are normalized and become weaponized as a justification to attack Jews. The line between acceptable free speech and incitement of violence has become blurred, which begs the question of what does a Jew who advocates for freedom of speech such as myself believe should be done. 

I both value freedom of speech and believe that Jews should be able to live without having to constantly worry about violence being carried out against them simply for being Jewish.  Granted, Jews have adapted to anti-Semitism over the centuries and are continuing to do so. At the same time, I have no easy answers in this muddled grey area. I am inclined to believe that charging those who commit illegal acts not covered under the First Amendment, such as violence, incitement of violence, threats, intimidation would be a good start, as would be dismantling radical groups calling for revolutionary violence. That way, violence can be targeted without degrading freedom of speech. 

You might be reading this and think this only affects the Jews, so you should probably be fine. Why does this affect everyone? The Jews have historically been the canary in the coal mine. What is befalling the Jewish people will eventually reach other groups of people, especially those who have been oppressed or disenfranchised. Plus, this global intifada will not stop with the Jewish people. As I pointed out in my critique of "Islamophobia" earlier this year, Islam is the one religion on the planet whose mainstream followers seek to impose their religious beliefs on everyone else. As we already see in Europe, this political violence will get worse if not confronted. Until this rhetoric is addressed and we can make political discourse civil once more, this sort of domestic violence will continue to be normalized and the pro-Palestine side will continue to wreak havoc on civil society. 

Why I Have Mixed Feelings About Trump's Plan to Annex Gaza

Trump has been in office for less than a month and he is already shaking things up. In the cases of immigration and international trade policy, it has not been for the better. Those topics notwithstanding, how he is approaching foreign policy is noteworthy. As the American Enterprise Institute brought up, Trump is not contending with a single school of thought when it comes to foreign policy, but five. He has floated acquiring a number of pieces of land, including purchasing Greenland. 

Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu met with President Donald Trump for a press conference. You would think that Trump would want to discuss the ceasefire or U.S. policy with Iran. Instead, Trump decided to throw in a curveball: the possible U.S. annexation of Gaza. His thought is that by taking over the Gaza Strip, the U.S. can dismantle the bombs, missiles, and network of tunnels; rebuild Gaza; and create economic development that will convert Gaza into the "Riviera of the Middle East." 

From someone who really likes Israel, I like the prospect of removing a legitimate threat to Israel and turning Gaza into a developed and peaceful part of the world. It has some parallels to how the United States dealt with Nazi Germany post-World War II by re-educating the citizenry while implementing the Marshall Plan. Instead of starting World War III, Germany ended up being a democratic nation-state with a growing economy. I have documented how anti-Semitism is a prominent feature of Palestinian society and not simply a bug or an abnormality (see here and here). Another Palestinian survey finding to throw into the mix is that in response to the October 7 attacks, 98 percent of Palestinians were more proud to be Palestinian (Arab World for Research and Development). 

Quite frankly, I am sick of seeing these wars in the Middle East. It is exhausting to see the numerous times that Palestine (and in pre-1967 terms, other Arab polities) have refused to accept a peace deal with Israel because they don't want a two-state solution, but all the land....from the river to the sea. Back in 2012, I brought up that unless the Palestinians want peace with its Israeli neighbors, there will be a perpetual stalemate. Not only does war come with death tolls, it is a subpar usage of one's resources. Getting along and working together is a much better use of time, resources, and effort than warfare. Trump realizes that the situation in Gaza is untenable and that something needs to change. As out-of-the-box as this idea is, this shift in paradigm and actual foreign policy might work for the Middle East in the long-run. That being said, I have to wonder if this is a good idea. 

Back in 2022, I made an argument that the United States should not militarily intervene in Ukraine. I am taking a similar approach to Gaza. Yes, Israel has been an essential part of the United States' Middle East policy since Israel became a nation-state in 1948. In 2013, then-Vice-President Joe Biden argued that support of Israel was both a moral and strategic commitment. 

Where I hesitate in part is based on how the surrounding Arab nations will react. Will they be supportive of Trump's plan? Will a U.S. military presence in Gaza escalate the situation into a regional war or undermine the Abraham Accords that were a success from Trump's first term? It is a gamble because a U.S. military presence can either stabilize the region or it can make matters worse. The military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan are good examples of the doubt I am expressing. 

