We cannot be so hard-hearted to deny Palestinian suffering, exacerbated by Israeli operational failures, but we cannot let Hamas destroy us.
For decades, the Soviets were the world’s puppeteers, manipulating the West’s “useful idiots.” Jihadis have seized that mantle. Shamelessly evil, they don’t even bother singing some seductive socialist song. Yet they find it easier duping today’s morally mushier West. Predictably, the Soviets targeted Jews and Israel, calling Zionism “racist.” Today, Jews and Israel remain favorite targets, as jihadi genociders accuse Israel of committing genocide and imposing mass starvation.
Admittedly, these are painful times for Zionists. Amid epic military achievements safeguarding Israel and the West, Israel is mired in a difficult war against jihadists using their own people for cannon fodder and propaganda points.
War is hell! Unavoidably, Israel faces morally challenging moments during a war that remains existential: Hamas wants to destroy us, not only our reputation. We cannot be so hard-hearted to deny Palestinian suffering, exacerbated by unintentional Israeli operational failures. Yet we dare not be so softheaded as to fall for the jihadi genociders’ con.
It’s mind-boggling. Hamas’s charter calls to exterminate the Jews. Seventy-four percent of Palestinians cheered as Hamas marauders and Gazan rampagers yelled “Itbah al Yahud” – meaning “slaughter the Jew,” not “end the occupation.” Nevertheless, by October 8, Israel was accused of “genocide.” And it stuck!
I acknowledge Israel’s misfires, our government’s leadership vacuum, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s moral failures to fire rabid ministers. I lament Palestinian suffering in Gaza. But I also recognize that:
Hamas manufactured Palestinian suffering, from rejecting a two-state solution and proving that conceding territory weakens Israel, to starting this war, cowering behind civilians, and manipulating the food flow;
recent hostage photos expose what deliberate starvation really looks like, just as Hamas’s October 7 videos demonstrate what genocidal “intent” really looks like;
Gaza is messy, complicated, confusing, so most remote-control-moralists pronouncing about what’s happening mostly reveal their own biases;
as Col. John Spencer and other urban warfare experts note, by flooding Gaza with two million tons of food – 82 million meals from the US-Israeli Gaza Humanitarian Foundation alone – Israel “delivered more humanitarian aid to Gaza than any military in history has provided to an enemy population during wartime”;
Israel’s terrorist-to-civilian kill urban warfare ratio of one killer per one or two innocents, sets standards America’s moral army hasn’t met;
with Hamas still holding hostages and amassing weapons, Israel cannot withdraw blithely from Gaza or assume, as many do, that Hamas will ever relinquish every hostage – Hamas’s only hold over Israel, which keeps polarizing Israel;
critics should offer realistic alternatives, sparing us performative moral indignation or counterproductive calls for a Palestinian state, which reward terrorism while incentivizing Hamas to dither. Hamas calls these calls “fruits of October 7.”
Traditionally, the punishment fits the crime, while the accused is innocent until proven guilty. Bash-Israel-Firsters water down crimes like “genocide” and “starvation” to fit the punishment – ostracism – while Israel is forever guilty, even when proven innocent.
Many of the dupes keep overreaching – because it’s hard to indict a democracy defending itself after being attacked and trying to minimize civilian damage. Proving starvation with pictures of children suffering genetic diseases, or spreading videos showing the well-fed arms of Hamas torturers off camera abusing truly starved Israeli victims, shows you’re working a weak hand.
Genocide is SICK: systematic, intentional, comprehensive killing. It’s Hutus slaughtering 800,000 Tutsis in 100 days, Nazis planning a “Final Solution” to kill all Jews. In November 2023, the genocide scholar Omer Bartov warned in The New York Times that constantly labeling “atrocious events” genocide “obfuscate[s] reality.” Genocide “aims at destroying” a “population wherever it is.”
Israel’s Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI) acknowledges that genocide designations require “specific intent, or dolus specialis… the intention to destroy, in whole or in part, a protected group as such.”
Yet, suddenly, in the Times, Bartov accuses Israel of genocide without proving anything systematic or comprehensive. His article ignores the many Gazans Israel tried saving, without admitting that these wartime tragedies occurred in military theaters, not “wherever” Israelis encounter Palestinians.
Meanwhile, PHRI’s report concludes: “genocidal intent may be inferred from the pattern of conduct.” Stretching, it targets Israel’s “campaign to delegitimize Gaza’s health system.” PHRI admits, however, that “there are cases suggesting that Hamas may have unlawfully used medical infrastructure to shield military objectives,” then contradictorily claims “Israel has not provided sufficient evidence.”
Actually, reporters proved that Hamas used hospitals to hold hostages, hide weapons, build bunkers. Yet Israel’s actions, when the jihadis mocked international law, supposedly reflect “genocidal intent.”
Even more egregious, the novelist David Grossman pronounces “genocide” based on “what I’ve read in the newspapers… and talking to people,” while Israel studies professor Dov Waxman claims: “Israel’s actions are having a genocidal impact.” Deeming the impact “foreseeable,” Waxman decides “one can reasonably infer genocidal intent from Israel’s conduct in Gaza.”
No longer methodical mass murder, “genocide” is now thought crimes, “reasonably infer[red.]”
Similarly, The Washington Post quotes the PHRI’s Guy Shalev intent-shopping: “The systematic destruction of the healthcare system, the denial of access to food, the blocking of medical evacuations, and using humanitarian aid to advance military objectives – all indicate a clear pattern of conduct, a pattern that reveals intent.”
Did Nazis, Hutus, Turks, use “humanitarian aid to advance military objectives”? Actually, they offered no humanitarian aid!
Col. Spencer writes: “Genocide is not defined by a few comments taken out of context… or by how war looks in headlines or on social media. It is defined by specific intent….”
Thoughtful people must wonder: Why water down genocide’s definition to damn Israel? As usual, critics of Israel’s actions could choose many words. Their “starvation” and “genocide” libels oversimplify maliciously, conscripting millions into this jihadi-orchestrated, media-fueled mass witch burning.