Mass Murder. Rape. Sexual mutilation. Babies burned alive. These were some of the barbaric acts perpetrated by Hamas terrorists when they invaded Israel from Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023. Yet it is the victims of this attack, the Israelis, who are being accused of committing genocide. How can this be? The answer is quite simple. It is part of a strategic cover-up by Hamas to divert attention away from their genocidal crimes.
Much of the media and world institutions have been complicit in spreading this lie about Israel, including the latest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, Navi Pillay, who was head of a United Nations commission that accused Israel of genocide. Thankfully, some media outlets have called out the sham of awarding a “peace” prize to someone endorsing this modern-day blood libel. The Free Press branded it: “The Death of the Nobel Peace Prize.”
Lies about Israel have been circulating for years, especially on college campuses, including at the University of Toronto where I taught for over 20 years. Now, such propaganda is becoming increasingly entrenched.
For example, the University of Toronto and Princeton University both hosted conferences called “The Anti-Zionist Idea” in 2024 and 2025. On the surface, the topic sounds innocuous. Were these conferences dedicated to a scholarly examination of the rise of anti-Zionism? Were pro-Zionist perspectives represented? I clicked on the conference website to check out the details. When I encountered the phrase “the ongoing genocide in Gaza,” I realized that these conferences were more of the same: an attempt to use the lie about genocide to demonize Israel and the Jews, though legitimized by being held in “respectable” academic venues.
Let us set the record straight. The charge that Israel is committing genocide has no basis in fact. Just read the conclusions reached by the urban warfare specialist John Spencer, who has studied the war in Gaza at length.
After Oct. 7, Israel attacked Gaza to uproot the terrorist infrastructure and bring home those brutally kidnapped by Hamas. Spencer determined that there is no evidence of genocidal intent on the part of Israel, nor are there indications of a campaign of extermination against the people of Gaza. Quite the contrary: Israel provided massive truckloads of food to Gaza, sent polio vaccines to administer to Gazan children, and warned the population through leaflets and phone calls to move into safe zones to avoid civilian casualties. In fact, the figures show that the Gazan population had actually grown in size since the war began.
Nevertheless, like most conspiracy theories, the genocide charge continues to spread.
So why does this falsehood still have legs? Is it simply a resurgence of antisemitism? Is it a political tool utilized to sow discord? Or is it an attempt to undermine Israel’s legitimacy as a sovereign nation?
All of these explanations contain some truth. But they miss something fundamental: The lies about Israel are part of a strategic cover-up, not of crimes committed by Israel but against it.
In fact, the accusation that Israel has committed genocide is not only a lie to conceal the terrorists’ crimes — it is also a crucial part of a broader campaign to shift attention away from the stated desire of terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah to destroy Israel and replace it with an Islamist state.
Let us look at the mechanics of this deception. A key element of this cover-up is inversion: accusations directed at Israel mirror the very acts or intentions of those making the accusations. Israelis are described as “genocide” perpetrators and “baby killers,” while the deliberate murder of Israeli civilians, including children, by Islamic terrorists is minimized, contextualized, or pushed out of the discussion altogether.
When Hamas terrorists invaded Israel on Oct. 7, they murdered civilians on a massive scale. This included the barbaric killing of children and babies, at times decapitating them or burning them alive in front of the children’s own parents. How do we know this? Because the terrorists filmed it on their body cameras and other devices to show the world. The video clips reveal that they were proud of their savagery, often laughing and celebrating as they raped and murdered. That is, until they realized that the world might be squeamish about hearing about these atrocities and would turn against them.
So, within hours of the Oct. 7 massacre, they launched a propaganda campaign to cover up their crimes. The storyline was effectively turned on its head: Israel and the victims of the October 7 attack were immediately recast as the primary perpetrators of violence, even though the Israeli army did not enter Gaza for weeks after Oct. 7.
How does such a false narrative gain traction? Through repetition.
If you pay attention to how this type of propaganda works, you will see that repetition is crucial. The same words, slogans, and accusations are repeated across different countries and institutions until they become familiar and, eventually, accepted as self-evident. Thus, if you listen closely, you will hear the same slogans chanted at university demonstrations in Berkeley and Oxford, at protests outside synagogues in New York and Paris, and at marches through Jewish neighborhoods in Toronto and Amsterdam. Media outlets, educational institutions, elected officials, and unions pick up the slogans and use them for their own purposes, whether it be to win votes, curry favor with segments of the population, or raise money.
One of the most prominent slogans is: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” Free from what? From Jews, of course. You don’t need an advanced degree in Middle Eastern history to know what that means. It is the intent to destroy an entire population. In other words, genocide. Indeed, that is the stated goal, as made explicit in the Hamas Charter. It states: “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.”
This brings us back to the university conferences. What happens when an academic gathering begins with the false assumption that Israel is committing genocide?
I WAS TAUGHT TO HATE JEWS AS A CHILD. OCT. 7 IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THAT HATRED WINS
If scholars tell an audience that Israel is engaged in genocide and therefore represents a uniquely evil and illegitimate state, the discussion has already moved beyond an examination of evidence. The conclusion has preceded the investigation. It also serves the dual purpose of providing the perfect excuse to exonerate the terrorists and their heinous crimes. Without the genocide lie and other related libels, there would be no grounds for vilifying Israel. The terrorists would stand naked, their evil exposed. And all their justifications and fabrications would come crashing down like a house of cards.
But so long as academics and U.N. bodies continue to spread lies about Israel in order to cover up the Islamists’ genocidal intentions toward Israel and the Jews, they are the best helpers the terrorists could ask for.
Sharon Hart-Green has served as Associate Professor in the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations at the University of Toronto, and is the author of Come Back for Me: A Novel.