International human rights discourse has become deeply distorted by disproportionately targeting Israel while ignoring or minimizing severe human rights abuses occurring elsewhere in the world.
Political bias, media narratives, international institutions and activist movements selectively apply charged terms such as genocide, apartheid, starvation and disproportionate force exclusively to Israel.
This approach denies Israelis the same human rights protections afforded to others and transforms universal humanitarian principles into politicized tools.
Accusations leveled against Israel are legally flawed, historically misapplied and dismissive of Israel’s security concerns, democratic character and efforts under international humanitarian law, while overlooking terrorism, hostage-taking and the use of civilians as human shields by armed groups.
The Western ideological and indoctrination machinery appears to be working overtime. Daily, we are witnessing a mass-phenomenon of deliberately one-sided accusations being leveled solely against Israel, alleging human rights violations against Palestinians.
Openly slanted social media platforms, once-reputable international media outlets, politically biased United Nations bodies and human rights committees, politically pressured and influenced national and international leaders and parliamentarians, fomented university students and academic staff, and clearly ignorant show-biz celebrities, all unthinkingly accuse Israel of such crimes as genocide, apartheid, discrimination, cruelty and disproportionate military actions.
Curiously, all these “paragons of international virtue” appear to be selectively blind as to the human rights of everyone in the world except Palestinians. They ignore:
- The plight of millions of Iranian citizens being arbitrarily subjected, in real time, to daily brutal subjugation and the wholesale murder of thousands of them.
- The systematic butchering of tens of thousands of civilians from non-Arab ethnic groups in Darfur and El Fasher in Sudan in 2025.
- The extremely high 2025 civilian death toll and injuries in the Ukraine-Russia war.
- Systematic violence and state repression in Myanmar against the Rohingya and other ethnic minorities.
- Mass atrocities in Nigeria in attacks by the Boko Haram and other extremist groups.
- Massacres of Christians in churches and hospitals in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
- The intentional civilian targeting and extra-judicial killings in Tanzania by security forces during election-related unrest.
This hypocrisy and double standards by those claiming to protect universal human rights is glaring. They audaciously and undisguisedly ignore, and even deny, Israel’s human rights and protections and those of its citizens, those same rights that they so insistently and emotionally claim for Palestinians.
The politically manipulated and hypocritical choir of incited international accusers of Israel, fixatedly and disproportionately levels one-sided accusations, while flagrantly ignoring the fact that Israel and its citizens are no less deserving of human rights.
As such, they have inverted what should be a universally acknowledged and equally observed moral humanitarian standard into a cynical and one-sided political weapon, purposefully directed only against Israel.
They ignore the fact that the public in Israel suffer from ongoing and daily acts of terror by Palestinian terror groups and Islamist fanatics acting under the incitement, encouragement and financing of Palestinian leadership as well as of the Islamist regimes of Iran, Qatar and Turkey.
The impression one receives from this massive and manipulated international indoctrination machine singling out Israel is that they have deliberately chosen to forget, or deny, the tragic massacre, rape, butchery, burning, and torture of thousands of Israelis and foreign citizens on Oct. 7, 2023.
They seem to ignore the taking and holding of hundreds of hostages, and the cynical use by the Hamas Palestinian terror group of Palestinian civilians as human shields.
This narrow-minded and shallow point of view considers Israel to be the only international criminal, engaged in an illogical human-rights repression spree against Palestinians.
Catchphrases and buzzwords
Popular and easily repeatable internationally recognizable buzzwords and catchphrases, liberally and ignorantly declaimed against Israel, have become the lingua franca of this Western propaganda machine.
“Genocide,” “apartheid,” “colonialism,” “racism,” “starvation,” “settler-colonialism,” “indiscriminate destruction”—all are religiously, liberally and consistently directed only against Israel.
They are chanted and repeated at street demonstrations by ignorant, incited useful idiots, exclaimed unthinkingly in parliaments by politicians plying clearly partisan, anti-Israel, and often antisemitic bias. They figure in government statements driven by often naïve and uninformed leaders. They are exhorted by highly politicized international courts and bodies inspired and guided by political U.N. resolutions and partisan regional political and economic interests.
