Ethnic Cleansing

Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP) is a non-profit organization based in Washington DC, and is currently funded by the Foundation for Middle East Peace. On October 13, 2023, CMEP issued a statement titled, “Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP) Joins United Nations in Call Not to Ignore Gazans' Dying at the World’s Watch.” The statement called for US President Biden to address the ongoing conflict in Gaza, stating, “Congress and the Biden Administration must not sit idly by as ethnic cleansing unfolds… the Israeli government announced that the 1.1 million Gazans living in the northern part of the enclave had 24 hours to relocate to the south. CMEP strongly denounces this move – not only would it force people from their homes and communities, but it is also impossible to move more than one million people logistically and safely in such a short period of time.” Despite these claims, the term "ethnic cleansing" is being misapplied in the current context because:

1. Military Evacuations are Not Ethnic Cleansing: Churches for the Middle East Peace claims that Israel is ethnically cleansing Palestinians by ordering them to evacuate to the south of Gaza. However, this claim is entirely false based on international law, which permits the evacuation of civilians for military purposes. The International Committee of the Red Cross commentary on Convention (IV) Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, Geneva, 12 August 1949, provides, “evacuation may only be ordered in two cases which are defined in great detail, namely when the safety of the population or imperative military reasons so demand. If, therefore, an area is in danger as a result of military operations or is liable to be subjected to intense bombing, the Occupying Power has the right and, subject to the provisions of Article 5, the duty of evacuating.” Israel is therefore acting within the parameters of international law, specifically Article 49 of the Geneva Convention, which outlines the grounds for evacuation.
2. Hamas's Role in Preventing Safe Civilian Evacuations: Churches for Middle East Peace accuses Israel of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians because "it is also impossible to move more than one million people logistically and safely in such a short period of time," while simultaneously ignoring the reason for the dangers. Hamas, a designated terrorist organization, embeds itself in civilian populations to prevent evacuations. International lawyer Orde Kittrie argues that Hamas worked by intentionally exposing Gaza's civilians to danger by discouraging and preventing their evacuation from battle zones. Michael Schmitt, an international legal scholar, wrote an article titled "Israel – Hamas 2023 Symposium – What is and is not Human Shielding?" Schmitt asserts that Hamas makes it difficult for these evacuations to be conducted safely, stating, "Hamas and other fighters are likely among those civilians fleeing Gaza City... if they choose to retreat on that route because of the presence of civilians, they are using human shields." Despite these known facts, Churches for the Middle East deliberately ignores Hamas's role in making military evacuations difficult and instead claims that these evacuations are a product of Israel's ethnic cleansing.
3. The Unacknowledged Ethnic Cleansing of Jews from the Middle East: On March 20, 2017, the U.N. Human Rights Council debated permanent agenda item 7, targeting Israel, while other countries accused Israel of ethnic cleansing; these same countries perpetuate grave human rights violations against Jews. Representatives claimed that "Israel has used the worst kinds of abuse, ethnic cleansing." Countries including Iran, Sudan, Syria, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia agreed while ignoring the hostile environment these countries have created for Jews. Hillel Neuer responded to the hypocrisy, demonstrating that for over a millennium, Jewish individuals have been violently kicked out of the Middle East. Neuer argues, "Israel's 1.5 million Arabs, whatever challenges they face, enjoy full rights to vote and to be elected in the Knesset... How many Jews live in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco? Algeria had 140,000 Jews. Algeria, where are your Jews? Egypt used to have 75,000 Jews. Where are your Jews? Syria had tens of thousands of Jews. Iraq had over 135,000 Jews. Where are your Jews?" While Arab individuals enjoy full rights in Israel, over one million Jewish individuals have been forcibly expelled from the Middle East. In Israel, the Arab population has increased, while the expulsion of thousands of Jews from Arab nations continues to go unnoticed by the supposed champions of human rights.
4. Not Comparable to Historical Ethnic Cleansing: The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia provided witness accounts of ethnic cleansing in former Yugoslavia. These testimonies demonstrate that the evacuation of Palestinians to Northern Gaza does not compare to the atrocities purported in former Yugoslavia. In 2023, the Israeli army dropped thousands of leaflets urging civilians to evacuate Gaza, providing Palestinians a chance to evacuate before military operations. In former Yugoslavia, such practices were not heard of; the Serbian Army used violent methods, including torture and murder, to forcibly displace civilians. An anonymous witness recalls her 14-year-old son being forcibly taken from his family: "The soldier told her 14-year-old son to step out of the line, and part from the rest of the family... I grabbed him by his hand." The last time she saw her son, a "Serb soldier was dragging" him away. She testified, "sometimes I also think it would be better if none of us had survived." These accounts sustain that ethnic cleansing occurred and further prosecute individuals responsible.

