Projection is the act of accusing others of the very sins we cannot face in ourselves. Knowingly or not, American politicians, academics and protesters are guilty of projection when they accuse Israel of genocide in Gaza. It is not Israel that has committed such a horrific crime, but to its eternal shame, the United States.

A look at the cold, hard data reveals a startling truth: Gaza's population has grown roughly sixfold since 1967, while the United States oversaw the near erasure of its indigenous peoples. One of those histories meets the U.N.'s definition of genocide; the other is a political smear.

Despite the difficulty in standing out among 435 members of the House of Representatives, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rep. Ro Khanna have done so. Polymarket, the wagering site, lists Ocasio-Cortez as the second-favorite for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination. At the Munich Security Conference, she reaffirmed her belief that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza. The irony of accusing a majority-Jewish state of genocide while in Germany seems to have escaped her.

As the leading Democrat behind the release of the Epstein files, Khanna is attempting to show his commitment to the truth. Also a potential presidential candidate, Khanna has deemed Israeli genocide "a moral test for anyone who wants to lead our party."

Let's open the history books. An international treaty passed in 1951 — now ratified by over 150 countries — defined genocide as "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group." According to a census taken by Israel after 1967's Six Day War, Gaza's population was 356,000. Today it is over 2.1 million. Sixfold growth is scarcely evidence of genocide.

Contrast this with the American record. Most recent estimates of the indigenous population before Columbus in what would become the United States and Canada place it between 3 and 10 million. The U.S. census in 1900 showed 237,196 Native Americans, a decrease of over 90% even for the low end of the range.

The displacements and deaths of Native Americans were no accident. For example, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act in 1830 resulting in the Trail of Tears, the forced removal of the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole tribes from their homes east of the Mississippi. Two decades later, California Gov. Peter Burnett told the state legislature to expect war "until the Indian race becomes extinct."

One of these is deliberate genocide leading to a 90% decline in the number of Native Americans. The other is a population that has grown over 500%.

Without doubt, there have been avoidable and tragic civilian casualties during the Gaza War, just as there are in all wars. The Hamas surprise attack on Israel on the morning of Oct. 7, 2023, led to the deaths of over 1,200 civilians.

The reported number of 70,000 Gazan deaths since October 2023 includes those of Hamas combatants. It also includes deaths due to natural causes and civilian deaths resulting from Hamas' misfired missiles and execution of its opponents in Gaza. Moreover, Hamas used schools and hospitals as shields for their armed personnel thereby knowingly endangering civilians, while Israel took steps to establish safe zones for civilians and warn them before attacks. Nevertheless, it is heartbreaking if even half of the 70,000 were civilians killed by Israeli forces, but it is certainly not genocide under the treaty definition.

The Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, resulted in the deaths of 2,403 Americans military personnel and 68 civilians. In a single attack on Tokyo in March 1945, American bombers killed an estimated 100,000 civilians.

Japan was a distant empire 5,000 miles away from California, the then-closest American state. Hamas dug tunnels that went right up to Gaza's border with Israel. The Hamas Covenant of 1988 specifically calls for it to "obliterate" Israel. The 2023 Hamas attack, then, was an existential threat in a way the Japanese attack was not. Both were bloody, but neither the American nor the Israeli response constitutes genocide.

When the American ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said it "would be fine" if Israel "took" lands from Egypt to Iraq, Saudi Arabia's foreign ministry called the remarks "irresponsible" and "a violation of the Charter of the United Nations." Yes, they were, but Saudi Arabia saying so does take chutzpah. After the United Nations established and recognized the state of Israel in 1948, Saudi troops joined those of five other Arab states in an attempt to massacre the Jewish inhabitants of the state newly established under that very charter.

Projection is when someone accuses another of being guilty of what they themselves have done. Saudi Arabia is guilty of that. So are Americans who spew untruths in disregard of the facts. I suggest all of them look into the mirror even if it's hard to acknowledge the history staring back at them.

A renaissance man, Keith Raffel has served as the senior counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee, started a successful internet software company, and had six books published including five novels and a collection of his columns. He currently spends the academic year as a resident scholar at Harvard. You can learn more about him at keithraffel.com. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at creators.com

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