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New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a war criminal on Monday night during an interview on CNN, labeling him the “architect of a horrific genocide of the Palestinian people.”
Out of curiosity, I turned to Google to check the actual legal definition of genocide. According to the website of the United Nations, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, as such:
(1) Killing members of the group; (2) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (3) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (4) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (5) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
And now, for the facts.
On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas launched a brutal surprise attack against the sovereign state of Israel, breaching its borders and invading its towns under a massive rocket barrage. Under that cover, Hamas systematically executed the very crimes defined above.
Take clause 1: Killing members of the group.
Hamas terrorists murdered Israelis solely because they were Jews.
Consider the chilling audio recording released by the Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet, capturing Hamas terrorist Mahmoud Afana calling his parents from Kibbutz Mefalsim on Oct. 7 using a victim’s phone. He boasted to his father: “Father, your son killed Jews! Open WhatsApp and see how many I killed with my own hands — I killed 10!”
On the other end of the line, his father did not react with shock or shame; he cheered and prayed for his son’s murderous rampage.
You will search in vain for any record of an Israeli soldier or civilian calling home to boast about killing Arabs simply because they are Arab. The Hamas terrorist was not proud of defeating an enemy soldier in battle; he was thrilled by the bare fact that he had murdered Jews.
Israel has never systematically targeted or murdered Arabs — not in Gaza, not in Judea and Samaria, and not anywhere else. During combat, military legal advisers accompany commanders directly in the field, meticulously evaluating target selection to ensure civilian harm is minimized. Even before airstrikes or precision ground fire, the IDF systematically warns Palestinian civilians via phone calls, leaflets, and broadcast announcements, urging them to evacuate targeted areas.
Israel does not kill Arabs because they are Arabs. On the contrary, Israeli forces have repeatedly acted to protect peaceful populations across the region. The IDF targets only terrorists who seek Israel’s destruction. Netanyahu, together with the defense establishment and the IDF leadership, has taken unprecedented steps to mitigate civilian casualties in asymmetric warfare.
If anyone committed genocide, it was Hamas. The true architect of a genocide was Yahya Sinwar.
Consider clause 2: Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group.
The evidence gathered from Oct. 7 — much of it recorded by the perpetrators’ own body cameras — presents a horrific catalog of point-blank executions, sexual violence, and barbaric mutilations. The atrocity footage shown to international diplomats and journalists was so graphic that it inflicted genuine psychological trauma on those who viewed it.
Israel, by contrast, has never deliberately targeted civilians or inflicted intentional torture upon noncombatants.
Look at clause 3: Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction.
The foundational charters of both Hamas and the Palestine Liberation Organization explicitly state their ultimate objective: the destruction of the Jewish state and its people.
Israel’s declaration of independence asserts the exact opposite. It pledges that the nation will “foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants” and maintain “complete equality of social and political rights to all its citizens irrespective of religion, race or sex.” It explicitly extends a hand of “peace and good neighborliness to all neighboring states and their peoples.” This vision encompasses all Arabs — including those in Gaza, Judea, Samaria, and across the broader Middle East.
Furthermore, Israel has facilitated unprecedented volumes of humanitarian aid directly into Gaza — supplying water, electricity, food, medical equipment, and basic necessities to a population under the control of an enemy force. No nation committing genocide sends food, medicine, and shoes to the very population it is falsely accused of seeking to destroy. Meanwhile, it was Hamas that violently hijacked this aid, hoarding supplies in terrorist tunnels and selling them at extortionate prices to line its own war chest.
Mamdani’s narrative is not just a mischaracterization; it is a total inversion of reality.
Turn to clause 4: Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.
On Oct. 7, Hamas systematically slaughtered young men and women, aiming to wipe out future generations of Israeli families. Israel’s actual policy toward its Arab population tells a radically different story. Through its national social security system, the Israeli government provides child allowances and healthcare coverage to hundreds of thousands of Arab families, actively supporting family welfare and child development. While Hamas murders Jewish children, the state of Israel pays social benefits for Arab children.
Finally, consider clause 5: Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
On Oct. 7, Hamas abducted young children and infants, dragging them into underground dungeons in Gaza while mob crowds cheered. The horrific fate of the Bibas family — including 9-month-old Kfir — remains a permanent symbol of this brutality.
Israel has never kidnapped or targeted Palestinian children. To the contrary, Israeli operations have been aborted, and soldiers’ lives put at direct risk, solely to prevent civilian casualties in dense urban environments.
Critics may raise valid arguments regarding the scale of physical destruction in Gaza, but under international law, genocide strictly requires the intent to destroy a group as such. Israel is fighting a defensive war against a terrorist organization that systematically converted hospitals, schools, and residential neighborhoods into military strongholds and human shields. International courts have made no final determination of genocide — and for good reason. Israel’s operations target a brutal terrorist network, not a civilian population.
Every objective standard confirms the truth: Hamas executed a genocidal assault on Oct. 7, while Israel fights a legal war of self-defense. For Mamdani to turn the truth upside down on national television is not merely political posturing — it is moral bankruptcy.
The conclusion is undeniable: If anyone committed genocide, it was Hamas — on Oct. 7, and in the decades prior when it rained rockets on Israeli towns, sent suicide bombers to explode on civilian buses, and targeted men, women, and children in their beds.
When Mamdani hurls the genocide libel at Israel, his hypocrisy is hardly surprising. Critics like the New York Times’s Liam Stack may rush to claim that accusations of Mamdani’s affinity for Hamas are unfounded, but a quick fact-check tells a different story.
Mamdani’s record speaks for itself. Long before entering City Hall, he released a 2017 track praising the “Holy Land Five” — the leaders of a foundation convicted in federal court of funneling millions to Hamas. In 2021, he romanticized violence as a “right to resist” and championed a new intifada. More recently, the New York Post highlighted his backing of candidates dubbed “Hamas’s Team,” including Brad Lander, Claire Valdez, and Darializa Avila Chevalier — political allies linked with figures who celebrated Sinwar and refused to condemn the Oct. 7 atrocities.
MAMDANI’S TOUGH TALK EXPOSED AS DECEPTIVE VIRTUE SIGNALING
Instead of peddling fabrications about a nation fighting for its survival, Mamdani would do well to focus on his actual job: taking out the trash in New York City. Since he took office, major businesses continue to flee, and the city’s decline remains unaddressed.
Mamdani, please — go back to picking up the garbage.
Mendi Glik is a software engineer, political commentator, and columnist for the Jewish Press. He is also a contributor to JNS, focusing on electoral strategy and political analysis.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
