I see a correlation between those who believe absurd claims like dogs were trained to rape Palestinians and those who insist Israel committed genocide in Gaza.
Both claims collapse under scrutiny and under mountains of contrary evidence. One ignores biology and basic science, including the reality that dogs cannot rape humans in the way being alleged. The other disregards the legal definition of genocide, which requires demonstrable intent to destroy a people as such. That accusation runs directly against repeated public statements by Israeli political and military leaders after October 7 that the war was against Hamas, not the people of Gaza.
It also requires evidence of actions taken to fulfill genocidal intent. Instead, the easily obtained facts show Israel facilitating historic aid deliveries, establishing evacuation corridors, warning civilians before operations, moving populations from combat zones, numerous other civilian harm mitigation measures, and even vaccinating Gaza’s population during active combat under conditions no military has ever faced.
The accusation also collides with another uncomfortable reality. Even critics of Israel’s military campaign have acknowledged civilian-to-combatant casualty ratios that are historically low for dense urban warfare against an entrenched enemy operating from within civilian areas. Using even Hamas-led Gaza Health Ministry figures, the available numbers suggest ratios somewhere between roughly 1.5:1 and 1:1 depending on the methodology used. Those figures compare favorably to many major urban battles and wars, including Manila, Seoul, Mosul, the Iraq War, and the Korean War just to name a few of many.
None of this removes the tragedy of civilian death. War remains brutal even when fought within the law. Yet casualty figures of this kind directly undermine the assertion that Israel’s campaign reflects an organized effort to destroy the Palestinian people.
Public debate around war increasingly turns statistics into instruments of persuasion rather than tools of understanding. Numbers are pushed into headlines before definitions are clarified. Casualty counts circulate globally detached from methodology, sourcing, combatant status, age distributions, or the conditions under which the data was collected. Large numbers create emotional reactions on their own. Most audiences have little ability to independently evaluate how those figures were generated or whether the institutions producing them have political incentives embedded within the process.
Sociologists who study statistics have long recognized that numbers are social products shaped by the organizations and people who produce them. Activists use statistics to elevate causes. Governments use them to defend policy. Media institutions amplify the figures that generate the strongest emotional response and reinforce existing narratives. In wartime, numbers often become ammunition. Selective statistics gain power through repetition long before they survive rigorous scrutiny. Figures themselves do not lie, but people routinely use figures dishonestly. As the old saying goes, “Figures don’t lie, but liars figure.”
The genocide accusation survives largely because many people begin with the conclusion and work backward from it. Evidence that contradicts the accusation is ignored, minimized, or reframed. Actions that would normally weigh against genocidal intent are treated as irrelevant. Legal definitions become elastic only in Israel’s case. Standards applied to every other military confronting enemies that openly disregard the laws of armed conflict, deliberately embed within civilian populations, and treat civilian suffering as a strategic asset often disappear when Israel is involved.
That dynamic resembles what Natan Sharansky describes as the “3Ds” that distinguish legitimate criticism of Israel from antisemitism: Demonization, Double Standards, and Delegitimization.
One of the major double standards applied to Israel is the way the laws of armed conflict are removed from their actual legal framework and replaced with emotional accounting built almost entirely around casualty numbers. Civilian deaths are presented without operational context, without discussion of the target, the enemy’s tactics, the precautions taken, or what commanders reasonably understood when the action or strike was approved or taken. The numbers themselves become treated as proof of illegality.
The law of armed conflict does not function that way. Military decisions are judged based on what commanders reasonably knew before an operation or action occurred, not through hindsight after the outcome is already known. Legal analysis examines whether the target was a lawful military objective, whether commanders conducted a proportionality assessment to determine that the anticipated civilian harm would not be excessive compared to the concrete and direct military advantage expected from the attack, and whether feasible precautions were taken to mitigate civilian harm under the circumstances at the time.
