Opinion
Bret Stephens
No, Israel Is Not Committing Genocide in Gaza
July 22, 2025
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By Bret Stephens
Opinion Columnist
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Bret Stephens
I’m an Opinion columnist for The New York Times, writing about foreign policy, domestic politics and cultural issues. I also have a weekly published conversation on current affairs with my friend, colleague and sparring partner, Gail Collins.
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No, Israel Is Not Committing Genocide in Gaza
July 22, 2025
It may seem harsh to say, but there is a glaring dissonance to the charge that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. To wit: If the Israeli government’s intentions and actions are truly genocidal — if it is so malevolent that it is committed to the annihilation of Gazans — why hasn’t it been more methodical and vastly more deadly? Why not, say, hundreds of thousands of deaths, as opposed to the nearly 60,000 that Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatant and civilian deaths, has cited so far in nearly two years of war?
It’s not that Israel lacks the capacity to have meted vastly greater destruction than what it has inflicted so far. It is the leading military power of its region, stronger now that it has decimated Hezbollah and humbled Iran. It could have bombed without prior notice, instead of routinely warning Gazans to evacuate areas it intended to strike. It could have bombed without putting its own soldiers, hundreds of whom have died in combat, at risk.
It isn’t that Israel has been deterred from striking harder by the presence of its hostages in Gaza. Israeli intelligence is said to have a fairly good idea of where those hostages are being held, which is one reason, with tragic exceptions, relatively few have died from Israeli fire. And it knows that, as brutal as the hostages’ captivity has been, Hamas has an interest in keeping them alive.
Nor is it that Israel lacks diplomatic cover. President Trump has openly envisaged requiring all Gazans to leave the territory, repeatedly warning that “all hell” would break out in Gaza if Hamas didn’t return the hostages. As for the threat of economic boycotts, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange has been the world’s best-performing major stock index since Oct. 7. 2023. With due respect to the risk of Irish boycotts, Israel is not a country facing a fundamental economic threat. If anything, it’s the boycotters who stand to suffer.
In short, the first question the anti-Israel genocide chorus needs to answer is: Why isn’t the death count higher?
The answer, of course, is that Israel is manifestly not committing genocide, a legally specific and morally freighted term that is defined by the United Nations convention on genocide as the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.”
Note the words “intent” and “as such.” Genocide does not mean simply “too many civilian deaths” — a heartbreaking fact of nearly every war, including the one in Gaza. It means seeking to exterminate a category of people for no other reason than that they belong to that category: the Nazis and their partners killing Jews in the Holocaust because they were Jews or the Hutus slaughtering the Tutsis in the Rwandan genocide because they were Tutsi. When Hamas invaded on Oct. 7, intentionally butchering families in their homes and young people at a music festival, they also murdered Israelis “as such.”
By contrast, the fact that over a million German civilians died in World War II — thousands of them in appalling bombings of cities like Hamburg and Dresden — made them victims of war but not of genocide. The aim of the Allies was to defeat the Nazis for leading Germany into war, not to wipe out Germans simply for being German.
In response, Israel’s inveterate critics note the scale of destruction in Gaza. They also point to a handful of remarks by a few Israeli politicians dehumanizing Gazans and promising brutal retaliation. But furious comments in the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities hardly amount to a Wannsee conference, and I am aware of no evidence of an Israeli plan to deliberately target and kill Gazan civilians.
As for the destruction in Gaza, it is indeed immense. There are important questions to be asked about the tactics Israel has used, most recently when it comes to the chaotic food distribution system it has attempted to set up as a way of depriving Hamas of control of the food supply. And hardly any military in history has gone to war without at least some of its soldiers committing war crimes. That includes Israel in this war — and America in nearly all of our wars, including World War II, when some of our greatest generation bombed schools accidentally or murdered P.O.W.s in cold blood.
But bungled humanitarian schemes or trigger-happy soldiers or strikes that hit the wrong target or politicians reaching for vengeful sound bites do not come close to adding up to genocide. They are war in its usual tragic dimensions.
What is unusual about Gaza is the cynical and criminal way Hamas has chosen to wage war. In Ukraine, when Russia attacks with missiles, drones or artillery, civilians go underground while the Ukrainian military stays aboveground to fight. In Gaza, it’s the reverse: Hamas hides and feeds and preserves itself in its vast warren of tunnels rather than open them to civilians for protection.
These tactics, which are war crimes in themselves, make it difficult for Israel to achieve its war aims: the return of its hostages and the elimination of Hamas as a military and political force so that Israel may never again be threatened with another Oct. 7. Those twin aims were and remain entirely justifiable — and would bring the killing in Gaza to an end if Hamas simply handed over the hostages and surrendered. Those are demands one almost never hears from Israel’s supposedly evenhanded accusers.
It’s also worth asking how the United States would operate in similar circumstances. As it happens, we know. In 2016 and 2017, under Barack Obama and Trump, the United States aided the government of Iraq in retaking the city of Mosul, which was captured by the Islamic State three years earlier and turned into a booby-trapped, underground fortress. Here’s a description in The Times of the way the war was waged to eliminate ISIS.
As Iraqi forces have advanced, American airstrikes have at times leveled entire blocks — including the one in Mosul Jidideh this month that residents said left as many as 200 civilians dead. At the same time, the Islamic State fighters have used masses of civilians as human shields, and have been indiscriminate about sniper and mortar fire.
This fight, carried out over nine months, had broad bipartisan and international support. By some estimates, it left as many as 11,000 civilians dead. I don’t recall any campus protests.
Some readers may say that even if the war in Gaza isn’t genocide, it has gone on too long and needs to end. That’s a fair point of view, shared by a majority of Israelis. So why does the argument over the word “genocide” matter? Two reasons.
First, while some pundits and scholars may sincerely believe the genocide charge, it is also used by anti-Zionists and antisemites to equate modern Israel with Nazi Germany. The effect is to license a new wave of Jew hatred, stirring enmity not only for the Israeli government but also for any Jew who supports Israel as a genocide supporter. It’s a tactic Israel haters have pursued for years with inflated or bogus charges of Israeli massacres or war crimes that, on close inspection, weren’t. The genocide charge is more of the same but with deadlier effects.
Second, if genocide — a word that was coined only in the 1940s — is to retain its status as a uniquely horrific crime, then the term can’t be promiscuously applied to any military situation we don’t like. Wars are awful enough. But the abuse of the term “genocide” runs the risk of ultimately blinding us to real ones when they unfold.
The war in Gaza should be brought to an end in a way that ensures it is never repeated. To call it a genocide does nothing to advance that aim, except to dilute the meaning of a word we cannot afford to cheapen.
More on Israel and Gaza
Opinion | Omer Bartov
I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It.
July 15, 2025
Opinion | Bret Stephens
What ‘Globalize the Intifada’ Really Means
July 1, 2025
Opinion | David Wallace-Wells
The Judgment of History Won’t Save Gaza
June 25, 2025
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Bret Stephens is an Opinion columnist for The Times, writing about foreign policy, domestic politics and cultural issues. Facebook
A version of this article appears in print on July 23, 2025, Section A, Page 18 of the New York edition with the headline: No, Israel Is Not Committing Genocide in Gaza. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
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What do you call it when people are first intentionally starved then shot while trying to get food?
I find this piece of semantic parsing beyond the pale of anything we might consider humane, decent, or otherwise thoughtful. It’s clear what Israel under Netanyahu intends: the gradual and inexorable cleansing of Gaza of the Palestinian people. Stephens is an apologist for the Israeli right wing. This has been clear long before the events of October 7.
So then what is the term for a situation where soldiers are explicitly targeting and shooting displaced people of a specific ethnicity (including children) who are in the process of simply trying to collect food rations?
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant: "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." The genocidal intent is clear, especially when Netanyahu publicly calls for ethnic cleansing and compares Palestinians to the Biblical Amalek, the genocide continues to be carried out. Bret, you're wrong. This is such a shameful piece.
Are you seriously saying Isreali forces aren't destroying enough civilian structures or killing enough innocent children to warrant condemnation???
I feel like Tommy Lee Jones in the masterpiece film, “No Country for Old Men.” I don’t know how to confront this evil. This fight is overwhelming. Exhausting. And the lies by Bret Stephens and the New York Times confirm that I am truly living in a world I don’t truly understand anymore.
When will it be genocide? When the entirety of the Gaza strip is in Israeli control? When Palestinian communities have been completely supplanted be Israeli settlers in the West Bank? If 60,000 isn't enough deaths, would 600,000 be enough? Will Brett please take a stab at setting minimum parameters for when we can finally declare a genocide? Or will he just keep moving the goalposts?
Instead of coming to terms with the horrific crimes that Israel is committing in Gaza, let's obfuscate the issue with a discussion of what people should call it. It is a deliberate, systematic attempt to remove Palestinians from Gaza and the west bank, by any and all means. Tens of thousands of innocents have been killed, hundreds of thousands are being starved. "But let's not cheapen the word 'genocide'." Nice try. As the comments show, no one is buying this nonsense. Putting a definitional fig leaf on a deliberate policy of mass murder is a transparently absurd way to shield Israel from the condemnation its actions merit.
Please stop. Accusing me of antisemitism simply because I am aware of the horrific violence that Israel is committing against innocent civilians? That 60% of fatalities are women and children? That they now inflict starvation? That they shoot innocent people intentionally? Is it not appropriate to be disgusted, gut-sickened, burdened by the genocide? Genocide it is, according to: Amnesty International United Nations (special committee) Doctors Without Borders Human Rights Watch "... Most Scholars of genocide by now and Scholars of international law agree that what we are seeing in Gaza now is genocide." —NBC News, June 19, 2025 Calling this antisemitic is to identify Judaism with God-forsaken violence. Be careful how you sling your labels!
You are on the wrong side of history, sir. As a Jewish person I am aghast and ashamed by people like you defending the slaughter and destruction of innocent people. I am in my 50s but I was raised with the concept of “never again,” not just for Jews but for everyone and with the idea that because we had experienced it, we could help to keep it from happening to others. The policies you support are not only causing grave harm to human lives, but they are reflecting back on the Jewish people. How will others judge us? How will God judge us?
I totally disagree. It's methodical, diabolical - Netanyahu and his far right team are destroying any goodwill Israel had - now and in the future,
This is like defending someone who murdered three people by saying they're not a mass murderer, because that requires four victims. And that's makes the three murders less heinous how?
To continue my previous thoughts, just because Netanyahu and his enablers have not killed as many people as they could have does not mean that they haven’t displayed a wanton and criminal disregard for Palestinian civilian lives. It’s kinda like pornography, Bret. We all know it when we see it.
If your standard for genocide is volume and efficiency, then I guess anything less than 6 million people murdered with German engineered precision is an acceptable loss of life.
Hey Brett, do me a favor. There's a co-worker of yours here at the Times you may or may not have met but my advice- go seek him out and have a talk because it appears to me you're truly missing the point on this 🤷♂️ "...the systematic destruction in Gaza not only of housing but also of other infrastructure — government buildings, hospitals, universities, schools, mosques, cultural heritage sites, water treatment plants, agriculture areas, and parks — reflects a policy aimed at making the revival of Palestinian life in the territory highly unlikely" That's just one small anecdote. He's a professor from Brown and that was published on July 15. He might be just down the hall from you right now as we speak🤷♂️🤷♂️🙏🙏
In whole, or in part.. I think firing on innocent civilians seeking food might be a bridge too far, don’t you think?
