The Blood Libel Refuted: How Israel’s Ceasefire Exposed the Genocide Lie
From humanitarian restraint to full compliance with Trump’s Gaza peace plan, Israel’s actions reveal moral clarity and disproportional care; not destruction. The refusal of Hamas to disarm now defines
In my inaugural post, Blood Libel #1: “Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians,” I laid out a scripted debate to dismantle the accusation that Israel’s defensive war against Hamas constitutes genocide. Drawing on the UN Genocide Convention’s strict definition which requires specific intent to destroy a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group “as such,” I argued that Israel’s actions, from humanitarian warnings and aid facilitation to Gaza’s population growth amid conflict, prove the opposite: a targeted effort to neutralize a terrorist threat and recover the 251 hostages Hamas kidnapped during their genocidal attack on October 7, 2023 and not an intent to eradicate the Palestinian people, 2 million of whom live as citizens of the State of Israel with full rights and privileges of citizenship. Civilian suffering, I emphasized, correlates with war but is caused by Hamas’ human shield tactics and rejectionist ideology.
This isn’t just vindication. It’s a stark reminder of the blood libel at play. False accusations that demonize Israel while ignoring the true genocidal actors.
The ceasefire established following President Trump’s 20-point Gaza peace plan, we possess irrefutable factual evidence that validates this distinction: no genocidal intent ever existed. Israel’s full acceptance and prompt adherence to the plan, which led to an immediate cessation of major combat operations, demonstrates a clear prioritization of limited, achievable security objectives over any purported aim of eradication.
The speed and sincerity of Israel’s de-escalation offer the strongest possible counter-evidence to the genocide claim. However, as a result of Hamas’ failure to accept Trump’s 20-point plan, which contains all the conditions necessary for peaceful co-existence and self-governance in Gaza, the focus now shifts to negotiations. History has demonstrated that the prospect for lasting peace remains precarious, hinging entirely on Hamas’s willingness to disarm and cede control. If, god forbid, this ceasefire collapses (which I believe it will), the responsibility for the resumption of conflict will rest with Hamas and not with Israel who has unconditionally accepted a path to peace and all 20-points proposed by the Trump Administration.
The Trump 20-Point Plan: Factual Proof Against Intent to Destroy
President Trump unveiled his ambitious 20-point framework on September 29, 2025. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accepted the plan without conditions. This action alone, halting a military campaign upon political concession, serves as a powerful factual refutation of genocidal intent. A military operation driven by the specific intent to destroy a people cannot be unilaterally paused for a diplomatic and humanitarian exchange.
Key actions executed in Phase 1 that definitively prove Israel’s limited objectives:
Immediate Ceasefire for Hostages: The operation was immediately halted to facilitate the release of the final 20 living hostages (and the exchange of remains). The prioritization of securing the release of captives over continuing military objectives directly refutes an “intent to destroy.”
Surge of Aid and Humanitarian Care: Following the ceasefire, aid inflows surged dramatically, stabilizing at pre-2025 levels of over 500 trucks daily. Documentation shows a stockpile of 170,000 to 190,000 tons of aid post-ceasefire. Furthermore, supportive analyses noted Israel’s actions during the conflict, such as facilitating polio vaccinations for Gaza’s children, demonstrate purposeful, intentional care to preserve life, directly undermining the legal actus reus of genocide.
Demographic Reality: Genocide, by definition, requires the destruction of a substantial part of a group. Despite approximately 67,000 reported fatalities (per UN estimates), Gaza’s population has grown by roughly 10% since 2023. These numbers, while reflecting tragic loss, do not align with the rate and demographic goal of genocidal decimation, such as the calculated speed of the Rwandan genocide.
As Dinah Bucholz highlighted in her recent Tangle essay entitled J’accuse, reinforced by BESA Center data, the verifiable munitions-to-casualty ratios and the massive inflow of aid (approaching one ton per person) are metrics that substantiate a targeted counter-terrorism operation, not a campaign of mass destruction.
The Precarious Road to Peace and the Burden of Responsibility
The plan’s Phase 2, currently under negotiation in Egypt, offers a roadmap for long-term stability: disarmament, a smooth governance transition, and massive infrastructure redevelopment, facilitated by broad support from Arab partners. This vision of a “deradicalized, terror-free zone” where Gaza’s civilians can benefit from regional modernization confirms that Israel’s objective is political security, not demographic elimination.
However, the path remains precarious. While Israel accepted the plan unconditionally, Hamas responded with reservations, specifically hedging on the crucial element of full disarmament. History demonstrates that Israel has achieved lasting peace with willing partners, such as Egypt and Jordan. The current refusal by Hamas to fully disarm and relinquish power, clinging instead to a policy of “armed resistance,” is the single greatest impediment to sustained peace.
If the agreement frays, the resumption of hostilities will be a reactive act of self-defense, triggered by Hamas’s deliberate choice to retain its military capacity and continue its eliminationist agenda. To those deeply distressed by the continued suffering of Palestinians, we must acknowledge that enabling the rejection of a viable peace plan based on maximalist demands prolongs that anguish. The path to coexistence is now defined by the Trump plan’s framework. Hamas’s refusal to follow this framework perpetuates the conflict.
Upholding the Integrity of a Definition
The objective analysis of the facts confirms that the actions taken by Israel following October 7, 2023, were military, tactical, and responsive, with a demonstrated capacity for unilateral de-escalation. The full adoption of the Trump peace plan and the subsequent halt in major combat operations definitively negate the presence of specific intent to destroy the Palestinian people as a group.
Accusations, as Bucholz notes, may persist due to systemic international bias, such as the disproportionate number of UNHRC resolutions targeting Israel. However, the ICJ’s initial “plausibility” finding is continuously undermined by the factual evidence of de-escalation and humanitarian prioritization. To conflate war crimes and the immense suffering of conflict with the specific, institutional crime of genocide is to undermine the legal standard itself. We must uphold the integrity of this crime, allowing the facts, not political passion, to define the truth.
The facts demonstrate the blood libel, in its legal sense, has been functionally refuted.
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What do you think? All constructive and fact-based discussion is welcome.