All this is being orchestrated through a meticulous, well-oiled and well-financed system of brainwashing, emanating from the coffers of the likes of Qatar, Iran and Turkey.
But sadly, this is all being willingly and enthusiastically absorbed and cheered-on by a woke-inspired international choir in Europe and other Western countries, all too willing to absorb and propagate such propaganda and brainwashing and to direct it solely against Israel.
Genocide
The malicious use of the buzzword “genocide” is particularly offensive and clearly contrived, as it has been deliberately copy-pasted from the horrific events of the Holocaust conducted by the Nazis with the aim of extinguishing the Jewish race.
The term “genocide” was coined by the Polish Jewish jurist Raphael Lemkin in 1944 as part of his attempt to initiate the drafting of an international convention criminalizing the acts of the Nazis against the Jews.
This cynical attempt to repackage the term genocide and to attribute it to Israel is blatantly superficial. It has been deliberately adopted by South Africa in its initiative accusing Israel at the U.N.’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) of violating the same 1948 U.N. Genocide Convention, by its actions in Gaza.
While this flawed accusation knowingly misinterprets the definition of the crime of genocide set out in the international convention, the ICJ nevertheless processes this South African allegation, supported by a curious group of some 14 states, openly hostile to Israel, that have joined in to this attempt at international lynching of Israel. These include such examples of democracy and humanitarian values as Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Ireland, Libya, Mexico, Nicaragua, Spain and Turkey.
The international propaganda machine has dutifully adopted South Africa’s flawed initiative and turned it into its main rallying cry against Israel.
In plying this false and misplaced genocide accusation against Israel, those states that have espoused and supported it, together with the masses of incited demonstrators that follow them, are conveniently ignoring the genocidal Islamist and Hamas rallying cry to eliminate Israel “from the river to the sea.”
The ICJ has not been petitioned to initiate any prosecution against those states supporting the calls for genocide against Israel, nor has the International Criminal Court (ICC) been petitioned to open any investigation against those leaders and international elements calling for the genocide of Israel and the Jewish people.
Apartheid
Equally offensive and contrived is the buzzword “apartheid” used against Israel that, like the genocide accusation, has simply been copy-pasted and repackaged to attribute to Israel the repressive South African institutionalized and legalized system of racial segregation and discrimination in which one racial group was deprived of its political and civil rights.
The source of the phenomenon of attributing to Israel the accusation of apartheid may be found in the infamous 1975 U.N. General Assembly Resolution 3379, initiated 50 years ago by the Soviet Union. This resolution labeled Zionism as racism. In adopting this resolution, the U.N. formally transformed itself into the main international vehicle openly generating, advocating and sanctioning discrimination against Israel. While the offensive determination of this resolution was revoked by the U.N. in 1991, the damage had been done.
The apartheid smear returned to haunt Israel with the 2001 U.N. World Conference against Racism in Durban, South Africa, where a choir of world leaders and nongovernmental organizations, led by PLO leader Yasser Arafat, accused Israel of apartheid.
The glib use of the term “apartheid” against Israel epitomizes the lack of understanding of that racist phenomenon, as well as an even wider misunderstanding of the character of Israel as an open, pluralistic, liberal and democratic society.
This false accusation knowingly ignores the fact that Israel is a multi-racial and multi-colored society. Israel’s Arab citizens and residents enjoy constitutional equality and freedom of expression. They exercise a strong and influential political presence in Israel’s parliament.
Arab citizens play a central role in all spheres of Israeli society. Arab judges serve in Israel’s court system, including as Supreme Court justices. Israeli Arabs serve as heads and senior staff of hospital departments and Israeli universities. Similarly, Arabs serve in Israel’s diplomatic and consular corps, as well as filling senior posts in the police and army.
Each religious community in Israel has its own religious court system, applying Sharia, Canon, Druze and Jewish law respectively and equally.
