By Dan Pollak
(September 3, 2026 / The Hill) For every war, there is a legitimate debate about whether it is fought justly. But there is no legitimate debate about what constitutes genocide.
The two are fundamentally different concepts. Yet critics routinely blur that distinction only when Israel is involved. The selective application of the “genocide” label to Israel is not a serious legal argument. It is an effort to delegitimize the world’s only Jewish state.
Israel’s war against Hamas and Hezbollah is, by any reasonable standard, a war of self-defense. Like every war, it is open to scrutiny and debate. Military tactics, proportionality and individual decisions may all be examined through the principles of just war theory.
But even if someone concludes that Israel has fallen short of those principles, that still does not make its war a genocide. One concept does not become the other simply because Israel is the nation under attack.
The distinction is neither academic nor new. For more than a thousand years, just war theory has recognized that even necessary wars can produce tragic civilian casualties. Those realities may raise difficult moral questions, but they do not establish an intent to destroy an entire people. That is what genocide means.
History makes the distinction obvious. During the Normandy campaign before and after the D-Day landings, Allied bombing killed approximately 50,000 French civilians. Some historians have questioned whether every aspect of the campaign satisfied just war principles. No serious person has ever argued that the Allies committed genocide against the French. Civilian casualties, even on a devastating scale, are not themselves proof of genocide.
No one is asking for Israel to be beyond criticism. Democracies should be scrutinized, and Israel is no exception. The issue is not criticism. It is the selective application of the “genocide” label to the world’s only Jewish state. When one nation is singled out for an accusation reserved for no one else facing comparable circumstances, the motive is no longer the pursuit of justice. It is the delegitimization of Israel.
The Assad regime killed hundreds of thousands of Syrians. China has persecuted the Uyghurs. Mass atrocities have occurred across Africa and elsewhere with comparatively little effort to weaponize the term “genocide” in the same way it has been deployed against Israel. Yet when Jews defended themselves after the Oct. 7, 2023 massacre, “genocide” suddenly became the accusation of choice. That discriminatory double standard is antisemitism.
Some point out that Jews themselves use this rhetoric, or that members of Congress have embraced it. Neither fact changes its nature. Jewish history has never been free of those willing to turn against their own people. Elected office has never been a safeguard against prejudice. Popularity does not transform a false accusation into a true one.
The political power of the “genocide” label is precisely why it is used. It is designed to strip Israel of legitimacy, recast Jewish self-defense as a form of criminality and portray Israel as uniquely evil. Throughout history, those seeking to isolate the Jewish people have adapted the language of their era to achieve that goal. Today, the word “genocide” has become their preferred weapon.
There must be a public price for promoting that falsehood. The first step is calling it what it is. This is not about semantic debates over the evolving definition of antisemitism. This is not about the evolution of the word “Semite.” It is about hatred directed at Jews. When Israel alone is branded “genocidal” for defending itself, while every other nation is judged by a different standard, the issue is not international law. It is hatred of Jews.
Those genuinely interested in understanding why Israel’s conduct does not constitute genocide should examine the work of internationally recognized urban warfare expert John Spencer.
Those who continue applying the genocide label exclusively to the Jewish state despite the facts are making a political choice, not a legal argument. And the days when the Jewish people were expected to accept those slanders in silence are over.
Dan Pollak is the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) director of government relations.
This op-ed was originally published by The Hill and can be viewed here.