Deniers of well-documented genocides committed in Sudan, the Ottoman Empire, Nazi Germany, China, North Korea, and Syria are now joining forces through various UN bodies to accuse Israel.
On August 15, the foreign ministers of 31 Arab and Muslim countries, along with the Secretary Generals of the Arab League, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), and the Gulf Cooperation Council, condemned Israel for “aggression, genocide, and ethnic cleansing.”
During the summit, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan wrote an op-ed in Al Jazeera urging the world to stop Israel’s war against the terror group in Gaza and accused Israel of carrying out “a systematic extermination policy” against the Palestinians.
In December 2017, Erdoğan received Sudan’s president Omar al-Bashir, who had already been indicted in July 2008 by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in Darfur. On March 4, 2009, the court issued an arrest warrant for al-Bashir. According to the UN, the war crimes in Sudan had by then killed at least 300,000 people and displaced more than 2.5 million.
In November 2009, Erdoğan defended Bashir against the genocide accusations, saying that “a Muslim could not commit genocide; he is not capable of it,” according to The Times of Israel in connection with al-Bashir’s visit to Istanbul. Photos from the meeting showed Bashir warmly greeted by Erdoğan and appearing in the summit’s group photo.
On March 6, 2016, Sudan’s genocide-indicted president was in Jakarta, Indonesia, where he led the opening session of the OIC summit, as Sudan was vice chair of the Islamic organization. In the group photo taken at the event, he stood next to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.
The Genocide in the Ottoman Empire
The war crimes in Sudan have flared up again since April 10 last year. According to the UN, the country is currently facing the world’s worst humanitarian crisis as Arab militias once again ravage the country and perpetrate severe war crimes against ethnic minorities. Since April 2023, the conflict has claimed over 150,000 lives and forced nearly 13 million people to flee.
The Arab militia Rapid Support Forces (RSF) is supported by OIC member the United Arab Emirates, while the regime is backed by fellow OIC member Turkey. Both warring sides are part of the same international bloc.
A Turkish researcher who claims the 1915 Turkish genocide of 1.5 million people is a Western fabrication was, in early September, allowed via TIME magazine to assert that there is “no doubt” Israel is committing genocide.
The same Onur Uraz, a researcher at a state university in Ankara, dismissed the genocide accusations against Turkey in an article published on April 24, 2022, in the country’s state-run news agency Anadolu Agency. He strongly supported Turkey’s official position that the genocide carried out by the Ottoman Empire in 1915 against Armenians, Assyrians, Syriacs, and other groups was merely a result of Western powers like the U.S., Germany, and France politicizing the issue.
Onur Uraz argued that the Young Turks did not intend to annihilate these ethnic groups and that “how many people died or didn’t … is irrelevant.”
Half a Million Killed in Syria
Over half a million people have been killed and six million have fled Syria since the civil war began in 2011. On November 27, 2018, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a law recognizing that genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes had been committed in Iraq and Syria. The British government has also formally recognized the atrocities in Syria as genocide.
The Assad regime, supported by Russia and Iran, was responsible for the majority of the deaths, but al-Qaeda and ISIS were also responsible for the war crimes committed. Turkish President Erdoğan, who received the green light from Russia and Iran to expand Turkey’s years-long occupation of northern Syria, also received support at the end of last year for a full-scale invasion of the entire country. Turkey installed Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa as president—an individual wanted by the U.S. since May 10, 2017, with a reward of about $9 million offered for information on his whereabouts. In 2011 al-Golani founded the terror group the Nusra Front in Syria, heavily financed by al-Qaeda and in alliance with ISIS.
In the wake of Israel’s war against the Hamas terror alliance, even neo-Nazis and far-right extremists who deny the Holocaust have joined the ranks of Israel’s critics. British far-right extremist Nick Griffin was convicted in 1998 for inciting racial hatred through articles that denied the Holocaust and praised the Waffen-SS. On the social platform X, he accuses Israel of committing artificial starvation.
China’s Communist Party Condemns Israel
Xi Jinping, Secretary General of the Chinese Communist Party, has praised South Africa’s efforts to bring Israel before the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged genocide in Gaza. The Chinese Communist Party has itself committed some of the worst genocides in history. Between 40 and 70 million Chinese died as a result of communist leader Mao Zedong’s brutality.
In January 2021, the U.S. State Department declared that China’s actions against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang province should be viewed as genocide. Parliaments in several countries have made similar declarations: Canada, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Lithuania, and France.
Even the Communist Party of North Korea, which governs one of the world’s most brutal dictatorships, has accused Israel of genocide. The North Korean regime under Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un has for decades carried out a genocidal policy that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.
As early as June 4, 2021, North Korea condemned Israel and “urged the international community not to tolerate Israel’s reckless state terrorism and genocide.”
A number of leftist intellectuals in the West who have harshly criticized Israel in recent decades have at the same time denied the genocides that claimed up to 100 million lives in various communist dictatorships during the 20th century.
The UN as a Tool for Dictators
This trend of brutal dictators acting as judges is illustrated by the situation in the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC). Between 2006 and 2024, the UNHRC adopted the following number of resolutions:
- 108 against Israel
- 45 against Syria
- 15 against Iran
- 10 against Russia
- 4 against Venezuela
(source: UN Watch)
In February of this year, the U.S. reassessed its involvement in the UNHRC, as well as in the UN’s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the UN’s relief agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).
“The UNHRC has protected human rights abusers by allowing them to use the organization to shield themselves from scrutiny,” wrote the White House, announcing that the U.S. will no longer fund the UNHRC.
