Are We In The Last Days Before Final Judgment?

 

Following on from parts one and two about the current nation of Israel, I want to talk now about this subject in relation to end times (or more precisely, the end part of end times). At some point, Christ is coming again, not as a humble servant this time, but as a righteous King and Judge. No one knows exactly when that will be (Matthew 24:36), but it will happen, when the right Biblical prophecies have been fulfilled. And many Biblical scholars, especially on matters concerning Israel, believe that the end times will come in our lifetime (say, the next 50 years). I’ve often thought about how the world is changing so rapidly in recent times, and with exponential technological capacity and transhumanistic endeavours, I wonder whether there might be a reasonable supposition that the end times are imminent (this is a topic I explored more fully in an essay called “Will God intervene before we become gods?”)

Scripture has a lot to say about the process of God’s Final Judgement. First there’ll be some kind of Rapture event (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17) when Jesus comes for His church, taking believers to be with Him. Quite what that means literally we don’t know. Then we’ll have the Second Coming (Revelation 19:11-16) when Jesus comes with His church to establish His 1,000-year reign. Again, we are not sure what that literally means, or whether the 1,000 years are literal either, but we know His return will be dramatic, and it will bring justice to the world, rewarding the faithful, and judging those who have rejected Him. The Bible declares, ‘For the Lord Himself will descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God’ (1 Thessalonians 4:16). His coming will be unmistakable, and every person will stand before Him to give an account (Revelation 20:12).

If all this sounds strange to you, you have to remember first that this is exactly what we should expect from a God who made Himself known with the Word of Truth, and who has shown Himself to be reliable, loving, just and merciful every step of the way thus far. You also need to be aware that the Bible is a book full of fulfilled prophecies – most have been fulfilled, in fact – and there aren’t currently many still left to be fulfilled. Remember too that the Bible is alive and active (Hebrews 4:12) and continues to play out in the present and the future, as the final prophecies become fulfilled. It’s a dynamic set of books, where God’s plan is at the heart of every stage of the narrative, right up to the present day, and every future period.

According to scripture, several major prophecies must happen before the Second Coming, including: The tribulation period (Daniel 9:27, Matthew 24:21), The rise of the Antichrist (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4, Revelation 13), The battle of Armageddon (Revelation 16:16), and the Gospel preached to all nations (Matthew 24:14). After the prophecies leading up to the Second Coming of Christ, there are still a few major prophecies that remain after Christ returns. We have the judgment of the nations (Matthew 25:31-46). After Jesus returns, He will judge the nations based on how they treated His people during the tribulation. Then, Satan will be bound for 1,000 years (Revelation 20:1-3), where we are told an angel will seize Satan and lock him in the abyss for 1,000 years, where he will no longer be able to deceive nations. Then we have the millennial reign of Christ (Revelation 20:4-6, Isaiah 11:1-10), where He will rule from Jerusalem in a glorified and more direct way on Earth for 1,000 years. During this time, we are told there will be peace, righteousness, and restoration - but mortal humans will still be living and having children. Furthermore, some people born during this time will still choose to reject Christ, which says a lot in itself. We can expect that Satan is released much later on for a short time and there will be final rebellion (Revelation 20:7-10). During that time, Satan will deceive the nations once more, leading a final rebellion against Christ. But God will destroy this rebellion instantly with fire from Heaven, and Satan will be thrown into the Lake of Fire forever. Then we’ll have the final judgment of all unbelievers throughout history (Revelation 20:11-15), and the New Heaven and New Earth (Revelation 21:1-5, 2 Peter 3:10-13), where there will be no more death, pain, or suffering - only eternal joy and reign with God.

I grant you that if you’re not familiar with this kind of language, it sounds absurd. But once you become familiar with the genius of the Bible, and the notion that God created everything and is enabling His plan to unfold, this narrative isn’t just palatable, it is inevitable. Now, as I said, I don’t think we can comprehend to what extent some of these numbers are literal, or to what extent the drama and eventual denouement symbolises or reflects knowable things in the present day global unfolding, but it can be interesting to speculate on these things in relation to a current world that promises to be so radically different from anything we’ve ever experienced, certainly in terms of scale and magnitude. Because once you understand that the Bible is an active set of prophetic revelations, this stuff becomes interesting at a level beyond the narrative with which everyday social commentary preoccupies itself.

