As the world turns its attention to Gaza’s ruins and the growing calls for reconstruction, a familiar cycle threatens to repeat itself. The guns fall silent, aid convoys roll in, diplomats speak of “political horizons” – and within a few years, or sometimes even less, rockets once again rain on Israel.

If the war that began on 7 October, 2023 is not to become yet another round in this endless loop, one lesson must be faced with honesty: what Gaza desperately needs is deradicalisation.

No amount of reconstruction will bring peace if the ideological foundations of Hamas – and of Palestinian society more broadly – remain untouched. The massacre of October 7 was not an aberration born of despair; it was the logical outcome of an idea that has animated Palestinian politics for a century: the refusal to accept Jewish sovereignty anywhere between the river and the sea. Until that changes, no peace plan will succeed, and no ceasefire will hold.

For decades, Western diplomats have misdiagnosed the conflict as a territorial dispute – about borders, settlements, and security arrangements. Yet at its core, for the Palestinians, it is about legitimacy: Israel is viewed not the homeland of the Jewish people but an alien colonial implant. Jews are viewed not as an indigenous nation returning home but as foreigners who imposed themselves through force. Like the French in Algeria, they are expected to leave. At best, they might be tolerated as a religious minority under Muslim rule – never as a nation entitled to self-determination.

This ideology has not only survived for more than a century but been institutionalised and sustained – through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, or Unrwa. Created in 1949 as a temporary body to assist the roughly 700,000 Palestinians displaced during Israel’s War of Independence, Unwra has become a permanent agency with a single overriding purpose: to perpetuate the refugee status of Palestinians indefinitely. Whereas the role of the international community should be to create the circumstances for enhancing peace, in this case it did the exact opposite.

Unlike the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, which resettles refugees and ends their statelessness, Unrwa enshrines it. Only in the Palestinian case is refugee status permanent and passed down to descendants for eternity. The result: the number of Palestinian “refugees” has swelled from 700,000 to some six million (Palestinian leaders routinely claim eight or nine million). In reality, more than 95 per cent of them were never displaced from anywhere. They were born in Gaza, Ramallah, Amman, or Beirut.

Unrwa has become a symbol, in the eyes of Palestinians, of their desire to “return” – in space, to their previous homes inside Israel (most of which do not exist any longer), and in time, to an era before the creation of the Jewish state. Given the demographics, such a “return” would mean the end of the Jewish state. Under the auspices of the international community, Unrwa has become the political vehicle through which the number of Palestinian “refugees” has been exponentially inflated, to serve the political goal of “return” and, ultimately, of undoing Israel’s existence.

This political mechanism has devastating consequences. It teaches generation after generation that their homes lie not in Gaza or Nablus but in Haifa and Jaffa – that their birthright is to “return” to cities inside Israel, and that Israel’s very existence is a temporary injustice waiting to be undone.

In Unrwa schools, textbooks glorify “martyrs,” maps erase Israel, and pupils are taught that “return” – meaning the destruction of Israel – is not a dream but a duty. Unrwa has become part and parcel of Palestinian rejectionism.

The leaders of Hamas, including Yahya Sinwar, spoke openly in the days before October 7 of an imminent “return” – a chilling reminder that the concept is not a metaphor but a call to violent action.

If Gaza is to have a future different from its past, Unrwa must be dismantled and the very concept of a “Palestinian refugee” in Gaza must disappear. One cannot be a refugee from the place one was born.

The message should be clear: you can live next to Israel in peace, but not instead of it.

Gaza’s reconstruction must be explicitly conditional. Any new governing authority – whether local Palestinians, a joint Arab body, or an international trusteeship – must adhere to a few non-negotiable principles: recognition of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people and a formal end to the state of war against it; renunciation of claims inside Israel’s pre-1967 borders; acceptance that Gaza’s residents are not refugees and that they do not possess a “right of return”; and a firm commitment to demilitarisation, with all aid monitored to prevent its diversion into weapons or tunnels.

These are not maximalist demands but the bare minimum for any sane policy. Without ideological surrender, military defeat is meaningless. Israel can destroy Hamas’s arsenal, but if children are still taught that Jews have no right to be there, a new Hamas – or any other organisation different only in name – will rise from the rubble.