Human Rights Watch is a United States-based international non-profit organization dedicated to monitoring human rights across the globe. On March 24, 2026, Human Rights Watch delivered a statement at the 61st regular session of the UN Human Rights Council on the human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories. The organization called for an end to ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, stating, “While the world’s eyes are turned towards Israel and the US’s war with Iran, violence, displacement, and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank are escalating. On a daily basis, settlers are invading Palestinian communities, firing live ammunition, setting homes and cars on fire, and attacking families in their homes.” Despite pervasive claims that Israel is engaging in ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, NGO Monitor asserts that this is a bold mischaracterization of the term due to the fact that:

1. Ignores Neighbouring Countries' Desire to Ethnically Cleanse the Jewish State of Jews: NGO Monitor disseminated a letter written in response to Oxford University, which invited Gerald Steinberg, academic, founder, and president of NGO Monitor, to participate in a debate centred around the question of Israel's existence. The letter reads, "Israel's military tactics and policies towards Palestinians deliberately target civilians and infrastructure to instill fear, control, and enact a planned ethnic cleansing." Steinberg responded, illustrating a common theme among institutions: while villainizing Israel, many other countries enjoy the same standard without being accused of ethnic cleansing. He expressed, "over 30 nation-states that identify themselves as Christian, many with official churches funded by the state budget and featuring crosses on their flags, or 56 that declare themselves as Islamic including membership in Organization of Islamic Cooperation, would be appropriate topics for debates on claims of discrimination against ethno-national or religious minorities or similar terms." Steinberg elaborates that these statements ignore neighbouring countries' desire to ethnically cleanse Israel of Jews, citing "the stream of declarations from Hamas and from the Iranian regime on the intention to destroy Israel (including a digital countdown clock in Tehran), accompanied by extensive military preparations and attacks by the Hezbollah proxy forces." Gerald Steinberg’s letter in response to Oxford highlights how accusations of Israel's ethnic cleansing, most often, deliberately ignore declarations by Iran, Hamas, and other countries in the Middle East that not only call for the destruction of the Jewish state, but also the removal of Jews from their ancestral homeland in Israel.
2. Selective Reporting: NGO Monitor’s article, “NGOs Report Selectively on Deadly Attacks in Israeli Cities,” published in 2021, argues that human rights organizations are selective about reporting their concerns regarding attacks on ethnic communities in Israel. Particularly, Human Rights Watch disseminated biased reporting of conflict, such as the 2021 attacks on Jewish and Arab Israeli citizens. NGO Monitor reports that Human Rights Watch provides evidence of violence towards Arabs and Palestinians in Israel, while simultaneously ignoring the violence that occurs to Jewish Israelis during the same period. The former Human Rights Watch “Director for Israel and Palestine,” Omar Shakir, posted on X condemning civilian attacks on Arab citizens, referring to it as “state-sanctioned mob violence.” NGO Monitor argues that his tweet deliberately ignored violence that occurred during the same attacks against Jewish individuals, stating that “the past week has seen intensive violence in mixed Arab-Jewish cities throughout Israel. There have been lynchings, firebombs, beatings, stabbings, rioting, and other forms of nationalistically motivated violence. In addition to brutal attacks by Jewish extremists against Arab citizens, the majority of incidents have involved Arabs targeting Jews (or what they thought to be Jewish homes). These attacks have led to a number of deaths.” These facts demonstrate that while Jewish individuals also faced ethnic-based violence, Human Rights Watch only promotes a selective narrative that Arabs living in Israel face ethnic violence perpetrated by Israelis.
3. Removal of a Civilian Population for Military Operations Is Not Ethnic Cleansing: Evacuating civilians for the purpose of conducting military operations does not constitute ethnic cleansing. Throughout the Israel-Hamas war, Israel evacuated civilians from locations that could be subject to harm. However, following these evacuations, Israel was largely accused of perpetrating practices of ethnic cleansing by forcibly removing people from their homes. Despite these allegations, international law, under Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, states: “The Occupying Power may undertake total or partial evacuation of a given area if the security of the population or imperative military reasons so demand.” International law, therefore, affirms that the temporary removal of civilians for security or military reasons does not constitute ethnic cleansing.
4. No Evidence of Ethnic Replacement: Doctors Without Borders, an international medical organization, published an article titled “The Practical Guide to Humanitarian Law” In the article, Doctors Without Borders explains that ethnic cleansing, “used most notably in the former Yugoslavia, aims to artificially create geographic zones (usually using violent methods) in which the population is composed exclusively of persons of the same nationality or ethnicity.” In cases of ethnic cleansing, the dominant country accused of ethnic cleansing would attempt to impose its nationality or ethnicity on civilians. This process is central to ethnic cleansing, as an ethnicity becomes eradicated from a specific geographic zone and replaced with the dominant one. Yet, in Gaza, where Israel is accused of ethnic cleansing, the hegemonic population has remained the same nationality and ethnicity. Since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, Palestinians have continued to be ethnically Arab and practice either Islam or Christianity. Had Israel ethnically cleansed Palestinians, these distinct populations would not be intact.

