Maurice Hirsch
Maurice HirschCourtesy

As South Africa tries to support its claim in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that Israel has committed “genocide” against the Palestinian Arabs, here are some critical elements of that false charge that should be considered.

Sundry propagandists have been claiming that Israel has been committing a “genocide” against the Palestinian Arabs for the past 76 years – since Israel’s creation in 1948. The term “genocide” was coined in 1943, by Polish Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin.

The 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines “genocide” as a list of acts “committed with intent" to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.”

“Intent” to commit “genocide” is a fundamental requirement. War between two groups, that could potentially cause hundreds of thousands of deaths, including innocent civilians, such as the war on terror, would not be considered “genocide,” since it is absent of the specific intent required.

The latest attempt to accuse Israel of “genocide” was launched by South Africa, acting on behalf of the axis of evil led by the terror regime in Iran, in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023 massacre. On October 28, 2024, South Africa was meant to present its evidence to the ICJ to substantiate its baseless claim.

On the morning of October 7, 2023, more than 3,000 terrorists from Gaza, including members of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, all internationally designated terror organizations, together with others, invaded Israel and conducted a heinous massacre. The terrorists flooded more than 30 Israeli towns, villages, kibbutzim, and a number of military installations.

Over two hundred and fifty hostages, most of them alive, but also some dead bodies were snatched by the terrorists to be used as leverage against Israel. The body of at least one victim was taken by an UNRWA employee.

During the massacre, men, women, the elderly, sick people, children, and babies were murdered. Some were shot, others were raped. Some were beheaded, many were tortured, others were burned alive. Approximately 1,200 people were murdered.

Among those murdered were 822 civilians, including 531 men and 291 women; 40 were children under the age of 18; 68 were foreign nationals; 18 Bedouin (Muslim) citizens of Israel were murdered, 11 of them on October 7 and seven more due to rocket strikes; 61 police officers were killed, of whom, 58 fell in combat during the October 7 massacre, including 15 who fell during the attack on the Nova Music Festival, during which 379 people were murdered; 10 personnel of the Israel Security Agency were murdered; and 5 firefighters were murdered.

All that remained of some victims were their teeth, requiring the assistance of archaeologists to identify them.

The bogus South African claim is based on a cacophony of different statements made by Israeli actors, some taken out of context, some erroneously translated and some from actors who have no influence over Israeli policy, combined with the statistics of alleged deaths in Gaza.

During that year, in addition to the tens of thousands of soldiers operating on the ground, the IDF attacked 40,300 targets from the air.

Despite the large number, even the terrorists admitted that only 34,344 of those claimed killed had been allegedly “identified” – the rest were probably the result of false or double reports.

Tellingly, the terrorist propaganda figures did not say how many of those killed were actually terrorists themselves, or how many had been killed by the hundreds of misfired terrorist rockets that fell in the Gaza Strip.

Of the 34,000 allegedly “identified” fatalities, the IDF Spokesman stipulated, on August 17, 2024, that the IDF had killed over 17,000 terrorists in Gaza.

In other words, despite the Hamas terrorist propaganda statistics, at least half of those killed in Gaza were terrorists. According to the Laws of War, to which Israel and the IDF adhere, these terrorists were legitimate targets.

On the first anniversary of the massacre, the IDF released sundry statistics. During that year, in addition to the tens of thousands of soldiers operating on the ground, the IDF attacked 40,300 from the air. Over 4,700 entrances to the extensive Hamas terror-tunnel network (estimated to exceed 600 km) had been uncovered and over 1,000 rocket launch sites were destroyed.

In other words, despite the harsh allegation, while allegedly carrying out a “genocide” in reality, Israel didn’t even "manage" to kill 1 Palestinian Arab, with each of its aerial strikes.

This does not characterize a “genocide.”

When South Africa presents its “evidence” to the ICJ, it will no doubt ignore the number of terrorists killed or the real context of the events.

In addition, they will no doubt “forget” (maliciously of course) to mention that since the start of the war Israel has facilitated the entry in to Gaza of 1,086,205 tons of humanitarian aid, including food and other commodities.

Providing extensive humanitarian aid to the population against whom Israel is allegedly trying to carry out a “genocide,” is a clear indication that Israel has no intention whatsoever to carry out a genocide.

South Africa will also no doubt “forget” to mention that as part of the humanitarian effort, Israel, through COGAT, also coordinated the entry of 341,826 vials of the Polio vaccine, sufficient for twice the total number of people in Gaza, in order to vaccinate the Gazan “Palestinian” children.

Despite the clear and extensive evidence refuting the baseless claims of the terrorists in Tehran, acting with the assistance of the useful idiots in Pretoria, Israel will potentially have a hard time convincing the ICJ that the allegations are preposterous.

The problem is not the facts, they are clear: Despite the brutality of the October 7 Massacre, which truly was a genocidal act, Israel has done its utmost to distinguish between terrorists and civilians, has facilitated an unprecedented humanitarian effort and never had any intent to carry out a “genocide.”

The problem is that the ICJ President, Nawaf Salam, is not an independent, impartial judge. He is Lebanese. On October 8, 2023, Lebanon joined the Gazan terrorists and has been attacking Israel ever since. Israel and Lebanon are at war.

