Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. bluntly called genocide charges against Israel a “blood libel” and extolled an essay by a noted war expert that comprehensively refuted the accusation.
Kennedy, like his father before him, has always been a staunch supporter of Israel; his father Senator Robert F. Kennedy, who had served as John F. Kennedy’s Attorney General before his stint in the Senate and his 1968 campaign for president, in which he was battling Vice-President Hubert Humphrey in the primaries before Palestinian Sirhan Sirhan murdered him.
“The genocide charge is a blood libel. Thank you Major Spencer for this withering deconstruction,” Kennedy wrote.
The genocide charge is a blood libel. Thank you Major Spencer for this withering deconstruction.
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) July 24, 2025
The term “blood libel” vis-à-vis the Jewish people has historically referred to the false accusation that Jews murdered non-Jews in order to use their blood in the performance of religious ritual, a particularly ridiculous assertion since Jews are religiously forbidden to eat anything that has blood in it, even as small as a speck of blood in an egg. The charge has been used to foster numerous pogroms in Europe over the centuries, in which Jews were murdered en masse by the hundreds and thousands.
The essay Kennedy championed, by noted war expert John Spencer, who serves as chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute and host of the Urban Warfare Project Podcast, is titled “I’m a War Scholar. There Is No Genocide in Gaza.” Spencer was responding to a New York Times op-ed by leftist Brown University professor Omer Bartov that accused Israel of genocide.
“Genocide is not defined by a few comments taken out of context, by estimates of casualties or destruction, or by how war looks in headlines or on social media. It is defined by specific intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group in whole or in part,” Spencer noted.
“That is a high legal bar. Bartov did not meet it. He did not even try,” Spencer wrote. “Since October 7, I have been to Gaza four times embedded with the Israel Defense Forces. I have interviewed the Prime Minister of Israel, the Defense Minister, the IDF Chief of Staff, Southern Command leadership, and dozens of commanders and soldiers on the front lines. I have reviewed their orders, watched their targeting process, and seen soldiers take real risks to avoid harming civilians. Nothing I have seen or studied resembles genocide or genocidal intent.”
Spencer ripped Bartov for claiming Prime Minister Netanyahu’s comment on October 7 that Hamas would “pay a huge price” was a call for genocide, noting, “It is what any leader would say after the worst terrorist attack in the nation’s history.”
“He also cites Netanyahu’s statements that Hamas would be destroyed and that civilians should evacuate combat zones,” he continued, “That is not evidence of a desire to destroy a people. It is what professional militaries do when fighting an enemy that hides among civilians.”
“Bartov presents Netanyahu’s reference to ‘remember Amalek’ as a smoking gun,” he stated. “But this is a phrase from Jewish history and tradition. It is engraved at Israel’s Holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem, and also appears on the Holocaust memorial in The Hague. In both places, it serves as a warning to remain vigilant against threats, not as a call for mass killing.”
“I have studied the actual orders. They focus on destroying Hamas, rescuing hostages, and protecting civilians whenever possible,” he recalled, continuing:
Israel has taken extraordinary steps to limit civilian harm. It warns before attacks using text messages, phone calls, leaflets, and broadcasts. It opens safe corridors and pauses operations so civilians can leave combat areas. It tracks civilian presence down to the building level. I have seen missions delayed or canceled because children were nearby. I have seen Israeli troops come under fire and still be ordered not to shoot back because civilians might be harmed.
Israel has delivered more humanitarian aid to Gaza than any military in history has provided to an enemy population during wartime. More than 94,000 trucks carrying over 1.8 million tons of aid have entered the territory. Israel has supported hospitals, repaired water pipelines, increased access to clean water, and enabled over 36,000 patients to leave Gaza for treatment abroad. The IDF has coordinated millions of vaccine doses, supplied fuel for hospitals and infrastructure, and facilitated the flow of food and medicine through the UN, aid groups, and private partners.
He derided Bartov’s claim that 58,000 people have been killed in Gaza, including 17,000 children. “But these numbers come from a terrorist organization,” Spencer pointed out. “They mix civilians and fighters and count anyone under 18 as a child, even though Hamas uses teenagers and younger children as combatants. The figures are not independently verified and have been shown to contain false details, including names, ages, and sex.”
“Civilian deaths are tragic, but in Gaza, they are also part of Hamas’s strategy,” he wrote. “No military operation is judged solely by body counts or destruction figures. If we used Bartov’s logic, every major war would be called genocide. Two million civilians died in the Korean War, an average of 54,000 per month. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars killed hundreds of thousands. The fight against ISIS leveled multiple cities and killed tens of thousands. None of those wars were considered genocidal.”
“War is hell,” he declared. “It is inhumane, destructive, and ugly. But it is not automatically a crime. Nations must not target civilians. They must follow the rules of distinction, proportionality, and take all possible care to avoid civilian harm. Israel is doing that. I have seen it.”
“I have seen restraint, humanitarian aid, and deliberate compliance with legal standards, often at tactical cost,” he wrote. “This is not a campaign of extermination. It is a war against Hamas, a terrorist army embedded in civilian areas by design. The law matters. So does precision. And above all, truth matters.”
— John Spencer (@SpencerGuard) July 23, 2025