In May of 2022, President of Russia Vladimir Putin addressed ongoing war efforts in Ukraine. During a video conference on “socioeconomic support for regions,” President Putin claimed that defence war efforts were used in response to the ethnic cleansing of Russians in Donbas, Ukraine. Putin stated, “Encouraged by the United States and other Western countries, Ukraine was purposefully preparing for a scenario of force, a massacre and an ethnic cleansing in Donbas. A massive onslaught on Donbas and later Crimea was just a matter of time. However, our Armed Forces have shattered these plans.” The term ethnic cleansing was specifically invoked to characterize Russia’s war efforts as a legitimate response to the alleged persecution of Russians in Donbas. In spite of these claims, evidence suggests that the term ethnic cleansing was misused on the basis that:

1. Absence of Ethnic Homogeneity: A key component of ethnic cleansing is rendering an area ethnically homogeneous. The United Nations Commission of Experts defined ethnic cleansing as "rendering an area ethnically homogeneous." However, in Donbas and throughout Ukraine, people identify themselves as ethnically Russian. Ukraine has maintained a place where Russians can freely live. For example, the 2019 survey conducted in Ukraine by the Razumkov Centre reports that “7.3% of respondents identified as ethnic Russians” and “24.4% considered Russian their native language.” In Donbas, where Ukraine is accused of ethnically cleansing Russians, there are millions of Russians who have a strong community, culture, and language. The reality is that, if the claim of ethnic cleansing was legitimate, there would not be a strong Russian community able to simultaneously live freely in Ukraine. Donbas and the rest of Ukraine are not ethnically homogeneous, undermining the claim that Ukraine was engaged in rendering the region exclusively Ukrainian.
2. Atrocity Inversion: The claim that Ukraine is perpetuating ethnic cleansing against Russians is rooted in atrocity inversion, whereby the country that is facing forced removal from its land is being accused of perpetuating policies of ethnic cleansing. Despite Ukrainians being forcibly removed and deported from Russian territory, atrocity inversion reverses the narrative to deflect from the true removal of Ukrainians from Russian territory. The OHCHR has reported and recorded the ongoing deportations, forced removals, and violence perpetrated against Ukrainians by Russian forces. In a report titled "Forced Displacement from Territory of Ukraine Occupied by the Russian Federation," the OHCHR provides that "occupying authorities forcibly transferred or deported numerous individuals from the occupied territory to Government-controlled territory, forcing them to walk across the frontline, often at great risk due to ongoing hostilities and landmines." Ukrainians were forced to walk miles and were forcibly deported for failing to comply with the occupying authorities, resulting in thousands of Ukrainians being deported from their homes in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. The U.S. Department of State provides that since the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine war in 2022, it is estimated that between 900,000 and 1.6 million Ukrainians have been forcibly removed from their homes. Consequently, the argument that Ukraine is ethnically cleansing Russians inverts the reality that Ukrainians face in Russian territory, including violence, forcible transfer, deportation, and mass displacement intended to render Russia ethnically homogeneous.
3. Absence of Independent Verification: The claim that Ukraine is ethnically cleansing Russians has not been sustained or widely adopted as a statement of fact in international law. In contrast, the actions perpetrated against Ukraine by Russia have been widely condemned as crimes against humanity. The International Court of Justice's preliminary decision in Ukraine v. Russia (2022) provides that Russia abused the Genocide Convention, stating, “the Court is not in possession of evidence substantiating the genocide allegations of the Russian Federation” and that the Convention should not be used to “authorise unilateral use of force in the territory of another State.” This ruling further supported the claim that Russia is the aggressor and has undertaken policies to cleanse Russia of Ukrainians. In contrast, the ICJ rejected the allegation in Donbas, and the United Nations General Assembly continues to express "grave concern at the high number of civilian casualties, including women and children," resulting from the conflict in Ukraine.