A UN inquiry accuses Israel of genocide in Gaza without on-the-ground investigation, without consulting Jerusalem, and without acknowledging Hamas’s theft of aid or its use of civilians as shields. In doing so, the Commission stripped the word of meaning and revealed the UN’s complicity.
In a Nutshell
On 16 September 2025, the UN Commission of Inquiry led by Navi Pillay declared Israel guilty of committing genocide in Gaza. The report cited mass civilian casualties, large-scale displacement, and alleged incitement by Israeli ministers. Within hours, headlines rang out: “Israel has committed genocide.”
Yet beneath the theatre lies rot. The commissioners several with longstanding ties to politicised human rights lobbies and the same networks that dominate the ICC and ICJ issued their judgment without once setting foot in Gaza, without consulting the Israeli government, and without considering Israel’s documented measures to protect civilians: evacuation warnings, humanitarian corridors, and phone alerts.
This is not law. It is politics dressed up as justice, and in the process the UN has betrayed both the meaning of “genocide” and the millions who endure the crime in silence elsewhere.
Sources: The Guardian, 16 Sept 2025, AP News, 16 Sept 2025
The Main Course
The Commission and Its Politics
The inquiry was spearheaded by Navi Pillay, a former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights whose record is marked by open hostility to Israel and warm ties to activist networks long accused of weaponising human rights for political ends. Other members have sat on NGO boards that routinely lobby the ICC and ICJ, blurring the line between impartial adjudicators and professional campaigners.
This is not coincidence it is design. The same ecosystem that fed “lawfare” against US troops in Iraq and Israeli soldiers in past wars now operates seamlessly through the UN’s commissions. Their findings are written before the evidence is gathered, and their headlines are guaranteed.
A Toothless Verdict
What does the Commission’s verdict achieve? Nothing binding. At best, it becomes the basis for a non-binding UN resolution another page in a long record of anti-Israel declarations. At worst, it feeds into the machinery of the ICC, where politicised prosecutors pursue selective cases that collapse under legal scrutiny but succeed in the court of public opinion.
Everyone knows no Security Council resolution will pass; the US would veto. Everyone knows Israel will not be hauled before a tribunal. The report is not designed to secure justice. It is designed to wound.
No Groundwork, No Legitimacy
Most damning of all: no on-the-ground investigation was carried out. The commissioners never set foot in Gaza, never interviewed Israeli commanders, never examined how operations were conducted.
Israel was not consulted. Its documented efforts to minimise civilian casualties were not even acknowledged. These include:
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Phone alerts and text messages before strikes.
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Evacuation warnings issued by leaflets and radio broadcasts.
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Humanitarian corridors opened under fire to allow civilians to flee.
None of this made the report. Why? Because it complicates the narrative.
The Realities Ignored
The Commission also ignored the central fact of Gaza’s suffering: Hamas’s theft and abuse of aid. For months, reports have documented:
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Hamas stealing food and medicine and selling it at inflated prices on the black market.
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UNRWA warehouses filled with tons of rotting supplies, undelivered while officials wring hands in Geneva.
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Civilians shot by Hamas gunmen as they attempted to retrieve Israeli aid drops or flee battle zones.
These are not rumours; they are documented realities. Yet the Commission erased them, because they expose the uncomfortable truth: Gaza’s suffering is not simply the by-product of war, but the deliberate strategy of Hamas, enabled by UN incompetence.
The Media Recommends
As ever, the headlines wrote themselves.
The Guardian: “Israel committed genocide in Gaza, says UN inquiry.”
BBC: “UN concludes Israel guilty of genocide.”
CNN: “Genocide finding puts pressure on allies.”
Not one headline noted the absence of on-the-ground investigation. Not one admitted that the commissioners never spoke to Israel. Not one explored the aid theft, the humanitarian corridors, the gunmen who prevented civilians from fleeing.
The Merlow View
History is cruel to words. “Genocide” was born from the ashes of Auschwitz, defined precisely to prevent misuse. It means intent to destroy a people. It is the gravest crime humanity can name.
By applying it to Israel’s campaign against Hamas a war launched in response to Hamas’s own October massacres, a war fought in cities Hamas uses as human shields the UN has emptied the word. It has equated Rwanda’s machetes, Bosnia’s mass graves, and Sudan’s famines with targeted strikes where Israel, uniquely among armies, warns civilians before it fires.
The fantasy is that this report upholds justice. The reality is that it trivialises genocide itself, and in doing so, betrays the victims it was meant to protect.
Even worse, it reveals the UN’s complicity. By ignoring Hamas’s theft of aid, by omitting its executions of civilians, by erasing Israel’s humanitarian measures, the Commission turned a blind eye to crimes because they did not fit its script. That is not neutrality. That is propaganda.
In Short…
The invitation is simple: refuse to accept theatre as truth. Recognise that this report is not law but politics. Recognise that when the UN empties “genocide” of meaning, it leaves real victims voiceless.
The UN was founded to defend truth and human rights. Today, it is their greatest betrayer. To restore peace, stability, and justice, we must look beyond its hollow declarations and demand institutions that recognise reality, not rewrite it.
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