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Frank Visser, graduated as a psychologist of culture and religion, founded IntegralWorld in 1997. He worked as production manager for various publishing houses and as service manager for various internet companies and lives in Amsterdam. Books: Ken Wilber: Thought as Passion (SUNY, 2003), and The Corona Conspiracy: Combatting Disinformation about the Coronavirus (Kindle, 2020).

Debunking the Genocide Allegations

Frank Visser / ChatGPT

Summary of the BESA Counter-Argument

The BESA report, authored by Danny Orbach, Jonathan Boxman, Yagil Henkin, and Jonathan Braverman, aims to challenge the legal and factual basis for labeling Israel's actions in Gaza as genocide.[1] Its core claims and lines of reasoning include:

Questioning the Starvation Argument

The report argues that allegations Israel deliberately starved the Gazan population rest on erroneous or inflated data (e.g. about how many trucks of goods must enter Gaza daily) and circular citation among humanitarian sources.

It claims that, for much of the conflict, Israel delivered more food than pre-war baselines and often exceeded thresholds that human rights groups themselves had posited as necessary to avoid mass death.

It concedes that at some junctures aid deliveries were halted (e.g. March 2025), but frames that as a (mistaken) policy decision rather than evidence of intent to starve.

Emphasizing Context: Urban Warfare and Hamas's Tactics

The authors insist that many critiques ignore the extreme constraints facing an army operating in dense, tunnel-infested urban terrain.

They point to Hamas's use of “human shields,” embedding military infrastructure in civilian buildings, use of schools and hospitals, booby traps, subterranean tunnels, and civilian presence in battle zones to shape the battlefield.

In their view, Israel's errors and civilian deaths must be understood in that constrained environment, not in a vacuum.

Lack of Evidence for Systematic, Deliberate Massacre

The report contends there is no credible forensic evidence of widespread, close-range executions or systematic mass killings of Palestinians by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).

It suggests that many allegations of deliberate killing are small in number (the authors cite maybe 61 fatalities in certain claims) and are sometimes based on unverified or dubious sources.

The authors acknowledge that war crimes may have occurred (on an individual level), but argue that these do not constitute evidence of a state policy of extermination.

Challenging the Use of the Term “Genocide”

The authors warn that overuse of the genocide label risks diluting its legal and moral force. They argue that if every brutal urban conflict is labeled genocide, the term becomes meaningless in practice.

They argue that many claims rely on circular reasoning—or on “certainty mirages,” i.e. presenting uncertain or contested claims as settled facts.

They emphasize methodological skepticism: claims must be scrutinized, data cross-checked, and sources critically assessed, especially in closed conflict zones.

Critique of Gaza Data Sources and Methodologies

The report questions the reliability of casualty data from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Ministry of Health (GMOH), suggesting manipulation, misclassification, or exaggeration of civilian proportions.

It accuses various human rights agencies and UN bodies of adopting flawed or biased methodologies—e.g. defaulting to assuming Israeli sources are untrustworthy and Gazan sources are neutral, employing “inverse information funnels” to multiply certain claims, and failing to revise or retract erroneous claims with sufficient visibility.

Caveats and Transparency

The authors do not claim Israel is innocent of all wrongdoing. They accept that individual war crimes are possible and call for accountability.

They frame their analysis as provisional and subject to further review as new data and forensic evidence emerge.

In short, the BESA report's argument is: Yes, Gaza has suffered terribly; yes, civilian deaths have occurred; but those facts alone do not amount to genocide. The authors demand a more disciplined methodology, stricter evidentiary standards, and contextual sensitivity to warfare realities.

Strengths of the Counter-Argument

The BESA report offers several elements that strengthen its credibility in the broader debate. It does not simply dismiss all claims but attempts to engage them rigorously. Some of its strengths include:

Empirical ambition: The report is lengthy and detailed, systematically addressing many of the common claims (starvation, indiscriminate bombing, casualty statistics) rather than relying on broad dismissal.

Methodological critique: It draws attention to how data can be distorted in conflict zones, and how human rights reporting sometimes gravitates toward sensational claims without fully disclosing uncertainties.

Context sensitivity: The authors emphasize the operational challenges of urban warfare, including asymmetric threats and embedded adversaries, and warn against evaluations that ignore “ground truth” constraints.

