One cousin writes: “I had coffee this morning with my most ardent Democratic friend. She said ‘they need to end the bombing. It is a bad look for Israel and all Jews. The bombing is creating a new generation of terrorists who will grow up remembering only the attacks.’ How would you answer that? It is becoming a common refrain for many American Jews.”
Indeed, I heard similar questions while speaking in America last week. I understand that, from afar, Israel’s war looks brutal, while up close in America, the criticism of Israel is relentless.
Please remember. This war has four essential aims. It must punish Hamas for its evil – and we have. It must deter Hamas, Hezbollah, and others from trying to replicate such depredations – and we’re starting to succeed. It must try to transform the regional realities, making Israel safer and our enemies weaker. And it must free the hostages. Each aim is legitimate, considering what Israel endured and how democracies fight.
Let’s refute each challenge.
First, “they need to end the bombing.” “They” is supposed to mean Israelis. But “they” – the media, pro-Palestinian protesters, and increasingly panicky Democrats – should stop bombarding us most of all. The coverage is disproportionate, especially considering how reporters barely covered America’s recent urban-warfare campaigns – including many misfires – against the Taliban and ISIS.
The coverage is also unfair. Israel tries to protect civilians, while terrorists pop out of tunnels or cower behind mosques, meaning Ha-Mosques; hospitals, meaning Ha-Mospitals; and kindergartens, meaning Killergartens. Also, “they” have “ended” much of the bombing – Israel has withdrawn most of its troops from Gaza, lowering the intensity of conflict.
Consider the Shifa Hospital charade. In mid-November, parroting Hamas’s lies, the media pummeled Israel for attacking a hospital. When Israel proved the military activities there, including holding kidnapping victims, critics sought some “smoking gun” proving Shifa was a central headquarters – as if hiding any terrorists in hospitals is legitimate.
Four months later, after waiting patiently as hundreds of terrorists returned, Israel launched a surgical campaign killing 200 and arresting 500, without harming any civilians. Shifting the goalposts, reporters lamented the “ruins” and rubble Israel left behind – not Hamas’s assault against civil norms.
Few articles explore Israel’s excruciating dilemmas: if it destroys a building, Israel is “leveling” Gaza; if the building stands for Hamas snipers to use, Israeli soldiers die. Is Israel’s primary obligation to protect its own, in this war it never sought, or to protect mostly hostile Gazans, who cheered the October 7 massacre?
Even though Israel should fight as ethically as possible, Hamas remains responsible for every casualty of this war – as the Germans and Japanese were fully responsible in World War II. The terrorists unleashed this hell on October 7. Hamas bars most Gazans from its fortified tunnels. If Hamas cares about Palestinians, it would shelter civilians underground. Instead, Hamas boosts Palestinian casualties to snooker the world.
Under these difficult conditions, critics should offer alternatives before criticizing. It’s easy to judge long-distance, without any military experience and inflamed by CNN’s images. Critics should exercise restraint and express some sympathy for a country still reeling from the October 7 massacre and yearning for dozens of kidnapped citizens.
A double standard
Second, I find the argument about “a bad look for Israel and all Jews” doubly fascinating. I wonder whether many Palestinians agonize that blocking Christmas-time traffic or harassing Jewish students or shouting Jew-hating slogans outside hospitals “is a bad look” for them.
Moreover, I stopped looking over my shoulder after October 7. I want Israel to behave as morally as possible in this ugly world for Israel’s sake, preserving our soldiers’ souls. But just as Henry Clay said “I’d rather be right than president” – in this war, and moving forward, I’d rather be safe than popular.
It’s delusional to think that this “bad look” is Israel’s real problem. On October 7, even as Hamas terrorists and the so-called “innocent” Gazans were still rampaging, progressives and pro-Palestinian goons cried that “this is what decolonization looks like” and that these perversions were “exhilarating.” These haters hate what Israel is, not what Israel does. And lashing out at all Jews, regardless of where they stand politically, showed hatred for who we are, not whom we support.
Finally, i’m stunned that after Israel disengaged from Gaza in 2005, after Hamas stole UN and international money to raise generations of terrorists, and after that propaganda created the sick sadists of October 7, anyone thinks Israel’s actions cause the Jew-hating anti-Zionism curdling too many Palestinian souls.
Israel doesn’t create terrorists – Palestinian hatred does. Hamas cultivated the hatred, hate-video by hate-video, lie by lie, mathematical equation by mathematical equation, teaching how to add or subtract dead Jews or destroyed Israeli cities.
Ultimately, don’t be foolish enough to believe that many Palestinians are foolish enough to believe their propaganda. As they wander around a devastated Gaza, wondering where they’re next meal will come from, most Gazans curse Hamas – quietly, out of earshot of naive Western reporters. They know Hamas miscalculated and sacrificed Gazans’ quality of life before October 7.
It’s obvious this “ardent Democrat” never served in the military and never realized that Jew-hatred begins with the Jew-hater, not the Jew.
This war is painful, complicated, and confusing, in Israel and abroad. But it’s time to stop apologizing – and continue supporting Israel, as it de-escalates its campaign while still facing daunting challenges, not just in Gaza but up north, and from the Iranian psychopaths, too.
The writer is the editor of the new three-volume set Theodor Herzl: Zionist Writings, the inaugural publication of The Library of the Jewish People (www.theljp.org).