Much of the public discussion surrounding Gaza reverses that process entirely. Casualty figures are frequently treated as the beginning and end of legal judgment. Civilian deaths become automatic evidence of criminality regardless of the military objective, warnings issued, evacuation measures attempted, intelligence available at the time, the reliability of assessments distinguishing civilians from those actively participating in hostilities, or the enemy’s deliberate integration into civilian infrastructure. Hamas’s use of homes, schools, mosques, hospitals, tunnel systems, and dense residential areas for military purposes is often pushed to the margins of the discussion even though it shaped nearly every operational decision Israel faced.
Urban warfare against enemies that systematically violate the laws of armed conflict has always produced devastating civilian consequences. The law itself was designed with that reality in mind. It recognizes that commanders operate under uncertainty, incomplete intelligence, time pressure, degraded communications, and deliberate enemy deception. Legal responsibility therefore depends on the reasonableness of decisions when they were made, not on casualty figures, physical destruction, or other statistics later examined in isolation from the battlefield conditions, intelligence limitations, enemy tactics, and operational realities that produced them.
No military in modern history has been judged primarily through a framework where outcomes alone determine legality, morality, or ethical conduct because no military could operate under such a standard. Once context disappears and casualty figures or destruction statistics become the primary measure of guilt, the law itself stops functioning as law and instead becomes a political weapon shaped by emotion, politics, and selective outrage rather than legal principles.
Then comes the demonization, which occurs when Israelis are portrayed as uniquely monstrous in ways detached from evidence or standards applied elsewhere. That demonization also frequently expands beyond Israelis themselves and onto Jewish communities around the world, regardless of any connection to Israeli policy or military service. Double standards emerge when legal principles, moral expectations, or interpretations of warfare are applied differently to Israel than to other democratic states confronting enemy attacks, terrorism, insurgency, or urban warfare. Delegitimization appears when accusations move beyond criticism of policy and become arguments against Israel’s right to exist or against the safety and legitimacy of Jewish communities altogether.
The genocide accusation increasingly operates within that framework. The claim is no longer merely that Israel committed mistakes, caused excessive civilian harm, or pursued flawed policies. The accusation is that Israel is intentionally exterminating a people despite evidence that directly challenges that conclusion. Once evidence ceases to matter, the accusation stops being analytical and becomes ideological.
The same pattern appears in sensational conspiracy claims surrounding the war. Once Israelis, and by extension Jews more broadly, are accepted as uniquely evil, increasingly irrational accusations become believable to audiences already conditioned to accept that premise. Standards of evidence that would apply in any other context disappear. Claims that would normally be dismissed as absurd suddenly receive serious attention because they reinforce a moral narrative already embraced by the audience hearing them. That is how a claim as irrational as dogs being trained to rape Palestinians can move from internet conspiracy into mainstream discussion. The accusation survives for the same reason the genocide accusation survives in many circles: not because the evidence is persuasive, but because the target has already been morally condemned in advance.
None of this places Israel beyond criticism or analysis. Democracies should face scrutiny during war, especially wars fought in dense urban terrain against enemies embedded among civilians. Military operations deserve investigation when credible accusations of wrongdoing occur. Debate about strategy, proportionality, humanitarian concerns, and political leadership is legitimate and necessary. Serious criticism depends on evidence, coherent standards, and intellectual honesty.
What becomes dangerous is the collapse of those standards altogether. Once reason, science, law, and evidence become secondary to ideological narratives, societies begin accepting accusations based primarily on whether they satisfy emotional or political desires. History shows where that road leads. When people become willing to believe almost anything about one group because they already view that group as inherently evil, the discussion has moved far beyond legitimate criticism and into something much darker.
John Spencer is the Executive Director of the Urban Warfare Institute
He is the author of 20 Times I Almost Died: Life Lessons from the Edge of Survival and coauthor of Understanding Urban Warfare.
Learn more at www.johnspenceronline.com
AI Satire: Accused canine rapist interviewed by Piers Morgan