Current Thoughts on the Israel-Hamas War

(Posted March 28, 2024)

So much has been said in the United States, the United Nations, Israel, college campuses and cities around the world about this awful war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas. It needs to be emphasized that this is a war not between Israel and the Palestinian people. It is therefore a gross mischaracterization to say that Israel is committing “genocide.” Genocide requires the intent to destroy another people. Israel’s war is against Hamas’ capacity to rule Gaza and threaten Israel, and is not about destroying the Palestinian people. The war has, of course, brought about massive tragedy in death and injury of large numbers of innocent Palestinian civilians, estimated at 20,000 of the more than 32,000+ killed (including Hamas fighters – figures provided by Hamas).

I agree with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert who said this past week in an international webinar that Israel should not carry forward its war into Rafah in Southern Gaza where an estimated 1.25 million Palestinians are encamped. He worried about the large additional number of Palestinian civilians likely to die as Israel pursues and destroys the remainder of Hamas’ command structure and fighters. Continuing this war, he said, is not worth the cost in human life. Further, he argued that there is no guarantee that continuing the war will bring the remaining 132 Israeli and American hostages home (30 are thought to have been murdered in captivity). Freeing the hostages and bringing them home, he said, must be Israel’s first priority not only for their lives’ sake, but for the sake of restoring Israel’s governmental social contract with Israeli citizens.

It is debatable how much of Hamas’ infrastructure and command have been destroyed on this 174th day since October 7. Many in the Israeli military and intelligence services do not believe that Hamas can be destroyed ultimately. What they hope for is that Hamas will be de-fanged enough and prevented for a number of years of ever attempting to launch another October 7 attack, which its leaders have promised to do over and over again.

PM Olmert noted that had the Israeli government and IDF done its job on October 6 in interpreting correctly the intelligence they had from Gaza that Hamas was planning a major operation against Israel, this attack would have been prevented. He lays the responsibility for the Hamas massacre of 1200 Israeli civilians and abduction of 240 hostages on October 7 directly at the feet of the leaders of the IDF and Israeli intelligence services, the leaders of which have all accepted responsibility, and at the feet of PM Netanyahu who has not accepted any responsibility whatsoever. That alone ought to disqualify Netanyahu from continuing as Israel’s Prime Minister. PM Olmert believes that Netanyahu should resign immediately and new elections called.

Olmert and others are arguing now that a ceasefire that includes the immediate return of the hostages and plans for the day after the war, including a pathway towards the establishment of a demilitarized Palestinian state alongside Israel, must be the top priority for Israel not only for the sake of saving the lives of the hostages, the lives of Israeli soldiers fighting in this war and the lives of innocent Palestinian civilians, but for Israel’s own enlightened self-interest and the restoration of its international standing.

Israelis support still, in overwhelming numbers, this war as necessary to continue as a war of self-defense. PM Olmert acknowledged that not enough Israelis agree with him that the war has to end now.

One can make the case legitimately that huge mistakes were made by Israel in its massive bombing and use of 2000-pound “dumb bombs” to destroy tunnels and Hamas command structures, and that too many Palestinian civilians have died as a consequence. However, we in the west have to remember (the international media doesn’t emphasize this point enough) that Hamas deliberately embedded itself for years everywhere in Gaza, in apartment buildings and homes, community centers and mosques, schools and hospitals, and in more than 400 miles of tunnels. While the world blames Israel for the death and destruction without mentioning Hamas’ duplicity and criminality, Hamas deliberately uses Palestinian civilians as shields and cares little for the lives and well-being of its own people. Hamas could have ended this war months ago but refused to release hostages, a war crime.

Those in the liberal and progressive left in America who support Hamas are victims of moral blindness. Hamas is an autocratic ruler that executes those who have spoken out against it. It prohibits free speech, freedom of religion, LGBTQ individuals and a woman’s right to choose. It is misogynistic, sexist, homophobic, antisemitic and brutal. In this war it has refused to allow any innocent Palestinians to hide from the bombardment of Gaza in its massive expanse of tunnels, and it hoards food, water and fuel for itself and shares none of it with Palestinian civilians. It is hardly a liberal movement that those in the intersectional western community support against a democratic Israel.

One more thing. Though the world has forgotten who and what instigated this war and the international media shows repeatedly only the the death and destruction in Gaza and no longer the Hamas atrocities on October 7 against innocent Israelis, we in the west cannot forget that October 7 was the most deadly day in Jewish history since the Holocaust. The world has shifted its attention to the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza (a morally legitimate concern), but it seems to have forgotten the plight of Israelis in this war. This is not an either-or situation, though I believe that the two enemies are not morally equivalent in any way. To claim the moral high ground, all of us have to be able to hold at once the suffering of everyone (Palestinian and Israeli) in our minds, hearts and consciences.

I pray for an immediate end to this war, a return of Israeli and American hostages to their families and homes, the distribution of a massive amount of food, water, fuel and medicine to the people in Gaza, and the beginning of planning for an eventual new Middle East that rejects extremism and mollifies hate. I hope as well for an international effort to rebuild Gaza under the authority of a reconstituted Palestinian Authority, the Arab League, the United States, European Union, Israel,and even the United Nations that continues to harbor an anti-Israel animus far in excess of any other nation in the world. And I hope that the alliances begun in the Abraham Accords expand to include other western oriented Arab nations in league with Israel against an emboldened Iran and its Islamic extremist proxies.