"The Palestinian population keeps growing — some genocide!"
Their strongest version
Genocide colloquially evokes annihilation, and Palestinian population figures have risen across decades; the contrast feels decisive to many hearers.
The response
The argument mistakes the crime's name for its definition. The Genocide Convention defines genocide as specific acts — killing, serious harm, inflicting conditions of life calculated to destroy — committed with intent to destroy a group 'in whole or in part.' In part. No court has ever required a shrinking population: Srebrenica was ruled genocide at roughly eight thousand victims while the Bosniak population overall grew. By the population-growth test, almost nothing in history qualifies — a standard invented to be unmeetable. What the law actually examines is acts plus intent, which is why the ICJ proceedings turn on statements like 'Gaza Nakba' and 'human animals' alongside the documented destruction. Demography is not a defense; it's a subject change.