Only someone wilfully blind could think that Israel is being neither methodical nor deadly in Gaza. It has been methodical about destroying hospitals and bakeries. It has been methodical about declaring “safe” zones and then bombing them. It has been methodical on setting up a fake humanitarian agency to lure hungry Palestinians to “aid” sites, where it has been methodical about killing them. As far as I see it, anyone denying Israel’s actions constitute genocide, or even that they are genocidal, is one of two things: completely ignorant of the situation in Gaza or a willing apologist for the genocide that is clearly occurring there. History will not judge these people kindly
Mr. Stephens, it's interesting that you cite the United Nations definition of genocide as evidence that Israel has not been committing a genocide against the Palestinian people...but you conveniently fail to mention that a special report by the United Nations, completed in April 2025, which concludes decisively with undeniable evidence that Israel is indeed committing genocide: https://www.un.org/unispal/document/letter-from-the-state-of-palestine-23apr25/ Doctors Without Borders and Amnesty International have also drawn the same conclusion. I look forward to reading Mr. Stephens' opinion piece full of cherry picked facts in 10 years that essentially amounts to "We can call it a genocide now, but how would we know that's what it was at the time?"
Jesus. A decade from now I would hate to be the guy who defended a genocide that the whole world has watched happen.
The idea that indiscriminate intentional killing of civilians, women and children is NOT genocide because it could always be worse is ridiculous. Just as the IDF theoretically could easily decimate Gazans should it choose to do so, they should be able to prosecute the war on Hamas without killing 60,000 civilians. Gone full MAGA eh Bret?
Why hasn't Israel killed more Palestinians? Because it's strategy is to destroy the entire Gaza Strip, rendering it uninhabitable and forcing Palestinians to leave or die. Their strategy is the annihilation of the Palestinian people in Gaza. That is a genocidal goal. And we know it's their goal because -- as much as Bret would like to downplay it -- the Israel government is saying as much. Bret was clearly brought in to do damage control after Omer Bartov's bracing article "I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It." Anyone looking for actual expert analysis should seek it out. It is a great shame and irony of history that the phrase "never again," has been updated to mean "never again ... for us."
My Polish and Jewish mother survived two genocides, including the Holocaust. My father was part of the U.S. Army "Spearhead" Division that liberated the Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp in World War II. They would both have recognized this as a genocide long ago, and would have immediately demanded to know how anyone, let alone Bret Stephens and this paper (to which my father subscribed for decades before his death) could be genocide apologists. This so clearly meets the articles of the Genocide Convention. The entire international community recognizes Israel's actions as incontrovertible evidence of genocide: the mass targeting and killing of civilians, systematic starvation, the killing of children, the resolute refusal to allow the waiting aid trucks to distribute aid. The opinions of countless genocide scholars and human rights groups concur. To read this "it may seem harsh to say" deflection piece by Bret Stephens (and, by extension, this paper) at a time when so many are in the fifth and final stage of starvation is unthinkable and unconscionable. I don't see how we can ever redeem ourselves for allowing our elected officials and our tax dollars to support this. Speak up, NYT! It's time.
Here’s what I’m seeing: a government toying with an entire population, systematically killing or injuring horrific numbers on a daily basis, often with no identifiable military gain other than revenge. Direct targeting of aid workers trying to help the wounded, orphaned, or hungry. Creation of funnels into meager feed depots that don’t have enough servings for even 1/100th of those who arrive, only to shell or machine gun those who do. Intentional gatekeeping of…water. Public posturing about relocation of the entire population to foreign lands to create resort property for the Netanyahu government to auction or gift to its partners. You’re right, Brett, maybe we do need a new word.
What is the point of armchair pontificating at all - the only focus flat out should be to end the suffering and death of all, particularly these children. Not to philosophize if their death by any means is worse or less worse. So much chatter, so little action. It makes me sick every day to feel so helpless to not help these people.
Pure sophistry. The deliberate targeting of desperate, starving people trying to secure sustenance: it really doesn't matter what you call it. It's disgusting, shameful and wrong. This delicate dance around the term "genocide" is really beside the point--the focus on the term frames the situation as less appalling than it truly is.
Bret You are so off base on this topic. Israel may well not be committing Genocide but Bibi Netanyahu surely is. He knows that as long as war exists, he can avoid going on trial for actions that will lock him up for a long time so what does he have to lose by continuing to kill starving people in Gaza??
Mr. Stephens: This reads like a cold Oxford debate. It is just immoral to set up food distribution and have near daily reports of the IDF killing hungry and vulnerable Gazans. And I don't care if there may be Hamas elements there, as detestable and, yes, evil as its members are. There are (or used to be) some rules governing humanity in war, And the reason no one but the IDF knows what's really happening or sparking these horrific events around food distribution in Gaza is because the Netanyahu government will not allow journalists in to report. You've been a reporter. How can you countenance this? By the way, I have been squarely on your side about the need for decimating Hamas because of the horrors of Oct 7. I, who am not Jewish, have shed a tear for murdered hostages, for attacks on Jews here in the U.S. I've spent days/weeks/month thinking through Oct. 7, the atrocities, the consequences for Israel and Jews. I listen to podcasts by Israelis on the topic. You've lost me on this one. Something is very very wrong when men, women and children who need food and water are being killed. Five this day, according to the morning newscaster. Then, another 20 a few days later; 10 next week and then, oh, another 14, reports the newscaster. You're living in some weird, lifeless bubble of intellectual rationale. What is happening with food distribution in Gaza is grotesque. And it matters just as much as Oct. 7th.
This denial is exactly why 125 Nations created the International Criminal Court. Destroyed water supply for 2.5 million people - day one Stopped 750 food trucks daily - day one Intentionally attacking of hospitals with precision ordinance. Israel proves South Africas ICC complaint daily. Repeated disregard for civilian casualties. Then there will be the millions affected by concrete dust poisoning. Something New Yorkers should appreciate after the collapse of the Twin towers. Israel complains that we should compare them against the horrors of Hamas, but I am holding them to the same standards that led us to impose sanctions on Russia for its nearly identical behaviour in the Ukraine. So maybe its not genocide completely so we could go back and rewrite the Holocaust - as it was not genocide if they dont succeed completely.
Srebrenica was ruled a genocide and Bosnian Serb commanders sent to prison, in spite of the Bosnian Serbs repeatedly pointing to examples of their adversaries, the Bosniaks, committing war crimes against Serb civilians. The ICJ unanimously ruled that war crimes don't justify more war crimes. Bosniak commanders were also tried and found guilty of war crimes. During the war Bosniak soldiers illegally sought shelter after raids in protected UN safe-zones and the Serbs accused them of using the zones as 'human shields'. The Srebrenica massacre was the Serbs coldly calculating that at least 1 in 10 military age men and boys in the safe zone were soldiers so they rounded up and killed 6,000 of them. This is all well established legal precedent for war crimes and genocide. Israel is using the same math and strategy only using sophisticated targeting AI tools and guided missiles and killing far more people, including women and children. So what new take is Stephens offering on this well established genocide precedent? Israel isn't committing Genocide because their capable of killing all of Gaza's population and haven't yet.
The opinion writer thinks it’s ok for even 60,0000 people to be killed and a country destroyed. It’s ok for food to not get to starving children and hospitals to be bombed according to the writer. The loss of one innocent life is one too many. War is nothing other than hate by one side against the other. Israel leaders made peace with Egypt by talking not killing. Hamas is evil. But Israel is looking no different. Its leader is a man who is full of evil and hate. And one day, he will need to answer why Israel with such good intelligence wasn’t able to pick up a planned October terrorist attack. .
Don’t believe your lying eyes. Stephens would have us believe that if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s not a duck. His hair splitting over what constitutes “real” genocide is disgusting. The fact he feels the need to do so is a tacit admission he knows it’s happening in Gaza. Meanwhile, the IDF continues killing with impunity.
The term genocide didn’t even exist before the holocaust but that doesn’t change its despicable intent, depraved violence, or dehumanizing subjugation of a people. So if we stop calling what is happening in Gaza genocide, will you admit to the horrors? Thousands of children dead. Thousands maimed. Untold numbers starving or homeless or orphaned. An ever shrinking territory. Schools bombed to rubble. Dozens killed almost every day lining up for food. Do you have an ethical red line, no matter the term we use?
This article ignores the numerous genocidal statements made by the people waging this war. It ignores Netanyahu’s political motivations for prolonging the conflict. It ignores the fact the civilians can’t leave. It ignores the intentional blocking of aid and the intentional killing of civilians and aid workers caught on camera. It ignores history that led up to it and it ultimately ignores reality. All the better to ignore you. This article will haunt you forever by how it serves to rationalize whatever it is that Israel is doing.
I'm wondering if you read the moving and persuasive piece in this newspaper on July 15 by Omer Bartov, a professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University entitled, "I am a genocide scholar. I know it when I see it." If not, I strongly encourage you to do so. He regretfully lays out an irrefutable case that what is going on in Gaza indeed meets all of the requirements, definitions and rules for when warfare enters into a new category of horror that was labeled genocide in 1946. And even if you didn't read it, we can all see with our own eyes what is so obvious: deliberate shooting and bombing innocence civilians, many of them children, for no reason whatsoever as obviously they're not a threat. Furthermore, Hamas was degraded over a year ago, even the higher ups in the Israeli army publicly acknowledge that; and yet Israel soldiers, Netanyahu and his government continue to slaughter innocent people by the scores every single day, not to mention destroying essentially every structure in Gaza. I could go on and on: disease, starvation, extreme trauma that will endure for generations, sadistic brutality on a level that is sickening. You have to be kidding that you don't think this is genocide.
This is pointless quibbling over semantics. As an American Jew I couldn’t care less what word is used to describe the atrocities committed by Israel. There is simply no way to justify the horrors they have inflicted on Gaza.
I wasn't convinced before, but if Stephens says it's not it definitely is.
We know from Gershon Baskin, the Israeli-American who has previously negotiated with Hamas, that Hamas has agreed to release all the hostages and to hand over power in Gaza to an Arab/International force, Palestinian Authority, etc. Yet Netanyahu continues to say "no" (while getting the Americans to blame Hamas). Why? Because Netanyahu wants to force Hamas to agree to only a 60 day truce--long enough to get the hostages back. Then he will resume bombing Gaza until every person is either dead or displaced and he can build Jewish settlements on the ruins. To reiterate: Hamas wants a permanent ceasefire and is willing to give up all hostages and relinquish rule over Gaza. Netanyahu wants a temporary ceasefire because his ultimate goal is to empty Gaza and that can only be accomplished by war.
Systematic starvation. Indiscriminate killing of civilians. Telling Palestinians to go this this zone or that, this camp or that, this safe zone or that and then bombing or attacking it. Reducing huge swaths of infrastructure to rubble leaving no shelter, cutting off the water supply, killing tens of thousands of young children. Not allowing aid (medical, food, shelter), routinely shooting non-combatants at food distribution events. Allowing Israeli civilians to stop aid from entering, commit violence against Palestinian civilians, steal their land, destroy their property. Stephens wants to split semantic hairs while Israel commits atrocity after atrocity, war crime after war crime. I'm not buying it. I have my own two eyes and ears Bret. Choose whatever name you want, Israel is committing a crime against humanity.
Why not, say, hundreds of thousands of deaths? You ask. It's simple. There HAVE been hundreds of thousands of deaths, but the infrastructure to count them has been systematically wiped out. There are no more fully functioning hospitals in Gaza. Hundreds of thousands of deaths have not been tallied.
The media is obsessed with defining words or phrases. Genocide, ethnic cleansing, antisemitism. It’s not a court of law, where the judiciary argues over manslaughter, second or first degree murder. Killing innocents deliberately, destroying most of the infrastructure, bombing hospitals, tents, shooting hungry masses cannot be equivocated away Mr. Stephen’s.
One day this op-ed will be taught in moral philosophy and history classes. And not as an example of solid moral reasoning nor as an accurate historical analysis.
This is a new low, really. Even for the ‘see-no-evil and hear-no-evil about Israel’ NYT. Arguing that Israel could kill more but doesn’t, and quibbling about the exact definition of genocide, does not make the evidence go away. It is patently obvious that Israel wants to get rid of the people of Gaza. Netanyahu would move all of them somewhere if someone would take them, and Trump would build his resort there without a second thought. Isn’t that an intent to destroy a racial group? Could it be that Israel does not kill more because the whole world is watching? What do the Palestinians think about the whole thing, I wonder? Oh, right, they are not to be believed, or they are not objective. Because one cannot be objective about whether someone is trying to kill you. Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, and everyone knows it.
