Signaled Virtue

People first began accusing Jews of committing genocide in the late 90s. While the exact details have shifted over time, usually in response to new world events, the core has remained the same: the Jews are committing genocide against whites and/or Arabs by either killing them directly or enacting policies designed to drive them towards extinction.

The key is that these accusations have not once been true, meaning nobody is making these accusations because Jews are committing genocide – they’re making these accusations because they want people to believe that Jews are committing genocide.

The purpose of these ideas is generally to eliminate national guilt for anti-Jewish atrocities, which includes Arab and Palestinian participation in the Holocaust; European collaborationism with Nazi Germany; the American and Canadian shipment of Jews to Nazi Germany; and other examples of deep human cowardice in the face of vast evil. Instead of confronting their distasteful past, people sometimes choose to rewrite history the other way around in order to make them and their ancestors the “good guys.”

For that reason, it makes sense that accusations of Jewish-performed genocide are closely tied to accusations that the Jews themselves faked their own deaths. This includes Holocaust denial and 10/7 denial – the position that these events either didn't happen at all; were performed by the Jews against themselves as a “false flag” attack; or were exaggerated by the Jews for their own personal gain.

Since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7th, many people have renewed accusations of Jewish-sponsored genocide in order to provide cover for Hamas’s own genocidal ambitions, supported by systemically antisemitic states which have made formal statements with the accusation and filed charges in international courts. Regardless of who is making the accusation, the origins remain the same: a white supremacist conspiracy theory of Jews replacing “native” populations. That's why Hamas militants have been found to keep copies of Hitler's writings.

(If you want to know why so many pro-Palestinian advocates in America are repeating white supremacist conspiracy theories, read our explainer.)

Just as the Jews have not once in history come close to anything resembling a genocide, the Jews in Israel are not perpetuating a genocide. Military experts have noted the shockingly low ratio of civilian deaths in Gaza given the well documented human shielding tactics of Hamas. The alternative – to avoid killing any civilians at all – is not only impossible in modern warfare, but would prevent the killing of any significant number of Hamas terrorists, which is exactly why people criticize Israel for “excess” civilian casualties (as if there is any “acceptable” number of civilian deaths).

The end goal of the newest accusations – of an “ongoing genocide in Gaza” – is to justify “resistance” against Jews by characterizing them as an “oppressor” group. In America, these efforts have generally succeeded: recent polls have shown upwards of 60% of 18-24 year old Americans believe that Jewish people are oppressors, and a smaller percentage (but still over 50%) agree with the statement that the October 7th pogrom was “justified resistance.” Unsurprisingly, violence against Jews in America and around the world has skyrocketed as a result.

As we explained before, these accusations – despite coming predominantly from activists who call themselves “pro-Palestinians, not neo-Nazis” – are fundamentally rooted in white supremacy and Jew hatred.

TLDR: Neo-Nazis accuse Jews of committing genocide in order to cover up their ancestors' complicity in genocides against Jews; in order to justify past and future genocides against the Jews; and in order to cheapen the word “genocide” so future accusations of genocide levied by Jews against other groups are not taken seriously.