Mick Hartley

References to genocide have soared in the past eighteen months. Not about Sudan, though, or Xinjiang, or Ukraine. Of course not. Only one country now stands accused of genocide. Even before Israel launched its attacks on Gaza, the word started appearing on banners and in headlines across the world: "stop the genocide". It's everywhere. And it's always "the genocide". However much we may wish to criticise the Israeli assault on Gaza, one thing it assuredly isn't is a genocide in the traditional meaning of the word. Many people have been killed, but there's no question of Israel seeking to eliminate the Palestinians as an ethnic group. So what's going on?

Zach Goldberg at Tablet:

Coverage linking Israel with genocide has surged far beyond every other agreed-upon historical case of genocide across all examined outlets. In The New York Times, for example, articles pairing Israel and genocide reached levels more than nine times higher than the peak for Rwanda and nearly six times greater than for Darfur. Similarly, in The Guardian, more than 1 percent of all articles now reference both Israel and genocide—a frequency unmatched by any other pairing in recent decades.

This is not a minor anomaly. It marks a profound shift in how the concept of genocide is being applied in public discourse.

If Israel’s war in Gaza qualifies as genocide, it would constitute a striking historical outlier: perhaps the first such case of genocide triggered by a mass terrorist attack involving the slaughter of civilians and the taking of hostages; the first in which the genocider permitted food, fuel, and humanitarian aid to flow into the territory of its purported victims; and potentially the only instance in which the perpetrators lacked any prior plan or ideological commitment to extermination. It may also be unique in that the targeted group’s combatants have deliberately embedded themselves in civilian infrastructure and sought to increase civilian casualties for strategic and propaganda purposes. And it could be the only genocide that might plausibly be halted on the spot—not by the genocider, but by the group claiming victimhood. Specifically, were Hamas to release the hostages and lay down its arms, Israel’s military campaign—having achieved its core objectives—would likely cease….

Why has the genocide framing of the Gaza conflict dominated media coverage to a far greater extent than conflicts with far clearer claims to that label?

Traditional factors such as access or transparency do not offer satisfactory explanations for the sudden expansion of the term genocide or for the escalation in its use by mainstream outlets. Israel’s open media environment, combined with its geographic proximity to Gaza and the steady stream of imagery and testimony emerging from the territory—often via NGOs and local sources, some affiliated with Hamas—enables consistent and detailed, if often false or misleading, reporting. Far from inoculating Israel against baseless charges, this openness perversely amplifies them, making the country a uniquely visible and morally charged target.

While anti-Israel prejudice in the mainstream media is long-standing and certainly plays a role, framing the problem as one of bias fundamentally misunderstands its nature. The rapid escalation in the use of the term genocide is not the product of ignorance; rather, it is entirely purposeful, with mainstream reporters and essayists engaging in frequent linguistic and legalistic contortions to justify their usage of an inflammatory term in order to delegitimize the actions of one side in a conflict and legitimize the actions of the terrorist organization that started the Gaza war.

Well yes. But surely an important factor here is that old truth: the Jews will never be forgiven for the Holocaust. Now, at last, comes the chance to point the finger at those smug people who, by their very existence, and in particular by their determination to build Israel, a land of their own where they can be free from persecution, keep reminding us of the unparalleled evil that was inflicted on them by the great civilisation that was Europe. By us. The opportunity is being gleefully seized. Ha! See? They're just as bad as us. No – they're worse. All the old antisemitic canards about the nasty Jews – hey, it turns out they're true after all!