Mr. Stephens, you have every right to have your own opinion of Israeli intent or whether the humanitarian horror in Gaza is just the "normal" collateral damage of war. I would just ask that you own that view and not play with semantics to make what is happening OK. Your article brought me to this terribel thought I would have never had otherwise- since Germans kept people in ghettos or camps, under starvation conditions instead of killing them immediately. Does that mean there wasn't a genocide going on? I don't see the holocaust and Gaza as similar, but Brett's definition opened up the comparison. And, I am angry that his op-ed caused me to make such a comparison. I tend to think that genocide might be too strong a word for what is happening in Gaza, but that does not lessen the humanitarian horror of what is going on. And, there is nothing consistent with what is going on in Gaza with what I learned about moral values of Judiasm. Throughout history, people have tried to use semantics to lessen the evil they are undertaking. I mean torture isn't torture, it is just enhanced interogation. And, Chinese reeducation campus were just nice schools. I have no idea what the Israeli end game is for this war. It seems though, that the Israeli government would be fine killing every last Gazan if that what it would take to rid 100% of the fear of Hamas. I find that morally repugnant. More importantly, it makes me fear for Israel's long term sustainability.
If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck it's most likely a duck, regardless of the pathetic excuses of the Bret Stephens of the world.
Sorry to disagree, but I think you are wrong, sadly for the people of Gaza and deep down, of Isreal too. This is bad for their psyche too.
@DS In the opinion of some people like this author, it depends on whether the starved are considered fully human. Dredd Scott opinion would not have considered this as genocide. The rule of the most famous German would not have considered this as genocide. You see it all depends how you view the recipients this treatment.
Bret Stephens argues that Israel’s actions in Gaza don’t constitute genocide because the death toll isn’t higher and intentions aren’t “explicit.” But the Genocide Convention doesn’t require mass death—it requires intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. That includes killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, or deliberately inflicting conditions to bring about the group’s destruction. Israel’s siege tactics—blocking food, water, fuel, and medicine—combined with mass civilian deaths, targeting of hospitals, and statements by Israeli officials dehumanizing Palestinians and calling for their removal from Gaza, meet both the legal and moral criteria. Stephens’ argument—that genocide must be “more deadly” to count—is dangerously revisionist. The scale of destruction, the precision of targeting civilian infrastructure, and the calls from Israeli ministers to make Gaza “disappear” all point to intent. This isn’t an emotional accusation—it’s a legal case backed by global human rights experts. Trying to dilute the definition of genocide to protect an ally weakens the credibility of international law and emboldens future crimes. If this doesn’t qualify, then we’ve rendered the word meaningless.
This piece reads as intentionally confrontational and condescending to its audience. Semantics don't excuse moral wrongs. I wish that my subscription fee didn't contribute to the writing of this opinion piece.
It is necessary to question the aims of the current Israeli government. Why are schools, hospitals, and food distribution lines being bombed? Why are UN facilities and foreign journalists targeted? Why is the civilian death toll in Gaza so disproportionately high—especially compared to the war in Ukraine, where most casualties have been soldiers? Why is there pressure to push Palestinians into the far south of Gaza or even into neighboring countries? Why does the Israeli army tolerate or even support extremist settlers who terrorize Palestinian farmers in the West Bank, taking over village after village? The answer is not complicated. Even if the term “genocide” may not apply in its strict legal sense, we are witnessing ethnic cleansing, war crimes, systematic targeting of civilians as a tool of territorial annexation and colonization. This is not a defense of Hamas. Israel has the right to defend itself. But collective punishment of an entire population—especially women and children—is morally indefensible and legally unjustifiable. Such violence will provoke backlash and contribute to a rise in real antisemitism, harming innocent Jewish communities worldwide. Criticizing Israel’s actions in Gaza is not antisemitism. It is a call for humanity, justice, and international accountability. Silence in the face of such suffering is not neutrality—it is complicity.
I will says this for the NYT, they don't shy away from opposing opinion pieces like this. I find this guest essay disturbing. What difference is it if Palestinians are killed outright by the IDF or starved out? The end result will be the same. To suggest that the term "genocide" is being misapplied because not enough Palestines have died yet is reprehensible.
@AK please, sir, tell me how the 100+ Gazans shot today seeking food aid or the 19 who starved, could stop the genocide. it seems that Israel is using starvation as a tool, and using the desperation of the people approaching famine as a pretext for shooting them. not going nna quibble about the term ‘genocide’- that’s Stephens’ schtick to cover the fact that war crimes are happening- and please pay no attention to the wedt bank atrocities behind the curtain… when IDF deliberately targets ambulances and starving people,i find a comment like this reprehensible
@DS I am an American Jew who is appalled by this assault on Gaza. And I find it very telling that the Israelis do not allow Western journalists to cover the devastation in Gaza. If this ‘war’ is following conventions, then why the secrecy? Anyone with half a brain can stream Al Jazeera and watch on the ground footage to confirm the indiscriminate killing. This is shameful, and parsing definitions does nothing to change that.
Are we going to see a comparable story featured the The Times this week where someone better informed and sincere than Bret Stephens make the case why what is taking place in Gaza is genocide. Without hearing from boths ides of the issue this story is very incomplete.
What a tragic opinion - starvation and obliteration of relief services - a slow and torturous genocide it is indeed.
Stephens has reduced the horror happening in Gaza to semantics.
One aspect: western doctors have documented extensive deaths in Palestinian children due to head shots. Those are not random and can only be caused by specific targeting by Israeli snipers.
Someone needs to show this man the actual definition of genocide. And also tell him that some estimates of the death toll are in the hundreds of thousands. Anyone who care to know accurate figures should be demanding the Israeli government allow independent journalists into Gaza. If it’s not genocide why not let the press in? Also, I’m going to trust the genocide scholars and human rights lawyers - the experts, not this columnist.
Stephen, if you want to keep this objective, it is genocide. As a Unicef staff I see every day the strategic and intentional annihilating of human and children’ rights. Genocide. It checks all the boxes.
You have wasted a couple thousand words making an argument that, based on legalistic terms and self-selected definitions, Israel is not guilty of genocide. I imagine one might make such an intellectual case, although it seems far tougher than making the case against whether Israel has and is currently committing war crimes, ethnic cleansing and other crimes that do not have the outrageous ironies carried with the word genocide. Because, by any common sense definition, informed by observation and simple logic, they are. One thing that once minimized the moral culpability of Israel, its government and its people was its vulnerability to existential attack in a sea of sworn enemies. It has been a long time since they have actually faced such a situation.
And Trump was not responsible for J6….. Sometimes we just don’t need a pundit or so called expert to tell us what we are clearly watching on tv or news…. While the IDF has outperformed any prior expectations against a whole host of dangerous enemies (of course, with America’s help), I wonder if the continued slaughter of innocents in Gaza is actually bringing more risk and harm to Jews around the world.
Stephens certainly sounds like an apologist for Israel. No convincing reasons are presented to to counter the argument of genocide. The sad part is that he seems totally unaware of this shortcoming. But the issue of genocide aside, it is clear that the plan is to eliminate Palestinian Gaza. Palestinians will be confined to a very small area in southern Gaza. Whatever we call it, this is the elimination of a homeland and a culture.
@DS Until more pressure is applied to the Hamas murderers, more innocent Palestinians will die. Where are the protests for the release of the hostages?
There is a recent awakening in Ireland to call the deaths of the Irish during the 1840's from starvation as "genocide" rather than the heretofore accepted term "famine." One million died and one million emigrated out of an original population of eight million. The Irish language suffered greatly as well. There are those who dispute the famine was genocide when it has conveniently been attributed to the potato blight for going on two hundred years. But the question remains "Why did so many Irish starve during the 1840s when there was a surplus of food (fish, beef, mutton, dairy, grain) shipped out of Ireland to supply England? My answer: man's inhumanity to their fellow man. Another answer: the British, who ruled Ireland at the time, did not acknowledge the Irish as fully human. So Mr. Stephens, you may tell yourself what is happening in Gaza now is not genocide. But history may judge it much differently.
In his habitual defense of the indefensible, the writer is not merely frozen in the headlights, he is now trying to outstare the highbeams. The result is not surprising. A debilitating blindness.
Splitting hairs. When you cut off food and water from people you want out of a certain area, and bomb and kill them, ruin their habitat - 60,000 people is not a small number. And it will grow. It's tactical genocide. The means may be different but the end is the same.
What’s also particularly gross and callous here on the part of the author is that citing 60,000 killed (which by the way is already mostly women and children and an outdated figure), is the extreme low estimate. That’s actually just the processed bodies of people directly murdered by Israelis; not the ones the ones who are still missing, or the ones who have starved, or later died of their wounds, or any number of cause. With 90% plus of the buildings destroyed and hundreds of thousands missing, it’s also a glaringly obvious attempt to minimize the death toll, which is likely multiple times higher. Horrific. There is truly no length to which the New York Times and other ardent defenders of Israel will not go to defend the indefensible.
A British surgeon in Gaza comes to a different conclusion from the one offered here. See: https://www.npr.org/2025/07/21/nx-s1-5471424/gaza-hospitals-british-surgeon-israel-attacks Dr. Nick Maynard asserts: "I think what we're witnessing is a very deliberate plan to erase the Gaza population from this land. I do not believe for a minute this is just about destroying Hamas. They are deliberately killing many, many, many thousands of innocent civilians by their withholding of aid and medicines and food. They are destroying the whole infrastructure of living here. They are destroying all the hospitals. It's not just bombing the hospitals. They're going in and dismantling all the laboratories, dismantling all the dialysis machines. They've destroyed the agricultural system. They've destroyed the fishing industry. They're targeting the water sanitation plants. So there's no doubt in my mind what we are witnessing is a deliberate destruction of the whole infrastructure of living in Gaza with the very clear aim of ethnic cleansing and getting the whole population out of this land." ....
Mr. Stephens conveniently ignores the one war aim, which Netanyahu and his associates have repeated ad nauseum, that negates this entire article and proves there is genocidal intent by the Israeli government. Times of Israel, March 22, 2025: "Netanyahu sets implementation of Trump’s Gaza relocation plan as new condition for ending war" That plan, as Mr. Stephens seems to forget, is to permanently expel all Palestinians outside of Gaza, never to return. That is explicit intent to destroy the Palestinian people of Gaza, in whole, solely because of their ethnicity/nationality. It is genocide.
The cynical word games deliberately deflect from the deliberate and systematic atrocities that Israel has carried out daily for over 20 months. A quote from The Guardian newspaper about Rwanda 1994 is worth reading: the [Clinton] administration did not publicly use the word genocide until May 25 [i.e. when it was too late] and even then diluted its impact by saying "acts of genocide". Ms Des Forges said: "They feared this word would generate public opinion which would demand some sort of action and they didn't want to act. It was a very pragmatic determination." https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/mar/31/usa.rwanda In hindsight we clearly see Rwanda for what it was. But it wasn't convenient at the time.
This is a ghastly piece. Saying that the term ‘genocide’ is being used too “promiscuously” and that “the abuse of the term “genocide” runs the risk of ultimately blinding us to real ones when they unfold” is offensive essentialising which cannot mask the author’s real point: Israel could never do wrong.
@DS You can call it war crimes but that’s different than genocide. You may not like that it’s different, but it is. Full stop. And one more point: in the other genuine genocides, could the victims have stopped the aggressors? (Hint: the answer is no) In this conflict, could the assault on Gaza and its residents be stopped by Gazans? (Hint: the answer is yes)
There are almost two million starving humans, and the government is attacking them while they are getting food. There has been a systemic destruction of infrastructure, and a blockade against humanitarian aid. I could care less about Judiasm, Islam, or Christianity. These actions by humans are horrific and do not reflect any Abrahamic religion I recognize. I won't forget the "not enough people are dead" excuse being used here. I'll share with my students when they study the Holocaust. I don't tell my students what to think, but I doubt this argument will age well.