Balanced acknowledgment: The report concedes possible wrongdoing and calls for accountability (rather than claiming a perfect record).

Strategic framing of the genocide term: The authors caution about linguistic inflation, arguing that misuse of genocide could weaken serious accountability in future conflicts.

Because the authors engage many of the same sources their critics use (UN data, NGO reports, media claims), the report invites counter-dialogue rather than reflexive dismissal.

Weaknesses, Critiques, and Open Questions

Even strong critiques have vulnerabilities, and the BESA analysis is no exception. Here are key criticisms and issues that remain open.

Intent Remains the Central Challenge

The genocide claim does not rest solely on outcome or scale, but on intent. Even if many of BESA's factual criticisms are correct, they may not fully address whether certain decisions or tactics reflect a broader intent to destroy (in whole or in part) a protected group.

The report tends to emphasize the absence of overt orders or mass execution videos, but intent is often inferred from patterns, omissions, or sustained policies (e.g. siege, blockade, withdrawal of aid). Critics may argue that BESA gives too much weight to strict forensic evidence.

Reliance on Israeli Sources and Potential Biases

The report often relies on Israeli government agencies (e.g. Israel's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, COGAT) or IDF sources to contest claims. Critics will argue that these sources may not be neutral or fully transparent.

In contested war zones, governments naturally control classified or military intelligence. The burden of proof standard becomes asymmetric: critics must produce “smoking gun” evidence, while the state can withhold key material.

Underestimating Uncertainty and Cumulative Effects

The BESA authors criticize human rights groups for overstating certainty, but they sometimes treat data gaps more pessimistically than warranted. In other words, in downplaying worst-case allegations, they may discount patterns that demand scrutiny.

Even if individual cases are ambiguous, the cumulative pattern of civilian deaths, displacement, and infrastructure destruction might plausibly be read (by others) as constituting a strategy of demographic or territorial transformation.

Selective Admission of Aid Interruptions

The report admits that Israel halted aid in March 2025, but frames this as a policy error rather than evidence of systematic intent. Critics might argue that intermittent withdrawal of vital supplies is exactly the sort of coercive pressure that could contribute to a genocidal logic.

The report's timeline endpoint (June 1, 2025) might exclude later developments that critics believe strengthen the genocide claim (for example, further siege, destruction of civilian infrastructure, or population transfers).

Risk of Downplaying Human Suffering

While the report repeatedly states that it does not intend to diminish suffering, critics may see its tone or approach as minimizing the lived reality of Gazans. In debates of atrocity, tone and framing matter. A forensic lens is necessary, but if it crowds out moral empathy, it may lose legitimacy among broader publics.

The insistence on proving “mass execution” or “explicit orders” may set an extremely high bar—one that few conflicts meet, thereby allowing states to evade accountability even when their conduct is deeply destructive.

Potential for “Methodological Overcorrection”

In pushing back against what it sees as overreach, the BESA report might err in the opposite direction—insisting on hyper-skepticism that treats all adverse claims as suspect unless incontrovertible. This, in turn, can impede credible investigation and accountability.

How This Fits into the Larger Debate

The BESA report is a powerful example of the counter-mobilization of narrative and methodology in the struggle over the meaning of Israel's conduct. It does three things in the public/international arena:

Offers intellectual and empirical ammunition for defenders of Israel, to contest genocide charges in legal, diplomatic, and media forums.

Elevates the standards of evidence and invites critics to engage more rigorously (or risk being dismissed as propagandists).

Serves as a reminder that legal questions—even about genocide—are not settled by moral sentiment alone; they require sustained fact-finding, skepticism, and contextual understanding.

For those arguing for the genocide accusation, the BESA report poses a challenge: they must respond to each factual or methodological critique, show that the pattern of destruction is more than a sum of ambiguous parts, and demonstrate that the cumulative logic points to intentional group destruction.

For neutral observers or courts, the value of the BESA critique is that it illustrates how messy and contested the evidence terrain is. Genocide is not a label that can be applied lightly, and counter-analyses like BESA's force discipline in how we interpret data from wartime.

NOTES

[1] "Debunking the Genocide Allegations: A Reexamination of the Israel-Hamas War from October 7, 2023 to June 1, 2025", The Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies , September 2025.