by Dr. Michael Brown, New American Prophet, ©2026
(Oct. 9, 2026) — I write these words from Poland, where 90 percent of Poland’s Jews—3 million out of 3.3 million—were slaughtered during World War II. That is what genocide looks like. In stark contrast, roughly 70,000 of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents were killed during Israel’s war with Hamas, amounting to approximately 3 percent of the population. And that figure includes enemy combatants. Yet the same word, genocide, used for the systematic, intentional murder of 90 percent of Poland’s Jews—and two-thirds of Europe’s Jews as a whole—is being used to describe Israel’s war with Hamas. How can this be? And where is the moral equivalence?
Recently, more than 6,000 public figures signed an open letter denouncing the Gaza genocide libel, and while the acute suffering of the people of Gaza must not be minimized, these public figures are correct: it is grossly inaccurate and even immoral to label their suffering a “genocide.”
This does not mean that the IDF always acted justly and morally or that several prominent Israeli leaders have not made inexcusable statements. Nor does debunking the genocide lie minimize the very real and acute suffering of the Gazan population. A tragic death is a tragic death.
But tragic deaths in war do not equate with a genocide.
Consider first the numbers involved.
- The Holocaust killed 6 million of Europe’s 9 million Jews (67%); in Poland, 90% of Jews were murdered.
- The Armenian genocide (1915–1916) killed 664,000–1.2 million of roughly 1.5 million Armenians (44–80%).
- The Rwandan genocide (1994) killed 500,000–1 million people, overwhelmingly Tutsi, in just 100 days, out of roughly 1 million Tutsi in Rwanda.
- Under the Khmer Rouge (1975–1979), nearly 2 million Cambodians died—roughly 25–30% of the country’s population.
- Israel’s war with Hamas resulted in the deaths of approximately 70,000 people, representing 3 percent of the population.
How can this possibly be referred to as a “genocide”?
We are often told that the answer is “intent,” the allegation being that it was the intent of the IDF (and/or the Israeli government) to wipe out the Gazan population, just as the Nazis planned to wipe out Europe’s Jews.
This, too, is categorically false.
To the contrary, Israel took extraordinary measures to minimize civilian casualties, despite Hamas embedding itself in the civilian population and Hamas combatants wearing civilian clothing.
Just two months into the war (as of December 8, 2023), the IDF had made more than 12 million prerecorded phone calls, sent out more than 15 million texts, dropped more than 4.5 million leaflets, and placed more than 45,000 individual calls, “warning civilians to evacuate areas of hostilities and individual targets.”
What other nation has ever made such efforts to spare civilian lives in the midst of a brutal war? This is the opposite of genocidal intent.
As for the charge of starvation, according to Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, more than 1 million metric tons of food entered Gaza between October 7, 2023 and January 17, 2025 alone. Based on the actual composition of the food entering Gaza, this represented roughly 2,600 calories per person per day.
This does not mean that all the food actually reached the people, as there were massive distribution issues. But when it comes to intent, if you’re trying to wipe out a people group, you don’t make every effort to give them time to evacuate before bombing, nor do you send them food if you’re trying to starve them to death.
Read the rest here.
Leave a Reply