A reflection from a Jewish educator

In his recent New York Times opinion piece, “I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It,” Professor Omer Bartov accuses Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. It is a serious charge, made by a serious academic. But I believe it is also deeply wrong and dangerously misleading. As a Jewish educator, I cannot let it stand unchallenged.

Genocide is not simply a term of outrage, it is a legal accusation with an exacting definition. Under international law, genocide requires the intent to destroy a people, in whole or in part, because of who they are, according to the United Nations’ 1948 Genocide Convention. This is not what is happening in Gaza. There is no evidence that Israel seeks to destroy the Palestinian people. There is no state policy, no military directive, no legal finding by any international court including the International Court of Justice that concludes Israel is committing genocide. The ICJ’s preliminary ruling in January acknowledged that South Africa’s allegations warranted review, but it explicitly stated it was not ruling that genocide had occurred.

What is happening is a devastating war, one Israel did not choose. It was forced into this war after the events of October 7, when Hamas carried out the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. More than 1,200 people were murdered in cold blood. Families were slaughtered in their homes, children burned alive, and women raped. Babies were beheaded, and more than 240 people were taken hostage including elderly Holocaust survivors, infants, teenagers, and young mothers. More than 50 remain in captivity.

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This is not some distant history. It’s now. And yet Bartov barely mentions it.

Instead, he focuses almost entirely on the destruction in Gaza, as if it exists in a vacuum. He writes as if Israel woke up one day and decided to bomb Gaza. He ignores the central truth of this war that Israel is fighting not the Palestinian people, but Hamas, a terrorist organization that does, by its own admission, everything in its power to ensure maximum civilian suffering. As we know, Hamas embeds itself in homes, hospitals, mosques, and schools. It builds tunnels beneath refugee camps. It fires rockets from dense neighborhoods and stores weapons inside U.N. facilities. These are facts confirmed by the U.S. Department of Defense and U.N. officials over years of conflict. Once such places are used for military purposes, they lose their protected status. Targeting them can be legal under international military law.

And yet when Hamas launches attacks from these sites and Israel responds, the world looks at the images and accuses Israel, not the terrorists who hid behind their own people. For Israel, self-defense becomes aggression. Civilian casualties become war crimes. Every strike is presumed malicious. Every policy is seen as genocidal.

And as a result, Israel is expected to stop the fighting while Hamas is never asked to surrender. There are no global protests demanding the release of the hostages. No mass demonstrations calling on Hamas to lay down arms. The focus is almost entirely on what Israel must do or stop doing.

Why is Israel held to a standard no other country is held to? Is it because Israel is strong? Because Jews have sovereignty and we are not behaving the way the world prefers its Jews to behave, silent, suffering, grateful for survival? I am convinced that Israel’s power makes many people uncomfortable. And so, the burden of peace is placed entirely on the Jewish state, even when it is fighting for its survival. Where is the acknowledgement that such terrorist organizations as Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran are explicitly committed to the utter destruction of Israel and the Jewish people? How do you even negotiate with people like that? People who have walked away from previous peace deals? Why is that never acknowledged?

This is an inversion of morality, a moral double standard we are witnessing today. And Bartov, intentionally or not, gives it scholarly cover.

In the name of the same moral integrity we also must acknowledge mistakes have been made. Civilian casualties in Gaza have been high. There have been airstrikes that missed their mark. There have been miscommunications, and aid workers have been killed.  These failures deserve serious examination and accountability. But they are not evidence of genocide. They are evidence of how hard it is to fight a war in an urban setting against a terrorist group that deliberately uses civilians as shields and dares Israel to hit them.

Israel is not above criticism. But no other country fighting a war for its survival would be judged in this way. No other country would be expected to warn civilians before every airstrike, to allow humanitarian aid to its enemy daily, or to refrain from eliminating the enemy’s leadership in the name of proportionality. And no other democracy at war is accused of genocide while its citizens are still burying their dead and praying for the return of their children.

Gaza’s population has continued to grow throughout the years, including during this war. That fact alone doesn’t disprove the accusation of genocide, but it certainly undermines it. This is not a campaign to destroy a people. It is a war to dismantle a terror regime that brought horror to our doorsteps and promises to do it again. This is completely overlooked.  Reality is being whitewashed before our eyes, and Israel and Jews are being increasingly isolated and threatened because of this.

As a Jewish educator and a leader in a community that includes many Israelis and deeply connected Zionists, I believe we have a responsibility to speak the truth, even when it’s unpopular.  We must remind people that words matter. “Genocide” is not a synonym for devastation. It’s a legal charge with real consequences. Using it against the Jewish state without evidence, without context, and without integrity is an injustice. And we cannot allow it to go unanswered.

If Hamas surrendered and released the hostages, the war would end tomorrow. If Israel stopped defending itself, the state would not survive. That’s the difference and that’s the truth. And yet that is not discussed or recognized in much of the Western discourse.

We may not have the platform of the New York Times, but we have our voices. And I believe we must use them with clarity, courage, and the kind of moral responsibility we hope to instill in our children.

Steve Freedman of Teaneck is the head of school at Schechter Bergen in New Milford.