There are still several significant prophecies that believers and scholars believe have not yet been fulfilled, though there aren’t many unfulfilled prophecies left relative to the number of prophecies that have been fulfilled. That is why there are a growing number of the ecclesia who believe we are in the very last period of end times, and that Christ will return very soon. Of the key prophecies that have not yet been fulfilled, there is the rise of a global government or institution (Daniel 7, Revelation 13), and a future world leader (often referred to as the Antichrist) who will establish a one-world government and economic system. Famously, Revelation 13:16-17 describes a "mark of the beast" that will be required for buying and selling. There will also be the rebuilding of the third temple (Ezekiel 40-48, Daniel 9:27, 2 Thessalonians 2:4), where a new Jewish temple will be built in Jerusalem before the return of Christ. The battle of Gog and Magog in Ezekiel 38-39 speaks of a coalition of nations (presumably Arab) that will attack Israel, and we know that this has been a reality for Israel especially in the past 60 years. I note too that in the Psalm 83 war, it looks to be describing a future war where Israel’s neighbouring enemies (again, probably modern Arab nations, though likely Iran too) will unite against it (perhaps the nations listed - Edom, Moab, Ammon, Philistia, Tyre, and Assyria correspond to modern-day nations like Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, and maybe even fundamentalist Islam in the Palestinian regions). Revelation 13 prophesies the emergence of a charismatic world leader, making a peace deal with Israel, with a false religious leader supporting him, deceiving people with signs and wonders.

Isaiah 17:1 has a famous prophecy that predicts that Damascus (Syria’s capital) will be completely destroyed and left uninhabitable – and I don’t think this has ever happened in history, even though Damascus is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities. We all know what’s happening with Syria’s ongoing conflicts, and the wider Middle Eastern instability continually on a knife edge. The third horseman of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Revelation 6:5-6) describes hyperinflation and economic turmoil during the last days, and with digital currency and the spectre of a one world overarching institution, we could be vulnerable to this sooner than we think. We read of a massive falling away from the faith that will occur before the return of Christ (2 Thessalonians 2:3, Matthew 24:9-12), a significant division of Israel (Joel 3:2, Zechariah 12:2-3) – and this could be fulfilled when there is a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine, where a major peace agreement ironically causes conflict and division in the long run. Revelation 16:12 predicts the Euphrates River will dry up, making way for the armies of the east, and there will be an increase in natural disasters & pestilences (Luke 21:11, Matthew 24:7), where Christ warned of earthquakes, famines, and plagues in the end times – which I’ve always been unsure of, but then years ago I was unsure if we’d ever live through a global pandemic, and now we have, with more to come, surely.

I’m not denying the speculative nature of some of the specifics above – and nobody knows just exactly how all this will play out in terms of specific world events. But in all of this - amid the prophetic signs, global uncertainty, and rapid transformation of our world – we can have confidence that at the heart of the Biblical message is hope, where the culmination of God’s plan will be rooted in mercy and truth. And we don’t understand this properly until we understand that Israel is central to God's unfolding plan - past, present, and future. To understand God’s end time plan, we must understand the significance of Israel, both as a nation and as a people still chosen and cherished by Him.

 

Modern Israel From A Biblical Perspective

 

In a recent Blog post on Israel, I lamented how it has become increasingly fashionable among a certain segment of self-styled activists – most of whom come across as politically unseasoned and woefully underinformed - to adopt a fiercely anti-Israel stance, parroting slogans with the zeal of conviction but none of the burden of understanding. From a biblical perspective, it's unsurprising to me that so many modern people have a particular zeal against Israel - I believe it is frequently a disguised rejection of God. The Bible consistently presents Israel as central to God's redemptive plan, and I think that the anti-Israel stance that has emerged with such fervour has a lot to do with resistance to God's redemptive plan in general. I will elaborate on this shortly - and just to be clear, in saying this, I am not speaking against the genuine concerns that Israel's recent conduct towards some Palestinian civilians has started to become disproportionate to the cause, because there are some valid concerns there.

