For Israel, this is not a war of revenge. This is not a war of retaliation. This is not tit for tat nor a cycle of violence.
For Israel, this is a defensive response.
Israel’s advance into Gaza is part of the Jewish state’s larger mission of self-defense.
Know this. Remember this. This difference is foundational in understanding Israel’s actions and behaviors.
Israel’s citizens were savagely attacked and it has the responsibility to protect its citizens. Understanding the international laws of self-defense is essential. Interestingly, these laws coincide with Jewish tradition and Jewish law on the issue of self-defense.
However, because Israel is now at war with Hamas in Gaza, it will be attacked by international media and by Jew haters for its purely defensive actions against Hamas. Many of those media attacks will be baseless, perpetrated by those do not understand the meaning of self-defense.
How an invasion is justified self-defense
Self-defense does not simply mean that when attacked, you are permitted to fight back. It means much more.
International self-defense laws permit a country to cross a border into another country to pursue the enemy that has attacked them.
Self-defense includes cross-border preemptive strikes. It is not about who throws the first punch – especially if there is a proof of a plan to attack, as testified to by Hamas documents that have been discovered.
Think back to the Six Day War. Although Israel was the first to strike, it struck in a defensive preemptive attack against its enemies’ air-forces.
The Talmud, in Tractate Sanhedrin, echoes this exact sentiment. When someone comes to attack you – you must rise in advance and attack them first. The Gemara actually uses the term “comes to kill you.” A direct translation of the sentence would be “When he comes to kill you, rise and kill him.”
This is the rabbinic version of a preemptive strike.
Part of our current strike in self defense is for Israel to hit Hamas hard enough that it will not attack us again. And that is the express purpose of Israel’s War of Iron Swords and the IDF’s actions against Hamas in Gaza.
Over the next few weeks, enemies of Israel and Jew haters are going to use the media to attack Israel.
THEY WILL be using terms like ”disproportionate force” vs “proportionate force” and “excessive force” vs “commensurate force.”
And yet, I can – without hesitation – guarantee that those saying Israel uses excessive disproportionate force will be wrong.
Disproportionate force is not the Israeli way. And proportionate force is not a literary term. It does not mean that if the attackers throw rocks at you, your only response can be to throw rocks back at them. It does not mean that if the attackers used machine guns you cannot use planes.
Disproportionate force means that the attackers did not satisfy certain conditions while attacking: The central condition is whether they reasonably attempted to avoid civilian casualties when attacking their targets and whether their targets were responsible for any previous attacks.
Israel adds conditions of its own when targeting terrorists in urban environments.
As the entire world knows by now, Israel removes the element of surprise by dropping warning leaflets in Arabic telling locals to leave and sending texts in Arabic to the cell phones of civilians in Gaza, as well as “roof knocking,” dropping non-explosive devices on the roofs of civilian homes to warn them. It is a practice that the IDF initiated years ago.
HAMAS, MEANWHILE, tells their citizens to stay put and even threatens them should they decide to vacate. This is of the many ways in which Hamas turns average Gazans into their human shields.
Israel targets those responsible for past attacks and that have acknowledged that they are actively planning future attacks. In this vein, Israel’s declaration of war against Hamas is its effort to prevent future attacks against its citizens and its territory by Hamas.
That is what we call a defensive war, that is why Israel’s War of Iron Swords is a defensive war.
Looking at it in any other way, the operation becomes immoral and unjust, and that is how Israel’s enemies and detractors will try to spin Israel’s actions.
But Israel’s war against Hamas is moral and is just.
IDF rules of fighting are more moral than any other fighting force in the world. It bears repeating that Israel’s fighters are not called Israel’s “army,” nor Israel’s “military.” They are the Israel Defense Forces. It is the only army in the world with that praenomen.
Hamas violently, brutally, savagely, attacked and plans to continue to attack innocent Israeli civilians. The Hamas claim is that there is no such thing as an Israeli civilian, that all Israelis are settlers. The people under attack were living in communities, not settlements.
Hamas cares as little about the truth, as little about international law, as they care about the value of human life. Hamas cares only about Hamas.
The writer is a social and political commentator. Watch his TV show Thinking Out Loud on Jewish Broadcasting Service.