For too long, Western diplomacy has tiptoed around these truths, preferring to pour concrete and hope for moderation. But real hope for a different future will come only when Palestinians choose life over grievance, reality over myth, and coexistence over the dream of “return” and erasure. The war will end only when the ideology that caused it ends.

Published in The Jewish Chronicle,  October 16, 2025.

When Canada, France, the United Kingdom and Australia rushed to recognize a Palestinian state, they did not advance peace; they rewarded terror. They handed political and legal legitimacy to the same movement that, two years ago, committed the most barbaric massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.

If these governments, including Canada, now insist on treating “Palestine” as a state, they must also accept the consequences of that recognition: bringing “Palestine” before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the charge of genocide.

For the past year, Israel has faced a grotesque inversion of justice at The Hague, accused by South Africa and others of genocide for defending its citizens after Hamas’s October 7 slaughter. Even though Israel has gone to unprecedented lengths to follow the laws of armed conflict, the ICJ has allowed that political stunt to proceed, giving moral cover to Hamas and ignoring its own explicit statements of genocidal intent.

If Palestine is indeed a state, as these governments now claim, professing their commitment to international law, that commitment must be tested in practice. The law cannot be applied selectively, nor can recognition be treated as a symbolic act divorced from its legal effect. Recognition carries not only diplomatic weight but enforceable responsibility under international law.

It follows that “Palestine” must bear legal responsibility for the actions of Hamas on October 7 and for everything that has followed, including the ongoing torture and captivity of hostages.

This is where the absurdity of these recognitions becomes clear. Western leaders proclaimed support for Palestinian statehood, yet in the same breath insisted they do not recognize Hamas, which governs Gaza. So who exactly are they recognizing? The Palestinian Authority, a corrupt, unelected body that has no control over Gaza, whose president is now in the twentieth year of a four-year term and continues to pay salaries to terrorists? Or Hamas, which still boasts of the “fruits of October 7”?

Under the Genocide Convention, a state is responsible not only for acts committed by its agents, but also for failing to prevent or punish genocide committed on its territory or under its control.

What makes this even more striking is that the Palestinian Authority acceded to the Genocide Convention in 2014. By doing so, it accepted the duty to prevent and punish genocide. Having claimed the benefits and status of a state party, it cannot now evade the responsibilities that come with it.

The acts of October 7, which Hamas vowed to repeat “again and again” until Israel was annihilated, satisfy every element of genocidal intent described in Article II of that Convention.

If the act of recognition is to mean anything, it must bring with it the same standards of accountability applied to every state under the Genocide Convention. Otherwise, recognition becomes performative — a political indulgence that undermines the very rule of law it claims to uphold.

You simply cannot have it both ways. Either the Palestinian Authority is the governing representative of this so-called state, in which case it bears responsibility for the genocide carried out from the territory it claims, or Hamas is the ruling authority, in which case these governments have legitimized a terrorist organization.

Either way, the consequence of this recognition is that “Palestine,” as a self-proclaimed state, must bear legal responsibility for the crimes committed from its territory, including the genocidal massacre of October 7.

This legal logic is unavoidable. Recognition is the act that transforms a political claim into a juridical reality. Once that threshold is crossed, obligations arise. A state recognized as such must answer for the actions of those operating under its flag or from its territory. Anything less would hollow out international law and render the Genocide Convention a political tool rather than a binding instrument.

This would force an uncomfortable reckoning for those same governments that so eagerly joined the diplomatic campaign against Israel. It would compel them to face the legal and moral implications of their decision, and to acknowledge that recognition carries responsibility as well as rhetoric.

Recognition means owning that record. It means accepting that a state must answer for its crimes, and that the victims of October 7 — the murdered, the raped, the burned and the still-held captive — deserve justice as much as any other victims of genocide.

For too long, the international system has indulged the hypocrisy that Palestinians are eternal victims without agency, while Israel alone bears responsibility for every tragedy in the region.

Recognition of Palestine cannot mean impunity for terror cloaked in sovereignty. It must mean responsibility. Either international law applies to all — or it applies to no one.

