Kneecap band: Ireland Israel Alliance rejects Belfast band's claim that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza war with Hamas
A leading figure in the Irish Jewish community has rejected claims by Belfast band Kneecap that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza.
Hamas says 50,000 people have been killed from Gaza’s 2.1m population since its massive attack on Israel in 2023. It refuses to say how many were fighters, but Israel claims 20,000 were Hamas.
Daniel O'Dowd, of the Ireland Israel Alliance, rejects Kneecap’s claims that Israel is committing genocide, accusing the band of "a willingness to misuse language and definitions to defame Israel".
He cites figures from UK think tank the Henry Jackson Society. It recently said Hamas' claim that 70 percent of casualties are women and children is “demonstrably false”, putting the figure instead at 51% and dropping.
"Kneecap parrot Hamas's narrative and claims on Gaza without stopping for one moment to wonder - are they telling the truth?,” Mr O’Dowd asked. “They are content to be useful idiots for Hamas's war.”
He said that the UN International Court of Justice, the sole body able to make a conviction on the charge of genocide, has not given such a ruling because of difficulty finding evidence.
As a result, he said, the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs has taken the “unprecedented” step of asking ICJ to relax the universal and legal definition of genocide “rather than exonerating Israel from this spurious charge”.