No, I am talking about how the huge rise in anti-Israel rhetoric (or in some cases antisemitism couched in anti-Israel rhetoric) is driven by a deep anti-Christ complex. What is often portrayed as a principled stand for justice is, in reality, a lazy moral absolutism that flattens decades of complex history into a social media soundbite or a trip to London to embarrass themselves with reactionary placards. Much of this outrage is driven not by a sincere grasp of the Arab-Israeli conflict, but by the ideological fervour of left-wing extremism that is oblivious to nuance and reduces geopolitics to a grossly oversimplified binary them vs. us mentality. This dogmatic lens not only insults the intelligence of anyone with a balanced mind, but also does a disservice to the actual people - Israeli and Palestinian alike - whose lives are shaped by the long-standing, tragic and tangled realities of this conflict.

My usual stance is to begin any Middle East conversation by stating that no party, group (or side if you prefer) comes out of this situation unimpeached – few who have influence are without fault in the conflict, which is highly complex and goes back decades, and in some cases, even longer. And that remains the case here. And in a post from a few years ago, I humbly submitted that the following propositions are probably true, regarding the conflict:

1) The religious/ethnic/cultural/political connotations of this conflict are highly complex, and go back centuries.

2) Both sides have a long and complicated history, in which both are at fault for their sub-optimal, reactionary treatment of the other group.

3) As usual, the innocent (and majority) Israeli and Arab citizens are the biggest victims of the actions of those driving the religious/ethnic/cultural/political agendas.

4) Hamas and other Islamic terrorist/fundamentalist groups are so dreadful that they are never going to be reasoned with or be seekers of a peaceful solution.

5) Those driving the Israeli religious/ethnic/cultural/political agendas have played their part in the division by treating many Palestinian citizens badly too, especially by enforcing a system of oppression against the Palestinian people.

6) At least some of the motives for Israel's restrictions on the Palestinians ought to be considered with regard to historical Arab desire to wipe out Jews/Israel and deny Israel its right to exist.

7) All the aforementioned mutual maltreatment is not ethically justified by the above observations, but probably goes a long way towards explaining them.

8} A two-state solution is frequently suggested as the best recourse, but as well as over-simplifying the history, it comes with two fundamental issues: Firstly, neither side really wants this solution, or behaves like they could achieve such a thing; and Secondly, deeply embedded religious/ethnic/cultural/political beliefs that date back centuries make it prohibitively unlikely that they could agree on how it would be implemented, especially given the deeply, age-old held religious beliefs about whose Holy Land it is.

I’m shocked that a wicked terrorist organisation like Hamas gains so much support from coddled left wing minds – it can only be explained by wilful ignorance, disguised compassion and selective virtue-signalling. But even though I’m shocked, I’m not that surprised; the West has a crisis of critical thinking, especially in the young - it makes them adopt the vilest opinions at times. You should know if you don’t already that the Hamas Charter includes “Destroying Israel and establishing an Islamic theocracy in Palestine is essential”, and “Unrestrained jihad is necessary to achieve this.” The covenant proclaims that Israel will exist until Islam obliterates it, and jihad against Jews is required until Judgement Day. Compromise over the land is forbidden. The documents promote holy war as divinely ordained, reject political solutions, and call for instilling these views in children. It’s hard to believe so many Western radicals are actually arguing for Hamas to be seen as being less horrid, selling themselves a lurid fantasy that all the torture, decapitation, rape and people being burned alive is just their peaceful way of hinting at a harmonious two state solution.

The ongoing need to protect Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state in a region with a long history of hostility should be evident. And as I said, while Israel doesn’t come out of this without some justified criticism, there is absolutely no justification for this awful swathe of anti-Semitic prejudice against Jews – historically they are a tremendous people with an excellent written tradition and many great innovators. The Jewish people are an insecure group - and understandably so, after being subjected to the Holocaust, continually being threatened with the eradication of their existence, repeatedly being victims of aggression by neighbouring Middle Eastern nations (thankfully all of whom they are much more powerful than militarily), and also being on the receiving end of some extreme factions of the Palestinian people - factions that are letting down their fellow Palestinians, who are innocent civilians trying to obtain basic human rights and not be oppressed. The very minimum responsibility for forming viewpoints is to adopt a thoughtful, compassionate and a balanced view.