That starts with holding the Palestinians accountable before the International Court of Justice to answer for the real genocide on October 7 — the one committed with merciless, salivating glee by Hamas.

The credibility of the international legal order depends on consistency. Those who claim to uphold it cannot invoke the law for political expediency to condemn Israel, while shielding the Palestinians from accountability for the atrocities of October 7.

The article was written together with Alan H. Kessel is the former Assistant Deputy Minister Legal Affairs and Legal Adviser at Global Affairs Canada and is a senior fellow at the Macdonald Laurier Institute.

Published in National Post, October 12, 2025.

The following policy paper does not address the plusses and minuses of the hostage release agreement, which is now a fait accompli, nor does it address the ongoing mechanisms within the framework of the deal. Rather, its purpose is to recommend ways to cope with the security challenges that the new reality is likely to pose for the State of Israel.

Five Challenges:

1. Policy on use of military force: It is critical to adapt and clarify the policy for use of military force in the Gaza Strip at the different stages of implementation of the agreement. The sharp transition from a state of combat to a ceasefire while Israel’s forces are still deployed in areas of the Strip may create a lack of clarity, disrupt the forces’ ability to respond to various scenarios, and also endanger our soldiers. It is important to decide and make clear to IDF forces that in every situation, the leading consideration is the security of the IDF troops on the ground.

 Israel should determine ahead of time the responses to the following plausible scenarios: how to act when armed Hamas operatives, tunnels, or weapons are detected; how to respond to “rogue” rocket fire; and how to react to Hamas activity aimed at repairing or reestablishing military capabilities.

2. Protecting the security zone and preventing its erosion through creeping attrition: The rules of engagement must be set so as not only to prevent a direct risk to IDF soldiers, but to protect the security zone and prevent its erosion through a Hamas strategy of creeping attrition. Hamas or other terrorist elements are likely to attempt to gradually erode the enforcement of this zone by habituating our forces to the arrival of children, women, or the elderly into these areas under various pretexts. This must not be allowed to happen.

3. Preventing the rehabilitation of Hamas’s military capabilities under the cover of humanitarian efforts: Among the hundreds of supply trucks entering the Gaza Strip will be weapons as well as dual-use materials and equipment needed to produce weapons and ammunition. The claim that goods will be transferred to Gaza only after inspection and verification, even if true, does not address dual-use materials. Fiberglass sheets, electrodes, adhesives, etc., will be presented as intended for legitimate civilian use but will be used by Hamas and other terrorist groups for military ends.

The challenge is even more complex regarding tractors and heavy mechanical equipment, whose entry is ostensibly required for clearing rubble and road repairs. It is clear that such equipment will also be used to prepare tunnels. Effective oversight in this domain will not be feasible given the reality that will prevail in Gaza. All that can be achieved is to slow and complicate the enemy’s efforts by limiting the types of equipment that may be brought into Gaza.

4. Israeli civilian policy toward the Gaza Strip: Israel may quickly find itself facing a flood of requests from Palestinians in Gaza, encouraged by the mediating countries, to enter Israel for medical treatment in hospitals or to transit to Judea and Samaria (West Bank.) The Israeli political echelon should decide now in a manner that leaves no room for interpretation that under no circumstances will Palestinians from Gaza be permitted to enter Israel. In this context, there is reason to be concerned that members of Gazan clans who fought against Hamas will seek refuge in Israel. The solution for them should not lie within the territory of the State of Israel.

5. Terrorism trends in Judea and Samaria (West Bank): Given that the war is ending with Hamas still standing and with the release of numerous Palestinian terrorists, support for Hamas is expected to increase, and the potential for terror attacks originating in the West Bank, already on the rise, is expected to grow even further. Against this background, an immediate hardening of Israel’s security policy in this arena is required. Israel should continue the offensive approach adopted at the outset of the war, including the use of targeted prevention measures. The Shin Bet has a key role in monitoring each of the terrorist prisoners who will be released. No tolerance should be shown toward any attempts by them to return to terror activity in any form.