"[W]hy hasn’t it been more methodical and vastly more deadly?" It's called plausible deniability, Bret, and you should know that, being complicit with it.
Be serious. Be intellectually honest. It is or should be a requirement in your role. The contortionism required to arrive at “this is not genocide” is harrowing. I’m a longtime defender of Israel, including in the first weeks and even months of this campaign. But my goodness. You’d have to be blind at this point. Perhaps willfully so.
So if it is not carried out rapidly or on a large scale but instead in slow-motion on a smaller scale, it it no longer considered genocide? The writer's use of the term "Israel haters" is illustrative only because it sounds so Trumpy.
An absurd article by Mr. Stephen. If the Noble Prize Committee is listening to him it would grant Noble Peace to the war criminals including the Israeli soldiers who are killing civilian Palestinians. The readers can check with the International Committee of the Red Cross and other humanitarian international organizations. The latest report indicates that the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli troops reached fifty nine thousand, many of them are women and children. The international conventions on the protection of the victims of war and its additional protocols concluded to protect the civilians and prohibited actions leading to starvation of civilians They set obligations on the states parties to the conventions to prevent harming noncombatants, and even the protection of injured or captured enemy soldiers. The remaining hope is the rising public outrage in the world against the genocidal Israeli war against the Palestinian people, which hopefully will convince governments and politicians to take action to stop the war, the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Palestinian and Arab occupied territories, and to convene the Middle East peace conference under the auspices of the United Nations Security Council to conclude a peace treaty and other economic and cultural agreements to usher new era of peace in the Middle East. Millions of peoples around the world urge the International Court of Justice to decide on the Israeli genocidal war against the Palestinian people.
Someone needs to read the definition of genocide. Section 1091 of Title 18, United States Code, prohibits genocide whether committed in time of peace or time of war. Genocide is defined in § 1091 and includes violent attacks with the specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. It says nothing about trying annihilate the whole of a group of people. The international definition also includes mass displacement. So, they could’ve killed more is a pretty poor argument, Mr. Stephens.
Israel is killing and starving thousands of people. Israeli soldiers shoot hungry teenagers who are trying to bring food to their families every day. Infants are dying from starvation. Whatever term one uses to describe it, these are the worst atrocities, conducted with direct support of the United States and other western countries in modern history. Justifying these actions requires a level of inhumanity I don't comprehend.
Why are you getting lost in semantics Bret? You can debate whether it’s technically genocide or not until you are red in the face. However what is totally unquestionable is that Israel is acting towards the Palestinians with appalling barbarity akin to some medieval siege. Yes they haven’t unleashed their full power on the Palestinians because they’re aware that they have to maintain some kind of civilised semblance in order to appease their patron (or some might say client state). Does anyone doubt though that they wouldn’t do even worse if they could? I for one do not and am disgusted that you are trying to minimise their criminal behaviour.
Let’s assume the intent is there and it is indeed genocide. So why isn’t the death count larger by now? If I wanted to wipe out a group of people of course I wouldn’t do it all at once knowing the UN charter exists. Am I missing something? Brett is this really your argument?
Still have not come across a dissent in these comments to Stephens that actually engages his points. Just an echo chamber of those armchair keyboard warriors with the superior morality of being out of range of having your family tortured and killed before you during breakfast.
Genocide is a class of crime initially recognized by the League of Nations in 1948. The relevant sections for Israel as are follows. (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; In what world does starving a civilian population to death, indiscriminately bombing non-military targets, and then shooting starving people attempting to get food not fit these three categories. I would think that the pictures of stick figure children would remind Bret of Auschwitz, but no such luck. He is right about one thing though, Israel's behavior in Gaza has increased antisemitism.
I can hardly believe that Stephen’s is trying to justify Israeli actions in Gaza. How much cruelty, pain, suffering and death must we witness before these people say enough is enough? I am disgusted and deeply saddened by what is happening, what Israel is doing unforgivable, but the fact that Europe and the USA continue to arm and justify this violence is sickening through and through.
Stephens is wrong. The Israeli government has walked a razor's edge on the threshold of genocide in order to cultivate opinions like the one that Stephens offers here, to counter opinions on the other side of the page. But the intent to destroy the Palestinian state is clear. What they are doing earns the moral opprobrium of genocide whether or not if meets its technical definition.
Having read Bret Stephens's piece and the Times interview with Omer Bartov, I think Omer is more convincing. The whole situation is tragic. Actual human suffering, on both sides, is being swept under the rug while we all argue on semantics.
Mr. Stephens, please explain how you know more than professors Omer Bartov, Amos Goldberg, Raz Segal, Daniel Blatman, Lee Mordechai, Shmuel Lederman and other renowned genocide scholars, all of whom say Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Please explain why we should trust you over Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the UN special rapporteur for Palestine, The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, and a very long list of other experts and institutions--all of whom have reached the exact opposite conclusion that you've reached. The consensus is immense and undeniable: Israel is committing genocide.
Whether it’s genocide or another word, thousands of children and innocents are dying and have died, and the man directing the killing is a criminal who maintains the slaughter to expand his power and avoid justice in the courts. Meanwhile, the nation he leads sits on its hands. Oh, wait. That’s here.
Meanwhile, the BBC reports on the front page 10 more Gazans starve to death while the Stephens tells us move along, nothing to look at here. https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c0k77xm651jt
@Allegra you seem to think that anyone critical of Netanyahu or military generals is anti-Israel. Is it possible to be pro-Israel and anti-authoritarian? or pro-Jewish and anti-Zionist? Because as a Jew, I am horrified by what Netanyahu and the Israeli government are doing in the name of the Jewish people.
Does anyone with deep knowledge of human rights disagree with Bret Stephens' argument? Amnesty International see https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/12/amnesty-international-concludes-israel-is-committing-genocide-against-palestinians-in-gaza/ and https://www.cidob.org/en/publications/legal-obligation-prevent-genocide-gaza and https://ilgaasia.org/news/press-release-almost-140-human-rights-groups-urge-federal-courts-to-hold-u-s-accountable-for-failing-to-prevent-plausible-genocide-in-gaza/ and https://www.humanrightsnetwork.org/publications/genocide-in-gaza and so on... Thousands of international scholars, jurists, physicians, aid workers, diplomats, journalists and so many others, numbering perhaps in the millions have accused Israel of genocide producing mountains of evidence, videos, interviews, photographs, statistics outlining in extraordinary detail Israel's wanton destruction of a community of two million people. This isn't genocide because as Stephens' claims, the IDF could have literally destroyed every living thing in Gaza but they have constrained themselves from doing that? The international community has long determined Israel is guilty of genocide. No one is going to walk back those claims...ever.
They have not killed them all, hence it's not genocide. I look forward to hearing your expert testimony on the stand at The Hague, Mr. Stephens
To follow Mr. Stephens logic, which begins in his first paragraph, because Israel is not "more methodical and deadly" in their destruction of Gaza and it's people it couldn't be genocide. If it's not hundreds of thousands dead instead of a measly 60,000, it's simply not enough to be upset about. This entire article is truely inaccurate and heartless. Mr. Stephens seems to be saying that only if the Israeli government starts killing more effectively and quickly would there be any reason to point out the genicidal acts taking place before our eyes. But this obfuscation of the results and intention of the israeli government is as disingenuous as it is tragic. The more hard-right members of the Israeli gov. have said they want to wipe out Gaza and move it's population out of the territory. Netanyahu himself has endorsed Trump's desire to move out all the Palestinians and build a big beautiful resort. The fact that they have chosen to do it by slowly starving the population while denying them basic services like hospitals, power plants and any means to feed themselves, does not make it any less intentional or puposeful. The definition of genocide is the commision of acts intended to destroy in whole or in part a national, enthnic, racial, or religious group. If that is not what is taking placer in Gaza and the West Bank, then what is Brett?
What it looks like to me is that Israel is committing genocide. It is reducing Gaza to rubble while killing at a pace that is calculated not to draw a military reaction from the rest of the world. Definitely not in the spirit of the Balfour Declaration, which is the cause of this mess and was issued by England more than a century ago.
I'm sorry I read this essay. It reinforces my belief that human beings are capable of justifying anything. Here's another tidbit of wisdom. Two wrongs don't make a right, even if they take a little longer.
Arguing over “genocide” is a semantic point, and ultimately a misdirection. I am a Jew who supports Israel’s right to exist in peace among its neighbors. I am a Jew who also finds Israel’s behavior, no matter what words we use to describe it, indefensible.
@M.Holden The opinion author states early that there is zero evidence that Israel is targeting civilians. Which is objectively false. The correct term is genocide, and it requires much lying or ignorance to argue against that.
Lets try this logic elsewhere: “its not a mass shooting because the shooter was a bad shot and didnt kill people efficiently.”
@DS Yes, it's the starvation part that I find utterly craven. So even if Hamas were to make off with some of the foodstuffs, would it matter if an enormous amount were brought in? Flood the markets with staple items. Bret has a bogus argument here. Who cares what you call starvation of a people?
I'd love to hear from the large numbers of anti-Israel commenters on this article about why Hamas does not allow Gazan civilians to shelters in their tunnels. Hamas is the de-facto government of Gaza, yet it chooses to keep food, water, and protected shelters out of the hands of their civilian population, in stark contrast to how the Ukrainian state operates in its fight against Russia. Why aren't these genocide accusers demanding that Hamas open its tunnels - literally the largest underground system of its type in the world, built with billions of aid dollars siphoned off by Hamas - to innocent Gazan civilians? Finally, if Israel is committing genocide, why not simply carpet bomb civilian areas indiscriminately, 24/7? Why would the IDF bother to facilitate the vaccination of 1 million Gazans to protect them against polio, only to genocide them later?
Bret, I value your viewpoint, and I often look to you for a thoughtful conservative flipside to the NYT's consistently liberal POV. But your blinders here are obscuring your better judgment. Essentially your argument is: they could be killing more people if they really wanted to. Therefore, they must not want to. This falls disappointingly short in so many ways, I am too heartbroken to count them.
When you've come to the point of parsing the meaning of "genocide", you've already lost the argument.
Absurd? Absurd is the claim that if Israel were committing genocide they could and would be able to do it much more quickly and efficiently. But, they want to be able to claim that they are NOT committing genocide, so doing it more quickly and efficiently would only signal the opposite. Moreover, comparing the Israeli war in Gaza to the US operations in Iraq does not absolve either of possible crimes committed by both. Yes, war is hell, but a war mostly against civilians is worse. The fact is that Israel has been committing a slow genocide against the Palestinians for decades. What needs to happen is an establishment of an independent Palestinian state, as originally proposed along with the creation of Israel. But Israel's present government has stated explicitly that they will not allow that to happen. Yet, Israel has argued for decades that the reason the Palestinians cannot have a state is that they rejected the partition in 1948. But it is Israel that is rejecting the partition now, and Israel exists. If Palestinians cannot prevent Israel's existence, why does Israel get to prevent Palestine's existence. It is not their choice. US and all other governments should recognize a free and independent Palestine today! Then the negotiations can start (over boundaries, populations, etc.), and real peace can result.
Thank goodness we cleared that up. The troubling thought that a small child currently starving to death in Gaza might go to bed at night worried that they’re a victim of genocide has no doubt been weighing on all of us. Rest easy, little one — you are merely the victim of war!
Mr. Stephens, please read Omer Bartov's opinion piece in the NY Times on 7/15/2025. Mr. Bartov lays out the argument for calling this genocide clearly. You seem to be saying that Israel simply hasn't killed enough people to call this genocide. How many dead people would meet your definition?
YES! Thank you. I am so sick of the word “genocide” being weaponized against the Jews. It’s a clear and deliberate antagonism meant to denigrate the Jewish experience and elevate Israel’s crimes. Its use in this context is not only inaccurate, but intentionally harmful and simultaneously goading. Enough.