While many view this as a political and territorial dispute, and it is to some degree – as I said at the top, I do not think we can understand the situation properly unless we also see it from a Biblical perspective, because Israel holds a unique place in God's plan. Scripture repeatedly affirms that God chose Israel as His covenant nation (Deuteronomy 7:6-8), although this does not mean that He loves Israel more than other nations. Rather, God’s election of Israel was for the purpose of bringing His light to the world (Isaiah 49:6) and ultimately ushering in the Messiah, through whom salvation is available to all people (John 3:16, Romans 10:12-13). And let me be clear once more, this divine priority does not exempt Israel from judgment or criticism - on the contrary, the Bible foretells that Israel will face immense tribulation in the last days (Zechariah 12:2-3, Matthew 24:15-22) because of their ungodliness. At the same time, it also speaks of a future peace when Israel will turn back to God and recognise Christ as the Messiah (Zechariah 12:10, Romans 11:25-26).

The ongoing struggle over Israel is not just a geopolitical issue but a spiritual one, tied to prophecies yet to be fulfilled.  I’ve often asked myself how we square Israel being God's chosen people with some of the things they've done wrong in the past 60 years. But I know that the Bible is clear that God’s choice of Israel was not based on their righteousness or moral superiority. In Deuteronomy 7:7-8, God explicitly says that He chose Israel not because they were greater or better than other nations, but because of His love and His covenant with their ancestors. And we can be frequently aghast at how, throughout our reading of the Old Testament, Israel frequently disobeyed God, engaged in idolatry, and even oppressed their own people. Yet, with His continued grace, patience and mercy, even in spite of their huge failures, God remained faithful to His promises. That the Lord shows each of us similar grace, patience and mercy is something for which Christians, above all, ought to be continually thankful. It is, at best, unbiblical and, at worst, deeply shameful that so many Christians disregard the perspective of Israel in this conflict, especially when in doing so they actively support groups that openly seek the destruction of God’s people.

Let’s be clear about this. As followers of Christ, we are called to seek truth, uphold justice, and love our neighbours. And this requires careful discernment, especially in complex global issues where suffering exists on all sides. But standing for truth does not mean abandoning biblical convictions or aligning with those who promote hatred and violence, even if you’re doing it accidentally by being unapprised of what you’re really doing. What I read repeatedly from scripture is that no individual Christian, church, or nation can truly thrive while standing in opposition to Israel. Scripture is clear: God’s promises to Israel are irrevocable, and His covenant with them endures. To position oneself against Israel - whether through apathy, hostility, or de facto support for those who seek its destruction - is to place oneself at odds with the purposes of God. History testifies that blessing Israel brings blessing; while cursing it invites judgement.

And let me reiterate something vital to the cause, lest you accuse me of being partisan. The Bible actually shows that God holds Israel to a higher standard. In Amos 3:2, God tells Israel, "You only have I chosen of all the families of the earth; therefore, I will punish you for all your sins”. This pattern plays out in history: when Israel turned away from God, they faced judgment - whether through exile (Babylonian captivity), defeat, or internal division. The same principle applies today: being chosen does not exempt Israel from being accountable for moral or political failures. And it’d be remiss to not point out that the Israel of today is a secular nation-state, not the theocratic kingdom that existed in biblical times. While modern Israel’s existence is a fulfilment of prophecy (Ezekiel 37:21-22), its government is not necessarily operating under biblical principles. Many Jews in Israel today are secular or even atheist, and the nation’s policies are not always biblical ethics, which means there is reaping in the sowing.

The sad truth is, the nation of Israel has been in a constant state of war since its founding in 1948. It has been attacked multiple times by neighbouring countries and terrorist groups (Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, later Iran through proxies, and recently Hamas, Hezbollah, and other Islamic jihadis, including Iran again). And I must stress this point too; even though Israel's behaviour towards the Palestinians has been harsh, disproportionate, and reckless at times, especially around restrictive measures, you can’t begin to understand this except through the lens of perspective that understands being surrounded by countries and tribal ideologies that want to wipe them off the map, and will use any squalid tactic to achieve this. Israel is not just fighting a local territorial dispute; it is fighting for its very survival in a region where multiple enemies openly call for its total annihilation. Understanding this reality is key to making sense of Israel’s decisions, however tough and imperfect they may seem on the surface.