With President Trump bringing comprehensive peace to the Middle East starting with freedom from Hamas hands of Israeli hostages, only a few minor details still need to be worked out – like what to do with all the terrorist trawlers. These are the “flotilla” boats left behind by anarchists, antisemites, and other fanatic pro-Hamas activists who have tried to bust Israel’s necessary naval blockade of Gaza.

Remember the “Mavi Marmara”? The ship was the lead boat of the 2010 Turkish attempt to (supposedly) highlight humanitarian needs in Gaza. In reality, the so-called “freedom flotilla for Gaza,” led by the terrorist-supporting Turkish Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief (IHH), was nothing more than a violent attack on Israel, meant to bolster Hamas.

Since then, Israel has been assaulted by similar “flotillas” packed with many bad actors and very little humanitarian aid – in 2011, 2015, 2016, 2018, and this year too. The latest attempt to sail into Gaza in support of Hamas involved over 50 ships, all intercepted by Israel last week. The rag-tag collection of terrorist-supporting trawlers came from Algeria, Greece, Italy, Libya, Spain, and Tunisia, with participants from 16 noted “peace-loving” countries like Ireland, Portugal, South Africa, Sweden, and Venezuela.

Deporting the malicious anti-Israel activists was easy, although an argument could have been made for locking them all up on criminal offenses and throwing away the key.

More difficult is the question of what to do all the “humanitarian attack boats.” Israel does not need these bothersome rink-a-dink ships crowding its ports, and there is absolutely no reason to give the boats back to their evil operators and owners.

So, after getting our hostages home, before major IDF withdrawals from Gaza, and before conjuring-up broader peace deals, it is time for a little payback against the nasty actors out there. Here are ten punishing and purposeful things Israel could usefully do with the terrorist trawlers.

1. Load the ships with humanitarian supplies (and perhaps a few weapons too) for the persecuted Armenians and downtrodden Kurds and set sail for the shores of their oppressor – Turkey. In the ports of Mersin, Marmaris, and Antalya we can unload all the wheelchairs, Band-Aids, chocolate bars, baby toys, bullets, slingshots, electric steel-cutting saws, knives, and other goods donated by peace-loving Israelis. While we’re at it, in each city Israel could set up an expansive traveling museum exhibit on the Armenian genocide and the inalienable rights of the Kurdish people to independent statehood.

2. Rename the boats for Israeli hostages held for two years in barbaric captivity by Hamas in Gaza, then load the boats with several hundred Hamas terrorists held in Israeli prisons. (Even after the coming releases, there will remain plenty more Palestinian mass murderers in Israeli prisons, including the Nazi-like Nukhba raiders of October 7.) Anchor the boats off the coasts of Qatar and Turkey under heavy guard, with no food and no visits from the Red Cross. Tell the dictators of Doha and Ankara that they can have their terrorist buddies and the boats too, if all political and financial aid to Hamas ends. Wait them out.

3. Rebrand the ships as “Karine A,” “Karine B,” and so on, then launch an Israeli flotilla for peace. Sail our armada into the ports of Doha, Imam Khomeini, Istanbul, and Jeddah broadcasting messages of reconciliation and democracy. The Israeli “Voice of Peace” radio station will broadcast from the ships into every home in the Mediterranean and Arabian seas. News broadcasts will spotlight Israel’s academic, cultural, and high-tech successes, and its global medical/humanitarian efforts; alongside reports on racism, discrimination, slavery, terrorism, and antisemitism in the Arab and Moslem worlds.

4. Christen the ships as “Donald J. Trump I,” “Donald J. Trump II,” and so on, and refit them as escape vessels that will sail refugees from Gaza to new lives elsewhere in the world – far away from the ruinous military kill zone of Gaza wrought by Hamas, a strip of land pockmarked by over 750 kilometers of attack tunnels and weapons manufacturing bunkers dug underneath almost every school, hospital, and home.

5. When done giving safe passage from Gaza to all those European countries who so love the peaceful Palestinians of Rafiah, Khan Younis, and Dir-al-Balach (– evidence repeat UN resolutions endorsed by Europeans swearing faithfulness to Palestinian freedoms), the boats can be retrofitted as tax free casinos for Trump’s grand “Riviera” plan. They can be anchored off the rebuilt golden resort city of Gaza. European lords and princesses, and Qatari emirs along with their American business partners, will enjoy preferential access and VIP gambling privileges.