So starving people who haven't gotten proper food or water in a month are being shot in the head for the unspeakable crime of *checks notes* walking to food distribution sites, there's a forced relocation affecting 50 percent of Gaza, 80 percent or more of all buildings are destroyed, hospitals bombed, infrastructure exploded, and in the West Bank, Jewish terrorists beat and kill Palestinians with impunity. But it's not, in the illuminated, all-knowing mind of Bret Stephens, a genocide-genocide, so I guess it's just a good old-fashioned atrocity? I feel so much better.
Ther killings in Bosnia were at around where we're at in Palestine. A genocide isn't defined by big numbers, it's defined by intent and action. You are wrong and I think it's kind of wild that the Times is publishing this piece. I know opinions are opinions, but this is very low.
He doesn't come out and say so, but it seems the author would be gratified if the numbers dead by starvation rise precipitously, as seems likely. Call it whatever you want. Maybe he'd be more comfortable with ethnic cleansing.
The author asks: If the Israeli government’s intentions and actions are truly genocidal — if it is so malevolent that it is committed to the annihilation of Gazans — why hasn’t it been more methodical and vastly more deadly? Well, first of all, it has been pretty methodical and pretty deadly, hasn’t it? Secondly, all genocides need not employ the same methods of extermination of their victims. There have been other genocidal movements that don’t adopt manifest the same efficiency and publicly-declared hatred of the Third Reich. Thirdly, it is not the number of deaths that defines genocide. It’s the focus on a particular ethnic group, however small or large it might be. The author is rationalizing Israel’s attempt to eliminate Palestinians, as evidenced by its refusal to distinguish between innocent Palestinians and Hamas.
"As for the destruction of Gaza it's immense." You should've left it right there. Otherwise, I don't know what you're trying to prove with this. Seems like a lame attempt to have both sides now.
Scrolling through the hundreds of comments I have yet to find one that supports Mr Stephen's view. Is he perhaps in the wrong side of history?
@Allegra it is incredibly easy to fine countless examples of the planners of this slaughter insisting that there are no innocents in Gaza. That’s why Netanyahu invoked Amalek to spell out the Israeli mission in Gaza. And in any case, Hamas are not “human animals”. Gazans have been confined to that strip of land for decades now. Do you really not expect them to fight back?
If your argument is "I don't think they've killed enough people to call it genocide," you've already lost the argument.
Is there any chance of any kind of truth or sense of reasonable decency in the writer’s opinion. I believe 90 percent of the opinion columnists are pro Israel and most of them do not even mention the root causes of the conflict or even admit that Israel is an occupying power and the Palestinians people have the right to stand up, revolt, resist, rebel and defend their rights and their property first from the Israeli occupation and second from the empowered Jews settlers. They never talk about the history of Israel and its creation. Therefore, the cycle of violence, death and destruction will continue so long such famous and powerful known figures such Mr. David Brook, Thomas Friedman and others continue to defend the actions of Israelis and the way they treat the Palestinians people in their homeland.
Really sad to read this from am apparently educated person…. In Paraguay we know what it’s been persecuted and salughtered almost to the last paraguayan male in the Triple Alliance war against us. I would perhaps agree on the semantic use of “genicide”, but not giving other description, saying “israeli soldiera in danger exposed to combat” (with whom?), ignoring day after day of killings in food gatherings, provoked by israelis, is simply getting the head in the hole so not to watch…. And using intelligence and smart words defending it because “others do the same” is hypoceital
@AK The Germans said literally the same thing. That it was the fault of the victims because their "crimes" were to blame. I thought we had come to a place where everyone agreed that it was wrong to go into a village and kill everyone there because "terrorists" (resistance fighters) had killed a German officer. But now we discover that humans are still all able to easily justify the most unjustifiable actions imaginable. It is truly appalling. I'm still trying to wrap my head around how people can justify evil with no sense of self-reflection. After all that we have learned, how can anyone think this way? My main solace is that the vast majority of people here reject it. And I suppose most of those supporters of Israel who are fine with justifying mass killing by victim blaming have the political savvy to know to keep such thoughts to themselves.
Shooting people coming for food after deliberately suppressing aid shipments is murder. Shooting reporters and aid workers (respectively, 174 and 108- at minimum) is murder. Bombing refugee camps or areas that were supposedly safe is murder. Damaging or destroying outright the majority of hospitals in Gaza is murder as well. Yes, murder and genocide are different things. Hamas also murdered innocents and they deliberately provoked this conflict, but the deaths inflicted by the IDF upon the civilians of Gaza have exceeded that by considerably more than an order of magnitude by any count, including the most conservative, as reported by Israel. This is hardly just a tooth for a tooth- this was a structured and deliberate removal of the entire lower jaw, with demonstrable malice. No, we shouldn't reduce the gravity of genocide by casually applying it to every atrocity of war- but becoming an apologist for murder is a savagery that should not go unchallenged.
“a handful of remarks by a few Israeli politicians dehumanizing Gazans and promising brutal retaliation” Way to bury the fact that these “handful of Israeli politicians” are members of his Cabinet. The guy who openly said he wants to expel the entire population so it can be repopulated with Jews is Minister of National Security, not some random back-bencher.
The problem for Mr Stephens is the entire world is able to watch this slaughter of civilians in real-time on their smartphones and come to their own conclusions. History will not judge the present Netyanhu govt favorably.
I was curious to read your analysis of the situation, but your primary argument seems to be that if Israel were committing genocide they would be "better at it"? Besides, every army commits war crimes so why are we so mad at Israel? As an American Jew, I want Jewish Israeli leaders to share my belief that all human lives have value. I want Israel to work hard to avoid civilian casualties, rather than accepting the lowest common denominator of what everyone else does. I want Israel to be affirmatively anti-genocidal, rather than claiming that if they were committing genocide there would be far more dead civilians and worse war crimes. Tikkun Olam, the act of improving a broken world, is one of my most deeply held Jewish values. I read this column in the hopes of learning what actions the Israeli government might be taking to improve this broken situation and avoid wiping out the Gazan population. Instead I'm left wondering why a Jewish columnist has disregarded the wisdom of Pirkei Avot. Even if the Israeli government cannot save the lives of all Palestinian families, they are not at liberty to neglect this effort. https://www.sefaria.org/Pirkei_Avot.2.16 Please help me understand the Jewish values behind your position. I seem to have missed them in my reading of this column.
@Joseph S.And you know this....How? Has there been a census in war torn Gaza?
If the Israelis are starving the Palestinians and shooting at them when they go to the food aid location, plus destroying their homes and communities in a geographic area from which there is no escape, embargoed from any aid support, you can get out your thesaurus and find fine words for it, but it doesn’t change the reality on the ground. Stop apologizing for the greatest war crime so far of the 21st century. Crimes against humanity live on in all our minds, for generation, whether you whitewash it or not.
The entire argument seems to be that Israel isn’t getting credit for not wiping out the entire population of Gaza by now. They have only killed tens of thousands. And for what? The Hamas as a military force was decimated two years ago. Who is the IDF fighting and killing? The starving women and children lining up for food? What is the destruction of power plants, sewage plants, drinking water plants, hospitals etc expected to achieve other than making Gaza unliveable? Mr Stephen’s frequently refers to the Israeli casualties in the intifada over the last two decades. The total number of casualties over three decades is less than the number of Gazans being killed every week. Whatever moral upper hand Israel had has been frittered away by Mr Netanyahu in this reckless and cruel war.
Interesting how many commenters are misconstruing saying “It’s not genocide” with “Israel’s actions are justified.” Israel is categorically not committing genocide. Saying so doesn’t mean I support or defend everything they are doing in Gaza. Why are so many making that unwarranted jump?
I’ve never read something so divorced from reality in my entire life. There are Palestinian journalists and scholars—as well as reporters and experts from all over the world—who documented Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians since long before Hamas even existed. You cite violent resistance to an occupation, but not the longstanding violence of the occupation itself. In parallel, you cite the U.S.’s fight against ISIS, but not the absurdity of the illegal occupation of Iraq by the U.S. that created ISIS. This is such an absurdly reactionary justification of mass slaughter that makes no room for the basic humanity of Palestinians and totally ignores the horrific campaign ethnic cleansing in the West Bank.
The fact that Brett fails to mention the intentional starvation of children shows how little he cares about actually engaging with this accusation.
Fine, let’s not call it “genocide”. How about we call it: “mass slaughter of innocent human beings for no reason.”
@AK The far left will never understand this point. The war could be over tomorrow if Hamas would surrender and give over the hostages. The far left is always looking for someone to despise, and they'll vilify Israel for as long as it takes for them to feel they've won (also, the far left never feels like they've won)
@JoeA This is a very pedantic response to a straightforward plea for moral decency.
Arguing that Israel is not engaging in genocidal behavior because they have the capacity to kill even more people does not strike me as likely to persuade.
Not genocide because they have not killed enough people? Yet? Nice argument Bret...
Does Bret Stephens feel better, now that he's convinced himself that what's going on isn't "genocide"? Fine -- though Omer Bartov, a Holocaust historian, and Ehud Olmert, a former prime minister of Israel, disagree with him. I simply note that the only time he used the word "tragic" in his piece was in relation to Israeli hostages, some of whom (the "tragic exceptions") were killed by Israeli fire. The starving children, the Gazans shot at while searching for food, the people who, a couple of weeks ago, were sitting at a beachside café and had a 500 pound (US-made, by the way) bomb dropped on them -- these victims are somehow not tragic. They're just part of the fog of war. I get it.
I disagree 100%. Laughable you would say that. Gaza combined with the land grabs, assassinations in the West Bank of Palestinians, further encroaching on their lands adds to the horror. I grew up in a pro Israel home post WW2, but now, I am just disgusted. And as a Catholic, how the IDF and its drones and sharpshooters has treated Christians in Gaza further offends me. No nation can survive or thrive when it is built on the subjugation of others in your territories. As a US taxpayer, not a rich one mind you, I am offended that the billions we send to Israel pays for this stuff. I hope Israel corrects this immediately and stops the slaughter. And I bet another billion will soon be authorized yet again, no strings attached. This year, my beloved nation celebrates its 250th year. Our nation's founding was built on freedom fighters and so-called terrorists. I pray for Israel and that it comes to its senses. I pray for all who believe in compromise and peace. I believe that in my heart. It was a lame chant that one often heard in my youth "give peace a chance." And what Israel is now doing in Syria not good either. I am just praying. That is all any of us can do given many of us in the US feel so helpless to impact any change. We see another blank check coming. I am all for retribution, but what Israel is engaged in is beyond the pail and not fair or justified. And to this day, I do not see those hostages coming home, alive or dead.
Semantics. Genocide? Yes? No? Does it really matter? Netanyahu prolongs the Gaza war with no endgame, for his personal political benefit, and against his country's interests, just as Nixon and Kissinger did in Vietnam. Many needless deaths in either case. It would be nice if we could expect better behavior from our allies, but it's hard to complain when we do no better here.
please @JS, can you clarify: are you calling M.Holden’s description “a lie”? can you please explain why 100+ Gazans were shot today then? thank you
"I am aware of no evidence of an Israeli plan to deliberately target and kill Gazan civilians". There are many statements that Israeli ministers have made that show deliberative intent to target the whole population. For example, early on in the war, “We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly,” he [Yoav Gallant] said, emphasizing that he ordered a “complete siege” of the Gaza Strip. Is a "complete siege" on an entire population not deliberately targeting civilians? Is it really a "war" when most people cannot fight back, who are starving and are facing down the barrel of modern guns when trying to survive, gunned down purportedly because they are terrorists even when they are young children?
This is a moral abomination not a “war”. I hope all who read this see how weak and hypocritical your comparisons and arguments are. I don’t care what word you call the indiscriminate bombing, starvation, and harrowing destruction of the Palestine people. What are the numbers of Hamas killed and did that eliminate them or could it? I’m concerned less about your complaint about cheapening the word genocide when you stand by cheapening the lives of these human beings as we all should be. It is beyond shameful to quibble semantics.