You may recall, in 2005, Israel withdrew completely from Gaza, leaving it to Palestinian self-rule. The hope was that Gaza would flourish, but instead, Hamas took over in 2007, and since then, Gaza has been a launchpad for thousands of rocket attacks on Israeli cities. Every ceasefire has been broken by Hamas. The presence of Israeli military checkpoints and security measures may seem harsh, but they are there because previous terrorist attacks - including suicide bombings in Israeli cities - came from the West Bank. When Israel relaxed these security measures, terror attacks increased, quelle surprise. It’s easy to look at Israel’s recent policies toward the Palestinians - checkpoints, military operations, restrictions on movement - and see them as oppressive. However, these measures exist in no small part because past attempts at peace have been met with terrorism, not cooperation. Even when Israel makes genuine attempts at inviting peace, history shows that it has been unable make peace with entities who calls for its destruction and denies its people the right to exist. For all concerned in the Middle East, I hope and pray things improve.

In the next blog post on Israel, I will look at the situation in terms of biblical prophecies, especially end time prophecies.

The Real Obstacles to Aid in Gaza

 

Sky News and the WHO (both of whom I wish knew better) say in this article that “Gaza faces 'man-made' mass starvation due to Israeli aid blockade, where the Israeli government is creating "chaos, starvation, and death". It’s deeply regrettable how the mainstream media peddles this kind of toxic, narrow, anti-Israel reporting. So many people are getting sucked in by this squalid mainstream media attempt to disproportionately frame the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through an ideological lens that attempts to flatten the true complexity of the situation. We really should do better as a nation than churning out this perverse narrative that sacrifices nuance and fact for click-driven outrage.

I have friends and family based in the region who regularly share with us what’s going on there – and these are deeply kind and humanitarian Christians whose testimony is far more powerful and reliable than the media ideologues who push this kind of unbalanced reporting. No one disputes that the situation in the region is grim, desperate and tragic. But this is also a deeply complex and politically charged crisis with layers that stretch right into to the heart of the evil and corruption of Hamas, and the concomitant logistical difficulties in aid distribution. As is usually the case, the innocent victims in all this are citizens under this influence of this brutal Hamas regime.

For a more balanced view, just consider for a moment how tough and complex it is trying to administer aid in a region under the heavy influence of a brutal terrorist group like Hamas, governed by a State that knows this terrorist group wants to obliterate their very existence. The primary reasons why so many Palestinians are desperate and suffering is because of Hamas. Because of Hamas’s murderous influence in the region, there are inevitable aid restrictions and delays at border crossings; there have been grotesque destructions of infrastructure, water systems, and hospitals; and access barriers inside Gaza that make it hard for UN and NGOs to operate, even when aid gets in. In an environment where Hamas controls citizens with its despicable ideology, loots aid, uses human shields for combat, uses fuel or metal pipes to build rockets or tunnels to attack Israel, all embedding in civilian zones, it’s sadly inevitable that aid distribution will be problematic.

When Israel allows aid in, it too frequently doesn't reach the people who need it because of the Hamas-led breakdown of governance in Gaza and minimal coordination. Many aid trucks have been looted en route, and safe distribution is almost impossible in certain areas. There are limited operational NGOs – and many NGOs have had to leave or suspend operations due to airstrikes, lack of security, or destroyed facilities. The influence of Hamas in the region means aid workers lack the fuel, staff, or security guarantees to distribute the aid effectively. The problems also mean there is frequently no supply of electricity, making food storage impossible, destroyed infrastructure, minimal clean water and medical care – for some, the entire system of survival has been collapsing beneath their feet.

There is, clearly, the need to consider the confluence of overlapping difficulties in targeting and restricting Hamas and the collective punishment that Palestinians endure as a result, but imagine what it’s like trying to operate in conditions where Islamic thugs continually wish to eradicate you and your people. It’s not possible to interpret this situation in good conscience and still conclude that the Israeli government is creating "chaos, starvation, and death".

I’m afraid the devastating truth is, Hamas’ presence and tactics create conditions where mass starvation becomes almost inevitable, especially when combined with the destruction of infrastructure and the collapse of aid systems. Wicked terrorist organisations like Hamas do not make very good agents for governance, and the Palestinian people are sorry victims in this mess.