6. Rename several ships as “Exodus I,” “Exodus II,” and so on, and set sail for the Iranian ports of Bandar-Abbas and Bushehr to force the release of Iran’s remaining Jews. With a sufficient media pool, a high-profile inter-faith delegation, and a smattering of Nobel laureates aboard, we should be able to embarrass the clerics of Tehran into ending their blockade against Jewish emigration. While visiting Bushehr, we could also take a tour of the nuclear reactor, to see up-close, first-hand, how Iran is producing peaceful medical isotopes there.

7. Rename the ships for 50 Israeli towns and farming communities ravaged by Hamas invasion and missiles, then sail the ships for the Arabian (formerly “Persian”) Gulf and block Kharg Island, which handles over 90% of Iran’s crude oil exports. Consider this Israel’s contribution to the “snapback” of international sanctions against Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, which mandates no international oil trade with Iran. China will suffer from this the most, deservedly so.

10. Retrofit the ships as passenger ferries for Ultra-Orthodox (haredi) Israelis who prefer to emigrate rather than serve in the IDF or do national service. First to sail can be the radical former chief Sephardic rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, who keeps threatening to demonstratively decamp for the Diaspora in order to avoid participation in what he callsshemad,“spiritual annihilation.” (This is how he views any sharing by haredi Jews, G-d forbid, in the Israeli national burden of military service.) I will help Yitzhak Yosef pack his bags and walk the gangway up the deck.
11. Sell the ships on the international market to cover the health expenses of wounded Israeli soldiers and of Israeli families destroyed by Hamas’ October 7 attack. Leftover funds can help rebuild southern and northern Israeli towns devastated by Hamas and Hezbollah. Alternatively, Israel could cut the boats up into pieces and sell chunks as souvenirs on E-Bay, to fund psychological rehabilitation and provide income support for the very many Israeli war widows and orphans.
12. Sink the ships just outside the territorial waters of Britain, Canada, France, Ireland, and Spain to protest their hubris, hypocrisy, and hostility to Israel. Just blow the boats up in their faces.

Published in The Jerusalem Post and Israel Hayom, 10.10.2025.

Just days after the horrific terrorist attack on a synagogue in Manchester, which left two Jews dead, a group of pro-Palestinian protestors plan to descend on the Sydney Opera House — in the same week that marks the second anniversary of the October 7 Hamas massacre, no less.

Let that sink in for a moment. A “protest” scheduled around the anniversary of the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, at the very site where, within 48 hours of those attacks, the same mob gathered chanting “Where are the Jews!”, in one of the ugliest scenes witnessed on Australian soil.

Now they are salivating to return — not to call on Hamas to accept President Donald Trump’s peace plan to end the war or release the hostages — but to express more unbridled hatred and whitewashing of Hamas atrocities.

We saw this in August, when Sydney’s other national icon, the Harbour Bridge, was likewise hijacked by the same group of extremists.

This is not coincidence.

It is part of a pattern we are seeing worldwide.

From Manchester to Sydney, the same crowd of agitators and hungry mobs reappear, feeding off Jewish pain, while trying to mask their echoing of Hamas’ propaganda, by calling it ‘solidarity’, or a ‘march for humanity’.

The NSW Police deserve credit here for taking legal action in the NSW Supreme Court to stop this gathering due to public safety risks. They have offered alternative venues, but all have been rejected by the protest organisers. The police are absolutely right here.

The Opera House forecourt is no place for this spectacle, with confined space, limited exits and real difficulty facilitating the amount of people likely to descend.

But beyond logistics and serious safety concerns, this is about the grotesque symbolism of letting those who celebrated October 7 return to the very site they defiled, to once again turn our Opera House into a stage for hate and division.

Published in news.com.au, October 7, 2025.

Since October 7, European and other nations have worked to advance recognition of a Palestinian state, with the peak of these efforts occurring during last week’s UN General Assembly, led by France. To date, 156 out of 193 UN member states have recognised a Palestinian state, ostensibly aimed at ending the war and saving the “two-state” solution in the face of Israel’s moves to advance settlements in Judea and Samaria.

