Abstract
Since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war following Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack, accusations that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza have become increasingly common in political discourse, media coverage, and international institutions. Although the legal definition of genocide requires proof of a specific intent to destroy a protected national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, public debate increasingly appears to apply the term more broadly to armed conflicts involving large-scale civilian casualties. This study examines how Americans understand and apply the concept of genocide by comparing judgments about Israel’s actions in Gaza with a series of historical and contemporary conflicts involving civilian deaths.
A nationally representative sample of American adults evaluated whether the term genocide applied to Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, the Holocaust, the treatment of Native Americans, the Allied bombing of Germany during World War II, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Vietnam War, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Islamist violence against Black Christians in Africa. Additional experimental conditions examined whether respondents’ judgments changed after exposure to historical comparisons or to Hamas’s publicly declared intention to destroy Israel and kill Jews.
The findings indicate that many respondents apply the term genocide well beyond its accepted legal meaning. While the Holocaust remained the clearest and most universally recognized example of genocide, substantial numbers of respondents also characterized numerous military campaigns involving large-scale civilian casualties as genocide, including conflicts in which the United States was a participant. Neither historical comparisons nor information concerning Hamas’s explicitly genocidal ideology produced meaningful changes in respondents’ judgments.
The tendency to apply the term broadly was not evenly distributed across the population. Younger respondents and those identifying as Democrats were significantly more likely than older respondents and Republicans to characterize both Israel’s actions and other military conflicts as genocide. These differences extended beyond attitudes toward Israel, suggesting broader generational and political differences in how the concept itself is understood.
Taken together, the findings suggest that the public meaning of genocide has undergone a process of conceptual expansion that effectively downgrades its legal and historical distinctiveness. Increasingly, the term appears to function as a general expression of moral condemnation for wars involving extensive civilian casualties rather than as the legally defined crime requiring proof of specific intent. This shift has important implications for public diplomacy, legal communication, and public understanding of armed conflict.
We can more accurately term this process of conceptual expansion as “conceptual dilution”: a situation in which a concept with a precise legal or professional definition expands within public discourse to encompass situations not included in its original meaning. In this sense, the expansion of the term’s meaning alters not only the vocabulary of public discourse but also the framework through which the public interprets reality. This is what appears to have happened with the term “genocide.”
Introduction
Few words in modern political discourse carry greater moral force than “genocide.” Coined by Raphael Lemkin during the Second World War and codified in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the term was intended to describe a uniquely grave crime: the deliberate destruction (i.e., with “intent”), in whole or in part, of a protected national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. Unlike other violations of international humanitarian law, genocide is distinguished not by the number of victims alone but by the specific intent to eliminate a protected population.
In recent years, however, the public use of the term appears to have expanded well beyond its legal definition. Allegations of genocide are now frequently directed at conflicts involving large-scale civilian casualties, even when the legal requirement of specific intent remains disputed or absent. This trend has become especially visible in discussions of Israel’s military campaign against Hamas in Gaza following the October 7, 2023, attacks. Claims that Israel is committing genocide have become commonplace in political debate, university campuses, social media, and international forums despite continuing legal disagreement over whether the evidence satisfies the criteria established under the Genocide Convention.
Whether these accusations reflect changes in public understanding of genocide has received surprisingly little empirical attention. Most discussions assume either that the public understands the legal definition or that disagreement stems primarily from political ideology. It is equally possible, however, that many people employ a broader, largely moral understanding of genocide in which extensive civilian suffering, rather than demonstrated intent, becomes the defining characteristic.
The distinction is important. If the public increasingly uses genocide as a general label for severe wartime civilian harm, then debates over whether a particular conflict constitutes genocide may be shaped less by disagreements about evidence than by fundamentally different understandings of what the term means. Under such circumstances, arguments grounded solely in legal definitions may fail to persuade audiences operating under a different conceptual framework.
This study examines how Americans apply the concept of genocide across multiple conflicts rather than focusing exclusively on Israel. Respondents were asked whether they believed the term applied to Israel’s military campaign in Gaza as well as to several historical and contemporary conflicts that varied widely in historical context, military objectives, civilian casualties, and legal status under international law. Because no definition of genocide was provided, respondents relied on their own understandings of the term, enabling the study to examine how the concept operates in contemporary public opinion.
The study also investigated whether these judgments could be influenced by additional information. Some respondents were asked to compare Israel’s actions with other historical conflicts involving civilian casualties. In contrast, others were presented with Hamas’s publicly stated objective of destroying Israel and killing Jews before evaluating Israel’s actions. Finally, the analysis examined whether age, gender, and political affiliation influenced how respondents applied the concept of genocide.
