Despite the substantial body of evidence supporting that conclusion, the charge remains fiercely contested.
Among the arguments against it, journalist Ron Kampeas has offered perhaps the most sophisticated and persuasive case. Precisely because his argument is more serious than the familiar talking points, it deserves a considered response.
Kampeas minimises the scale and nature of Israel’s actions in Gaza, dismisses evidence central to the case, and downplays the significance of genocidal statements made by Israeli leaders.
Although his tone is markedly calmer than the rhetoric common in much of the Israeli and pro-Israel discourse, his conclusions ultimately rest on the same foundation: the denial of evidence that points toward genocide.
Kampeas was the Jewish Telegraphic Agency Washington bureau chief from 2003-2024.
During that time, I came to know him somewhat, and despite significant political disagreements, I respect him both personally and professionally.
Kampeas takes genocide seriously and takes pains to distinguish the charge of genocide from charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. I agree with him.
For many years, I argued against using the term to describe Israel’s crimes against Palestinians.
Soon after 7 October, I reluctantly acknowledged that Israel had indicated it would. Shortly after, Israel began committing genocide in Gaza.
Yet Kampeas, who has more than a passing knowledge of international law, dismisses anyone who reaches the same conclusion I did:
“The absence of due process notwithstanding, there are a plethora of human rights groups, politicians, scholars of genocide and opiners that say Israel is committing genocide,” he wrote, dismissing those who make the claim of genocide as merely rattling off names “as if volume arrives necessarily at truth.”
However, the list Kampeas links to (which is almost a year old and has grown since) includes twenty-two current or recent members of Congress, and thirty-eight countries.
If that implies the charge is merely political, some of the world’s leading human rights groups also appear on the list, including B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights – Israel.
Most tellingly, it includes not only thirteen of the most widely respected scholars in history, international law, and Holocaust and genocide studies, but also the International Association of Genocide Scholars itself.
Kampeas would have us believe that all of them are deluded by what he terms a “mob mentality” that he easily sees through. That’s not a remotely credible argument.
Three Pillars
Ron Kampeas’ argument rests on three points:
- The case for genocide is being adjudicated at the International Court of Justice, and no verdict has been rendered yet. Due process requires that we therefore refer to this as merely an allegation.
- The Standard of Intent. Kampeas argues that this is a very high bar, and that the charge against Israel fails to meet it.
- The Definition of Genocide. Tangential to the second point, Kampeas argues that Israel’s actions fail to match the legal definition of genocide.
“Alleged”
Kampeas quotes Glenn Greenwald, who tweeted regarding the disgraced American Senate candidate Graham Platner, saying, “I know I’m old-fashioned this way, but I still think due process is the best way (i.e.: the only reliable way) to determine guilt and the truth of accusations. Online mobs and trial by media are infinitely more unreliable for all sorts of reasons that should be obvious.”
The journalist finds this hypocritical because Greenwald, of whom I am not a fan, has routinely accused Israel of genocide, which, he says, is not due process.
This is a perfect illustration of why Kampeas is wrong.
The two cases are not comparable. If Platner is guilty of the sexual assault allegation that cost him his Senate nomination, there is a grave risk he may do it again. But the accusation of genocide is ongoing.
As imperative as it is to hold someone accountable for and deter the repetition of a crime committed in the past, it is plainly much more urgent to stop a crime if it is still in progress.
Moreover, even given the presumption of innocence, an accused person can still be arrested and imprisoned while awaiting trial. In the meantime, their case is debated in the public sphere.
Kampeas illustrates the fallacy himself. “In our era, with a Genocide Convention and a court to adjudicate it in place, the tension between a political and a legal definition is untenable. Israel deserves the protections that we extended to O.J. Simpson,” he wrote.
But in the Simpson case, a court of law and the court of public opinion differed completely.
O.J. Simpson was acquitted at his murder trial. While some may have celebrated the fact that a wealthy Black man was able to buy the same privilege that had previously been the sole province of wealthy white men, few really believed he was innocent.
Simpson eventually lost his celebrity and his wealth, and later became so desperate for money that he committed robbery and was jailed.
The ICJ Has Never Been the Final Arbiter of Genocide
The International Court of Justice has not yet convicted Israel, and I am not at all certain it ever will be.
That, however, is not the standard we want to live by.
The ICJ has never found a state guilty in a genocide case. But public opinion says otherwise regarding many cases of genocide, including Gaza, and that is precisely what Kampeas is objecting to.
Yet it is not just a “mob mentality” that leads to this conclusion in the case of Gaza. Reports by the United Nations, B’Tselem, Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and others document the allegations in great detail.
The contention that Kampeas implies—that well-intentioned people see horrific images and reports from Gaza and lose their perspective—is not tenable when applied to organisations and experts who have dealt with the worst of humanity’s atrocities around the world for decades.