In his UN address, French President Emmanuel Macron claimed that “sacrificing the lives of additional civilians, expelling Gaza residents to Egypt, annexing the West Bank, the death of hostages held by Hamas, or creating facts on the ground that could irreversibly change the situation there” must be prevented. He further erred in his distorted perception of reality when he tried to explain that “recognition of a Palestinian state is a defeat for Hamas as well as for all those who foment anti-Semitism, cultivate anti-Zionist obsessions and want the destruction of the State of Israel”. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer even accused Israel of cruelty in the war.

To show that this is a considered move with considerable thought behind it, Macron and Starmer clarified that the Palestinian Authority must meet commitments to carry out reforms, including dismantling Hamas, stopping incitement against Israel, ending salary payments to terrorists and their families, fighting corruption, and even holding democratic elections.

Remarkably, European and other nations choose to base their political plan for a Palestinian state on the word of Palestinian Authority Chairman Abu Mazen, who has not hidden his Holocaust denial and his desire to see Israel wiped off the map. This illustrates the impracticality and lack of seriousness in the recognition move, and that in practice the two main things it promotes are a prize for the Hamas terror organisation and advancing the Palestinian Authority’s aspiration for a one-state solution – Palestinian instead of the State of Israel.

As mentioned, the decision to recognise a Palestinian state is primarily declarative, and it did not even have the power to change the status of the Palestinian entity at the UN to full membership, since the Palestinians, who do not meet the basic conditions for recognition as a state, need the support of nine members of the UN Security Council and hope that no veto will be imposed on such a decision by the United States. Although this might appear to be a decision that would advance a sustainable solution for the Palestinians, it seems to serve primarily to attack the State of Israel in the international arena.

Indeed, despite being a declarative move, it provides a tailwind to those seeking to harm Israel, and we already see well-organised campaigns to demonise the State of Israel (mostly funded by Qatar), its citizens, and Jews wherever they are, regardless of their connection to Israel.

In sports, discussions are taking place behind the scenes to suspend Israel from UEFA (the European Football Association). In other sports, there are demands for Israeli teams to compete without the Israeli flag, and recently, in the bicycle race in Spain, riots by pro-Palestinian demonstrators who disrupted the competition led to calls to prevent the participation of the Israeli team, in what appears to be another prize for terror.

In culture, petitions by progressive liberal celebrities against Israel, claiming genocide, have featured in major film festivals, and awards have been given to works that echo the Palestinian narrative. In academia, research institutions refrain from publishing research by Israeli researchers, and funding for joint research with Israel has become difficult to impossible. On the security level, several countries have decided to impose an embargo on security procurement from Israel.

The supporters of this growing boycott are using the Russian case to base their claims. However, this comparison also sins against the truth and points to a sharp logical failure – in the Russia-Ukraine war, Russia was the aggressor that invaded Ukraine contrary to international law, while the State of Israel operates in Gaza to return the abductees and dismantle the Hamas terror organisation that invaded, murdered, and raped Israeli citizens.

In this sense, Israel’s position as the stronger side in the war leads the international community to identify the State of Israel as an aggressor rather than as a victim. In this context, suspending Israel would be tantamount to suspending Ukraine for daring to defend itself against Russia’s attacks.

So why do European countries choose to give a prize to terror? There are domestic and foreign reasons for this that are not at all related to the Palestinian issue. France quite regularly uses the Palestinian issue to strengthen its position as a leading country in the European Union and in the international arena, alongside an effort to please the Muslim population in France and to divert French public opinion from the failures of the government’s economic policy.

In Britain, the absurdity is even greater – it seems that the recognition of Palestine is intended to divert attention from Starmer’s political weakness, including within his own party, and the recognition of a Palestinian state has even exposed Britain to Palestinian claims for compensation due to British colonialism in the Land of Israel. In other countries, the decision depends on the composition of the current government and, given political change, may even be reversed.