Rather than assessing the legal merits of genocide allegations against any particular party, the purpose of this study is to examine how the American public understands and employs the concept itself. In doing so, it seeks to contribute to a broader understanding of how legal concepts evolve within public discourse and how changes in their meaning may influence political communication, public diplomacy, and debates surrounding contemporary armed conflict.
Method
Data were collected through a nationally representative survey of 505 American adults (balanced for age and gender, margin of error ±4%) designed to examine how the public applies the concept of genocide to contemporary and historical armed conflicts. Rather than providing respondents with the legal definition of genocide contained in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, participants were required to rely on their own understanding of the term. This approach allowed the study to assess how genocide is understood in contemporary public discourse rather than respondents’ ability to apply a formal legal definition.
Respondents were asked whether they believed the term genocide applied to Israel’s military campaign in Gaza following the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack. To place these judgments in a broader context, respondents also evaluated several historical and contemporary conflicts involving large-scale civilian deaths: Nazi Germany’s destruction of European Jewry during the Holocaust, the treatment of Native Americans in the United States, the Allied bombing campaign against Germany during the Second World War, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Vietnam War, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Islamist violence directed against Black Christians in Africa.
To examine whether public judgments were influenced by contextual information, experimental conditions also exposed subsets of respondents to one of two interventions before they evaluated Israel’s actions (after their initial evaluation at the beginning of the study). One condition encouraged respondents to compare Israel’s military campaign with other historical conflicts involving civilian casualties. A second condition presented Hamas’s publicly stated objective of destroying Israel and killing Jews before respondents evaluated Israel’s conduct.
In addition to overall responses, analyses examined differences by age and political affiliation. Respondents under age forty-five were compared with those aged forty-five and older, while political comparisons were conducted between self-identified Democrats and Republicans.
Results
Overall Judgments
The survey revealed substantial variation in how respondents applied the term genocide across the conflicts examined. As expected, the Holocaust was overwhelmingly identified as genocide, indicating broad public recognition of the event that gave rise to the legal concept itself.
At the same time, respondents extended the label to conflicts that have generally not been classified as genocide under international law or by mainstream historical scholarship. Israel’s military campaign in Gaza was characterized as genocide by a majority of respondents (54.63%). Still, similar or even stronger judgments of “genocide” were also applied to several other military campaigns involving extensive civilian casualties, including the treatment of Native Americans (63.82%), the Allied bombing of Germany (31.21%), the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (44.53%), the Vietnam War (40.95%), Russia’s war in Ukraine (63.02%) and Islamist violence against Black Christians in Africa (52.28%).
- Germany against the Jews (78.13%)
████████████████████████████████████████ - United States against Native Americans (63.82%)
██████████████████████████████ - Russia in Ukraine (63.02%)
██████████████████████████████ - Israel in Gaza (54.63%)
██████████████████████████ - Islamists in Africa (52.28%)
█████████████████████████ - United States / Hiroshima (44.53%)
█████████████████████ - United States in Vietnam war (40.95%)
███████████████████ - Allied forces in WWII (31.21%)
███████████████
Figure 1. Percentage of respondents agreeing that the term “genocide” applies to the event (with comparison to Israel in Gaza)
Taken together, these findings indicate that many respondents apply the term broadly across diverse historical and military contexts rather than reserving it exclusively for cases traditionally recognized as genocide.
Effects of Historical Comparisons and Contextual Information
One objective of the study was to determine whether respondents’ judgments concerning Israel could be influenced by additional historical or contextual information.
Neither intervention produced substantial changes in opinion. Respondents who compared Israel’s military campaign with other historical conflicts involving civilian casualties answered in a manner that did not differ meaningfully from those in the initial question. Similarly, respondents who were informed of Hamas’s publicly declared objective of destroying Israel and killing Jews showed little change in their judgments concerning whether Israel’s actions constituted genocide.
These findings suggest that opinions concerning Israel’s actions were relatively stable and were not readily altered by brief exposure to historical comparisons or contextual information concerning Hamas’s stated objectives. One caveat is that this was a single, isolated exposure. We cannot predict what the effect would be of repeated exposures over time, although it would be reasonable to feel that this may create dissonance that would in fact lead to attitude change.
Demographic and Political Differences
Analysis by demographic and political characteristics revealed important differences in how respondents applied the term genocide. However, these differences did not appear to be confined to attitudes toward Israel. Rather, they reflected broader differences in the willingness to apply the term across a range of military conflicts involving extensive civilian casualties.
Women were significantly more likely than men to characterize Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide (58.75% vs. 50.83%). This pattern extended beyond Israel to the other historical and contemporary conflicts included in the survey, indicating that women generally applied the term more broadly than men when evaluating military actions involving substantial civilian harm.
