In this Sept. 27, 2012, file photo, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel shows an illustration as he describes his concerns over Iran’s nuclear ambitions during his address to the 67th session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)
Israel recently bombed Iran’s military and nuclear facilities, killing Iran’s top military commanders and nuclear scientists. After the air strikes, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that the operation was ordered because Israeli intelligence determined Iran was on the verge of developing nuclear weapons.
Netanyahu’s international critics doubted the Iranian nuclear threat to Israel, comparing it to George W. Bush’s false claim about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
On The Daily Show, comedian Jon Stewart ridiculed In this Sept. 27, 2012, file photo, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel shows an illustration as he describes his concerns over Iran’s nuclear ambitions during his address to the 67th session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters. Despite his speech to Congress, his efforts to halt the Iranian nuclear program _ which he describes as the mission of his lifetime _ appear to be stumbling as the U.S. seems to move toward a deal with the Islamic Republic. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File) by playing previous videos of him claiming Iran was close to obtaining nuclear weapons. In a 2012 video, Netanyahu stated, “By next spring Iran will move onto the final stage of creating a nuclear weapon.” In a 2015 video clip, Netanyahu warned that “Iran is weeks away from having an entire arsenal of nuclear bombs.” Finally, Steward presented Netanyahu’s televised statement from 2018, in which he claimed to have top-secret documents revealing Iran’s hidden nuclear weapons program.
Steward’s point was that Netanyahu was mistaken in the past, and he is not telling the truth now.
Netanyahu’s detractors asked why Israel didn’t destroy Iran’s nuclear program after Netanyahu’s previous warnings if Iran was actually developing weapons. Netanyahu’s detractors are convinced Israel’s non-action proved that Iran’s officials accurately claimed that Iran’s nuclear program was only for peaceful energy purposes and not weapons.
But it’s ahistorical to think that Israel did not respond to the Iranian nuclear threat until now.
Vinod Janardhanan, a journalist for WION, an Indian English-language news channel, reported that between 2007 and 2025, Israel targeted Iran’s nuclear sites at least 12 times. These attacks included cyberattacks and drone strikes. The attacks helped delay Iran’s nuclear enrichment but could not completely stop it.
What has changed for Israel to now try to stop Iran’s nuclear plans, given that Israel has previously only delayed them?
The answer is the strength of Iran’s proxy Hezbollah.
Hezbollah is a hardline Islamist political and paramilitary organization founded in the early 1980s and dedicated to the theology of Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of the 1979 Iranian revolution. Hezbollah is headquartered in Lebanon, which lies on Israel’s northern border. The objectives of Hezbollah, according to its 1985 manifesto, are to build an Islamic government in Lebanon based on Iran’s political ideology, to eliminate Western influence from the area, and to destroy Israel.
One Israeli commentator said Hezbollah in Lebanon is Israel’s version of the Cuban missile crisis faced by the United States in the 1960s. Prior to placing missiles in Cuba, the Soviets could only launch missiles at the United States from within the Soviet Union. However, the United States had missiles stationed in Italy and Turkey, giving the U.S. a first-strike advantage if the two superpowers went to war. To balance first strike capabilities, the Soviet Union stationed missiles in Cuba.
In other words, Israel did not rush into a direct conflict with Iran because of Iran’s first-strike capability through its proxy Hezbollah.
It’s worth noting that Gaza’s political leadership, Hamas, is also an Iranian proxy. On October 7, 2023, Hamas invaded Israel, murdering over 1,000 Israelis and taking over 200 hostages. The following day, Hezbollah launched missiles into Israel from Lebanon, displacing tens of thousands of residents from Northern Israel. Hezbollah coordinated its rocket launch to coincide with Hamas’s assault, and Hezbollah said that it will not cease fire until the Gaza war ends.
The term “Gaza War” is a misnomer. Iran waged a proxy war against Israel. As the conflict in Gaza continued into the following year, Israel launched an airstrike on a Syrian consulate, killing two Iranian generals. It was suspected that the Iranian generals were assisting Hamas and Hezbollah from that strategic position.
Iran responded by launching missiles from Iran into Israel. Because Israel intercepted 99 percent of the Iranian missiles, the world did not consider it a major offensive, yet Iran’s direct attack on Israel was unprecedented. Why would Iran carry out such an attack if they had never attempted it before? Iran understood that Israel couldn’t retaliate because it was bogged down in battles against their proxies.
Israel eventually decimated Hamas and Hezbollah.
According to the Times of Israel, in November 2024, Netanyahu ordered the elimination of Iran’s nuclear program after it became clear that Iran would quickly attempt to develop a nuclear weapon once its proxy forces were incapacitated.