Then there is the price tag to consider. Both a senior economist at the think-tank RAND Corporation and a program chief at the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) estimate that rebuilding Gaza will cost $80 billion. This would be a low-bound cost estimate of Trump's plan because that is the cost for merely rebuilding Gaza. This does not include the cost of military intervention. As I have brought up on this blog numerous times, the United States is dealing with trillions in debt, a debt that is only projected to climb. Does the United States really need to get involved in geopolitics on the other side of the globe when it cannot manage its own finances? Conversely, the cost paid for this plan now could be a lot smaller than future costs if conflict continues or escalates in that region. Also, if this plan could result in actual peace in the region, the peace, stability, and increased economic transactions could offset the plan's costs in the long-run. 

Regardless, I do not only refer to that cost in terms of dollars and cents. If the U.S. military enters Gaza, do you think Hamas is simply going to lay down its arms and surrender? The Palestinian cause is about wiping out Israel to create a unified Palestinian state. Hamas spent so much on a military infrastructure and building tunnels instead of economic development and peaceful trade with its Israeli neighbors. Since the Arab world is an honor-based society (شرف), Gazans are going to be even more reluctant to lose face when they have spent so much time and resources trying to wipe out Israel. More blood will be spilt if Trump goes ahead with this plan, whether that is that of Israelis, Gazans, or American soldiers. Will Trump be able to maintain the political support for annexing Gaza as U.S. soldiers are dying, especially since he promised no new wars during his second term? A poll from YouGov conducted last week shows that 22 percent of Americans support the plan, if that gives you a sense of political feasibility. 

There is also the matter of where two million Gazans would relocate. Arab nations already expressed their opposition to this plan because they do not intend on absorbing Palestinian refugees. As the Brookings Institution mentions, that opposition makes sense since a) they do not want to have to pay to support more refugees, and b) the Palestinian national cause has been a central cause of Arab polities for decades, "often to the cynical benefit of their rulers." Jordan is especially going to be opposed because it could open up a Pandora's box for letting Palestinians in and threaten regime stability. 

On the other hand, nations were able to absorb refugees from the Syrian Civil War, including Turkey, Egypt, and Jordan. Unless there is some other underlying reason, there should be no reason why Arab nations cannot help out their Arab brothers and sisters in a time of need. On the third hand, this has the potential to undo Israel's peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan if there is pressure from Trump to relocate the refugees to either Egypt or Jordan.

I do not have a crystal ball, so I do not know the answers for some of the questions I am asking because I do not have clairvoyance and foresight can only get you so far. The wars that have been fought simply because Muslim Arab neighbors have had difficulty handling the reality that there is a Jewish state in their midst is unfathomable. Something drastic needs to be done to end the cycle of violence in that region of the world to usher in an era of peace. At the same time, I am not 100 percent convinced that turning Gaza into another of Trump's real estate projects is the way to handle to the Middle East conflict. It will be interesting to see how this proposal develops in the upcoming weeks. 

Israel Is Paying Quite the Cost for This Horrid 2025 Gaza Ceasefire "Deal"

Seizing captives for military or financial gain has a long history dating back to Julius Caesar. Unfortunately for Israel, this is a tactic that Hamas understands too well. On October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists entered Israel and attacked Israeli civilians. Part of Hamas' barbarism entailed kidnapping over 240 civilians. Since that infamous day in Israeli history, Hamas has been using hostages as pawns in its insidious goal to wipe out Jews, much like its cynical ploy to use Gazan civilians as human shields in order to gain international sympathy. This past Sunday began what is meant to be a three-part ceasefire that is intended to put an end to the fighting in Gaza. 

Israel was pressured into this bad deal by the United States. One, President Biden could tout a foreign policy by claiming credit for the ceasefire. Also, Trump threatened that "all hell would break out" if the hostages were not released by the time he became president. It is disheartening to see Trump try to haphazardly put pressure on Israel so he could avoid a foreign policy embarrassment early in his second term. Trump might think the deal is "epic," but it is a capitulation to a relentless terrorist organization.

I criticized the idea of a ceasefire last January and I still stand by the opinion that Israel should not sign a ceasefire. Ceasefires between Israel and Hamas have not worked in the past. If they were meant to be an effective peacemaking mechanism, we would have seen it by now. Whether it was 2009, 2012, 2014, 2019, or 2021, Hamas would take advantage of the ceasefire to regroup, rearm, and eventually attack Israel again. As former Secretary of State Antony Blinken confirmed, Hamas nearly replaced its losses by recruiting new fighters. How long again before Hamas decides to attack Israel again?

Israel's withdrawal from various parts of Gaza were fought with the blood of 400 Israeli soldiers, as well as the blood, sweat, and tears of other Israeli soldiers. The ground Israel gained through this arduous urban warfare has given the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) the upper hand. Such a withdrawal would give a militaristic advantage to Hamas, especially since Hamas hides in these populated areas from where the IDF would withdraw. It would also mean that those IDF soldiers loss their life for naught. Giving up this ground would most likely perpetuate the conflict, as is reinforced from the previous paragraph. 

