Dr. Ramani shares this post:

“I woke up already having to defend myself.  

Still half asleep, trying to understand what he was accusing me of, choosing my words carefully because I knew how easily the night could get worse.  

I hadn’t done anything. I just wanted to sleep.  

Home should have been somewhere I could rest without fear. ❤️”

This post describes waking up already on the defensive, choosing her words carefully because she knew how fast things could get worse. She hadn’t done anything. The accusation came first, and every answer she gave was held against her.

Many Israelis and their supporters recognize that dynamic, not in the rocket sirens but in the accusations.

Verdict Before Trial

The accusation of genocide is treated by many as settled fact. Yet the ICJ has not yet considered the merits of South Africa’s case, and Israel’s legal filing is confidential. Proceedings are expected to run until at least 2029. Israel strongly rejects the allegation. Meanwhile the label is used in protests, headlines and social media as if the case were closed. In abusive relationships this is familiar: the accusation becomes the reality, and denial becomes further proof of guilt.

Being Set Up

Coercive control often works through provocation. The abuser creates the conflict, waits for the reaction, then points to the reaction as the problem. Supporters of Israel say the same pattern appears in Gaza: October 7 as the provocation, a response that is then judged in isolation from what triggered it, and a defense that is dismissed with the line that “self-defence is not a defence to genocide.” Any response, however measured, is pre-judged as guilt.

One Accusation, Greatly Exaggerated

Settler violence is real, and the record should say so plainly. Shin Bet puts the hard core at roughly 70 people, within a broader group of about 300, out of a settler population of more than 460,000. That’s .07% even using the higher number.

What is mythic is the narrative built on top of it. UN/OCHA tallies run far higher — often 1,000-plus “settler-related” incidents a year — but those databases sweep in events that are not settler violence at all: IDF actions, non-violent presence, land disputes, Jewish visits to sites, mutual clashes.

Analyses of multi-year OCHA data find that after filtering for actual settler-initiated violence, the remainder is far lower — sometimes cited at 10–13 percent of the raw total in earlier periods.

Fatalities attributed specifically to settlers are a small fraction of West Bank Palestinian deaths; the large majority involve Israeli security forces in operations, clashes, or responses to attacks.

Meanwhile the other side of the ledger is minimized or omitted. Palestinian attacks — stone-throwing, shootings, stabbings, firebombs, vehicle rammings — number in the thousands annually in some tallies and produce more Israeli deaths and injuries.

Against Israel, the accusation arrives first, the defense is read as guilt, and a fringe is made to stand in for a whole people.