The cease-fire has begun in Gaza, yet it appears that the genocide will continue. This genocide has raged for several decades, and has been funded and, in some cases, augmented by the West. Article II of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines Genocide as actions taken with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a National, racial, ethnic, or religious group. Whether one considers the Palestinians an ethnic group, or a National group, it is clear that they are in grave danger…from within.
To understand why, we must examine an unexpected similarity that links the Nation of Israel and those who identify as Palestinians, and separates both from many nations and peoples throughout history.
Jonathan Sacks noted that both the Israelites and ancient Egypt wrestled with the question of how to overcome death and achieve immortality. The Egyptian answer to that question, shared by many dictators, empires, and regimes throughout history, was to build monuments, and structures that would endure for thousands of years. Their stones would stand as eternal witnesses, testaments to their grandeur.
The Israelites had a very different answer to that question, one which Moses enumerated as the Jews prepared to leave Egypt after spending two hundred years as slaves. Rather than speaking of liberty, or the land of Israel that they were destined to enter, or the journey that lay ahead, he spoke about children, the future, and the responsibility to pass on knowledge to generations yet unborn. Moses understood that while freedom may be won temporarily on the battlefield, it is preserved via education. A people achieves immortality not by carving stones and building monuments, but by engraving their values on the hearts of their children—and through them, their children’s children—carrying their legacy forward, from generation to generation.
Both the Jews and the Palestinians grasped this fact. For the past 18 years, in the Gaza Strip, with funding and support from UNRWA, Palestinian children have been infused with an ideology that guarantees the untimely death of many of them. Despite overwhelming historical evidence to the contrary, their institutions teach them that Jews are colonizers in the very land in which Jews are, in fact, native; just as Chinese come from China and Syrians from Syria, Jews come from Judea.
To look forward, we must first look backward and better understand where the term Palestinian originates. In 130 AD, the Jews revolted against Roman rule in what is now called the Bar Kokhba revolt. In its wake, the Romans, bent on destroying Jewish attachment to the land, invented the name Palestine to replace Judea, the historic name of the country. This was a reference to the Philistines, traditional enemies of the Israelites, an ancient sea-faring people who settled near modern-day Gaza.
Prior to and during Ottoman Turkish rule over Israel, which culminated in the early 20th century, the Arab population of Israel did not identify as Palestinian. Nor was there a concerted effort to achieve self-determination, since there had never actually been a Palestinian state. In 12 centuries of Arab rule over Israel, while existing urban centers were enhanced, only a single new town (Ramleh) was established. Under the British Mandate, “Palestinian” was used to describe all inhabitants of the region, including Jews. In 1964, Palestinian Nationalism gained prominence with the birth of the PLO. Previously, the Arabs who lived in Israel were called Arabs, just as the Armenians, Turks, Druze were then called Armenians, Turks, and Druze.
In choosing the name Palestinians to describe the group who would be its alleged benefactors, the movement solidified its identity as one immutably tied to resistance against the existence of the state of Israel. In essence, the point of its existence was to erase the existence of the Jews in Israel. The perpetuation of this movement has not only led to ethnic cleansing against Jews, with a prime example occurring on October 7th during which 20 Jewish settlements were ethnically cleansed; in successive generations of Palestinians, particularly over the past 18 years of Hamas’s rule in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian children have been infused with an ideology that all but ensures a legacy of violence and death. It is time for a refresh on the definition of Genocide that includes as responsible those who teach and promote genocidal ideologies, and those who perpetuate ethnic conflict.
The cease-fire has begun in Gaza, yet it appears that the genocide will continue. This genocide has raged for several decades, and has been funded and, in some cases, augmented by the West. Article II of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines Genocide as actions taken with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a National, racial, ethnic, or religious group. Whether one considers the Palestinians an ethnic group, or a National group, it is clear that they are in grave danger…from within.
To understand why, we must examine an unexpected similarity that links the Nation of Israel and those who identify as Palestinians, and separates both from many nations and peoples throughout history.
Jonathan Sacks noted that both the Israelites and ancient Egypt wrestled with the question of how to overcome death and achieve immortality. The Egyptian answer to that question, shared by many dictators, empires, and regimes throughout history, was to build monuments, and structures that would endure for thousands of years. Their stones would stand as eternal witnesses, testaments to their grandeur.