Despite being a declarative move, Israel must not remain silent in the face of the international effort to harm Israel’s legitimacy, the war effort against Hamas, and negotiations for the release of the hostages. Israel should examine a variety of response moves that will strengthen Israel’s sovereignty and exact a price from the Palestinian Authority, but these need to be done with the required sensitivity so as not to harm the Abraham Accords, not allow Hamas to benefit from the Palestinian Authority’s weakness, and assist friendly countries to maintain their support of Israel.

Published in Firstpost, September 29, 2025.

As day follows night, recycled accusations of “genocide” are once again hurled at Israel by activists masquerading as “scholars.”

This time, the charge comes from the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS), a group that appears more interested in ideological posturing than in upholding intellectual integrity.

As a human-rights lawyer and a military expert, we come from different professional vantage points, yet we arrive at the same, unequivocal conclusion: Israel is not committing genocide in Gaza.

We have been to Gaza, led soldiers in battle, and practiced international law for over four decades combined. We have interviewed IDF commanders and soldiers on the ground, visited aid staging and distribution centers, and studied operational orders. From this vantage point, the accusation of genocide is not only false but obscene, a distortion of truth and complicity in Hamas’s propaganda campaign.

The IAGS resolution itself exposes the hollowness of the claim. Barely 20 percent of members voted for it. Membership is open to anyone who can pay a $30 fee, without demonstrating academic rigor or expertise.

Parody accounts such as “Mo Cookie,” “Emperor Palpatine,” and “Adolf Hitler of Gaza City” are listed as members. That such unserious procedures can produce such a serious accusation should discredit the exercise outright. Yet the world’s media, commentators, and lawmakers have rushed to amplify the libel.

Under the 1948 Genocide Convention, genocide is not a vague political term but a tightly defined legal crime: acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. The critical element is specific intent, what international tribunals have called dolus specialis. This “intent to destroy” requirement is deliberately set as a very high bar. Without it, mass atrocities, however horrific, fall under other categories of international law, such as war crimes or crimes against humanity, but not genocide.

Nothing we have seen in Gaza remotely approaches proof of genocidal intent or action. The war is ugly, painful, and devastating, but it is fought by Israel in self-defense and in accordance with the laws of armed conflict. Hamas carried out the single worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust on October 7, 2023, has vowed to repeat it “again and again” until Israel is annihilated, and still holds dozens of hostages.

Israel’s objective has never been to wipe out the Palestinian people. Its stated and demonstrated aim has been to dismantle Hamas’s military and governing capacity, prevent further terrorist atrocities, and return the hostages. Israeli leaders have said again and again that the war is with Hamas and not the Palestinian people, yet critics dismiss these statements as if they have no meaning.

Unable to prove genocidal intent, accusers instead point to the tragic effects of war: civilian deaths, destroyed buildings, food insecurity. They then argue that these outcomes prove genocide. But that is not how international law works. If devastation or high casualties alone proved genocidal intent, nearly every war in history could be branded genocide. Such reasoning strips the word of meaning.

Civilian suffering in Gaza is real, but responsibility lies primarily with Hamas, which has embedded its military machine inside homes, schools, hospitals, and mosques, deliberately using civilians as shields. This reality cannot be separated from the conduct of the war.

Israel, by contrast, has implemented measures unmatched by any modern military to mitigate civilian harm: advance warnings, leaflets, phone alerts, humanitarian corridors, pauses for evacuation, and canceling legitimate strikes when civilian risk was too high.

At the same time, Israel has facilitated unprecedented humanitarian assistance. More than two million tons of aid have entered Gaza since October 7, including food, medicine, fuel, and water. Israel has overseen the vaccination of Gaza’s entire child population, repaired water infrastructure, delivered medical supplies, and enabled fuel shipments to keep hospitals and essential services running.

These actions have taken place while Hamas still governs territory, still fires rockets into Israeli towns, and still holds hostages. There is no precedent for this.

On the battlefield, Israel has shown extraordinary restraint. The IDF has employed precision munitions, aborted strikes when children were visible, and deployed ground forces at great risk to its own soldiers precisely to minimize harm to civilians. This is the opposite of genocide.

