Opinion | Don’t Turn Away From the Charges of Genocide Against Israel

With the question of whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza now before the International Court of Justice, the Biden administration has struck a tone of glib dismissal.

“Meritless” seems to be the agreed-upon term among U.S. officials. “The charge of genocide is meritless,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken intoned from a podium in Tel Aviv this week. “Meritless, counterproductive, and without any basis in fact whatsoever,” blustered the National Security Council spokesman John Kirby.

The administration’s posture of indifference strains credulity. The 84-page case submitted to the court by South Africa is crammed with devastating evidence that Israel has breached its obligations under the 1948 international genocide convention, which defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” The document before the court is meticulously footnoted and sourced, and many experts say the legal argument is unusually strong.

Top Israeli political and military leaders have themselves helped to bolster the case against their government. The words of Israeli officials are being offered as evidence of intent: from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urging Israelis to “remember” the Old Testament account of the carnage of Amalek (“Spare no one, but kill alike men and women, infants and sucklings,” reads one passage); to Defense Minister Yoav Gallant vowing that “Gaza won’t return to what it was before — we will eliminate everything”; to the minister of energy and infrastructure pledging, “They will not receive a drop of water or a single battery until they leave this world.” By speaking openly about destroying Gaza and dispersing its residents, Israeli leaders have publicized what has, in other cases of genocide, been hidden or denied.