Israel–Palestine Myths vs. Facts

The Myth

"Israel is simply defending itself"

The Facts

Not in the sense usually claimed. In its 2004 advisory opinion on the Wall, the International Court of Justice found that Article 51 of the UN Charter has no relevance where the threat comes from territory Israel itself occupies. In 2024 the Court went further, finding Israel's continued occupation unlawful and saying it must end as rapidly as possible.

An occupying power does have security powers under the law of occupation, but they come with duties to protect the occupied population and do not amount to a licence for war against it. The 2024 opinion found the occupation itself unlawful, and UN Security Council Resolution 2334 (2016) states that the settlements have no legal validity. The UN General Assembly endorsed the opinion in Resolution ES-10/24 (18 September 2024) and demanded Israel end the occupation within 12 months; that deadline passed in September 2025, and the occupation continues.

• The ICJ rulings explained on our resources page →

The Myth

"There was no Palestine before Israel"

The Facts

Yes. The name Palestine has been used for this region for roughly 2,500 years: in the 5th century BCE Herodotus wrote that the Syrian coast "as far as Egypt is all called Palestine". Under the British Mandate (1920–1948), Palestine issued its own passports and currency, and its 1922 census counted 757,182 residents.

Roman and Byzantine provinces bore the name (Syria Palaestina, later Palaestina Prima and Secunda), it stayed in everyday Arabic use as Filastin through the Ottoman period, and Palestinian Arab towns, farms, newspapers and political organisations are documented throughout the late Ottoman and Mandate periods. Of the 757,182 people counted in 1922, 83,794 (about 11%) were Jewish.

• See the Mandate era on the timeline →

The Myth

"Hamas uses human shields"

The Facts

The claim goes far beyond the evidence usually offered for it. In July 2014 Amnesty International said it did not have evidence that Palestinian civilians had been intentionally used to shield military targets, and noted that fighters operating near homes is not the same thing in law. Israeli forces' own use of Palestinians as human shields is documented.

Under international humanitarian law (Additional Protocol I, Article 51), even where one side unlawfully places fighters among civilians, the attacking side's duty to protect those civilians remains. Human rights groups including B'Tselem have documented Israeli soldiers forcing Palestinians to act as human shields, a practice Israel's own High Court banned in 2005.

The Myth

"A land without a people for a people without a land"

The Facts

It is a 19th-century slogan, popularised by Christian writers such as Alexander Keith (1843) and later by Zionist writer Israel Zangwill, that portrayed Palestine as empty. It was false: Britain's 1922 census counted 757,182 people in Palestine, of whom 83,794 (about 11%) were Jewish; the rest were overwhelmingly Muslim and Christian Arabs.

Land ownership tells the same story. UN figures on land in Palestine show Jewish-owned land in 1945 at about 1.5 million dunams, under 6% of the country. In 1947–49 around 750,000 Palestinians were expelled or fled in what Palestinians call the Nakba, and hundreds of their villages were depopulated.

• The Nakba on the timeline →

The Myth

"Israel is the most moral army in the world"

The Facts

The record contradicts it. Gaza's Ministry of Health had counted 74,016 Palestinians killed by 26 September 2026, including about 21,700 children. The WHO has documented hundreds of attacks on health care, the Committee to Protect Journalists calls it the deadliest period for journalists it has recorded, and the ICJ is hearing South Africa's genocide case against Israel.

In January 2024 the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to take all measures within its power to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza and to enable humanitarian aid. The case (South Africa v. Israel) is still being heard; the Court has not yet ruled on the merits.

• The ICJ genocide case on our resources page →

The Myth

"Palestinians rejected a generous peace offer"

The Facts

No written Israeli offer was ever put on the table at Camp David in 2000. Proposals were oral, relayed largely through US officials, and left Israel controlling borders, much of East Jerusalem and major settlement blocs. Shlomo Ben-Ami, a lead Israeli negotiator, later said: "If I were a Palestinian I would have rejected Camp David, as well."