The Psychology of Thinking Israel is Committing Genocide

Do you think Israel is currently committing genocide in the Middle East? I don’t, but I can see from social media activity that many people do. If you’re one of them, then I’d encourage you to consider why it is you think that. In a moment, I’ll explain why I don’t believe Israel is committing genocide, but before I do, I think there are principally four reasons why someone might be under the misapprehension that Israel is committing genocide - and they range from very bad to bad. I’ll list them hierarchically, from very bad to bad. 

1)    Malicious intent: The individual is blatantly anti-Israel (maybe in some cases hatefully anti-Semitic), and will accuse Israel of genocide reflexively, regardless of facts or definitions, as a way of demonising the state. 

2)    Ideological thrall: The individual holds a rigid, extreme leftist ideological worldview - often aligned with radical activist frameworks – and prejudice against Israel serves their own tribal bias, political agenda, virtue signalling and attention-seeking – all feeding into their overly-simplistic narrative of oppressed vs. oppressor. 

3)    Susceptibility to manipulation: The individual lacks the knowledge and awareness of context that would disavow them of the notion that Israel is committing genocide, and is ripe for manipulation. 

4)    Open to disinformation: The individual has been swayed by the biased reporting and bad actors in society to believe Israel is committing genocide. They have become understandably emotionally overwhelmed by images of suffering and death, and are mistaking visceral outrage for informed judgment. 

Each individual who believes that Israel is committing genocide will fall into one, some, or all of those categories. For example, Greta Thunberg probably falls into categories 1, 2 and 3 – or just 2 and 3 if you’re feeling generous (she is probably too ideologically entrenched to be in 4), so does Roger Waters. Jeremy Corbyn, George Galloway, Owen Jones, and countless other politicians and media figures fall into category 2 (often 2 and 3). Category 3 is bursting at the seams with celebrities and lesser known bourgeois leftist dilettantes in artisanal sunglasses, and so is category 4, where you’ll also find a wide range of people, from gentle, well-meaning Methodist septuagenarians, to teenage keyboard warriors who aren’t yet old enough to shave, to some dear personal friends who I love and respect immensely.  

The commonality in categories 1-3 (but especially categories 1-2), is not just misinformation, but a profound psychological need; to employ simplistic black vs. white logic, to feel morally superior, to divest oneself of internal personal criticism and responsibility, and to belong to a self-congratulatory cause bigger than oneself. If you’re weak in ways that the world needs you to be strong, then this kind of in-group ideology is very seductive. And a surefire way to tell that this is the case is to see how easy it is to predict the other things people in that ideology believe. In a game of collectivist mime troupe bingo, the squares would be filled with similarly predictable dogmas - climate hysteria, ‘eat the rich’ socialism, woke platitudes, no-platforming, performative solidarity rituals - all delivered with the same sanctimonious tone. The commonality in category 4 is primarily the need to locate moral clarity in a morally and socially complex world, and to resolve emotional discomfort with simple, righteous certainty. To be fair, the latter is, in many cases, a humble fault, but in reaching for moral simplicity, many end up embracing a fiction that feels emotionally satisfying, but collapses under the weight of evidence and reason.

Designer Outrage
One more point on the psychology, then we’ll move on to the proposition in question. Here's a provocative but truthful statement. If you’re in categories 1 and 2 (and sometimes 3) and accuse Israel of genocide, but stay silent on Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, and other regional actors who openly call for Israel's destruction, then you're not standing for justice - you're showing everyone that you're, at best, guilty of being manipulated by perversely partisan media sources, and at worst, just an anti-Israel hypocrite, not to be taken in the least bit seriously. In fact, in the latter case, your selectivity is bordering on an anti-semitic weaponisation of language to legitimise your narrow, unbalanced tribalism.