Furthermore, there is no one there to replace Hamas, including Fatah. That means if Israel withdraws from Gaza, Hamas remains in charge of the area. Hamas is a terrorist organization hellbent on exterminating Jews and has shown no signs whatsoever that it will be deterred from that mission. Plus, it is not like the Gazans can scream "Occupation" since Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005. Since a ceasefire does not address the Jew-hatred of Hamas and so many of Gaza's citizens, how does a ceasefire ignoring the root causes resolve the conflict in the Middle East? 

Then there is the matter of the ratios are way too lopsided. Israel is expected to trade 30 terrorists for one civilian hostage and 50 terrorists for each female soldier. Some of these prisoners have committed some horrible acts against humanity. It is even more twisted that the hostages will not all be released at once. What do you think these hardened criminals will do? Turn over a new leaf? They will most likely pick up where they left off. Anyone with anything remotely resembling a moral compass knows this arrangement is off-kilter. 

Regrettably, Israel already set the precedent in lopsided hostage-prisoner swaps. In 2011, Israel released over 1,000 Palestinian terrorist prisoners for IDF soldier Gilad Shalit. I was elated to see Shalit released from captivity. Conversely, I have to wonder if it was worth the price. After all, one of those prisoners released in 2011 was Yahya Sinwar, the architect of the October 7 attacks. Although unintended and unforeseeable, Israel's hostage-prisoner swap in 2011 was responsible for hundreds more being murdered about 12 years later. What future butcherer will Israel release from prison if it goes through with the entirety of this latest ceasefire? And how is it justice to release men who have committed heinous crimes, especially for the families of the victims of said crimes? 

I could only imagine the hell the hostages have endured. I wish there was not a hostage situation or that we could live in a world where there could actually be peace in the Middle East. I think it has been way too long that this war and hostage situation has occurred. I do not want to belittle the joy that the families of the hostages will upon seeing their loved ones or the relief that Gazan civilians will feel with a hiatus in the fighting. As 9/11 taught the United States, the sort of political pressure created by the hostages can be immense enough to want the Israeli people to take a deal, no matter what the long-term consequences are. It makes me wonder if the Israeli government is gaining some short-term relief in exchange for another attack as horrific, if not more so, than October 7. 

This subpar ceasefire rewards the terrorists while undermining Israeli national security. As Econ 101 teaches, you get more of what you reward. Incentivizing Hamas to kidnap and torture civilians in the future so they can be used as bargaining chips, much as we have already seen take place. Donald Trump, the man renown for the "Art of the Deal," should be able to do better than pressure a deal that is likely to cause greater instability in the Middle East, thereby being the President's first foreign policy faux pas of his second term. In the meantime, I hope that the hostages come home and that there can be a speedy end to this conflict that can ensure lasting peace in that conflict-ridden region of the world. 

Why Amnesty International Accusing Israel of Genocide Is Pure Rubbish (Pt. III)

Since October 2023, Israel has been fighting a war it did not start. It is fighting an enemy in Gaza that neither has respect for international law nor for the wellbeing of its civilians. Aside from the military war happening in the Middle East, Israel has been fighting against misinformation. Israel has been called an apartheid state, an occupier, a colonizer, and most egregiously, a state hellbent on committing genocide. The problem with all these charges, but especially the genocide charge, is that they are patently false. The supposed human rights organization Amnesty International recently released a report on the bogus charge of Israel committing genocide. It has raised my ire enough where we are on Part III of this blog series refuting the charge of genocide. 

In Part I, I outlined the legal definition of genocide under international law and how Israel's actions do not constitute genocide. In a predetermined fashion, Amnesty International assumed Israel's guilt, which included complaining that international law does not conform to their predetermined conclusions, ignoring Hamas' genocidal intent, and taking Israel's actions out of context. The genocide charge also ignores Gaza's growing population. News flash: if there's actual genocide, the population notably declines; it does not increase. 

In Part II, I pointed out that Israel would not have a multiethnic society with 1.8 million Muslims if it was intent on wiping out Arab Muslims. I then mention how a genocidal regime would not try for "land for peace" for seven decades; it would simply wipe out the intended target. Afterwards, I detail how Israel has done its way to avoid civilian harm in a manner unprecedented in military history. I want to start Part III today by showing how Hamas' action by illustrating that Hamas has no disregard for civilian life. 

