Over 75 retired US military leaders, legal experts reject Gaza genocide allegations

Misapplying the standard, they argue, risks rewarding adversaries who deliberately place civilians in danger while undermining the ability of the United States and its allies to defend themselves.

More than 75 senior retired US military leaders and legal experts rejected allegations that Israel committed genocide in Gaza in an open letter released Wednesday, on the third anniversary of Hamas’s October 7, 2023, massacre.

The letter, organized by the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), concludes that the genocide allegation is unsupported by the facts and does not meet the legal definition of genocide.

Among the signatories are former senior US military officers who commanded American forces in combat. Drawing on their military and legal experience, they argue that civilian casualties, however severe, do not in themselves establish the specific intent required for a finding of genocide.

According to the signatories, Israel has neither demonstrated an intent to destroy Palestinians as a group nor conducted its military campaign in a manner consistent with such an intent.

“Accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza is obscene,” JINSA President and CEO Michael Makovsky said. “It egregiously distorts the truth, the facts, and the law.”

Makovsky said the former commanders and lawyers who signed the letter understand both “the realities of war” and what he described as the unprecedented measures Israel has taken to limit civilian casualties.

Signatories point to IDF measures to protect civilians

The letter cites a series of measures taken by the IDF during the war, including advance warnings, evacuation instructions, protected corridors, tactical pauses, legal reviews of potential targets, and decisions to cancel strikes when civilians were present.

Those precautions, the signatories argue, have at times required Israeli forces to relinquish tactical advantages and expose their own personnel to greater risks.

The letter does not dismiss the scale of Palestinian civilian suffering in Gaza. Instead, the signatories say their own experience commanding American forces has taught them that civilian harm can occur even when militaries seek to comply with the laws of armed conflict.

“There is no perfect attack; there are only those in which commanders use all available information to make hard decisions and their best judgment to comply with legal obligations and protect civilians,” they wrote.

The signatories also distinguish between statements made by Israeli political officials and the conduct of the IDF. They condemn inflammatory rhetoric by Israeli politicians but argue that such statements cannot, by themselves, substitute for evidence of genocidal intent in the conduct of military operations.

‘The precedent established today’ could affect US forces

The letter also frames the debate as having implications beyond Israel.

The signatories warn that lowering the threshold for defining genocide could incentivize adversaries to embed military forces among civilians, exploit the resulting casualties, and then characterize otherwise lawful military operations as genocidal.

“The precedent established today will shape the conditions under which American forces fight tomorrow,” the letter states.

They call on those making genocide allegations to apply the Genocide Convention according to its legal requirements and to distinguish between civilian suffering caused by warfare, possible violations of the laws of armed conflict, and the separate and specific crime of genocide.

Misapplying the standard, they argue, risks rewarding adversaries who deliberately place civilians in danger while undermining the ability of the United States and its allies to defend themselves.

“Protecting civilians and preserving the ability of our nation to defend itself requires us to defend the truth when the laws of war are being distorted to make false charges of genocide,” the letter concludes.