I just checked. For anyone harboring any doubts, the horror of 9/11 was perpetrated by terrorists. Every American newspaper and news station reported it that way. Curious, then, that so many of the world’s most respectable news outlets, including CNN and The New York Times, are now reporting that the barbarism recently visited upon Israel was perpetrated by militants.
Militants: those intensely devoted to a cause, promoting their beliefs with the full power of their convictions, but not generally violent. I may not be totally objective, but that doesn’t sound to me a particularly fitting description of those who indiscriminately butcher babies, rape women, slaughter young festival goers, murder children in front of their parents and parents in front of their children, pile handcuffed civilians upon one another and burn them alive, and ruthlessly abduct infants and the infirm along with everyone in-between.
The savagery and the numbers are staggering. The more than 1300 dead, 3600 wounded, and 199 hostages are proportionally far greater than the casualties of the heinous attack on the Twin Towers. Ten deaths for every million Americans back then; 140 for every million Israelis today. Why, then, the refusal to call out Hamas for being the heinous terrorist organization it is? Antisemitism is too easy an answer. There may be an element of that in the equation, but it is far from a sufficient explanation.
The reason may be better attributed to the inconceivably lingering perception of Hamas as a humanitarian organization, concerned with the welfare of the Palestinian people, which is how it presented itself to the world when it came to power in Gaza in 2007. That, along with the persistent perception that it is Israel and its policies that are the root cause of the sadistic violence that has now erupted with unprecedented depravity. As casualties in Gaza continue to mount and as the humanitarian crisis there continues to deepen, demands that Israel explain itself are going to become increasingly strident. That might not be fair, but it’s already happening.
SOME QUESTIONS and answers, then, for those prepared to take on our detractors:
1. Isn’t Israel’s occupation of the West Bank the real reason for the Hamas invasion of Israel – and doesn’t the cycle of violence that Israel and Hamas have been caught up in for years suggest that one side is as much to blame as the other?
While Hamas indeed declares its aim is to end the “occupation,” the occupation it seeks to end is that of the entire State of Israel. Israel’s 1998 offer to withdraw from 96% of the West Bank as part of a comprehensive peace plan was summarily rejected by the Palestinians. Its 2005 unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, rather than being welcomed as a harbinger of peace, has been met with a 17-year barrage of tens of thousands of rockets targeting civilians.
Hamas’ charter needs to be taken seriously. It asserts that “Palestine is an Islamic Waqf, land consecrated for Muslim generations until Judgement Day” and calls for the obliteration of Israel and its replacement with an Islamic state extending from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea (Article 11), an objective fueled by vitriolic hatred of the Jew. “The Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews, when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say, ‘O Muslim, O servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him’” (Article 7), precisely the harrowing script played out on October 7.
Israel’s genuine desire for peace was signaled by its unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 and its ongoing efforts at rapprochement, which have been steadfastly rebuffed by Hamas who has remained true to its unequivocal declaration: “There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through armed struggle [and that] so-called peaceful solutions… are in contradiction to the principles of Hamas” (Article 13), decrying any attempt by Arab countries to enter into a peace agreement with Israel as a betrayal of Islam (Article 32).
In contrast, Israel has consistently advocated for a two-state solution to end the conflict. There is no case to be made for moral equivalency in judging the two sides joined in battle. Regardless, there is no justification for the war crimes committed by Hamas, deliberately targeting Israel’s civilian population while using its own as a human shield to deter Israeli retaliation.
2. Doesn’t Israel’s stranglehold on Gaza leave Hamas with no choice but to resort to violence?
After its 2005 withdrawal, Israel signed an Agreement on Movement and Access with the Palestinian Authority. It would have granted the Palestinians control over their own borders, allowed for imports and exports, and the construction of a seaport. Then came the 2006 elections in Gaza which brought Hamas to power after a bloody struggle that decimated the Palestinian Authority and rendered the accord obsolete. Nevertheless, Israel has continually facilitated the import of humanitarian aid and the supply of electricity and water. This continued even as Hamas channeled the massive amounts of building supplies and billions of dollars it received for construction of hospitals and schools into the construction of tunnels and the procurement of weapons for attacks against Israel’s civilian population rather than serving the needs of its own.
Still, right up until Hamas launched its brutal attack, Israel was allowing 18,000 Gazans daily to cross its border for work. 3. Even if Israel has a legitimate right to retaliate against the massacre of its citizens, doesn’t the death toll of Palestinians relative to the number of Israeli casualties indicate a disproportionate response on its part? The death of every innocent Palestinian is a tragedy, and Israel, abiding by the rules of war, has been doing its utmost to avoid that. The problem is, that while Israel uses its weapons to defend its people, Hamas is using its people to defend its weapons. It not only launches rockets from schools, hospitals, and mosques, but endeavors to prevent civilians from evacuating areas Israel has expressly warned them to leave.
What does proportionality mean?
As to proportionality, what would that mean? Killing the same number of civilians in Gaza as Hamas slaughtered in Israel? That would be tit-for-tat, revenge, retribution. Israel has no interest in that. It wants only to render Hamas incapable of inflicting any further casualties on its citizenry. Ever. Its resolve in this regard is ironclad. Hamas will have to decide how many of its own civilians it is prepared to sacrifice in its attempt to save itself. In the meantime, Israel is doing what it can to mitigate the suffering of Gaza’s civilian population, having established a corridor for the safe passage between Gaza and Egypt of civilians and the humanitarian aid they require. These are all things the world needs to know. Words matter.
The Hamas Charter matters. Hamas’s actions matter even more. Its members are terrorists, not militants, and the victims of the October 7 massacre, and the entire enlightened world Hamas threatens, deserves to hear the story told as it is.
The writer is currently engaged in establishing the Navon Center for a Shared Society. He previously served as deputy chair of the Jewish Agency and World Zionist Organization and was the founding director of the Herzl Museum and Educational Center. breakstonedavid@gmail.com