“Over the top” is how President Biden recently referred to Israel’s prosecution of the war with Hamas. This, after relentless, withering pressure accusing Israel of genocide and demanding an immediate ceasefire (code word for Israeli surrender) from the global Arab community, the American Arab community, the United Nations, and the progressive left. Why? Because Hamas is close to being annihilated, which is anathema to all these groups. They want Hamas to survive to fight another day — actually, to fight every day, until the one tiny Jewish state is finally destroyed. It never was about the Palestinian civilians, whom the world longs to protect about as much as Hamas does. It’s all about antisemitism in the 21st century, just like every other century.
In recent weeks, President Biden has been succumbing to this pressure as he increasingly criticizes Israel over “civilian collateral damage.” My, how quickly the political winds shift when an election looms. On February 8, just four months after Biden declared that he unequivocally stands with Israel, he offered one of his sharpest rebukes to date. Biden told reporters at the White House that he is “of the view, as you know, that the conduct of the response in Gaza — in the Gaza Strip — has been over the top.” This criticism from the American president is immensely damaging. It carelessly lends credibility to the incredible and dishonest claim that Israel is committing genocide when the only attempted genocide in this conflict is on the part of Hamas and Iran against Israel.
U.S. secretary of state Antony Blinken has similarly revised his previous unconditional support for Israel and its strategy in fighting the war. As recently as December 20, Blinken remarked that “what is striking to me is that ... we hear many countries urging the end to this conflict, which we would all like to see, I hear virtually no one ... demanding of Hamas that it stop hiding behind civilians, that it lay down its arms, that it surrenders. This is over tomorrow if Hamas does that.” Now, just a few weeks later, he says that Israel must do more to protect Palestinian civilians in its war with Hamas as Israeli tanks have inched their way deeper into Rafah, the main city of the southern Gaza Strip.
Paradoxically, Blinken acknowledges “that fighting Hamas, which hides among civilians and fires from schools and hospitals, makes it incredibly challenging for Israel.” He goes on to say, “But the daily toll on Gazans, particularly on children, is far too high.” Thanks to Biden for acknowledging this, but he cannot have it both ways. When one side (Hamas) employs as its primary strategy, embedding itself within its own civilian population to cynically benefit from anti-Israel media criticism over the civilian casualties it causes, there are going to be casualties. And the blame obviously lies squarely on Hamas, not Israel.
Israel has, arguably, the most moral army in military history — one that does not target civilians, even now, in a war for her survival. Where is the evidence of this? Israel warns civilians of imminent danger by dropping millions of leaflets, repeatedly phoning; texting; and even “roof-knocking,” which is when the IAF (Israeli Air Force) nudges a building with a loud but non-lethal bomb that counsels civilians to evacuate. What other armies can credibly claim a similar approach to protecting noncombatants in their wars?
Certainly we (America) cannot. During WWII, America and the allies dropped 6,000 tons of explosives on German cities. In the Pacific, we napalmed 67 Japanese cities and released the first atomic bombs. All of this on civilian cities to break enemy morale and hasten an end to the war. Although still very controversial, many military scholars believe that these actions did indeed bring about the end of the wars in both the European and Pacific theaters — not by months, but years. In Japan alone, although at least 650,000 civilians were killed by our bombing, had we invaded Japan, the estimated loss of life would have been greater than 2 million.
War is hell, and a corollary of war is collateral damage. We must accept that. But for Biden and company to capitulate to political pressure and disingenuously accuse tiny Israel of conducting the war “unethically” as she fights for her life in an impossible conflict against nihilists, is truly “over the top.”
Image via Picryl.