So let me see if I understand… make your ultimate goal basically impossible (ie completely destroy a terrorist organization) then you can just slowly but surely destroy a group of people. Israel won’t do it faster exactly so people like Mr. Stevens can deny what is so obviously happening.
Convoluted logic by Brett Stephens. Maybe he should go and investigate himself as to what is going on in the Gaza Strip. Watching starving people losing their minds may change his. But wait, Israel wouldn't allow journalists in to view the carnage and one has to wonder why.
Answer; they are doing as much as they can get away with. It’s easier for them to go long and allow starvation and hopelessness play a part than it is to be overt. It would be easier to defend Israel’s actions if they actually stated a goal that wasn’t essentially, “Gaza for Israelis”
@David Paniagua Your response articulates how I also feel. Thank you.
I'm plainly astonished by the argument that this is not genocide because the death count is too low for it to qualify as such. I don't know which is worse, the intellectual laziness of the argument or the indifference toward lost lives. Consider this: the Israeli government has, for decades, pursued a policy of taking land from Palestinians in the West Bank, of starving them of resources, of denying them any credible path to nationhood, and of displacing and confining them to increasingly militarized zones, effectively ghettos, from which they cannot leave. This is not collateral damage, but rather the core of the strategy. The systematic aim of the Israeli government is to make these people a permanently displaced, nationless group that is slowly being erased as the illegal settlements expand (Netanyahu himself has admitted to this). If this does not qualify as genocide, then maybe we should revise the definition? Mr. Stephens, you need to come to terms with the fact that your position regarding Israel presents a fundamental incompatibility; the defense of human rights, peace, and right to self-determination are simply mutually exclusive with the aims of the current Israeli administration. While your concern for increasing antisemitism is certainly well-justified, this shouldn't be an excuse to stop anyone from calling out the Netanyahu administration for what it really is: a genocidal theocracy.
@JohnTypically wrong. He did not call the general Palestinian population "animals". He called Hamas "animals" which is 100 percent correct. I am no fan of Netanyahu, but the ignorance of the anti-Israel crowd is equally heinous.
The argument is now not enough Palestinians have been murdered? Only 2.1 million people live in Gaza.
Whatever you want to call it, it should have ended months ago. Israel has done the seemingly impossible...become the bad guy in their fight against Hamas.
Every Arab country that has signed a peace treaty with Israel and agreed to stop attacking and fighting Israel has had peace with Israel. That includes Egypt, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan. When Hamas and Gaza and the Palestinians want peace with Israel, they will do the same.
Israel is killing desperate women and children attempting to procure subsistence food aid to stay alive. The Israelis have fired upon international aid workers attempting to bring relief to these beleaguered people. There is no conceivable defense for Israeli actions which have relentlessly flaunted all standards of human decency for the duration of this horrific war. No reasonable person would attempt to justify the actions of Hamas that precipitated this tragedy (although there is considerable circumstantial evidence that the Israeli government had forewarning and allowed it to happen). Netanyahu is, in fact, an indicted war criminal with a warrant for his arrest issued by the ICC. He is a ruthless and evil criminal who would sacrifice the lives of millions more Palestinians and Israelis to continue his hold on power. Let's not forget that immediately prior to the attacks of October 7, Israelis were engaged in mass protests against his illegal and unconstitutional attempts to break the power of the Israeli Supreme Court to fend off the legal consequences of his criminal corruption. This slaughter is a permanent stain on Israeli history that can never be erased.
Mr Stephens, what would you call it if the Palestinians killed hundreds of thousands of Israelis, denied them access to food convoys, bombed hospitals and schools and targeted children with killer drones? Judging by the overwhelmingly negative comments on your article most readers seem to agree that it's Israel perpetrating a genocide.
As an Evangelical pastor, I am horrified. In Old Testament theology "justice" was described as "an eye for an eye"—lex talonis—or proportional response. If Hamas killed 1200 Israelis, I might accept a proportional response against the enemy. But Israel has killed 58,000 Palestinian Arabs, including 17,000 children. America also should have followed Jesus' advice to "turn the other cheek" after 9-11. For 3,000 killed that day, we invaded Iraq and began killing hundreds of thousands of people who had nothing to do with it. America also must repent of this madness and selective amnesia.
Call it what you want. The numbers of the dead and the dying speak for themselves.
I am a Jew who was born in Israel. My parents were survivors. That said, there is so much to consider which you omit: : there is the insane asymmetry of Israel's response against Palestinians, as punishment for the vicious attacks, rapes and murders committed by Hamas against Israelis. : there is the ongoing and repeated pattern of IDF soldiers killing starving Palestinian people who come to get food. : there is the ongoing pattern of destroying hospitals and medical facilities : there is the ongoing, intermittently violent, concerted effort to take away Palestinian homes and villages on the West Bank. : there are the remarks by Netanyahu and his colleagues in government that dehumanize Palestinians : there is the commitment to a Jewish State, which, by definition, makes Palestinian Arabs lesser citizens. Israel should be a proper democracy. For me the case for war crimes committed by Israel is overwhelming and utterly damning. As to what the technical name of the crime(s) should be, I leave that to legal experts.
@Paul and Elizabeth I don't see him saying anything of the sort. He's saying it's not genocide.
Your first argument is that Israel isn’t committing a genocide because it hasn’t led to enough deaths at a quick enough pace? Bret, they outright starved every single Gazan, man, woman, and child, for three months. Israel only relented when the international pressure became too great. Instead, a tiny amount of aid is being allowed in while Israel fires upon civilians to make sure not that many are able to obtain it. Mass starvation of an entire population in an area you have control over is genocide. Forcibly removing a population is ethnic cleansing, and when that is done to an entire population, it is genocide. Never forget means something. It is safe to say that meaning was lost on this author.
It must have taken a remarkable level of skill to write this whole column without using the words "famine", "starvation", or even "hunger". Congratulations, Mr. Stephens, you should feel quite proud of yourself.
Pro-Palestinian protesters would demand Hamas release the hostages, disarm, and disband so that Palestinian civilians could pick up the pieces of their broken lives. Unfortunately, what we see is anti-Israel protestors, demanding Israel lose this war, leaving Hamas in place and the inevitable return to the cycle of violence.
You know a culture is morally bankrupt when using the correct term is more important than valuing human life. But that’s 2025 America.
I guess the question I have for Brett is if the only way to render Palestinians satisfactorily supine is to lay them all in graves, is there a meaningful distinction between genocide and whatever label he would affix to the effort required to put them there?
Mr. Stephens is too biased a person for him to have an objective opinion on this subject. I noticed that he referred to "Oct. 7" several times, as if what happened on that day simply came out of the blue. Any scholar, or any layperson for that matter, who has been witnessing Israel's treatment of the Palestinian people, has seen the endless degradation and humiliation. Mr. Stephens doesn't want us to label what's going on now as "genocide," but I'm beginning to think that it's even something worse--because we see what's taking place and yet no one lifts a finger to stop it. And then there's the out of control settlers in the West Bank...
@DS. I call that a factually incorrect provocative hypothetical. Re-read the article.
@David Paniagua And it's an evil that seems convinced of it's own rectitude. This is what happens when people are sure God is on their side, and hates the other side just as much they do.
Being "Anti-Israeli" does not mean "Anti-Semitic." Being "Anti-Netanyahu" is a good thing.
Most of the population is displaced, some 80%+ of buildings are damaged or destroyed, the population has faced extended periods of limited access to food and water, 60,000+ people are dead, and volunteer western doctors were reporting treating a shocking amount of children shot in the head/chest. At least it's not genocide, that's a relief.
How willfully blind you are Brett. No mention that Israel’s end game seems pretty clearly to be the expulsion of Gazans from Gaza and the West Bank, leaving a homeless Gazan diaspora struggling to survive. Fighting Hamas is necessary and civilian casualties are a part of war, but Israel seeking to take all the land from all the Palestinians is wrong! If we saw Israel taking ANY steps to find partners in Gaza to work with to establish a Palestinian state, we would feel differently.
This is like the Chauvin defense but for genocide. They didn’t intend to “destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such,” they just destroyed more than 80 percent of all structures and then proceeded to control the population’s access to food while it starved. Okay.
It can’t be ignored that the rush to accuse Israel (and by association, Jews) of genocide is a form of Holocaust denial by means of what-about-ism. As it is said, the world has never forgiven the Jews for the Holocaust. Accusing Israel of genocide where the population numbers in Gaza, excluding emigration and Hamas deaths, have remained somewhat stable, is a comforting and satisfying rhetorical reach by the world to minimize the enormity of the Holocaust.
This article fails to address several obvious rebuttals and evidence of genocide: 1) Israel controls the borders of Gaza, people are not free to leave Palestine or move to other parts of Palestine 2) Food and goods are being strictly limited, resulting in widespread malnutrition 3) Israeli leaders including Netanyahu openly dehumanize Palestinians, referring to people as animals. 4) Netanyahu has a history of refusing negotiations with Palestinian leaders and advocates including with the late Edward Said All this in the setting of widespread bombing, military occupation sure seems like genocidal intent
@Allegra Wrong. Most reputable news sources say he was referring to Palestinians, not to Hamas. The timing is important -- the statement was made at the launch of a complete siege, not of Hamas, but of Gaza.
Not genocide? The purposeful murder of men, women and children to take hold of the land they occupy. The bombing churches, hospitals, rescue missions and shooting starving kids in the head, keeping food from those who need it. Like porn, you know what it is when you see it. If it makes you feel better to support it while not labeling it genocide go ahead but let's not pretend to not see what is happening.
Three Israeli professors of Holocaust and Genocide studies have found that it is a genocide. The professors are Omar Bartov, Amos Goldberg and Raz Segal. Professor Segal documented that it is a textbook case of genocide. I think that the professors are more knowledgeable than Mr. Stephens
Bret, I am confused. I always considered depriving people of food, shelter, medicine, and water forms of, shall we say, eliminating an unwanted race, religion, or ethnicity. Now, I may be wrong but the term for that is "genocide." What I am not confused about, is that those who defend the actions of Israel against the innocent children, men, and women of Gaza or attempt to argue that "Israel has no other choice," are themselves morally questionable. Sorry, Bret, that was the way I was raised. And I thank my parents for their wisdom and sense of what is right and wrong, what is good and what is evil.
@Manko This is not a left-right situation. It’s about the death of the innocent.
Oh, ok. I'll remember this the next time I see a shredded toddler or emaciated baby. That it's not *really genocide.
If Hamas was had 40k members on Oct 7 And 59k Palestinians have been killed And Hamas is almost decimated How is that a genocide? A 2 combatant to 1 civilian death toll is incredible If Gaza had 500km of tunnels And buildings surrounding those tunnels have been demolished How is that a genocide?
The slaughter of innocent children and babies is immoral. This killing of innocents is not necessary. Hamas is defeated and Israel continues to punish non combatants. It’s time to plan for the governance of Palestinians in a country of their own.
Perhaps Mr. Stephens has read the column, "I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It." by By Omer Bartov, a professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University, published in the Times on July 15, 2025? The logical, rhetorical squirming of supporters of Israel's depredations to avoid naming them what they are is understandable, I guess. The Jews of the world have suffered almost inconceivably. To equate the actions of the state that purports to be their haven with the actions of the people who visited genocide upon them - Hitler and his followers - seems almost obscene and even sacrilegious. But it is not. What is obscene and sacrilegious are the actions of the Israeli state against the Palestinians. I'm Jewish. It astonishes me, it leaves me completely at a loss of thought, of words, of comprehension - as if my mind and my ability to feel have just stopped - that a nation for the Jews, could do this to another people.
Bret sounds like somebody trying to convince himself rather than someone earnestly exploring an issue.
I wonder if, 10-20 years from now, you’ll look back and understand that you were wrong
The word 'genocide' does the world little honest service except to establish past precedent where judgment has been rightly rendered. With respect to Israel/ Gaza the futile genocide debate ought to be discontinued and replaced by an admission that much of what Israel is doing is wrong and a not insignificant portion is inhumane.