If Salam had a decent bone in his body, or just simply followed the binding requirements of the statute of the ICJ, he would recuse himself.

But he won’t. Rather he’ll just continue the longstanding tradition of ICJ hostility towards Israel, in support of the genocidal terrorists.

The ICJ is not a real court, and there is certainly no “justice” for Jews in that forum.

As noted, the claim that Israel is committing a “genocide against the “Palestinians” is not new. Given these claims, it is important to consider some fundamental facts of “Palestinian Arab” demography.

For these purposes, we will assume (not without hesitation, and, in fact, erroneously) that the term “Palestinians” refers to Arabs who were resident in mandatory “Palestine” after the creation of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in 1923 – i.e. From the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea.

Despite the propaganda narrative, the fact is that no independent "State of Palestine" ever existed.

As noted in the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, following WWI, a “separate state” called “Palestine” was first established with the sole purpose of becoming the Jewish national homeland.

According to UN statistics, in 1947/1948, when Israel was created and the Jewish people reconstituted their historic national homeland, there were approximately 1,256,000 “Palestinian Arabs” living in “Palestine.”

Of them approximately 150,000 remained resident in the Jewish State as delineated by the 1949 Armistice lines.

Approximatively 726,000 were displaced. These people would later become collectively referred to as the “Palestine refugees” and would enjoy their own, unique UN agency, UNRWA.

Of them, 246,000 left the area between the River and the Sea, going to Lebanon (97,000), Syria (75,000) and Jordan (70,000).

280,000 people left Israel (as delineated by the 1949 Armistice lines) going to the area described in the 1947 UN Partition Plan as “Judea and Samaria,” joining the 460,000 people who were already residents in that area.

From 1948 to 1967 these people lived under Jordanian control, after Jordan illegally occupied that area during Israel’s War of Independence.

200,000 people left Israel (as delineated by the 1949 Armistice lines) going to the Gaza Strip, joining the 70,000 people who were already resident there. From 1948 to 1967 these people lived under Egyptian control, after Egypt illegally occupied that area during Israel’s War of Independence.

Since 1948, the Israeli Arab population (also erroneously sometimes referred to as “Palestinians” simply because they are Arabs, and despite the fact that many of them see themselves as “Israelis,” serve in the IDF, in the Israeli police force, in the other Israeli security forces, as Judges in the Israeli judiciary, including on the Israeli Supreme Court and in all other walks of Israeli life) has grown, according to statistics published by the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, from 150,000 to over 2,000,000 people.

According to statistics published by the Palestinian Authority, from 1948 to 1997, the “Palestinian” Arab population in Gaza grew from the initial 270,000 to 995,522 people and the “Palestinian” Arab population in Judea and Samaria (a.k.a. The 'West Bank') grew from the initial 740,000 to 1,787,562. Accordingly, from 1948 to 2023, the “Palestinian” Arab population in Gaza grew from the initial 270,000 to 2,226,544 people and the “Palestinian” Arab population in Judea and Samaria grew from the initial 740,000 people to 3,256,906 people.

According to statistics published by UNRWA, the number of “Palestine [Arab] refugees” in Lebanon grew from the initial 97,000 people in 1948 to 476,033 people by December 31, 2019. The number of “Palestine [Arab] refugees” in Syria grew from the initial 75,000 people in 1948 to 562,312 people by December 31, 2019. The number of “Palestine [Arab] refugees” in Jordan grew from the initial 70,000 people in 1948 to 2,272,411 people by December 31, 2019.

During the Holocaust - the prime example of Genocide - between 1933 and 1945 the Nazi regime and its allies murdered approximately 6,000,000 Jews. To this day, the total number of Jews in the world remains lower than its starting point in 1933. During the Rwandan genocide, in the span of 100 days (7 April to 19 July, 1994) Hutu militias murdered between 500,000 to 662,000 Tutsis.

In comparison, the allied attacks on Nazi Germany and its allies, including the US attack on Hiroshima, which caused the death of over 141,000 people, or the US led, allied war on terror in Iraq, were never reasonably considered to be a “genocide.” During the war in Iraq, between 280,771 and 315,190 people were killed. This included over 66,000 civilians (out of 109,00 people) killed just in the period of January 2004 to December 2009.

In contrast, despite the allegations of Israel’s “genocide” against the “Palestinian Arabs”, between 1948 and 2023, the “Palestinian Arab” population grew, according to a publication of the Palestinian Authority at the end of 2023, over 11.6 times, from 1,256,000 to 14,630,000 people.

In other words, Israel’s alleged “genocide” of the “Palestinian Arabs” is the only example in history where the people subject to the “genocide” were not decimated, but instead grew by over 13,000,000 people.

In conclusion, either Israel is the most inept state to try and carry out a "genocide" or the claim that Israel is committing a "genocide" is just another bald-faced libel against the Jewish state.

The writer is the director of the Initiative for Palestinian Authority Accountability and Reform in the Jerusalem Center for Foreign Affairs. He served for 19 years in the IDF Military Advocate-General Corps. In his last position, he served as director of the military prosecution in Judea and Samaria (aka the 'West Bank').