13 Fall 2026 is one of the most devastating manifestations of this crime against humanity. I say this as one who has examined such crimes over time, in different killing fields, and in my capacity, inter alia, as Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada and/or as prosecutor of such crimes. The denial or erasure of victims and survivors whose voices had been either silenced, ignored or denied, women and men — including the elderly and the very young — were subjected to ongoing sexual violence, threats of rape, humiliation, and psychological terror in conditions of enforced disappearance. Parents were assaulted in front of their children, siblings in front of one another, victims stripped, violated, filmed, and displayed. The cover up of Hamas’s mass atrocities found expression in the denial, erasure or utter lack of accountability for Hamas’s crimes in the main institutions of the UN, such as the UN General Assembly, or the ICJ, or the UN Human Rights Council, and the like. This constituted not only a massive erasure of Hamas’s unspeakable mass atrocities, but a massive coverup, breaching any fundamental principle of justice and accountability. This brings me to the fourth and final dynamic, involving the historical, legal, moral and normative inversion or atrocity crimes, finding expression in three foundational lies, if not libels, against Israel: 1. The characterization of Israel as a settler-colonial state and the Jewish People as white oppressor supremacists. This lie turns history, fact, identity and law on its head. The Jewish People are a prototypical indigenous people and Israel a prototypical indigenous state – a people that has maintained an unbroken connection to its ancestral homeland, while preserving its religion, Hebrew language, cultural traditions and national identity and across three millenia, making it a prototypical anti-colonial people. And more: Israel is a multiracial, multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multi-cultural, multi-linguistic, Jewish and democratic state. 2. The notion of Israel as racist, apartheid state is an affront to truth and justice. The worst thing one can say about anyone or any state is to call them racist. The very label supplies the indictment. No further proof is required and if any further proof is required, then you refer to the state, and in this instance, Israel, as an “apartheid state.” Apartheid is defined in international law as a crime against humanity. If Israel is an apartheid state, it constitutes a crime against humanity. And if it is a crime against humanity, not only does it have no right to exist, but we have a moral obligation to see that it is dismantled. But not only is this lie belied by the fact and law of Israel’s and the Jewish People’s indigeneity, of it being a multi-racial and multi-ethnic state, but where the Israeli-Arab minority is represented in the Israeli Parliament, in the Israeli courts, including the Supreme Court, in the Israeli Justice system, the Israeli media, Israeli NGOs. It is visible across the entire infrastructure of democracy. Anyone who has ever been a patient in an Israeli hospital, as I have been, will know that you are as likely to be treated by an Israeli-Arab as you are by a Jew, and where Israeli-Muslim Arabs are represented in the highest echelons of medical care in Israel. The apartheid lie is more than a lie – it is borne out of utter ignorance or malice or a combination of both. 3. Genocide is a crime of crimes whose name, as I have written many times, we should even shudder to mention. As one who has been engaged in the teaching, study, researching, writing and prosecution of genocide – and where, as Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, I initiated the first ever prosecution of a genocidaire, the characterization of Israel as a genocidal state — again, out of utter ignorance or maligned intent — undermines the whole understanding and application of this crime of crimes. Indeed, the characterization of Israel as being “genocidal” did not begin, as bad as that alone was, in the immediate aftermath of October 7. It goes back to Israel's founding in 1948, and has been repeated and metastasized ever since. Once again, it is a classic example of historical, moral, legal and normative inversion, turning history, fact, law and justice on its head.n Jerusalem May 2026 Irwin Cotler is International Chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, emeritus professor of law at McGill University, Isaacman Distinguished Visiting Professor in Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Gratz College. He is a former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, and International Counsel to political prisoners. He serves as counsel for the families of hostages and has made representations before the ICC and other international bodies on their behalf. He is also Canada’s first Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism. He was present at the founding meeting of the IJL some 57 years ago and has been continuously engaged in its work since then.
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