Mirvis says ‘genocide’ claim against Israel is ‘disingenuous misappropriation of the term’

Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis has said the word “genocide” to describe Israel’s actions against Hamas in Gaza is an “increasingly frequent, disingenuous misappropriation of the term”.

Rabbi Mirvis wrote that the use of the term was a “moral inversion, which undermines the memory of the worst crimes in human history” and was designed to “tear open the still gaping wound of the Holocaust”.

Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Mirvis, who was born and educated in South Africa, argued that Israel was not intent on “the purposeful annihilation of a people as an objective in and of itself”, but was risking its soldiers in ground operations and securing humanitarian corridors.

He added: “It should be obvious that if Israel’s objectives were genocidal, it could have used its military strength to level Gaza in a matter of days.”

Before commemorations of Holocaust Memorial Day next Saturday, the chief rabbi said the use of “genocide” to describe Israel’s action was an affront to victims and the survivors of genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Darfur and the Holocaust.

“It is a term deployed not only to eradicate any notion that Israel has a responsibility to protect its citizens, but also to tear open the still gaping wound of the Holocaust, knowing that it will inflict more pain than any other accusation,” wrote Mirvis. “It is a moral inversion, which undermines the memory of the worst crimes in human history.”