Kampeas does not invoke the common trope of Antisemitism or pathological hatred of Israel, so I am going to give him what I believe is due credit for not believing that.
But if so, then his contention that there’s a cultish drive to accuse Israel of genocide is the only way to explain the supposedly false allegation of genocide. It simply doesn’t wash when applying it to human rights professionals and the world’s leading genocide scholars.
So, Israel is due its day in court, which it is getting, and until the verdict is in, it cannot be held legally liable.
However, the world does not stop and wait for the International Court of Justice, which is already predicting a continuation of this case into May of 2029.
The one genocide case the Court ruled on, the Srebrenica Massacre, occurred twelve years before the ICJ’s final verdict. More to the point, its ruling is not the definitive standard for what is or is not genocide.
By that definition, there would have been only one genocide since the ICJ was created after World War II, with two more (Gaza and Myanmar) still under consideration.
But the scholarly consensus acknowledges many others. Nagorno-Karabakh (2022-23), the Uyghurs in China (2016- ), Eastern Ukraine (2022- ), the Yazidis in Iraq and Syria (2014-2017), Darfur (2003-2005), Rwanda (1994) and, tragically, many more.
Gambia recently brought a case against the UAE for arming the Rapid Support Forces in Sudan. The ICJ dismissed the case, citing a lack of standing for Gambia. Does that mean Sudan is not experiencing a genocide?
Few who have actually paid attention to Sudan’s civil war over the past three years would agree. Do they, too, suffer from “mob mentality?”
The Standard of Intent and the Definition of Genocide
While there is a clear legal definition of genocide, the key element that differentiates it from war crimes or crimes against humanity is intent. The standard for intent, contrary to Ron Kampeas, is highly contested.
The journalist insists that the only standard is the one the ICJ used in a 2015 case, where it said, “In order to infer the existence of dolus specialis [special intent] from a pattern of conduct, it is necessary that this is the only inference that could reasonably be drawn from the acts in question.”
But that is not the last word on the subject.
In the Myanmar case, for example, the countries making a claim of genocide challenged this standard as being almost impossible to reach without an explicit genocidal statement, which is rarely made.
Even so, Israeli leaders made numerous statements that, taken together, would lead to the conclusion that genocidal intent was present.
Kampeas cites Yoav Gallant, quoting him as saying, “Gaza won’t return to what it was before. We will eliminate everything. There will be no Hamas. If it doesn’t take one day, it will take a week.”
He claims that Gallant’s reference to Hamas indicates that the militant group was the intended target.
However, this conflicts with Gallant’s simultaneous statement: “I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.”
Some have argued that the “human animals” statement referred only to Hamas. That is contradicted by the total blockade Gallant referred to, which clearly covered all of Gaza. Taken together, the genocidal intent of both statements is undeniable.
There were many other statements by Israeli leaders.
Kampeas argues that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s reference to the biblical Amalek was both cited incorrectly and had a very different meaning from what is often attributed to it.
The journalist writes: “The phrase is understood among Israelis and Jews generally as an appeal to remember God even in the direst circumstance; its use was commonplace during the Holocaust, which is why it appears on Holocaust memorials including at The Hague.”
The invocation of Amalek has the aspect of a call to resilience. Still, it is also very much meant to stir the faithful to righteous rage, as you can see in this exposition by a settler rabbi, who is representative of a large part of the Israeli and Jewish world.
Regardless of the biblical finery—which would be lost on what is a rapidly dwindling majority of secular Israelis—it is only one of many genocidal statements.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog claimed there were no innocents in Gaza. He later tried to deny the statement, but the Israeli government made similar public and unequivocal statements.
On 11 May 2025, the Israeli daily Ma’ariv reported that Netanyahu had told a meeting of his cabinet that “We are destroying more and more homes; they have nowhere to return to. The only obvious result will be a desire for Gazans to emigrate outside the Strip. Our main problem is finding countries to receive them.”
Genocide does not require killing all the people in question. It simply requires the intention to eliminate the group “in whole or in part” as a unified body.
Netanyahu explicitly said that was what he was doing. And these are only a few samples of hundreds that have been compiled since October 2023.
I don’t know what the ICJ ruling will ultimately be. I make no claim to be a lawyer, but many international law experts and genocide scholars agree that Gaza has been and remains the site of an ongoing genocide.
I understand how hard it can be for Israelis and members of the pro-Israel community to accept this. For those who do, even those as knowledgeable as Kampeas, it can be especially painful.
But denial serves only to perpetuate inhumanity. Ron Kampeas made as good a case as I think can be made, but it withers and dies under serious scrutiny.
Gaza is a genocide.
Photograph courtesy of Joel Schalit. All rights reserved.
