My U.N. Commission’s Finding: Israel Is Committing Genocide.

Sept. 16, 2025
By Navi Pillay

Genocide. There, I said it. The forbidden word. The one Western diplomats choke on like a chicken bone at a gala dinner. The one journalists smuggle into their drafts only to have editors replace it with “tragic humanitarian crisis.”

But I don’t toss words around for sport. In Rwanda, I presided over trials where we convicted men who literally broadcast “kill the cockroaches” before unleashing the machetes. I know what genocide looks like. And I know what it smells like when the world pretends it’s perfume.

This is no accident of war. This is not “collateral damage.” This is Israel deliberately, systematically, coldly trying to destroy the Palestinian people in Gaza.

How do I know? Oh, let’s count the ways, shall we?

64,000 Palestinians killed. That’s more than the population of Monaco wiped out in two years.
18,000 children dead. Gaza is basically a graveyard with classrooms for headstones.
Life expectancy slashed from 75 to 40 in one year. Imagine your doctor telling you: “Congratulations, you’ve aged three decades overnight. Courtesy of U.S.-funded precision bombs.”
Hospitals reduced to rubble. Nothing says “we value life” like turning maternity wards into morgues.
Starvation weaponized. Israel’s siege didn’t “block aid”—it curated a slow-motion holocaust. One child now dies every single hour. And the civilized world’s reaction? Refresh Twitter, release a statement, send more bombs.

But genocide isn’t just in the body count. It’s in the intent. And intent is not whispered—it’s screamed from the podiums in Tel Aviv.

Yoav Gallant: “We are fighting human animals.” Translation: open season.
Isaac Herzog: “The entire Palestinian nation is responsible.” Translation: every crib, every playground, every grandmother is a target.

Imagine Nazis shouting “the entire Jewish people is guilty” and then watching the world debate if that was maybe just… a poor choice of words.

And then there’s the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation—Washington and Tel Aviv’s Frankenstein project to replace the UN. Aid with an Israeli logo stamped on it, delivered at gunpoint, where kids are shot in breadlines. They called it humanitarian. I call it Hunger Games: Occupied Territory Edition.

The international community, of course, excels at performance art. They wring their hands, issue communiqués, and pose for photo ops with sad eyes. All while keeping the arms factories running overtime. Biden sheds tears on camera, then ships bunker busters. Europe moans about “grave concern,” then signs trade deals. Concerned but complicit—the G7 should trademark it.

And my favorite argument? “We can’t call it genocide while the war is ongoing.” Right, because the law is apparently like a Michelin Guide—you can only rate the restaurant once everyone has choked to death on the soup.

The International Court of Justice already warned in January 2024 that there was a “serious risk of genocide.” That was 30,000 corpses ago. If this were a fire alarm, the world would still be debating whether smoke “technically counts” as fire while the house collapses.

Let’s not sugarcoat: the Security Council is not a guardian of peace. It’s a graveyard of conscience with five gravediggers holding veto shovels. “Never Again” was engraved in marble after the Holocaust. But apparently, the fine print read: Never Again (some conditions may apply, void where inconvenient).

Yes, Hamas committed atrocities. Our Commission documented them. But Israel turned those crimes into a license for genocide, with the international community as its enablers. They did it first is not a legal defense—it’s a schoolyard excuse. Except here, the bully has nukes and a lobby in Washington.

So what now? The law is clear. The obligations are binding. The evidence is overwhelming. Every government that continues to send weapons, block aid, or sit on its hands is not neutral. It is complicit. Period. End of debate.

One day, history books will ask: what did the world do when Gaza was being erased in real time? Did leaders act, or did they write op-eds about “complexity”? Did citizens march, or did they binge Netflix while scrolling past livestreamed genocide on their phones?

history books will ask: what did the world do when Gaza was being erased in real time? Did leaders act, or did they write op-eds about “complexity”? Did citizens march, or did they binge Netflix while scrolling past livestreamed genocide on their phones?

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