Who Am I to Judge the Genocide Case Against Israel?


It's 6:36 PM on Friday. I listened to Netanyahu's speech at the UN General Debate earlier today, and I read the full transcript. Unfortunately, I don't see any evidence that Dr. Tal Becker was on the speechwriting team. This said, I am not in any way prepared at this stage to agree with Dov Waxman on the genocide allegations against Israel, even if Netanyahu rejects Trump's new Gaza plan in their meeting at the White House on Monday (cf. Why I changed my mind on the genocide charge against Israel | by Dov Waxman | Aug, 2025 | Medium; Some reflections on the critical reactions to the development of my thinking on Gaza | by Dov Waxman | Aug, 2025 | Medium). While I parted ways with Netanyahu on a strategic level in March of 2025, this does not mean I think Israel has become guilty of genocide since that time. But this does not mean I think Israel has NOT become guilty of genocide since that time, either. I genuinely don't know. And it's possible that I will never be competent enough as an independent scholar to offer a truly informed opinion on what is likely to become one of the most significant questions in Jewish history.

I don't see myself as a political equivocator, or as an antisemite who is betraying Israel by cautiously considering the allegations against it, or as an Islamophobe who should have seen Operation Swords of Iron as a genocide from the beginning. Despite not wanting to see myself in any of these ways, perhaps I am guilty of one, two, or all three sins, at least to some degree. Who among Christian Zionists is perfect? Religious life as I presently experience it is not lifelong consistency in defense of a static truth, but rather lifelong revisionism in repentant subordination to the complex interactions of a contextually evolving reality.   

Suspension of judgment while I consider the evidence and arguments on both sides of the genocide allegation feels like the right place for me to be as we journey through Q4 2025. The world does not need me to reach a conclusion before then. And when 31 December 2025 rolls around, it may be my determination that I am simply not competent to hold an opinion one way or the other, but should leave it up to the ICJ, or Israel, or Washington, to make the determination for me.

The position of the US State Department across Democratic and Republican administrations appears firm: https://share.google/aimode/toyiPnnrnoGxFixTx. As an independent, I am wondering whether it would be more in alignment with my principles for the US State Department to argue that the Palestinian people have a plausible right to protection under the Genocide Convention, and that the ICJ was prudent to assess an imminent risk of harm to Palestinian rights under said convention, but primarily because of war crimes by Hamas, and only secondarily as a byproduct of Israel's legal counterterrorism operations, and that South Africa's genocide case against Israel is on the whole meritless: https://share.google/aimode/CxPx4xD46Kjj8Dvm4.       

This is one side of my conscience. According to this side's logic, the primary cause of civilian casualties and displacement in Gaza is the use of civilians as human shields by Hamas. Israel's only plausibly conceivable intent, from this perspective, is the destruction of the threat posed by Hamas, a terrorist organization, in the wake of 7 October 2023 mass atrocity - not the genocide of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

The other side of my conscience is guardedly open to weighing evidence of genocidal Israeli intent. Suspension of judgment does not mean that I am unguardedly open to allegations of genocide by Israel.

In between these two sides of my conscience, there is reasonable intellectual and moral room to debate the proportionality of IDF operations in Gaza, especially since March 2025, and certainly moving forward, given the unveiling of Trump's new Gaza plan, which Arab leaders support.

May Netanyahu and Trump have a productive meeting on Monday.  

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