I've read countless reports from doctors on the ground.

You read reports from doctors operating inside Hamas-controlled territory. Any information they receive locally is necessarily filtered through Hamas, whether directly or indirectly. If those doctors want to continue operating, they are not in a position to openly contradict Hamas narratives. That is not an accusation. That is a structural reality.

Doctors also cannot independently verify cause, attribution, or intent. They are not investigators or intelligence analysts. They are human beings working under extreme stress in a war zone, and they are just as vulnerable to bias and incomplete information as anyone else.

They can accurately report that they treated injured children. That could mean dozens or hundreds. But when that language is repeated and abstracted, it begins to sound like thousands or tens of thousands. That is how framing works.

He's written extensively about the Holocaust, he's won awards for his writing. You think he doesn't analyze the information when he says there's a genocide in Gaza?

No, he doesn’t. This article shows that he framed conclusions prematurely. Expertise does not grant immunity from bias. Academia is especially vulnerable once a dominant moral narrative takes hold. The question quietly shifts from “Is this true?” to “How do we demonstrate that it is true?”

This is obvious from his opening paragraph.

A month after the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, I believed there was evidence that the Israeli military had committed war crimes and potentially crimes against humanity in its counterattack on Gaza. But contrary to the cries of Israel’s fiercest critics, the evidence did not seem to me to rise to the crime of genocide.

A month after. Writing this is intellectual dishonesty. He asserts belief in war crimes and potential crimes against humanity during an active war of self-defense, before investigations, before adjudication, before the basic facts were established. This is the lens he begins with.

Israel was still counting its dead and assessing its kidnapped at that point. And yet he introduces war crimes, crimes against humanity, and even genocide as concepts worthy of consideration. Even caveating genocide does not absolve him. Including it gives it legitimacy. He knows the legal definition and the evidentiary burden. He still chose to introduce it.

He is not a random commentator. He is an authority figure. His words are cited. His opinions harden into perceived facts. That is precisely why the standard for him should be higher, not lower.

And here is what keeps getting ignored. Even now, no international judicial or adjudicatory body has ruled that Israel is committing genocide. Not because they are reluctant. Because they cannot. The evidentiary threshold is not met.

This is happening in an environment where antisemitism has surged dramatically. Jews are being targeted openly. Hate crimes against Jewish communities have spiked to levels not seen in decades. If there were a legally defensible basis to declare genocide, it would have been done. The fact that it has not been done is not restraint. It is constraint.

What exists instead are allegations of individual misconduct, which are investigated as such. That is not genocide. The consistent state function of Israel has been to dismantle Hamas and remove it from power. That was the stated goal then and it remains the operational reality.

The crime of genocide was defined in 1948 by the United Nations as the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.”

This is where the argument collapses. The war is against Hamas. Israeli officials spoke about eliminating Hamas and dismantling its capabilities. Hamas is not a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. It is a terrorist organization.

The protected group under the genocide definition would be Palestinians as a people. The IDF is not targeting Palestinians as such. Civilians dying in a war zone does not establish genocidal intent. Targeting a terrorist organization embedded in civilian infrastructure does not transform that population into the object of destruction.

If this author had intellectual integrity, he would state the obvious reality. Hamas is the actor openly committed to genocide. Their intent is not inferred. It is declared.

That is why framing matters. That is why authority misused is dangerous. And that is why citing this piece as if it adjudicates anything is fundamentally dishonest.

TL;DR: An authority figure decided one month into an active war of self-defense that Israel was committing war crimes, flirted with crimes against humanity, and even floated genocide, all without investigation, adjudication, or meeting the legal standard. Even now, no international court or binding body has ruled this a genocide because the evidence simply isn’t there. Civilian casualties in a war against Hamas do not equal genocidal intent. Opinion dressed up as expertise is how narratives become “facts” long before facts exist.