I rarely read an op-ed that makes me sick to my stomach. Unfortunately, reading this article is one of those rare occasions. A terribly weak argument. Will you say the same when the death toll inevitably reaches hundreds of thousands?
This is sophistry at its finest as if 60,000 deaths is not a tragedy compounded by the use of starvation as a weapon of war.
You might want to consider how Article II(c) of the Genocide Convention defines 'Genocide': "(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part." Can you credibly claim that this isn't taking place in Gaza? The crucial words are "deliberately inflicting", "conditions of life" and "or in part".
When you're at the point that your argument against something being a genocide hinges on quibbling over the technicalities that the definition allows for, you've lost that argument.
Mr. Stephens doesn't seem to grasp that semantics mean little to the general population. Otherwise, Trump would've been driven from political life a decade ago for his gross hyperbole and truly moronic social media posts.
If this war was really just about Israeli security - it would have been conducted very differently. It would have been a targeted, measured, proportionate response to 7 Oct with a clear end game. There would have been a focus on returning the hostages. There would be a plan for the creation of a new Palestinian government to rule Gaza and the West Bank after the hostilities end. Instead, it’s pretty clear what Israel wants here. The invasion is a naked land grab and the Palestinian people are in the way. The more who die from the war, starvation or disease the better. Israel has pounded Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran into submission, but it’s never going to leave Gaza or support a new Palestinian government.
The argument that Israel cannot be committing genocide in Gaza because it could kill far more people if it wanted to is not only morally bankrupt, it’s logically incoherent. It rests on a false premise: that genocide must be total, rapid, and maximally efficient. But international law defines genocide as the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. The scale of killing does not excuse the intent behind it. Genocide is not measured by body count alone. It’s measured by motive, policy and pattern. Even worse, this argument reveals an unsettling arrogance. It assumes that military restraint, defined here as not killing almost everyone somehow grants moral immunity. It's like saying a man who beats his wife but doesn’t kill her can’t be accused of domestic abuse, if he had the means to murder. Destroying access to food, healthcare, education, and safe shelter—combined with rhetoric dehumanizing Gazans as “human animals” fits a systematic pattern designed to render Gaza unlivable for an entire people: Palestinians.
Bret, funny you should mention the UN definition of genocide in your piece of explicit genocide apologia, considering that the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967 published a report called Anatomy of Genocide in April 2024, discussing the obvious genocidal intent of Israel. But maybe the UN is too biased for you. Maybe you'll take Amnesty International's word that is a genocide (December 5th 2024) or Human Rights Watch (December 19th 2024). Maybe these sources, too, are too biased for you. Maybe you'll be convinced by the Washington Post reporter Josh Hudson's reporting in December 2023 that Netanyahu's desire was the "transfer" of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to the Sinai, though perhaps that smells too much like ethnic cleansing and not enough genocide for you. Or perhaps you'll listen to Yoav Gallant's statement on October 10th 2023: "We will eliminate everything. If it doesn't take one day, it will take a week, it will take weeks, or even months, we will reach all places." And I could go on and on; but I think the point has been made. As a Jew who has family in Israel, I am ashamed of any of my people who stand with Israel. I am not surprised that you are on the side of genocide, Bret Stephens, but I am disappointed.
So Brett, good to know that 60k deaths are OK cause it could have been worse if Bibi wanted it to be. Let’s nominate both Bibi and Trump for a joint NPP!
@Mitchell Wilson “Humane” “Decent” If you read the writings of this author from the past you would not have expected any of it from him.
'if it is so malevolent that it is committed to the annihilation of Gazans — why hasn’t it been more methodical and vastly more deadly? ' Simply because it wishes to preserve a veneer of plausibility so that it can continue its war on the people of Gaza - and in so doing continue to save Netanyahu from being held criminally culpable for his manifest corruption. It's irrelevant, at least in the near term, whether what's transpiring is called 'genocide' or just a garden-variety atrocity so long as the suffering of the Palestinian people continues unabated.
Dude, Israel is shooting people getting food at aid sites. I think there’s high-quality reporting on this. Is “mass murder of an ethnically aligned group” not genocidal? I think anti-semitism is not the same as anti-Israelism right now. I hated my own country for its atrocities in our wars. I hated our anti-Muslim bent. But I never felt we were killing civilians for the sake of killing civilians, which the NYTimes seems to report from my general impression over many years.
If its not genocide then it is Israeli indifference to life. They really should know better considering their history, but I or we have seen little attempt to spare the lives of innocents They say they do not target the Gazan people, but the result is the same, the starvation and massacre wholesale. it never had to be this way if Netanyahu cared. Hamas can not be tamed by bombing women and children wholesale..
Hard to fathom that this has been written by a being capable of empathy. Planned starvation and killing of innocents is far beyond semantics and "what abouts".
Bret, those in Israel, & the Jewish community here at home are in denial of what’s happening in Gaza. The moral equivalence argument was lost some years ago.
OK, Brett. So let’s not call it genocide, just an abdication of all of the known laws of just war developed throughout human civilization with regard to killing noncombatant men, women and children. Does that satisfy you?
Mr. Stephens, you argue that it isn't genocide. If it isn't that, then what do you call it? Give it a name.
Mr. Stephens seems to be intentionally ignoring certain portions of the UN description of genocide. He focuses on "destroy in whole or in part any a national, ethnic, or religious group" but doesn't delve into what constitutes that destruction. It is not just murder of that particular group, but also: 1. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; 2. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; Both of which I would argue are much more closely aligned with descriptions of the Israeli genocide than Stephens' reductive definition that limits genocide to just killing everyone.
@Allegra is there some further context that makes that clear? Because it seems to me he’s not just denying food and fuel to Hamas.
Well put. The world should attack Hamas. Is has been defeated. It should surrender. The war ends. Palestinian pain ends. The protestors target the victim Israel despite the Hamas massacre and that it could end this war by surrendering. Instead it glorifies death.
I too have been reluctant to join the chorus and call Israel's actions "genocide". But when I see skeletal hands thrusting bowls at those handing out food it sends me back to a genocidal time.
This has been an obvious genocide since very early on. Move the population south, bomb the north. Bomb the south, move the population north. Bomb hospitals and shelters. Kill indiscriminately: women, children, aid workers, journalists, whoever. Restrict food until starvation occurs, then shoot people when they try to reach the minuscule food resources provided. Silence critics with accusations of anti-semitism. I have never been so ashamed to be an American citizen whose taxes are supporting this action, endorsed first by Biden and now by Trump. For a more succinct summary, see comments below by Lisa Couuston and Grimace, regarding ducks and deniability.
I'm a 94 year old Jew who was pro-Israel in my youth, as were my parents. Moshe Dayan even visited our home due to my stepfather's military connections. Mr. Stephens take on whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza is stunningly illogical. Just because the Israelis aren't killing as many Gazans as they could, doesn't mean that their intent isn't genocidal. They may be restraining themselves so that what they're doing doesn't look so much like genocide. But the whole question of genocide is irrelevant. No reasonable person can deny that Israel is now committing atrocities in Gaza and through it's military support for Jewish settlers in the West Bank. What we call those Israel acts is not important. What's important is what Israel is doing and what the US might do to try to bring a halt to it by cutting off aid to Israel including arms sales, as well as ending our current support for Israel in the UN.
@Joseph S. Is that why the World’s Kitchens convoy was targeted 3 times?
@Raul In the 90s there was a movement that called attention to the Tibetan situation. I still see some households and businesses displaying Tibetan prayer flags as a sign of solidarity.
How cowardly to use semantics as a means to erase the horror of the high percentage of deaths of women and children.
Every other column of yours is about one small country on the other side of the world. You clearly want to draw attention to it. Then, when that succeeds, and people pay attention to it (and don't like what they see), you try to change the subject (What about Iran? What about Hamas?). We should have high standards for countries we support. You seem to think we should give exceptional support to Israel but not ask it to address any of its flaws.
Only 60,000? You make it sound like this all just started last week! And from memory Israel is a much larger Country now than it was in 1948, and they didn't just find all that extra land lying on the side of the road. And given that an awful of Palestinians live outside of Palestine, it's obviously easier, use's less munitions, and stops those pesky headlines if they just clear people off their native lands, and whoosh them off to Jordan or Lebanon rather than shooting them!
@M.Holden That term is “propaganda.” Another valid term for it is a “lie.”
Thank you for having the courage to stand against the easy tide to join.
Bret Stephens's argument requires that he systematically minimize or ignore basic facts about Israeli "military" practices in Gaza. Does "targeting Hamas" require the death of 60,000 civilians? It does not. Does "targeting Hamas" require the obliteration of almost all the infrastructure of Gaza, all its hospitals, so much of its cultural history? It does not. Stephens also, of course, ignores the ramping up of violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, much of it by "settlers" abetted by the complicity, or at least blind eye, of the Israeli state. And, of course, his argument requires ignoring that "handful of remarks" (Stephens's hands must have far more fingers than mine) that explicitly point to either genocidal intent or, at least, genocidally-edged ethnic cleansing. Minimizing or ignoring the evidence ill suits a true understanding. Omer Bartov made a far clearer case. Thomas Prasch
This column is beneath you. I've read your work in The Times for years. I often disagreed with you, but I thought your arguments were well-thought-out and concisely expressed. This time, you've created a straw man ("genocide") and slapped it away effortlessly. The issue at hand is the murder of starving people trying to get food. That is shameful behavior by Israel and should be labeled as such. You can't defend Israel by defending its deliberate cruelty.
There is only one way to describe this article: willful ignorance!
“A man cannot claim to save his house by burning down the village. Mr. Stephens argues that Israel is not committing genocide because it could kill more Palestinians if it wanted to. This is a grotesque and dangerous logic. Genocide is not defined by body counts or whether a perpetrator has fully exhausted its capacity for killing; it is defined by intent and the systematic destruction of a people. The deliberate starvation of Gaza’s population, the blocking of humanitarian aid, and the decimation of homes, hospitals, and infrastructure speak for themselves. To suggest that restraint in greater slaughter somehow absolves Israel ignores the reality of Palestinians enduring displacement, hunger, and annihilation. One does not need to finish burning the orchard to prove the intent to uproot it.”
"...would bring the killing in Gaza to an end if Hamas simply handed over the hostages and surrendered. Those are demands one almost never hears from Israel’s supposedly evenhanded accusers." Such as often the BBC, PBS, other news sources that never report on the fact that Palestinians were given the opportunity for their own separate "homeland" 5 (five) times since 1948 but always violently rejected it. Ever since October 7, why hasn't the enlightened, liberal news been demanding on a daily basis that Hamas surrender and hand over the hostages? As a seventy year old man who has watched PBS every day since the early 1980s, and the BBC for decades, I find much of their commentary on Gaza and Israel sickening. Many of the comments here are uninformed by the actual history of the Palestinians in Israel.
@Joseph S. Precision guided munitions? So Israel meant to deliberately destroy 70% of all buildings in Gaza? Including farms and water desalinization plants? Not to mention children’s playgrounds (with kids playing there) and every hospital? The open air internet cafe? The tents by the beach? And they continue, to this moment, to drop bombs? To what purpose? And where are those tunnels anyways? The system that was reportedly more extensive than the NYC subway system. With so much infrastructure destroyed, you would see deep canyons all over the place.
The IDF has killed 16,000 Gazan children violently. It has killed uncounted more through starvation, destruction of health facilities, and the destruction of sanitation. Rather than denouncing the slaughter, as former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has done, Stephens spends his time denying genocide. After all, Israel hasn't killed everyone, yet. His own article shows this is not a real battle, but a slaughter. He cites 60,000 Gazans kllled, versus "hundreds" of Israeli soldiers. Death rates of over 100 to one aren't war -- they are murder. Daniel Tinkelman, Brooklyn
Thanks for the lesson in semantics. I’m sure the civilians murdered while trying to avoid starvation will take great comfort in the fact that it was not, strictly speaking, genocide.
