One of my colleagues recently submitted an article on Russia's genocidal war in Ukraine to a European journal only to have it rejected because it did not equally stigmatize Israel for conducting a "genocide in Gaza with American support." This small vignette illustrates how genocide, a legal term in public international law, has morphed into a foundational term of politically correct invective and a tool of cancel culture.
It has become a political football as well, a charge that is made against alleged perpetrators, often on the basis of partisan political adherence. In this manner, it has become a powerful instrument of lawfare, i.e., "legal action undertaken as part of a hostile campaign against a country or group."
Those who use the term genocide in this manner against a country or group often do so to promote "their" side of a conflict with little or no solid evidence, but rather to stigmatize the opponent and distort the truth. Sadly, one proponent of employing the term genocide in this manner is the professionally-sounding Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention in Philadelphia. This institute appropriated the name of the famous Polish-Jewish lawyer, Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term genocide in the wake of the Holocaust of European Jewry at the hands of the Nazis in 1939-45. The Lemkin Institute did this without the knowledge or permission of Raphael Lemkin's family, with which it has no connection. When one examines this institute's website, it is replete with one-sided interpretations of the term "genocide" as it applies it to contemporary wars, not the least of which, of course, is the conflict in Gaza.
The Lemkin Institute appears to be all too ready to pin the charge of genocide on Israel when there is no proof that this has been the objective of the Israeli government, other than reporting by Hamas and its fellow travelers in the media and academia. Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023. This attack, replete with mass murder, torture, and rape, elicited no statement or alert from the Lemkin Institute. However, within 11 days, on October 18, 2023, as the Israeli bombardment was just beginning, the Lemkin Institute posted on X, calling on the International Criminal Court to indict Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu for genocide. Clearly, the institute's leadership considered that no applicable legal definitions, objectivity, or actual evidence were required here.
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A quick perusal of October 2025 statements issued by the Lemkin Institute find it insisting that Israel has been pursuing "genocide" against the Palestinian people since its inception in 1948—in other words, the institute apparently supports a narrative that claims that Israel's very existence is a cause and source of "genocide," despite the fact that the Arab population supposedly being eliminated has grown by orders of magnitude since 1948 by its own report. Obviously, as far as the Lemkin Institute is concerned, Israel is the criminal in the dock and the source of all the evil. The institute's most recent release, issued on October 27, 2025, is full-throated advocacy for the release from prison of Marwan Barghouti, as had been demanded by Hamas. Barghouti was convicted of orchestrating the murder of five Israelis during the bloody "second intifada" in 2000-2004, in which restaurants, public buses, pizzerias, and other sites were targeted with suicide bombings and shootings. How advocating for the release of a mass murderer fits with genocide prevention is something that apparently only the institute understands.
In other words, the Lemkin Institute's "reporting" is one-sided, disregards the facts of the case in several contemporary conflicts, and leans toward embracing antisemitic canards rather than doing credible research. Its bombastic statements represent an outstanding example of the politicization of the term genocide and the all-too-easy willingness to believe in unfounded charges without evidentiary proof. This testifies as well to the success of Hamas and its supporters in obfuscation and abusing the charge of genocide for political purposes. Thus, this institute's claims for studying or protesting genocide appear to be questionable. The Lemkin Institute's credulousness regarding Hamas and willingness to promote trumped-up charges without evidence at all strongly suggests that the Lemkin Institute is a biased organization interested in conducting lawfare, i.e., attacking political targets, and has become a mouthpiece for propaganda rather than analysis. Indeed, the institute sees Hamas as "part of a larger response in the Islamic world to European imperialism." Since the last vestiges of the European imperialists (Britain and France) had left the Middle East by 1971, this is nonsense. This institute's partisanship and addiction to lawfare have even led Lemkin's heirs to take legal steps to remove its name from the organization, given its misleading of the public and distortion of Lemkin's legacy. Lemkin's family claimed to have had no knowledge of this institute until it started exploiting their ancestor's name.
The use of genocide as a political football and a tool of lawfare has to be fought, but not only in court. It must also be fought in the public media, for as Justice Luis Brandeis said, "Sunshine is the best disinfectant." Genocide is too important a subject and too horrible a crime to allow its use and abuse by partisan propagandists who debase historic memory and morality.
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