Age produced a similar pattern. Respondents under the age of 45 were significantly more likely than older respondents to characterize Israel’s actions as genocide (64.13% vs. 46.56%). Younger respondents likewise applied the term more frequently to other military conflicts, suggesting a broader interpretation of genocide than that employed by older respondents.
Political affiliation showed the strongest differences. Democrats (75.49%) were substantially more likely than Republicans (36.71%) or Independents (47.77%) to characterize Israel’s actions—and several other historical and contemporary military campaigns—as genocide. As with the gender and age findings, these differences extended across multiple conflicts rather than being limited to Israel.
Taken together, these findings suggest that the semantic expansion of the term genocide is not occurring uniformly across the American public. Instead, it appears to be concentrated among particular demographic and political groups. The fact that women, younger respondents, and Democrats consistently applied the term more broadly across multiple conflicts suggests that these differences reflect broader variation in how the concept of genocide is understood rather than differences confined to attitudes toward Israel.
Summary of Findings
Four principal findings emerge from the survey.
First, many Americans apply the term genocide to a wide range of armed conflicts involving substantial civilian casualties, including conflicts that have not generally been classified as genocide under international law. The allegation is not something limited to Israel alone and thus cannot be said to be solely a result of antisemitic or antizionist belief (although it is clear those harboring antisemitic or antizionist attitudes would feel this way.)
Second, respondents continued to recognize the Holocaust as the clearest and most universally accepted example of genocide (78.13%), indicating that the broader application of the term has supplemented rather than displaced its traditional historical association.
Third, neither historical comparisons nor information concerning Hamas’s declared genocidal objectives produced meaningful short-term changes in respondents’ judgments, suggesting that these views are relatively stable following a single exposure to contrary information.
Finally, the broader application of the term was significantly more common among younger respondents, women and Democrats than among older respondents and Republicans. Because these differences extended across multiple conflicts rather than Israel alone, they suggest broader generational and political variation in how genocide is understood within contemporary American public opinion.
Discussion
The present findings suggest that the public understanding of genocide has diverged in important respects from its accepted legal meaning. Although respondents overwhelmingly recognized the Holocaust as the clearest example of genocide, many also applied the term to a broad range of military conflicts involving extensive civilian casualties. This pattern extended well beyond Israel’s military campaign in Gaza to conflicts involving the United States, Russia, and Islamist violence in Africa, indicating that the findings reflect a broader shift in how the concept of genocide is understood rather than attitudes toward any single conflict.
The Downgrading of Genocide
The central finding of this study is not simply that Americans disagree about whether Israel has committed genocide. Rather, it is that many appear to employ a broader concept of genocide than that embodied in international law. Under the Genocide Convention, genocide is distinguished from other war crimes and crimes against humanity by one defining characteristic: the specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a protected national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. Civilian casualties, however extensive, are not by themselves sufficient to establish genocide.
Our findings suggest that many respondents apply a different standard. Rather than emphasizing demonstrated intent, they appear to associate genocide primarily with large-scale civilian suffering. In this broader understanding, the humanitarian consequences of military action become the principal criterion for determining whether genocide has occurred.
This broader application effectively downgrades the concept of genocide. The Holocaust remains the paradigmatic example of the crime, yet the same label is increasingly applied to military campaigns that differ substantially in intent, objectives, and legal status. As concepts broaden, they inevitably become less discriminating. A term originally intended to identify a unique crime comes to encompass an increasingly diverse range of armed conflicts, reducing its ability to distinguish genocide from other grave violations of international humanitarian law.
The present findings do not demonstrate that respondents reject the legal definition of genocide. Rather, they suggest that many are applying a broader popular understanding that differs from the legal concept. Whether this reflects limited familiarity with international law, changing moral norms, media framing, educational influences, or broader political discourse cannot be determined from the present data. Nevertheless, the practical consequence is the same: the public meaning of genocide appears to have expanded beyond its accepted legal definition.
Conceptual Inflation and Political Language
The findings are consistent with a broader process of conceptual inflation in political language, whereby legal and historical concepts gradually acquire symbolic and moral meanings that extend beyond their original definitions. Terms such as genocide, apartheid, occupation, and settler colonialism increasingly function not only as legal classifications but also as expressions of moral condemnation and political identity.
Although the present study examines only the concept of genocide, it provides empirical evidence that its public meaning has expanded beyond its traditional legal boundaries. Importantly, this should not be interpreted as evidence that respondents are acting in bad faith. A more parsimonious explanation is that many Americans are applying a broader, commonly understood meaning that has evolved through contemporary political, media, and educational discourse. The fact that respondents applied the label broadly across conflicts involving multiple countries—including the United States—suggests that this broader conceptual framework extends well beyond attitudes toward Israel.