When you can see thousands upon thousands of children dying and still insist it’s technically not that bad, because it could be worse, you have lost any moral credibility. Did you think the camp guards in “Sophie’s Choice” weren’t that bad, since they offered to let her keep one of her children?
So this is not genocide because the number is low? This article is giving us new definitions of what genocide means.
@Allegra Unless I missed something the bombs used can’t distinguish between who Israel deems an “Animal” and who is “Human”. Calling any human being an “Animal” is wrong. Not excusing Hamas or their behavior but saying anyone is sub human is morally wrong.
@DS I call it Hamas cheering that it has duped so many people into hating Israel. One step closer to its goal.
Deliberately starving a population to death, reducing their infrastructure to rubble...what, Bret, do you suggest we call it?
“We could kill everybody, but we’re just killing tens of thousands of random civilians” isn’t actually a defense against a charge or genocide. Mr Stephen’s needs to review the relevant history— and the relevant law.
@DS 10/7/23 was the straw which broke the back of over 75 years of terrorist attacks against Israel and its innocent civilians. At some point, there will be blowback - that time is now.
The foremost professor of genocide studies wrote an opinion piece in this paper stating in n uncertain terms that Netanyahu is committing genocide. Many Israeli citizens agree. Brett Stevens can deny all he wants but the rest of us see what we see.
Israeli right-wing politicians, who are part of the government, clearly advocate for genocide. And then, supposedly coincidentally, the Israeli army implements policies leading to the gradual elimination of the viability of Gaza. But because only tens of thousands of Gazans have been counted as dead so far, it's not genocide? This reminds me of the experience Primo Levi related in "Survival in Auschwitz." He didn't understand, at first, that the concentration camp (btw a euphemism at the time) was an extermination camp. It had to be explained to him, when someone pointed out that there weren't any people left with low serial numbers tattooed on their arm. Genocide can be hard to see, even when it's before your eyes, and the term is wildly overused. It's especially terrible to admit when it is committed by the descendants of genocide themselves. But we shouldn't close our eyes when it's actually happening.
A Lancet study in May suggests that the death toll is over 186,000. So we can dismiss the idea that the number is 60,000 or so, as if that wasn't bad enough. Why doesn't Mr. Stephens mention the Lancet study. I'd like to know.
As a Jewish person, I find this article deeply offensive. Not because I dismiss the legal definition of genocide, but because Stephens cynically reduces human suffering to a numbers game — arguing that Israel can’t be committing genocide because more Gazans aren’t dead. This is a grotesque moral argument, and frankly, beneath the dignity of serious discourse. Genocide is not only defined by body counts. It’s also defined by the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a group — through conditions of life that make survival impossible. When entire neighborhoods are leveled, aid is blocked, infrastructure is systematically destroyed, and over a million people are displaced and starving, the line between brutal war and genocidal intent is not as clear-cut as Stephens claims. What offends me most is the implication that to call this genocide is to promote antisemitism. That conflation is dangerous. It silences legitimate moral outrage by framing it as bigotry. I support Israel’s right to exist, but I will not let my identity be used to shield any government — including Israel’s — from accountability for mass civilian harm.
@Mitchell Wilson Stephens is literally the Devil's Advocate
Sorry Bret, the definition of genocide does not require herding up people and killing them en masse by firing squads or gas chambers. Killing them with weapons assured to create collateral damage and destroying their homes to expel them from their communities is sufficient. The reality is that this Israeli government seeks to drive off all Palestinian Arabs from all parts of the country, forthwith. They denied the population the basics of life from the day after the crimes against humanity committed by Hamas fighters on October 7th, 2023. They used block buster bombs to penetrate tunnels knowing that the extent of the blasts would level residential neighborhoods. The Israelis needed vengeance, not just eliminating threats from Hamas.
I simply cannot understand why feeding children is so controversial. Stephens shows how easily our veneer of civilization can slip into barbarism, and he doesn't even know it.
Oh, its close enough to "the deliberate destruction of a nation or group of people.". Destruction is more than just killing; it is the eviseration of insitutiions--schools, libraries, hospitals--and the mass destruction of domiciles, starvation and herding.
The definition of "genocide" is rather slippery. If we interpret the words "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such" literally, we find that every individual hate crime is a genocide. For instance, if a racist man kills another man because of his race, he has destroyed the racial group he hates "in part", for even one person is "part" of the larger whole. But that's not what we mean by "genocide", is it? The holocaust killed six million Jewish civilians. In the recent Gaza war, Israel has killed perhaps 30,000 civilians. Numerically, these things are vastly different. And of course we should acknowledge the context of October 7th and Hamas' use of human shields. Even so, Israeli bombs and bullets have killed over ten times as many civilians as Hamas in the recent war. Hamas has killed perhaps 1,500 Israeli civilians, while Israel has killed well over 15,000 Gazan civilians. Exactly how lopsided does this need to get before we cut off our support for Israel? Stephens should consider this.
What did I just read, and why does it leave me feeling dirty? Tens of thousands of people have been slaughtered. Yes, Hamas is a terrorist group. I would argue that right now, so is the Israeli government. I stand for human rights. I stand for peace. I stand for Israelis and Palestinians each living in their own country and cooperating to advance both. I do not stand for columnists who try to downplay the slaughter of so many because it does not, in his view, meet some textbook definition of genocide.
This article to me seems rather disingenuous. The author is saying that Israel is not committing a genocide in Gaza because it hasn't murdered more people. Not very convincing.
Try to find arguments to soften or make up a massive killing, because it happens in all wars, or because it does not fit in a legal definition, it is cynical and immoral. It is not about which side you support; my side is with innocent people being shot while trying to get some food.
The images of emancipated children, starving to death in one of the richest countries in the world speaks louder than your words.
Hamas's "negotiating" terms include a provision that they remain in power, to which Israel or any other country that suffered the brutal murder of about 1,200 men, women, children, and babies on Oct. 7, 2023 would never consent. Hamas is also directly responsible for the murder of hundreds of the local population and indirectly for the death of thousands. At a great expense in manpower and money it built 400 MILES of well equipped tunnels to help implement the murder of about 900 Israel soldiers.
I’d argue that death toll is not the proper barometer for whether action is genocidal. Milosevic’s Yugoslavia, for example, killed less people than Israel has in two years, but we recognize that the intent of Republika Sjrbska and its Yugoslav allies in both Bosnia and Kosovo was genocidal in nature. We have to consider intent rather than simply outcome. Likud, Israel’s ruling party, had to make a coalition with members of the Beitar movement, who are openly genocidal. While Stephens may have the temerity to defend Bibi, even he would likely lack the gall or naivety to claim that anti-Arab rhetoric from Ben-Gvir or Smotrich isn’t at least in line with genocidal intent. It also seems clear that the ongoing West Bank settlements, illegal under international law, as well as the calls from both U.S. and Israeli officials to claim Gaza’s land after the conflict “ends,” are definitionally not-so-subtle calls for ethnic clearing. While perhaps there should be a differentiation between ethnic cleansing and genocide, most scholars consider them to be two sides of the same coin — mortal sins of international law with which only regime change of the perpetrators can truly remedy. So in short — through attacks on aid-recipient civilians, indiscriminate bombings, and, most tellingly, active interest in removing Palestinians from land and then claiming it, Israeli state action, at the VERY LEAST, is on the road towards a genocide.
@AK Do you really think Netanyahu would stop this metaphorical shooting of fish in a barrel (Hint: the answer is no)
Is this satire? If so, it is a pretty poor attempt at it! The goal of the right wing on Israel may not be to wipe out all Palestinians but it is an explicit goal of theirs to destroy any hope of a Palestinian homeland and to occupy and incorporate the West Bank and Gaza Strip into the state of Israel! By your logic, the Nazi killing of European Jews was not “genocide” because many other Jews survived but the intent was, nonetheless, to destroy Judaism as a significant political and economic force just as it is the intent of the right in Israel to destroy a viable Palestinian state. This is a disappointing case of not seeing the forest through the trees. Although a formal recognition of a Palestinian state does not exist, the recognition of the right of Palestine to statehood goes back to the 1920s. It wasn’t until the 1947 war that the state of Israel came into existence as a result of war. So you may not consider it “genocide” but it is still an attempt to deny Palestinians a country and recognition as an independent people which is what Israel sought and won through violence.
The Israeli government, in total, probably does not want to kill every Palestinian, in total. But the reactionary minority that controls the current Israeli government wouldn’t mind if all the Palestinians “disappeared”—from the river to the sea. Dead? Deported? Exiled? Probably doesn’t matter—just don’t want them around.
Since Mr. Stephens makes no mention of the Holocaust and genocide scholar Omer Bartov’s recent careful determination in these very pages that Israel is indeed committing genocide in Gaza, we can ignore this article as merely political. Mr. Stephens likes Israel and wants to defend it by all means necessary or convenient, as is his right under the First Amendment. But just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should. This type of partisan rhetoric is worthless at best, and can serve as a dangerous distraction and smoke screen from the real and pressing issues confronting the US and its citizens as Israel’s primary benefactor and supporter. As such, the US is indirectly liable for Israel’s actions, and is morally obligated to scrutinize them carefully, certainly much more carefully than Mr. Stephens does.
I think Brett’s argument is a little thin and a little too technical. If any of us were living in Gaza we would have a different lens. The emotional, mental, and ongoing physical destruction would lead to despair, hatred, hopelessness, and agony that most of us can’t imagine. We can try to find tricks to dehumanize the Palestinians and rationalize the atrocities but in the end the ugly reality is that Israel is becoming a fortress of contempt around the world.
| 항목 | Omer Bartov (집단학살 주장) | Bret Stephens (집단학살 아님 주장) |
|---|---|---|
| 작성자 신원 | 홀로코스트 및 집단학살 연구자, Brown University 교수, 이스라엘 출신 | 뉴욕타임스 칼럼니스트, 보수적 논객 |
| 발표일자 | 2025년 7월 15일 | 2025년 7월 22일 |
| 전문 분야 | Genocide Studies, Holocaust Studies | 정치 칼럼, 보수적 국제관 |
| 기본 입장 | 가자지구에서의 이스라엘 작전은 집단학살이다 | 이스라엘의 가자 작전은 집단학살이 아니다 |
| ‘집단학살’의 판단 기준 | 국제법 정의에 따른 ‘의도 + 실행’ 조합. 특히 물적 기반의 파괴와 발언들의 누적을 고려 | ‘의도’가 명확히 입증되지 않으며, 피해자 수가 더 많았어야 한다는 귀납적 논리 |
| ‘의도(intent)’ 판단 방식 | 정치·군 지도자의 공개 발언 + 작전 패턴의 일치 | 가해 의도가 있었다면 더 광범위한 학살이 벌어졌을 것이라는 반증 논리 |
| 가자지구 파괴에 대한 해석 | 사회기반시설의 조직적 파괴는 집단의 생존 불능 상태를 유도하는 것으로 해석 | 전쟁의 비극적 결과이지만, 집단학살의 범주에는 해당하지 않음 |
| 하마스의 역할에 대한 평가 | 하마스는 초기 공격의 주체였으나, 이후 군사적 실체는 거의 소멸. 현재 작전은 민간인 대상 | 하마스가 민간인을 인간 방패로 사용하여 참상을 유도했다는 해석 강조 |
| 홀로코스트와의 관계 | 이스라엘은 피해자의 위치에서 ‘가해자’로 전환되고 있으며, 홀로코스트 기억은 정당화 도구로 왜곡됨 | 이스라엘은 나치와 비교될 수 없으며, 피해자 프레임은 여전히 유효 |
| 국제사회의 책임에 대한 시각 | 국제사회와 홀로코스트 학계의 침묵은 윤리적 붕괴를 초래 | 집단학살이라는 말은 반유대주의와 이스라엘 혐오를 부추긴다 |
| 윤리적 결론 및 제언 | 이스라엘은 트라우마로부터 벗어나 팔레스타인과의 공존을 선택해야 함 | 전쟁은 끝나야 하지만, 잘못된 프레임은 오히려 평화를 해친다 |
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