I’ve read recent coverage and your public statements with care. According to reporting on your 16 Sept 2025 legal analysis, you conclude that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and that genocidal intent can be inferred from the totality of evidence (CNN, related context: live updates, earlier coverage). Your communications reference multiple genocidal acts, senior-official rhetoric, scale of civilian harm, displacement, aid obstruction, and specific incidents as part of the evidentiary mosaic for dolus specialis (special intent).

I also see strong criticism of that conclusion from Israel and various analysts who argue the “genocide” label is misapplied in this case. I’m not here to litigate why; I’m here to ask about how the inference of intent is made.

My Questions About “Intent” (the how)

1. What is your operative standard for inferring intent? Methodologically, how do you weigh official statements, patterns of conduct, operational directives, target sets, and humanitarian mitigation steps (evacuation warnings, corridors) when they point in different directions? What thresholds guide that inference?
2. How do you separate intent from foreseeable harm in asymmetric war? The record catalogs catastrophic civilian harm. How do you distinguish deliberate destruction “as such” from destruction incidental to fighting in urban terrain when non-state actors embed among civilians? Which precedents/baselines do you apply?
3. What is your evidentiary protocol for public statements? When senior officials make dehumanizing remarks, how do you assess whether they (a) express policy; (b) incite specific criminal acts; or (c) are repudiated by other state institutions? Do you code for context, timing, audience, and subsequent orders?
4. How are casualty figures and incident narratives verified? Which datasets do you treat as sufficiently reliable for legal conclusions (UN agencies, health authorities, third parties), and what error margins are acceptable? If numbers revise substantially, does your intent analysis update? How?
5. Do education/socialization factors enter your calculus—on any side? External research points to incitement/martyrdom content in Gaza’s educational frameworks (IMPACT-se report (PDF)). If background conditions are considered, how are they weighted and caveated?
6. How do you guard against mission creep in legal language? In public discourse, terms like genocide can become catch-alls for “worst war.” What steps do you take to protect the term’s legal gravity while communicating findings to non-lawyers?

Why how matters

Legal language shapes moral imagination. As Tablet’s Zach Goldberg writes: “We need our moral language to retain its clarity and gravity, not to mention its anchoring in legal and historical reality… Once terms like genocide and ethnic cleansing become routine descriptors for controversial wars or asymmetric conflicts, they lose their power to name the world’s most unspeakable crimes. That erosion weakens our ability to recognize and respond to real genocides when they occur—and distorts our understanding of those that already have, while diminishing the agency and true horror of genocidal actions.” (Tablet).

Likewise, analysts who reject the genocide label argue the law is being stretched beyond its text and purpose (Aish). Whether one agrees or not, these critiques deserve a transparent methodological reply from the body advancing the claim.

Narratives have consequences—for Israelis, for Palestinians in Gaza, and for Jewish and Muslim communities worldwide. When institutions speak with the authority of international law, precision is an ethic, not a luxury.

What I’m Asking For

• A plain-language methods appendix (even 2–3 pages) showing how the Commission operationalizes intent and weighs conflicting evidence.
• Two worked examples: one incident where the same dataset did support genocidal intent and one where it did not, and why.
• A commitment to issue errata/updates if core premises (facts or statistics) materially change.