And if you're in the former group, didn't you ever stop to wonder why the people who like to claim 'genocide' for Israel are completely silent on their enemies who actually do wish genocide on Israel? Surely you must have been just a little bit curious about the motives behind this blatant inconsistency? I'm not even commenting at this stage about whether it's fair to accuse Israel of 'genocide'. At this point, I'm merely pointing out the absurd hypocrisy that plagues our society - that even if you do think Israel is behaving awfully, staying completely silent on even more awful behaviour in surrounding regions is preposterous, making you look weak and incompetent. Unless the selective silence is because manipulative sources have convinced you that these Islamic perpetrators of murder, rape, violence, suppression of freedom and human rights abuses are not so bad after all - but that is just as preposterous, and makes you look just as weak and incompetent.

It's the same sort of incongruity we've seen with contemporary feminism for years – feminists such as the woeful Ash Sarkar, Kate Smurthwaite, Grace Blakeley, etc - they'll willingly stand in a safe capital city, holding a megaphone, screaming about "patriarchy" and "toxic masculinity", angry that some people are upset about the rights of the foetus, or that more CEOs are men than women, but they'll never raise an eyebrow about Islam's toxic effects on women, with grooming gangs, repression of rights, sexual inequality, hijabs, honour killings, forced marriages and the oppressive nature of Sharia law towards the female sex. I call this Designer Outrage.

Israel Is Not Committing Genocide
I’ve pointed out the hypocrisy of those claiming Israel is committing genocide, while remaining silent on even worse regional actors surrounding them. For those attempting a more balanced view, but still holding the view that Israel is committing genocide, let's consider that claim a bit further. I share some of the public criticisms of much of Israel's conduct towards the Palestinians, but I also believe that throwing around the word 'genocide' to describe Israel's actions isn't just factually wrong - it's a lazy distortion of what the term means. Genocide refers to the intentional extermination of a people. Misusing the language of atrocity trivialises actual genocides - like the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide, or the Armenian genocide. It's not just bad history; it's offensive to actual victims of genocide whose families were actually targeted for eradication (in actual fact, as the Jews were in the Holocaust, and like they still are now by murderous ideologues in surrounding Islamic nations).

Too many people are cunning, slippery, or merely sloppy in their use of the word 'genocide' - because genocide means actions committed with the specific intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. The intent element is crucial, and it's disingenuous to ignore it. Israel's actions, while far from perfect, are undertaken against the continued regional threat of perpetrators who wish to wipe them off the map - fanatical enemies whose tactics are to use Palestinian civilians (and hospitals, for example) as fodder for their murderous aims. What's ironic is that Hamas - who wish to exterminate the Jews, and openly say so - are the ones with genocidal desires, but the same people are silent about this.

While it's appropriate to scrutinise Israel's conduct, failure to recognise the existential threats it faces is failure to engage in the subject appropriately. Hamas explicitly calls for the destruction of Israel and the killing of Jews, as do the leaders in Iran. The October 7th massacre was not only a military operation; it involved targeted killing of civilians, torture, and rape - acts of terrorism driven by genocidal rhetoric. Hamas embeds itself among civilians, uses hospitals and schools for weapons storage, and prevents civilians from evacuating - both to shield fighters and to use civilian casualties as propaganda. This squalid tactic complicates Israel's military response and raises the civilian toll in a tragic environment.

It's hard to deny that some of Israel's responses have been heavy-handed, maybe even excessive, and even, in isolated incidents a shocking mirror image of those who want to destroy them. But if you're going to measure excess, you should at least understand what that means in this context. Try imagining what it's like attempting to govern a country continually under existential threat from some of the most wicked and morally devoid Islamic fundamentalist groups on the planet - a country that continually lives in self-defense against an adversary that openly calls for its destruction, and will use any tactic necessary to achieve its aims. It's difficult to imagine a country not acting excessively under those conditions - these are extreme acts of self-preservation, where Gazans are also many of the most innocent victims of this complex, harrowing situation.

So, I'd really encourage you to not use the word 'genocide' when describing Israel’s predicament - especially as they are a people who have themselves experienced one of the worst genocides in human history, and certainly the most systematically executed, and still carry the scars today. Words like "genocide" carry historical trauma and legal implications - and misusing language dilutes meaning and compromises the full truth and can blind us to the real moral and legal complexities at hand. Criticising Israel's military actions is one thing - but calling it ‘genocide’ undermines credibility, and perversely distracts from both the complexity of the situation, and the real goals of groups like Hamas and Iran, who do actually commit egregious violations of international law that are much more like genocide than what Israel is doing.