Unlike those Arab and other countries in which one religion is declared the state religion, or in Western countries where Christianity is the predominant religion, or even those Muslim countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia where certain areas, towns, and roads are restricted to “Muslims only,” where women are treated as second-class citizens and gay people as criminals, Israeli law regards Judaism, Islam and Christianity as official religions and constitutionally ensures complete freedom and equality to all.
Some human rights organizations and media sources base their apartheid claim on the allegation that Israel maintains differing legal systems for Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank areas of Judea and Samaria, including restrictions on movement and unequal access to land, resources or political rights.
However, such allegations deliberately ignore the fact that restrictions imposed by Israel in these areas are far from racial, and are not violative of human rights values, but purely security-driven in light of the prevailing situation in which a hostile Palestinian public, incited by Hamas and other terror organizations, with the support, encouragement and financing of the Palestinian Authority, engages in acts of terror and violence, to which Israel has the legitimate right under international humanitarian law to respond.
Starvation
The allegation of starvation has figured repeatedly in claims against Israel during its military activities against the Hamas terror organization in Gaza.
This is being promoted by the Palestinian leadership, using false statistics and supported by Arab and foreign media, the U.N., as well as by several international bodies including the ICC prosecutor.
While a measure of genuine hardship is faced by the civilian population in Gaza in the wake of the Oct. 7 massacre, this is not, in any manner, a deliberately generated policy of starvation.
It stems primarily from the lack of distribution of food already inside Gaza and the chaotic handling of incoming aid by the international bodies responsible for humanitarian supplies. This, in addition to the fact that aid trucks and their cargos are systematically and forcibly commandeered by Hamas, and their contents sold in the local markets at enhanced prices.
This starvation smear was given formal cognizance in the November 2024 politically influenced arrest warrant issued by the ICC prosecutor against Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu, specifically citing the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare.
The starvation allegations rely principally on a subsequently discredited August 2025 study by the U.N.-associated “Famine Review Committee.” This study was criticized internationally for serious methodological flaws and errors.
Despite these accusations of intentional withholding of humanitarian aid and starvation of the Palestinian population, Israel has repeatedly emphasized that it enables rapid and unimpeded passage of humanitarian relief for civilians in the Gaza Strip.
The famine accusation in Gaza has been proven false, according to the U.N.’s own statistics in July 2025. The World Food Program has confirmed the activity in food markets throughout Gaza, including sales of humanitarian aid, thereby contradicting claims of starvation.
Indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force and arbitrary destruction of property
These accusations are regularly disseminated in the West by the Hamas disinformation machine, knowing that they will be readily taken-up and amplified by those politicians and media outlets intent on vilifying Israel.
In pursuing military actions against the Hamas terror emanating from Gaza, and pursuant to its obligations under international humanitarian law, Israel goes to considerable efforts to limit its operations to ensure that uninvolved civilians are removed from areas endangered by military operations.
This, despite the deliberate and blatantly illegal use by Hamas of its civilian population in towns and villages as human shields. The use of private homes, schools and hospitals, as well as high-rise buildings, as tactical and strategic communications, intelligence, planning, storage and operating facilities is the accepted Hamas operational tactic. Its vast network of underground tunnels under civilian concentrations typifies its defiance of any humanitarian norms.
International humanitarian law prohibits such use of civilian infrastructure as human shields, and justifies military action directed proportionately against such legitimate military targets to prevent their continued use.
In seeking to remove innocent Gaza residents from such areas to enable military action against terror locations, Israel has taken all measures required by humanitarian law to minimize human suffering. Its actions are strictly directed against legitimate military targets
Conclusion
It is high time that the states and organizations within the international community, as well as international media outlets and the manipulated social media platforms, become aware of the absurdity and acute lack of any logical proportion in their anti-Israel fixation.
To fixate upon flawed accusations against Israel, while totally ignoring ongoing, proven and massive acts of violence, murder and repression throughout the world, is indicative of an ominous and disturbing historic precedent.
It is high time to replace this manipulative thinking and reconsider the actual situation in correct and logical proportion.
This massive international human rights hypocrisy, through the total inversion of values, aimed only at singling-out Israel, should be so obvious.
But sadly, it is not.
Originally published by the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs.