Demographic and Political Differences
The semantic expansion of the term genocide is not occurring uniformly across the American public. Instead, it appears to be concentrated within identifiable demographic and political groups. Women, younger respondents, and Democrats were consistently more likely than men, older respondents, and Republicans to characterize Israel’s actions—as well as numerous other military conflicts involving extensive civilian casualties—as genocide.
These differences are noteworthy because they extend beyond attitudes toward Israel itself. Had these groups applied the label only to Israel, the findings might reasonably be interpreted as reflecting political attitudes toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Instead, they applied the term more broadly across conflicts involving multiple countries and historical periods, suggesting broader differences in how genocide itself is understood.
The reasons for these demographic differences remain uncertain. The greater tendency of women to apply the term broadly may reflect previously documented differences in the weight given to humanitarian outcomes and civilian suffering when evaluating armed conflict. Likewise, the findings among younger respondents raise the possibility of an ongoing generational shift in the public understanding of genocide, although longitudinal research will be required to determine whether these differences persist over time. Similarly, the political differences observed in the study may reflect differences in media environments, educational experiences, moral reasoning, or political communication rather than partisan bias alone. Identifying the relative contribution of these factors represents an important direction for future research.
Limitations
Several limitations should be considered. First, respondents were intentionally not provided with a legal definition of genocide. This design enabled the study to examine how the public naturally understands and applies the concept but does not permit conclusions regarding respondents’ knowledge of international law or their ability to apply the legal definition accurately.
Second, the experimental interventions consisted of a single exposure to historical comparisons or contextual information concerning Hamas’s stated objectives. Although these one-time interventions produced little immediate change in respondents’ judgments, the study does not address whether repeated exposure to historical, legal, and contextual information over longer periods might produce different results. The long-term effects of sustained educational efforts remain an important topic for future research.
Finally, while the study identifies significant demographic and political differences, it cannot explain why these differences emerge. Future studies should examine the roles of education, media consumption, political identity, moral reasoning, and familiarity with international law in shaping public understandings of genocide.
Implications for Public Diplomacy
These findings have important implications for public diplomacy. If many members of the public understand genocide primarily in terms of extensive civilian suffering rather than the legal requirement of specific intent, arguments based solely on international law are unlikely to persuade many audiences. Disagreements may arise not only from different interpretations of the facts but also from different understandings of what constitutes genocide.
Effective public diplomacy should therefore focus not only on rebutting allegations of genocide but also on explaining why international law distinguishes genocide from war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, and the unintended consequences of armed conflict. Establishing a shared conceptual framework may be a necessary prerequisite to productive discussion of whether the label applies in any particular case.
The demographic findings further suggest that communication strategies should not assume a uniform audience. Women, younger respondents, and Democrats consistently applied the term more broadly than other groups, indicating that different audiences may require different approaches. Equally important, the distinction between ideological disagreement and conceptual misunderstanding deserves greater attention. Individuals whose judgments reflect different political commitments may require different forms of engagement than those whose conclusions stem from a broader, non-legal understanding of genocide.
Finally, because the present study examined only the effects of one-time informational interventions, it remains unknown whether sustained educational efforts might narrow the gap between popular and legal understandings of genocide. Determining the effectiveness of such approaches should be a priority for future research.
Conclusion
This study demonstrates that many Americans apply the term genocide more broadly than it is defined under international law. While the Holocaust remains the paradigmatic example of genocide, respondents frequently extended the label to military conflicts involving extensive civilian casualties even when those conflicts have not generally been classified as genocide by international courts or mainstream historical scholarship. This broader application extended well beyond Israel, suggesting a change in the public understanding of genocide itself rather than attitudes toward a single conflict.
The study also found that this semantic expansion is not occurring uniformly across American society. Women, younger respondents, and Democrats consistently applied the term more broadly than men, older respondents, and Republicans across multiple conflicts, indicating that the changing public meaning of genocide is concentrated within identifiable demographic and political groups.
More broadly, these findings suggest that changes in the meaning of fundamental legal concepts have consequences that extend beyond language itself. Definitions do more than classify events; they influence which facts are considered most relevant, how those facts are interpreted, and ultimately how historical and contemporary conflicts are understood. When different audiences apply different concepts of genocide, disagreements arise not only over terminology but also over the factual character of the events themselves.
Preserving a shared understanding of concepts such as genocide is therefore important not only for the integrity of international law but also for maintaining a common framework through which societies evaluate the realities of armed conflict. The significance of this study lies not simply in documenting a changing use of one word, but in illustrating how changes in public language can shape public understanding of some of the most consequential events of our time.
