In 2014, Israel attacked Hamas – after Hamas terrorists kidnapped and killed three Israeli teenagers. A reporter interviewed Israel’s legendary writer Amos Oz, a proud leftist, about Israel’s difficult choice regarding a ground offensive in Gaza. Oz interviewed the interviewer. Oz asked, “Question 1: What would you do if your neighbor across the street sat down on the balcony, put his little boy on his lap and started shooting machine-gun fire into your nursery? Question 2: What would you do if your neighbor across the street dug a tunnel from his nursery to your nursery in order to blow up your home or in order to kidnap your family?”
Nine years later, the dilemmas were tougher, the questions more searing. But many Israelis blamed October 7 on their failure to eliminate the threats earlier. Elnatan Levenstein eulogized his younger brother Yonadov, a 23-year-old soldier who married on September 7, fought to liberate Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7, and fell in battle on November 4. The older brother apologized, insisting that his “generation” should have fought that battle. Elnatan remembered repeatedly expecting to enter Gaza with his army buddies in 2012, during an eight-day clash, but Israel’s leaders kept canceling incursions. Eleven years’ worth of “humanitarian ceasefires” and accommodations made the inevitable far more costly, when Israel invaded after October 7 to restore Israelis’ sense of security.
Benjamin Netanyahu returned as prime minister in early 2009, a year-and-a-half after Hamas seized power in its Gaza coup. In his memoirs – published before October 7 – Netanyahu emphasizes that he worried about Iran more than Hamas. He resisted pressure in 2014 from cabinet ministers Avigdor Lieberman and Naftali Bennett to “conquer” Gaza. “That could only be done with the wholesale destruction of Gaza, with tens of thousands of civilian deaths,” Netanyahu wrote. “After destroying the Hamas regime, Israel would have to govern two million Gazans for an indefinite period.” He concluded: “I believed the cost in blood and treasure was not worth it.”
After October 7, Israel had lost too much “blood and treasure” on one day for the government to retreat again. Proclaiming “a Second War of Independence,” Netanyahu now sought “total victory” over Hamas.
Netanyahu eventually articulated three war aims to the Wall Street Journal – which he acknowledged “would take many months…. One, destroy Hamas. Two, free the hostages. Three, ensure that Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel.” That last goal required “durable demilitarization, which can only be carried out and sustained by Israel,” and “deradicalization” – a daunting challenge when so much of the world is so blindly pro-Palestinian, even pro-Hamas. President Joe Biden supported those aims – especially at first. On October 10, shocked by the “pure unadulterated evil… unleashed on the world,” the Democratic president defined Hamas as a “terrorist organization … whose stated purpose for being is to kill Jews.” Acknowledging that the “attack has brought to the surface painful memories and the scars left by millennia of antisemitism and genocide of the Jewish people,” Biden proclaimed: “We stand with Israel. And we will make sure Israel has what it needs to take care of its citizens, defend itself, and respond to this attack.” While sending the USS Gerald R. Ford, America’s leading aircraft carrier, and needed munitions – Biden told Netanyahu: “if the United States experienced what Israel is experiencing, our response would be swift, decisive, and overwhelming.”
Nevertheless, President Biden has repeatedly declared himself “heartbroken by the tragic loss of Palestinian life.” He distinguishes between terrorists who target civilians and democracies which don’t. But, sadly, looking at Gaza, it is clear – this is what “overwhelming” looks like.
Israel and America differ regarding “the day after.” The Israeli government focused on winning the war. While that strategy reinforced short-term unity, it dodged “day after” questions ranging from how Israel could ever work with Palestinians to how Gazans can access food and water, let alone rebuild. Israel’s sidestep frustrated Biden and the international community. It risked making the war look vengeful rather than a disciplined unleashing of tremendous firepower, seeking stability for Palestinians not just Israelis.
Once again, Israel showed greater tactical sophistication on the battlefield than strategic vision in imagining how to break the impasse.
Israel did not roll into Gaza on October 8. Anticipating traps, Israel began bombing targets, while mobilizing and training reserves. Sacrificing military advantage to minimize civilian casualties, Israel telegraphed its opening moves, advising 1.1 million Gazans to head south. Israeli soldiers distributed over 1.5 million pamphlets, made six million phone calls, and sent six million warning texts to Gazans. Such attempts to save lives in enemy territory were unprecedented, as was providing humanitarian aid to the enemy who had just slaughtered their civilians, creating regular four-hour pauses in the fighting, distributing detailed maps, and providing a humanitarian escape corridor for civilians – and disguised terrorists. John Spencer, a retired major specializing in urban warfare studies at West Point marveled: “No military has ever done this in urban warfare history.”
UN experts estimate that in urban warfare, ten civilians are often killed for every combatant. That makes Israel’s far lower ratio, in dense, three-dimensional urban warfare, remarkable. So many deaths, including thousands of women and children, of course, remains horrific. Nevertheless, the war revealed Israeli discipline, precision, and ethics.
