An assessment by an “independent” U.N. commission showed their solidarity with worldwide anti-Semitism on Tuesday when they predictably released a 72-page report finding that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza. “It is clear that there is an intent to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza through acts that meet the criteria set forth in the Genocide Convention,” said Navi Pillay, the South African chair of the “U.N. Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem” (the very name of which betrays its prejudices). If Israel is committing genocide, it is the poorest attempt at genocide ever undertaken in the history of mankind.

The U.N. defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group,” through killing, injuring, imposing inhumane conditions upon, forcibly sterilizing, or stealing children from members of that group. This definition is arguably overbroad, since it even covers “causing serious … mental harm” to “part” of a group, criteria that could arguably apply to any number of activities, up to and including a particularly hideous Super Bowl halftime show.

Whatever the merits of the definition, it is difficult to see how it fairly applies to Israel. The first obvious problem is the “national, ethnical, racial or religious group” that Israel allegedly intends to destroy. Inhabitants of Gaza are Palestinian Arabs who largely practice Islam. There are no national, ethnic, racial, or religious distinctives that distinguish them from the Palestinian, Islamic Arabs living in Israel. The Arab citizens of Israel enjoy all the same rights as Jewish citizens, participate openly in commerce, and even elect their own members to the Israeli Knesset. If Israel were motivated by animus to destroy ethnic Arabs or practitioners of Islam, it would be a whole lot simpler to start within its own borders.

In fact, the only “group” Israel intends to destroy is Hamas (and other likeminded terrorists). The group’s central animating principle is the annihilation of Israel, making Israel’s campaign against them a justified war of survival. Perhaps this dogma qualifies Hamas as a religious group, but it certainly changes the moral force of the genocide definition when the allegedly oppressed group in question is literally a terrorist organization, whose highest purpose is committing its own genocide.

The other important word in the definition is “intent.” If the U.N. committee took Israel at its word, it would have concluded that Israel did not intend to kill any civilians in Gaza. “Our war is against Hamas terrorists, not against Palestinian civilians,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in January 2024. “We will continue to facilitate humanitarian assistance, and to do our utmost to keep civilians out of harm’s way, even as Hamas uses civilians as human shields.”

Of course, regimes that commit genocide are not known for being honest about it, either in the moment or long afterward. China’s denial of the Uyghur genocide and Turkey’s denial of the Armenian genocide come readily to mind. It’s more reliable to evaluate a regime by its actions than by its words.

So, let’s evaluate the Israeli government by its actions, not by its own words, nor the biased propaganda of its adversaries.

Consider Israel’s most recent offensive, Gideon’s Chariots II, the long-planned siege of Hamas’s final stronghold in Gaza city, which began Tuesday. “It was early morning when the tanks went in,” reported CBN Middle East Bureau Chief Chris Mitchell on “Washington Watch.” “They have about 60,000 reservists that have [been] called up in addition to the 70,000 that troops are already in there. … The end of the war could be in sight.”

Israel’s goal is to free the 48 remaining hostages that Hamas captured on October 7 and has held in tunnels ever since (only about half are believed to be still alive). “Hamas, by the way, is actually threatening to bring some of those hostages up above ground,” said Mitchell, to use them as human shields.

“The IDF has been sending leaflets, sending text messages, calling people on the phone, telling them to get out of harm’s way because Gaza City has become a dangerous combat zone. About 350,000, we believe, have already left,” mentioned Mitchell. “Now that the IDF is going in, people are actually taking that warning seriously.” How incompetent does a genocide machine have to be to intentionally warn its targets to move out of harm’s way?

Speaking of human shields, Hamas benefits from keeping the entire civilian population of Gaza in place, which complicates Israel’s ability to strike at the terrorists. Urban warfare “is the most difficult type of warfare to wage, especially when you have civilians intermixed in the population,” observed FRC President Tony Perkins. A report like that issued by the U.N. commission “makes this operation even more delicate because the international community is watching,” waiting for Israel to slip up.

“Hamas, on the other side … has been sending leaflets to the Gazan people saying it’s a safe zone, it’s a humanitarian area,” Mitchell added. “They want to keep their people there as a barrier to the IDF. … This really undermines this whole idea that Israel is trying to commit genocide in Gaza.”

On Wednesday, Israel announced a temporary escape corridor through which residents of Gaza City could flee south. Of course, Hamas terrorists could conceivably try to slip through the corridor, too, complicating Israel’s efforts. One does not perpetrate a genocide by rounding up the intended targets and then offering them an escape route.

In addition, the U.N. commission overlooked the fact that Israel has “been sending in two million tons of food to the people of Gaza,” said Mitchell. “That’s almost one ton per person” since the war began. “They’ve also sent in medical supplies” and aided “the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in an attempt to bypass Hamas, which has been stealing, looting, much of the aid going in through the U.N.” In other words, “what the IDF has done here in Gaza City really doesn’t compute in terms of genocide.”

If the evidence shows that Israel is committing the poorest “genocide” ever, unbiased observers would be right to question whether Israel’s activities constitute genocide at all. In fact, the evidence points to Hamas as the party guilty of imprisoning the civilians of Gaza in a giant concentration camp, leaving them on the brink of starvation, and cynically using them as human shields in its avowed campaign of genocide against Israel. The fact that Hamas created these conditions does not make them Israel’s fault.

The repeated determination of world leaders — especially U.N. officials — to blame Israel for the crimes of their enemies has itself led to a rise of anti-Semitism around the world, in an eerie reprise of the genocide committed against Jews 90 years ago. “The Jewish people understand the reality of what follows delegitimizing a people, marginalizing them,” said Perkins. “What comes next is what we saw in the 1930s, a century before.”

“We see it in anti-Semitic acts, whether it’s in Paris or Sydney or London,” Mitchell agreed. “The whole idea that the Jewish people are evil and that they’re fostering this genocide, they’re trying to eliminate the Palestinian people — if you come here and see for yourself, it’s simply not true. But this lie gets spread around the world. And then that spawns this kind of hatred for the Jewish people, wherever they may be around the world.” All because some clever salesmen invested with the authority of international organizations decided to sell the implausible lie that Israel is committing “genocide” by helping civilians out of harm’s way.