Does Netanyahu Have Genocidal Intent?

The short answer is no, I don't think so, but the appearance of genocidal intent is now so powerful that Israel must prioritize an "8th front" media, diplomatic, and legal campaign to keep the truth of the matter front and center.

Hamas is a genocidal antisemitic terrorist organization fighting in collaboration with an Iranian strategy to eliminate the world's one and only Jewish state, which Ayatollah Khamenei considers an apartheid settler colonial cancer in the Middle East. The Iranian strategy includes multiple proxy fronts and a clandestine nuclear weapons program that is illegal under the NPT. The attack of 7 October 2023 was likely masterminded by Iran and precipitated by progress in Saudi normalization with Israel. At the level of grand strategy, the Iranian narrative is considered sympathetically by China and Russia on the UN Security Council, in opposition to America, France, and the UK. The UN General Assembly leans strongly toward the Chinese and Russian side on this issue but still respects the West. That respect hangs in the balance as Netanyahu appears to demonstrate genocidal intent. France and the UK sense the difficulty. So does America, but America is not a pillar member of the International Criminal Court, unlike France and the UK, and President Trump is more inclined to support Israel in absolute terms on the legal plane, regardless of opposition from either the ICC or the UN General Assembly.  

Why does Netanyahu appear to demonstrate genocidal intent? There are at least two reasons. First, the UN Security Council created a vacuum and is missing in action. The UN Security Council should have immediately condemned the Hamas terrorist attack of 7 October and sent in troops under Chapter VII of the UN Charter to get the hostages out and depose Hamas, which could no longer be allowed to administer Gaza. Arguably, the roots of the UN Security Council vacuum are much deeper. Perhaps Palestine as a whole should have been identified as a strategic area under the international trusteeship system at the conclusion of the British Mandate in 1948.  

The second main reason Netanyahu appears to demonstrate genocidal intent is a vexing practical reality: the only sensible way to defeat Hamas, given the extent of its infrastructure infiltration, is to evacuate Gaza, clear the Strip, rebuild the infrastructure, and resettle it with a deradicalized population. Now if the UN Security Council tried to do exactly this under Chapter VII, Israel would applaud, and Hamas would find itself compelled to cooperate. So, too, would Egypt and the rest of the Arab world. Displacement would be at a minimum and no one would call it a genocide. The operation would be called counterterrorism, deradicalization and state-building. But if the IDF is left to evacuate Gaza and clear the Strip without Egyptian support and without a plan for reconstruction and resettlement, Hamas is unlikely to cooperate, and Egypt and the Arab world will call the resulting displacement a genocide.

Said another way, IDF displacement of the civilian population from Gaza without Hamas cooperation can look like a genocide even if there is no genocidal intent and even if the displacement is absolutely necessary from a security standpoint.