Predictably, world sympathy for Israel disappeared quickly. Perhaps the popular turning point occurred on October 17, 2023, when Hamas claimed Israel bombed al-Ahli Arab Hospital, killing five hundred. If true, veteran reporters noted, it would have taken days to count 500 bodies in the rubble of an old, solid, six-story building. Once Israel proved that the explosion came from a misfired Hamas rocket that landed in a parking lot near the hospital, Hamas lowered the body count. The reputational damage to Israel, however, remained. And civilian deaths mounted – despite Hamas including over 17,000 terrorists killed in their numbers of “innocents.”
Just War theory defines both the “right to go to war” and the “right conduct in war.” Having been attacked mercilessly in their homes, most Israelis agreed that every death, every casualty, every disruption since October 7, was the fault of Hamas.
In Just and Unjust Wars, the philosopher Michael Walzer imagines a “sliding scale… the more justice, the more right.” Many would add: and the more might you’re justified in unleashing.
In assessing “right conduct,” issues become murkier – especially in urban warfare. Ethical armies distinguish civilians from combatants, fight proportionally, and only attack to advance the military strategy. But the moral dilemmas are constant. Consider the case of Yonadov Levenstein, killed by a sniper who popped out of a building Israel hadn’t knocked down. Was the IDF’s moral responsibility to the apartment building’s inhabitants, many of whom were hostile – or to protect Yonadov and his comrades? Yet without holding Hamas to any standards, many people worldwide attacked Israel for violating these civilizational norms. Israel felt it was acting as any democracy would – and many democracies had – while being held to standards no democracy could meet in similar circumstances. Democracies have used awful firepower against awful enemies. when under President Barack Obama, a US-led coalition attacked the Islamic Jihadist group in Iraq, ISIL in 2016, at least 10,000 civilians died in the ensuing nine-month battle to free Mosul from the Islamic State. Unlike Gazans with Hamas, most civilians there opposed ISIL. The United States under Obama undercounted the “collateral damage” at first – until forced to acknowledge it.
Obama clearly defined America’s priority as keeping the American people safe. He recognized that “We are at war with an organization that right now would kill as many Americans as they could if we did not stop them first. So this is a just war – a war waged proportionally, in last resort, and in self-defense.” Calling civilian deaths “heartbreaking tragedies,” he nevertheless concluded that “To do nothing in the face of terrorist networks would invite far more civilian casualties…. So doing nothing is not an option.”
Israelis remain proud of their “purity of arms” code, reflecting Zionism’s dream of perfecting the Jewish soul and improving the world while defending Jewish bodies. Many democratic armies study Israel’s moral doctrines and restraint toward civilians. The double standard expecting Israel to fight an immoral enemy with restraints no democracy would accept fueled the decades-long Arab propaganda campaign delegitimizing Israel.
Echoing centuries-old antisemitic tropes that Jews are all-powerful and all-evil, critics overlooked the facts that Hamas attacked Israel and then Hezbollah started bombing it from the north. It’s a familiar pattern. As mentioned, in 2005, Israel withdrew from Gaza. In repeated conflicts, especially since Hamas seized power in 2007, Israel kept inventing techniques to fight urban warfare as ethically as possible. Israel dropped leaflets, texted citizens, and “knocked on roofs,” sending missiles across targeted buildings before dropping bombs. Israel empowered pilots and drone operators to abort legitimate missions if too many civilians might die. Sacrificing the element of surprise, Israel has repeatedly tried to act morally – while being condemned internationally.
Since withdrawing from Gaza, Israel acted with restraint, tolerating the intolerable, as Hamas built its arsenal. Now, finally, without denying the complexity, admitting that its justifications are ugly and actions often uglier, Israel acted decisively.
Similarly, the 2006 Second Lebanon War ended with UN Security Council Resolution 1701, calling for a cease-fire, and banning Hezbollah weapons south of the Litani River, 18 miles from Israel. Yet, since then, Hezbollah has amassed over 150,000 rockets, and filled southern Lebanon with trained killers ready to invade Israel, who now shoot rockets daily, wreaking mass destruction. Diplomats evaded responsibility for their previous “cease-fire” calls while downplaying the unprecedented threat Hamas and Hezbollah posed. Sometimes war today is the only way to produce peace tomorrow.
Most Israelis regret what their kids had to do to reestablish a sense of safety throughout the country. But they recognized the Hamas war as a war of “ein breira,” no choice. Without apologies, and without Western approval, if necessary, Israel decided to do whatever it takes to end the supreme emergency Hamas’s invasion caused.
Ultimately, Israelis must fight as morally as possible, to satisfy their own consciences, not to please the world. The IDF’s main mission remains winning the war by dislodging Hamas. Still, in this just war, every Israeli soldier’s primary moral obligation remains “do your job” – defending themselves, their comrades, and their homeland against enemies, north and south.