The absence of Iran’s first strike capabilities presented Israel with an unparalleled opportunity to conduct a preemptive strike against Iran’s nuclear program. Iran had fired missiles into Israel when it thought Israel couldn’t respond, and Israel’s recent war effort is no different.
The difference could be that Netanyahu is more of a student of Catholic Bishop Fulton J. Sheen than the Iranian Ayatollah. Sheen once stated, “Patience is power. Patience is not an absence of action; rather, it is timing. It waits for the right time to act.”
UN members with no national stake in these regions colluded not to label the atrocities as genocide so that they would not be obligated to intervene. The term “genocide” is never used when it happens, but it’s frequently used to describe other situations that don’t fit the definition. Therefore, the skeptic’s rule states that if there is a public outcry over genocide, it has most likely not occurred, because actual genocides are met with silence.
In 2019, nationally recognized attorney Benjamin Crump published the book Open Season: Legalized Genocide of Colored People. Crump said that America is systematically killing Black people with police bullets or long prison sentences, which is equal to genocide.
The Washington Post launched its police shooting database in 2015. Between 2015 and 2019, there were 4,923 fatal police shootings. There were 111 unarmed Black victims, accounting for 1% of the total. There is no indication that the police officers purposefully killed 111 people because they were Black. Nonetheless, Crump invoked genocide.
The skeptic’s rule definitely applies here.
Every year, American police shoot and kill more than 1,000 people. The vast majority of the victims were armed. If activists like Crump believe these figures are too high, they should collaborate with the police to develop strategies to reduce the number of fatal shootings.
Allegations of genocide may sell books, but they do nothing else.
In December of 2023, South Africa went before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and charged Israel with committing genocide against the Palestinians following Hamas’s October 7 attack. South Africa alleged when Israel carried out air strikes, they failed to prevent harm to civilians, proving their genocidal intent. The Hamas-run health ministry estimated that Israel’s war effort had killed over 35,000 Palestinians at the time South Africa made its case.
Israel called South Africa’s charges baseless.
Israel stated that their intentions are to eliminate Hamas, not the Palestinian people. Israel insisted that it was fighting a war of self-defense and had taken all necessary precautions under international law to avoid civilian casualties, such as airdropping flyers warning of impending attacks, calling civilians’ phones to urge them to leave targeted buildings, and aborting some strikes when civilians were in the way.
The ICJ has no power to enforce its ruling, but it found in favor of South Africa. Did the ICJ’s ruling represent an official declaration of genocide, and were UN members expected to help prevent it, or did the skeptics’ rule still apply?
The ICJ’s president clarified that the court did not rule on the plausibility that Israel’s military campaign amounted to genocide, but that South Africa had the right to present the case to the court. The ICJ ordered Israel to “take all measures within its power” to prevent acts of genocide.
In other words, the ICJ directed Israel to maintain its current course of conduct.
However, if Israel is pursuing a war of retribution rather than self-defense, the absence of genocidal intent does not relieve Israel of responsibility for every Palestinian death; charges of genocide are not required to make that case.
Last month, South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa met with US President Donald Trump, who claimed that there was an ongoing genocide against White farmers in South Africa. Ramaphosa denied the charges. He stated that the violence experienced by White farmers impacts all South African communities because South Africa has one of the highest crime rates in the world.
Reports on the violence Ramaphosa referenced go back decades.
A 2003 report by the South African Police Service National Operational Coordinating Committee said that “farm attacks” refer to acts aimed at residents, workers, and visitors to farms, whether with the intent to murder, rape, rob, or inflict bodily harm. Moreover, ideology, labor disputes, land issues, and revenge motivate all actions aimed at disrupting commercial farming activities.
In 2018, Newsweek reported that activists claimed South African authorities were tacitly approving attacks on the country’s white farmers, resulting in one murder every five days, while the police were ignoring the violence. The White nationalist lobbying group AfriForum said that when lawmakers passed a motion that could see land seized from farmers without compensation, it sent a message that landowners could be attacked with impunity. The Head of Safety at AfriForum declared, “A crime war has engulfed our rural areas.”
AfriForum described the violence as a “crime war,” not genocide. Therefore, it’s the South African government’s responsibility to prevent crime, not the international community’s.
Trump invoked genocide to justify granting White South Africans refugee status while barring refugees from countries such as Sudan, but the Biden administration determined in January 2025, before Trump’s inauguration, that the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary rebel group, had committed genocide during Sudan’s ongoing civil war.
The skeptic’s rule applies to Trump’s claim of White genocide in South Africa, but it appears Trump gave the previous administration’s determination of genocide in Sudan a moment of silence.