Written by Larry Ramer
Reality: Robert F. Kennedy Jr is absolutely correct when he says that Israel is not committing genocide. According to Oxford Languages, genocide is defined as “the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group. “
Far from aiming to “destroy” all Gazans, the Israeli military is taking multiple steps to kill as few noncombatants as possible in the course of its war against Hamas. In fact, according to a statement made on May 3, 2024 by a top U.S. expert on urban war, John Spencer, “Israel has done more to prevent civilian casualties in war than any military in history.” Spencer, who has extensively studied the Israel-Hamas War, is the Chair of Urban Warfare studies at West Point’s Modern War Institute.
What RFK Jr. Has to Say:
In an interview with Piers Morgan, Kennedy said:
“Today Hamas, which is you know authoritarian control, hasn’t won an election in 16 years of Gaza, is a corporate kleptocracy and it’s absolutely intent on one issue one issue only, to annihilate Israel and to kill all the Jews.
In their charter Hamas has a provision that says it is against Islamic law to even negotiate with Israel except as a ruse. So I don’t see how people who are saying, ‘well you should have a ceasefire.’ Then what? Then you’ve rewarded Hamas for taking hostages and they’re going to keep taking hostages to get more and more advantage. This is, by the way, the fifth ceasefire. On October 7th, they broke a cease fire.”
Steps That Israel Has Taken to Minimize Civilian Casualties
In his X feed, Spencer detailed the many steps that Israel has taken during the war in order to kill as few Gaza civilians as possible.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have told Gazan civilians to evacuate areas where it is going to attack next, and the IDF has actively helped civilians leave places that will be targeted. Moreover, the IDF has used multiple methods to tell civilians to leave dangerous areas. In addition to flyers, as of May, it had made more than 79,000 direct phone calls and sent more than 13.7 million text messages in order to tell civilians to evacuate parts of Gaza that the military planned to target.
Other steps that the IDF has taken to facilitate evacuations include conducting “multi-hour pauses” of their operations and handing out maps that detail which areas will be targeted in the future.
Israel Has Been More Careful to Avoid Civilian Casualties Than Any Military in History
As I noted in the introduction, Spencer said that Israel had actually done more to prevent civilian casualties
during a war than any other country .
Israel has done everything to protect civilians that the U.S. has done in its wars, he reported. And the Jewish State has taken some actions to protect civilians that America has never utilized, Spencer added. Indeed, I never remember the U.S. actively evacuating civilians from areas that it was going to attack during its wars.
So Why Have So Many Gazans–Including Women and Children — Been Killed in Gaza by Israel?
Based on Hamas’ estimate of total deaths and Israel’s estimate of the number of Hamas fighters that it has killed, the ratio of civilian deaths to combatant deaths is about 1.5 to 1, Spencer reported about a month ago. But Hamas itself has said that it is not sure whether 11,000 of the deaths that it had previously reported actually occurred.
Leaving out those 11,000 questionable deaths, the ratio of combatants to civilians killed in Gaza is about 1 to 1. By comparison, during the U.S.-led battle against Isis in the Iraqi city of Mosul in 2016-2017, 10,000 civilians and 4,000 Isis fighters were killed.
So Israel has much more effectively protected civilians than the U.S.-led coalition which fought Isis in Mosul. did And nobody has accused the U.S.-led coalition of committing genocide in Mosul.
Further, as Spencer noted, “war is hell,” and international law does not prohibit the killing of civilians in wars. Indeed, during World War 2, the Allies firebombed mass swaths of multiple, large cities, including Tokyo and Dresden, Germany, without taking any significant steps to prevent civilians from being killed. And of course, President Harry Truman dropped nuclear weapons on two Japanese cities, killing many tens of thousands of civilians in the process. And yet almost no one, whether they are Left, Right or Center politically, says that the Allies committed genocide.
Hamas’ widespread placement of weapons and fighters below and inside schools, mosques, and hospitals has also greatly raised the number of civilian deaths in Gaza.
According to Spencer, Hamas has made “every protected site (i.e hospitals, mosques, and schools) a military facility.” He reported that Hamas has used this “human shield” approach more than any other entity he’s ever seen. And Spencer also noted that when Isis fighters entered hospitals, the U.s. “bombed complete hospitals to the ground ” Israel has not done that.
Israel Is Defending Itself Against Genocidal Hamas
Hamas has promised to try to repeat the mass murder and atrocities that it committed against Israeli Jewish civilians on October 7 “again and again” until Israel is destroyed.
In other words, Hamas wants to carry out genocide against Israeli Jews. Israel is fighting to destroy the terrorist organization in order to prevent it from doing so.
The Bottom Line
Israel has taken unprecedented steps to prevent civilians in Gaza from being killed. And based on the assessment of a U.S. expert on urban warfare, the Israeli army has been very successful in limiting civilian deaths, despite Hamas’ widespread placement of fighters and weapons in areas filled with civilians.
Given these points, Robert F. Kennedy Jr is completely on target when he says that Israel is not committing genocide.