Hamas' actions towards its civilians during wartime needlessly increases casualties. In contrast to the IDF doing its best in urban warfare conditions, Hamas hides its weapons in civilian infrastructure and has been using its citizens as human shields since 2007. Why? Such a strategy means that either the IDF's operations are undermined or there will be higher civilian casualties. In either way, Hamas wins because it does not care about civilians dying. 

Combined with the fact that this war is happening in one of the most densely populated areas on the planet, I find it impressive that the IDF can keep the civilian to combatant ratio as low as it has. The United Nations has found that civilians have accounted for 90 percent of modern-day wartime casualties, which has been corroborated by other research. 

I do not trust Hamas' claim that 46,000 Palestinians have died in the Israel-Hamas war because they have been guilty of fatality data manipulation. This December 2024 report from the Henry Jackson Society sheds some light on the matter. But let us assume that the 46,000 figure is correct, as well as the IDF's estimate that 17,000 of those deaths were Hamas militants (although it's an undercount since the figure is from October). Even if some claimed correctly that the number of dead militants is actually only 8,500 dead, that 18.5 percent of the deaths being combatants would still be below the civilian-to-combatant ratio for modern-day warfare. It would be all the more impressive if the "17,000 dead militants" figure is correct (meaning 37 percent were combatants).

Amnesty International is not a trustworthy source. For one, let us start with the fact that Amnesty International's own employees in Israel disagree with the assessment. Do the employees at Amnesty Israel think that the IDF's actions are problematic? Yes. Do they amount to genocide? Not according to Amnesty Israel. In terms of the assessment itself, much of the citations are either self-referencing or a referencing the terrorist organization Hamas in a one-sided fashion. 

Amnesty International has never accused another nation of committing genocide in recent history. That includes the 580,000 dead Muslims under Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria, ISIS' attacks on the Yezidi minority in Syria, the 233,000 Muslims killed in the Yemeni Civil War, the 150,000 murdered in the current civil war in Sudan, or the Chinese government's persecution of the Muslim Uyghur population. There are multiple countries riddled with war and conflict that have higher death tolls than the highest estimates than the current Israel-Hamas War, and AI alleges that only one country -- Israel -- is committing genocide? It is the similar bias with which the United Nations passes more resolutions against Israel than it does any other nations, including the aforementioned nations killing thousands of their own citizens.

Also, notice what there is not coming from AI, which is reporting on Hamas' dehumanizing racist rhetoric. It is not exactly a secret that Gazan society is full of Jew hatred. After all, UNRWA teachers have been teaching this anti-Jewish bigotry at UNRWA schools for years. In spite of the genocidal intentions that Hamas has explicitly expressed since its founding in 1988, AI manufactures the bogus case that only Israel is guilty. AI took a similar potshot its 2022 report lobbing the false accusation of apartheid against Israel, not to mention the number of other times AI has exhibited a blatant anti-Israel bias over the years. 

Postscript. Israel's actions in Gaza are not genocide, either in demonstrable, moral, or legal terms. Hamas initiated an unjust war with mass attacks on noncombatants and population centers. There is a difference between fighting a just war jus ad bellum that the other side started versus committing a genocide. It is not genocide when the Palestinians are losing a war that they started with a blatant human rights violation. Instead of intentionally killing civilians, the IDF has tried its utmost to save Palestinian civilians, even in spite of Hamas' best efforts to use their citizens as human shields and maximize casualties. Put the blame where it rightfully belongs: Hamas, the de facto ruling government of Gaza. 

Amnesty International pre-determined that Israel was guilty before it wrote the report. Having found no actual genocide, Amnesty International dismisses international law and attempts to redefine genocide while taking quotes out of context to make Israel look worse than it is. What has become clear is that Amnesty International is more interested in smearing Jews than it is in actual human rights advocacy. AI's bias reminds us that the anti-Semites believe that "if there are no Jews, it is not news." That is how messed up this latest form of anti-Semitism is, especially when the anti-Semites declared Hamas' actions on October 7 as resistance. Judging Israel by a different legal and moral standard than everyone else while judging the terrorist Hamas regime by zero standards is "undiluted bigotry."

By accusing Israel of genocide, Amnesty International attempts to neuter Jewish trauma in order to wage political war against Israel. It is the positing of this false moral equivalency that has permitted anti-Semitism to fester and explode across the world since October 7, 2023. It also diminishes the meaning of genocide and those who were brutally murdered in past genocides. The accusation of genocide against Israel is not only wrong, but it is morally reprehensible. We should muster the courage to push back against such a fallacious libel that is not only causing harm to the Jewish people, but making it that much more difficult to do real work for human rights.