The Israelites had a very different answer to that question, one which Moses enumerated as the Jews prepared to leave Egypt after spending two hundred years as slaves. Rather than speaking of liberty, or the land of Israel that they were destined to enter, or the journey that lay ahead, he spoke about children, the future, and the responsibility to pass on knowledge to generations yet unborn. Moses understood that while freedom may be won temporarily on the battlefield, it is preserved via education. A people achieves immortality not by carving stones and building monuments, but by engraving their values on the hearts of their children—and through them, their children’s children—carrying their legacy forward, from generation to generation.
Both the Jews and the Palestinians grasped this fact. For the past 18 years, in the Gaza Strip, with funding and support from UNRWA, Palestinian children have been infused with an ideology that guarantees the untimely death of many of them. Despite overwhelming historical evidence to the contrary, their institutions teach them that Jews are colonizers in the very land in which Jews are, in fact, native; just as Chinese come from China and Syrians from Syria, Jews come from Judea.
To look forward, we must first look backward and better understand where the term Palestinian originates. In 130 AD, the Jews revolted against Roman rule in what is now called the Bar Kokhba revolt. In its wake, the Romans, bent on destroying Jewish attachment to the land, invented the name Palestine to replace Judea, the historic name of the country. This was a reference to the Philistines, traditional enemies of the Israelites, an ancient sea-faring people who settled near modern-day Gaza.
Prior to and during Ottoman Turkish rule over Israel, which culminated in the early 20th century, the Arab population of Israel did not identify as Palestinian. Nor was there a concerted effort to achieve self-determination, since there had never actually been a Palestinian state. In 12 centuries of Arab rule over Israel, while existing urban centers were enhanced, only a single new town (Ramleh) was established. Under the British Mandate, “Palestinian” was used to describe all inhabitants of the region, including Jews. In 1964, Palestinian Nationalism gained prominence with the birth of the PLO. Previously, the Arabs who lived in Israel were called Arabs, just as the Armenians, Turks, Druze were then called Armenians, Turks, and Druze.
In choosing the name Palestinians to describe the group who would be its alleged benefactors, the movement solidified its identity as one immutably tied to resistance against the existence of the state of Israel. In essence, the point of its existence was to erase the existence of the Jews in Israel. The perpetuation of this movement has not only led to ethnic cleansing against Jews, with a prime example occurring on October 7th during which 20 Jewish settlements were ethnically cleansed; in successive generations of Palestinians, particularly over the past 18 years of Hamas’s rule in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian children have been infused with an ideology that all but ensures a legacy of violence and death. It is time for a refresh on the definition of Genocide that includes as responsible those who teach and promote genocidal ideologies, and those who perpetuate ethnic conflict.
Children’s shows on Al Aqsa TV in Gaza featured suicide bombers as heroes. Streets, schools, and mosques are dedicated to “martyrs”, those who died taking the lives of others. When I was an active duty soldier, in 2012, Al Aqsa TV interviewed the children of Hamas members who were killed in Israeli airstrikes. One girl said “I want to fire missiles at the Jews and be martyred like my father.” One boy interviewed shared, “I want to follow the path of Jihad like daddy and I want to be martyred like daddy.” One need only watch the videos of Gaza from this weekend to see this playing out in real time. Young children are brought out into the streets to celebrate the alleged victory of Hamas, a “victory” which has in reality led to the destruction of their homes and the deaths of tens of thousands. If this is promoted as a victory, its repetition at some future date is nearly guaranteed.
When I entered Gaza with my reserves battalion last October, I saw this false narrative firsthand – we found textbooks that were missing mention of the state of Israel. We saw plastic Katyusha rockets in children’s playgrounds, and real rockets under their beds. We found posters of terrorists in children’s’ bedrooms celebrating “Martyrs”, who had been killed after carrying out terror attacks against civilians.
There have been many crimes against humanity carried out in the Gaza Strip over the previous decades, but they are not the ones you will read about in the BBC or the NYT. These are crimes waged by Palestinian parents upon their children, by Palestinian leaders upon their population, and with the complacency and funding of the international community. The promotion of martyrdom as the ultimate achievement, and perpetuation of false narratives and dangerous ideologies which ensure future violence are irrevocably linked to legacy Palestinian cultural institutions. If you are looking for crimes against humanity, look no further.
About The Author
Corey Feldman is an American author, businessman, and a reserve soldier in the Israel Defense Force (IDF) Special Forces. He is a veteran of the Israel-Hamas war and has written A Line in the Sand: An American’s Story of Service and Sacrifice in the Israeli Special Forces. Click here to grab a copy today!
