“The state of Israel does not need to be lectured on morality in order to distinguish between terrorists and the civilian population in Gaza,” Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant said, indignant, after the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to comply with the Genocide Convention.

The convention, to which Israel’s been a party since 1950, defines genocide as “killing,” “causing serious bodily or mental harm,” “deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destruction in whole or in part,” “imposing measures intended to prevent births,” and/or “forcibly transferring children,” in the context of “acts committed with [the] intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”

The case in The Hague, brought by South Africa, is troubling for Israelis to put it mildly. As one former Israeli diplomat and political commentator put it, in remarks quoted by The New York Times, “That we’re even mentioned in the same sentence as the concept of genocide… is extremely uncomfortable.”

What’s also “extremely uncomfortable,” not to mention extremely dangerous, is the notion that a group which suffers a grave injustice somehow obtains, through that suffering, a monopolistic license to define and interpret alleged instances of the same injustice in perpetuity, and also to adjudicate any associated claims, even when those claims constitute charges against that group.

Implicit in many Israeli protestations to genocide accusations is the notion that being subjected to a heinous crime makes it less likely (impossible, even) that you’ll commit that same crime (or a similar crime) yourself. Criminal psychologists and mental health experts might tell you the opposite. That in many cases, being victimized can be a predictor of criminal activity or at least increase the likelihood that the victim will themselves victimize others. This is common enough that it’s enshrined in a cliché: “Hurt people hurt people.”

Israel is, by definition, an ethnonational project. That’s not necessarily incompatible with liberal democracy, but it can be an impediment to it, and it’s certainly a hindrance to pluralism past a certain threshold. There’s a reason Palestinians’ “right to return” can’t be granted: If it is, the ethnic “purity” of the Israeli state will be hopelessly diluted.

There’s an existential threat to Israel emanating from armed Palestine in Hamas. Rhetorically at least (i.e., forgetting that it’s not logistically possible for Hamas to bring about the physical destruction of a nuclear power), Hamas intends to destroy the Israeli state and it’s not a stretch to say the group’s feelings wouldn’t be hurt if that meant the destruction of the Jewish people in general. So, Hamas is genocidal.

But Palestinians who aren’t terrorists pose an existential threat to Israel too, or at least in the eyes of many Israelis. Palestinians have a land claim on the Jewish state, and a lot of people and nations around the world recognize that claim as wholly or partially legitimate. So, non-armed Palestine is an existential threat. This is why Israel has argued that refugee status shouldn’t be extended to descendants of original Palestinian refugees — because that’s tantamount to saying millions of people who aren’t Jewish have an inalienable right to live in Israel, population 9.4 million.

A workable compromise to those territorial claims has eluded anyone and everyone who’s ever engaged in the peace process, and in recent years, Israel (rightly) contended that there simply wasn’t a Palestinian interlocutor. But Netanyahu worked to keep it that way by deliberately undermining the PA and countenancing Hamas such that Palestinians remained splintered. Over the past two weeks, he made it (more than) clear that Palestinian statehood simply isn’t consistent with Israeli security, and as such, a two-state solution isn’t possible.

Given all of that, it’s difficult to come away with anything other than the suspicion (and let’s face it, “suspicion” isn’t the right word) that Israel, and particularly the far-right, wants the Palestinians gone. All of them. Or most of them. And for good. Call it “genocide” or whatever you want to call it, but to deny the simple reality that life would be a lot easier for most Israelis if the Palestinian “problem” didn’t exist and, more to the point, that some Israelis are open to “creative” solutions to that problem, is to be deliberately obtuse.

The October 7 massacre which, according to harrowing accounts, included an all-day campaign of systematic rape perpetrated by Hamas against Israeli women, is a powerfully compelling excuse for genocide. If you’re looking for one. And some in Netanyahu’s government were (and still are) looking for an excuse.

So, here we are. And although I don’t doubt the accusations, it comes as no surprise that Israel, during a week when the ICJ offered what some viewed as an admonition in lieu of a decision on the merits of South Africa’s case, identified a dozen UNRWA employees as conspirators in the October 7 attacks. The UN promptly fired them all, and the US suspended funding for the UNRWA, followed by Canada and Australia.

Details were initially sparse, but recall that Netanyahu openly opposes the UNRWA, which Israel has long accused of colluding with Hamas and perpetuating the group’s propaganda. More importantly in some respects, the organization stands as a constant reminder not only of the original Palestinian expulsion, but also of the status accorded to descendants of original Palestinian refugees.

If, instead of the UNRWA, Palestinians’ status were decided by the UNHCR, Palestinians could lose any claim on a right to return to their lands in Israel. Donald Trump defunded UNRWA in 2018, reportedly at Netanyahu’s urging (and with a little push from Jared Kushner). The Biden administration overturned Trump’s decision, but the accusations against 12 of the group’s employees prompted a new pause in US aid, and at a critical juncture.

On Saturday, Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz expressed gratitude to the US, said the UNRWA’s work should cease altogether once the war’s over and said Israel intends to ensure that the “UNRWA will not be a part of the day after.” One senior official at the UN privy to the specifics of the accusations called the charges “extremely serious and horrific.”

While fully acknowledging that Israel may be entirely correct to suggest that some of the group’s employees were complicit in (or even participated in) the October 7 attacks, it seems plain enough that Israel intends to push the group out of existence, and thereby put Palestinian refugees under the mandate of the UN body which handles all other refugee groups around the world.

Again, that could (note the emphasis — I’m not an “authority” on this, per se) imperil the refugee status of millions of Palestinians. If that’s true, it could conceivably put a de facto sell-by date on the right to return. Once all the original refugees die, most living Palestinians would lose a legal (or quasi-legal) claim on their ancestral homeland.

Importantly, this question isn’t settled. That is: It’s not clear what the refugee status of Gazans would be outside the UNRWA, which is to say under UNHCR criteria. Still, my guess is that Israel’s search for evidence linking UNRWA employees to the October 7 attacks was motivated at least in part by refugee status considerations. Doing away with the UNRWA would almost surely deny refugee status to millions of Palestinians living outside of Israel.

Coming full circle, one thing seems clear. Even if Israel doesn’t, as Yoav Gallant insisted, “need to be lectured on morality,” they could certainly use some help when it comes to “distinguish[ing] between terrorists and the civilian population in Gaza.” Because they haven’t done such a great job of that since October, and my suspicion, as well as that of countless people all around the world, is that it’s for lack of trying.