Twisting “Genocide”: How a Term Became a Weapon

The term “genocide” is now used as a modern blood libel against the Jewish state

“Arrival of the floating pier on the Gaza coast in May 2024 as part of the JLOTS project” by נועם קרמפף, 18 May 2024, licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0). Used without modifications.

Lately, the manipulations around the word “genocide” have become more frequent — and they’re all used in the same context: that what’s happening in Gaza is “genocide,” and Israel is to blame. Let’s start with the fact that there never was, and is not, any genocide in Gaza.

The most telling detail is that these false accusations began spreading almost immediately after Hamas’s barbaric massacre on October 7, where 1,200 innocent Israeli civilians — men, women, and children — were brutally slaughtered. That was a real act of genocide.

But no one wants to talk about that — because antisemitic countries and individuals find it much more convenient to turn everything upside down and dehumanize the victims of October 7, who were literally executed at the Nova music festival or burned alive in their homes in border kibbutzim.

And imagine this: the blood of the murdered Israelis hadn’t even dried yet, and already — on October 8 — pro-Palestinian activists and Gazans launched the term “genocide” into circulation. That was the start of a full-scale campaign to inject this word into the global narrative. It was immediately picked up by major media outlets, so-called “human rights” activists and organizations, and soon after, countries like South Africa.

Where were they all on October 7? Oh, right — they either stayed silent or issued some timid condemnation with a “but” at the end, claiming the massacre must be viewed “in context” — as the result of Israel’s “occupation” and “oppression” of the Palestinians. So, in other words, the victims had it coming.

Really? The worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust — and the world rushed to depersonalize it.

So let’s get back to the point. From October 8 onward, the term “genocide” has been tied exclusively to Gaza. Poor Hamas has nothing to do with it, apparently.

Figures like Francesca Albanese, Yousef Munayyer, Craig Mokhiber, and many others started using the word “genocide” at every opportunity. Below is a rough count of how many posts using that word each of them has made on X since October 7:

• Francesca Albanese began systematically using “genocide” in the context of accusing Israel starting November 5, 2023, and has done so 241 times to date.

• Yousef Munayyer began doing so on October 9, 2023, and has used it 416 times.

• Craig Mokhiber began using it systematically on October 25, 2023, and has used it 426 times.

Of course, they had used the word before — but never like this. This isn’t random. It’s deliberate.

I’m sure these are just drops in the ocean compared to the total number of people who recklessly abuse the term.

Now back to UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese.

Francesca Albanese very often uses the word “genocide,” but she ignores its legal definition and fails to back her claims with irrefutable evidence proving intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, as required by international law. Instead, her goal is to attract attention and spread disinformation through accusations based on fabricated data.

Here is the historical background of the term “genocide” and its modern definition, which is constantly distorted to serve a one-sided narrative.

In 1944, Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin first defined the term “genocide” in his book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. “Geno” comes from the Greek word genos (race, tribe, or people), and “cide” from the Latin caedere (to kill). Together, the term means “the killing of a people.” Lemkin described the Ottoman extermination of Armenians in 1915–1917 and the Nazis’ extermination of Jews during the Holocaust, and he coined a term to define these atrocities, which was later codified in international law.

In 1948, the UN adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which established its legal definition. Three years later, in 1951, the Convention went into effect.

Under the UN Charter, the definition of genocide includes the following acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group:

1. Killing members of the group.

2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group.

3. Deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the group’s physical destruction in whole or in part.

4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.

5. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

The accusations of genocide against Israel made by Francesca Albanese and others who use this term whenever they see fit lack any evidentiary basis. They are built largely on statistics provided by Gaza’s Ministry of Health, which is entirely controlled by Hamas. It is clear that these numbers cannot be trusted, as they are deliberately distorted and one-sided.

Those who manipulate the term “genocide” are not the ultimate authority and have no right to throw around such accusations baselessly, without substantial evidence or relying on false data.

This coordinated campaign to falsely label Israel’s actions as “genocide” — and the systematic distortion of reality that comes with it — is already bearing its poisonous fruit. It clouds the minds of the international community, which is being swept away by hysteria built on a false narrative and blood libel.