Negotiations continued after Camp David, through the Clinton Parameters (December 2000) and the Taba talks (January 2001), which ended without agreement when Israel's election campaign intervened. The proposals never included a meaningful right of return for refugees.

The Myth

"Anti-Zionism is antisemitism"

The Facts

No. The Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism (2021), backed by hundreds of scholars of antisemitism, Holocaust history and Jewish studies, defines antisemitism as discrimination, prejudice, hostility or violence against Jews as Jews, and says criticising Zionism as a form of nationalism is not in itself antisemitic. Jewish organisations such as Jewish Voice for Peace openly oppose Zionism.

Anti-Zionism is opposition to a political ideology and a state's policies, not to Jewish people. Antisemitism is real and must be opposed; treating all criticism of Israel as antisemitic makes that harder, not easier.

The Myth

"October 7th was unprovoked"

The Facts

No. The Hamas-led attack killed about 1,200 people in Israel, but as UN Secretary-General António Guterres told the Security Council, it "did not happen in a vacuum": Palestinians had endured 56 years of occupation and 16 years of blockade on Gaza. UN OCHA recorded 181 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank and Israel by mid-September 2023.

Guterres also said the grievances of the Palestinian people "cannot justify the appalling attacks by Hamas". Explaining context is not justifying the killing of civilians; it is necessary to understand why the violence happened and how it can end. The 2023 figures before October were already the highest since OCHA began recording in 2005, and included a police raid on Al-Aqsa Mosque in April 2023.

• October 2023 on the timeline →

The Myth

"UNRWA is a terrorist organization"

The Facts

No. UNRWA is a UN agency created by the General Assembly in 1949, serving about 5.9 million registered Palestine refugees. The independent Colonna review (April 2024) found Israel had not provided evidence for its claim that a significant number of staff belong to terrorist groups. A separate UN investigation into 19 individual staff led to nine dismissals.

The UN Office of Internal Oversight Services found that nine of the 19 staff members it investigated may have been involved in the 7 October attacks, and UNRWA terminated their contracts; in the other cases the evidence was insufficient or absent. That is a finding about individuals in an agency of around 13,000 staff in Gaza, not about the agency. Israel has since gone further through legislation rather than new evidence: Knesset laws passed in October 2024 and amended in December 2025 ban UNRWA from operating on Israeli territory, bar all contact between Israeli officials and the agency, and cut off utilities to its facilities.

The Myth

"Israel is a democracy"

The Facts

Leading human rights organisations say yes. The Israeli group B'Tselem (2021), Human Rights Watch (2021) and Amnesty International (2022) each concluded that Israel maintains a system of domination over Palestinians that amounts to apartheid under international law. Millions of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza live under Israeli control but cannot vote in Israeli elections.

Apartheid is defined in international law by the 1973 Apartheid Convention and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court: an institutionalised regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over another. Elections for some of the people a state controls do not make it a democracy for all of them.

• The apartheid reports on our resources page →

The Myth

"Israel only targets militants"

The Facts

No. A November 2024 report by the UN Human Rights Office found that close to 70% of the Gaza deaths it had individually verified were women and children, most killed in residential buildings. It said this pointed to systematic violations of the basic principles of international humanitarian law, including distinction and proportionality.

Hospitals, schools, shelters and residential blocks have been struck repeatedly, and journalists and aid workers have been killed in unprecedented numbers. The UN's verified figures are a subset of all deaths: verification takes time and covers only cases the UN can confirm independently.

The Myth

"Gaza was unoccupied since 2005"

The Facts

Yes, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross and the UN. Israel withdrew troops and settlers in 2005 but kept control of Gaza's airspace, territorial waters and most land crossings. The ICRC says Gaza remains occupied because Israel retains effective control, and the ICJ's 2024 opinion held that Israel's obligations under occupation law in Gaza continued.

Occupation is defined by effective control, not by soldiers being stationed inside a territory. Israel also controlled Gaza's population registry and most movement of people and goods, supplied much of its electricity, and has imposed a blockade since June 2007. Israel disputes that Gaza was occupied after 2005.

• Is Gaza still occupied? Our full explainer →