Israel isn't the only nation harmed by Mamdani's 'genocide' charge

Survey Highlights Public Divisions on Genocide Definitions Across Conflicts

When former New York Mayor Bill de Blasio defended Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s description of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a “war criminal,” he cited the scale of civilian casualties in Gaza as a primary factor. Similar characterizations of Israeli actions as war crimes or genocide have appeared in statements from some progressive figures and media outlets.

A survey of 505 Americans conducted by Irwin J. Mansdorf and Charles Jacobs examined how respondents apply the term “genocide” to various historical and contemporary conflicts. The poll found that 54.6 percent described Israel’s military response to the October 7, 2023, attacks as genocide. Among subgroups, Democrats and younger respondents showed higher rates of applying this label. The same survey reported that 63 percent applied the term to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and 52.3 percent to Islamist attacks on Black Christian communities in parts of Africa. Nearly 44.5 percent characterized the 1945 U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as genocide, while more than 40 percent applied the label to U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

The authors note that the legal definition of genocide, as established in the 1948 UN Genocide Convention following work by Raphael Lemkin, requires specific intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group in whole or in part. Civilian casualties alone, regardless of scale, do not meet this threshold under the convention; additional evidence of intent is required. The survey tested whether reminding respondents of Hamas’s stated goals altered their assessments and reported little change in responses.

The article references several U.S. historical cases involving high civilian tolls, including the atomic bombings ordered by President Harry Truman, the strategic bombing campaigns under President Franklin Roosevelt, and the escalation of U.S. operations in Vietnam under President John F. Kennedy. It asks whether consistent application of a “civilian deaths equal genocide” standard would lead to similar labels for those actions.

The survey also found that almost half of respondents either did not know or disagreed that radical Islamist groups carried out the September 11, 2001, attacks. The authors link this result to broader patterns of how historical events are recalled.

Separately, the International Court of Justice has ongoing proceedings examining whether Israeli operations in Gaza meet the criteria of the Genocide Convention. The court has issued orders addressing a plausible risk of rights under the convention and required Israel to take measures to prevent genocidal acts, while Israel maintains that its operations target Hamas and comply with international law. These proceedings remain unresolved.

Mansdorf is affiliated with the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, and Jacobs founded the International Freedom Coalition, which focuses on communities affected by jihadist violence. The survey results are presented without independent verification of sampling methods or full dataset release in the authors’ account.

The distinction between humanitarian consequences of warfare and the legal category of genocide rests on the element of specific intent. Under international law, actions resulting in civilian deaths may be assessed as violations of distinction or proportionality rules without constituting genocide. The authors argue that imprecise use of the term across multiple conflicts reduces its precision in legal and historical analysis.