Genocidal campaigns are defined by the intentional and systematic extermination of a people: Rwanda in 1994, Srebrenica in 1995, Darfur in the 2000s, or more recently, the attempted extermination of the Druze in Syria. To equate Gaza with these horrors is not only inaccurate but an insult to the memory of real victims.

Weaponizing “genocide” is not benign. It is part of a deliberate lawfare strategy designed to delegitimize Israel, isolate it diplomatically, and absolve Hamas of its crimes. By misapplying “the crime of crimes” to Israel, activists and so-called scholars cheapen the word, corrode the credibility of international institutions, and serve as pawns of Hamas, the only party in this war that has openly declared genocidal intent.

Words matter. So does law. Genocide is not a political football. When it is maliciously wielded against Israel, it demeans the victims of real genocides and undermines the integrity of international law itself.

The article was written with John Spencer, executive director of the Urban Warfare Institute. He is the coauthor of Understanding Urban Warfare.

The intention of key Western states – including France, the UK, and Canada – to recognize a Palestinian state at the upcoming UN General Assembly presents not only a diplomatic challenge for Israel, but also a strategic opportunity. Instead of merely issuing condemnations, Israel should seize the moment by promoting an alternative policy: ending the prospect of a Palestinian state and advancing full Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank, alongside offering a framework of self-governance for the local Arab population.

The European-led initiative should not be taken lightly – even if it does not immediately alter the facts on the ground. The Palestinian Authority clearly lacks the minimal conditions required for statehood: it has no defined borders, no security control over its purported territory, and no capacity to enter into and uphold international agreements. However, recognition still carries long-term psychological and political significance. From Israel’s perspective, this move is a hostile act that could damage its international and regional standing and lead to security threats.

Israeli responses

Therefore, Israel must respond with concrete actions rather than just statements. Declaring its intention to apply sovereignty over the entire area of Judea and Samaria – and doing so immediately in key strategic areas such as the Jordan Valley, the E1 area, and the major settlement blocs – would make it unequivocally clear that the idea of a Palestinian state is no longer on the table.

This is not only a necessary response to the current diplomatic wave, but also an essential step in the wake of the October 7 attack. Just as steps to promote a Palestinian state would constitute a strategic victory for Hamas, steps that eliminate any possibility of Palestinian statehood would constitute a strategic defeat for Hamas.

Moreover, since the attack, Israeli public opinion has shifted, and today only a minority still supports the idea of a Palestinian state in the West Bank. It is now widely understood that such a state would pose a far greater security threat than Gaza did before the war.

But equal in importance to rejecting Palestinian statehood is the positive alternative: Israel has no interest in directly managing the daily lives of the Arabs in the West Bank. Therefore, it is appropriate to promote a structure of decentralized self-governance based on municipal and regional divisions – in contrast to the current centralized and corrupt rule of the PA. In this model, Palestinians would be granted a significant degree of self-determination, but without the establishment of an independent state.

What would the consequences be?

Would such a move undermine the prospects of normalization with Saudi Arabia? It is important to understand that Saudi Arabia has already hardened its conditions for normalization, demanding a firm commitment to a process leading to Palestinian statehood. This means that as things stand, the Saudis are currently insisting on something that Israel simply cannot offer, and this is unlikely to change even after the fighting in Gaza ends.

Paradoxically, a unilateral Israeli move to eliminate the possibility of a sovereign Palestinian state – combined with the advancement of a Palestinian self-governance plan – might eventually allow the Saudis to walk back their demands. In the short term, it may provoke significant criticism, but, over time, it could provide Riyadh with an off-ramp and allow normalization to move forward nonetheless.

It must be recalled that after the achievements in Lebanon, Syria, and Iran – and once Israel secures victory in Gaza – a major war front remains in the West Bank. The current situation is unstable: the PA may collapse, terrorism is a daily threat, and there is widespread illegal Arab encroachment on territory.

The war, which to a large extent began as a result of the Oslo Accords and the Gaza withdrawal, should conclude with a historic shift away from the Oslo trajectory – driving the final nail into the coffin of the idea of a Palestinian state.

Only if this is clear to Israel itself, might it become clear to the French, British, and Canadians.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, On August 6, 2025.