Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy. Photo: Reuters/Brian Snyder

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. this week defended Israel against accusations of genocide, telling Fox News host Jesse Watters that the Middle East’s “real genocide” has been the decline of Jewish and Christian populations across the region over the past several decades.

“There was a million Jews in the Middle East in the Arab countries” in 1948, Kennedy said. “Today, there’s about 15,000 left.” He added that Christians made up roughly one-fifth of the region’s population in 1948, a share that has since fallen to about five percent, with virtually no Jews now remaining in Jordan or Gaza.

Kennedy contrasted those declines with the growth of Israel’s Arab population, which he said rose from 150,000 in 1948 to nearly two million today, about 20 percent of the country’s population. “If Israel wanted to commit a genocide against Palestinians, they could do it in a minute,” he said. “It’s doing the opposite … If you want to see where a real genocide is happening, it’s not in Israel. It’s happening in all the nations around it.”

He noted that Gaza’s Christian population has fallen by about 80 percent over the past decade.

Kennedy’s remarks come as Israel faces mounting international scrutiny over its military campaign in Gaza, launched after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack that killed approximately 1,200 people in Israel and saw about 250 taken hostage. Some governments, human rights organizations and legal experts have accused Israel of genocide — allegations Israel has repeatedly rejected as false and politically motivated.

Roughly 850,000 Jews left or were expelled from Arab countries including Iraq, Egypt, Yemen, Syria and Libya in the decades following Israel’s founding in 1948, amid rising anti-Jewish violence and persecution. Christian communities have likewise declined across the region due to war, persecution and emigration; the Islamic State’s campaigns against Christians and Yazidis in Iraq and Syria have been recognized by multiple governments as genocide.

Whether the regional decline of Jews and Christians amounts to genocide under international law remains debated, as do allegations that Israel’s conduct in Gaza meets that threshold — claims still being contested in international courts.

Kennedy’s comments echo arguments made by many supporters of Israel, who point to regional demographic trends and to Israel’s civilian-warning measures — including leaflets, calls and texts before airstrikes — as evidence against the genocide accusations. Critics counter that demographic trends elsewhere do not resolve the legal questions surrounding Israel’s conduct in Gaza.