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There is no war that does not result in some civilian deaths. Israel is now fighting a war it did not start and did not want, a war for its very survival, like those it fought in 1948, 1967, and 1973. Hamas makes no secret about its aim, enshrined in its charter, which is nothing less than the destruction of the Jewish state and the expulsion, or killing, of all of its Jewish inhabitants. The question is: does Israel do enough to minimize civilian deaths? The answer is clear, though the NAACP appears not to be paying attention. The IDF makes tremendous efforts to warn civilians away from places, and buildings, that are about to be targeted. To this end, the IDF had by April sent 16 million text messages, made 15 million prerecorded telephone calls as well as 100,000 personal phone calls, and dropped nine million leaflets, to warn Gazans. For weeks it held off invading Gaza City while it continued to warn civilians to leave; only after 900,000 civilians had moved southward to safety did the IDF enter the city to fight Hamas. It did the same in Khan Younis, and done the same recently in Rafah, where IDF warnings have caused nearly one million people to leave for safer zones that were indicated on maps the IDF dropped onto Rafah. Only after those nearly one million Gazans had left the city did the IDF begin its major push into the center of Rafah. And the IDF also warns civilians about individual buildings — schools, mosques, hospitals, apartment housings — about to be targeted. Finally, Israeli pilots are instructed to abort any airstrike if they detect the presence of too many civilians in the area about to be hit. No wonder that British Colonel Richard Kemp has called the IDF “the most moral army in the world,” and Professor John Spencer of West Point, an expert on urban warfare, has declared that “the IDF has taken more precautions to protect civilian lives than any army in the history of warfare.”

Finally, the best indicator of the IDF’s solicitude for civilian lives is the ratio of civilian-to-combatant deaths. The UN has stated that in all the wars fought since 1945, that ratio has been 9:1, or nine civilian deaths for every combatant killed. In Afghanistan the Americans managed to push that ratio down to 4:1, and in Afghanistan, to 3:1. But in Gaza, the ratio of civilian-to-combatant deaths has dropped to nearly 1:1, an unheard-of low number, that testifies to the care the IDF takes to minimize civilian casualties. It is only through such a comparison that one can understand the magnitude of the IDF’s achievement.

Now the NAACP has spoken out to try to save the terror group Hamas from being destroyed by the IDF: “NAACP Asks Biden to Halt Weapons to Israel as He Seeks to Shore Up Black Voter Support,” Algemeiner, June 6, 2024:

Some 44 percent of Democratic registered voters said they disapproved of Biden’s handling of the crisis. Those who disapproved were less likely to say they would vote for Biden….

Some of those 44% may be disappointed that Biden has not been as firm an ally to Israel as they hoped, and expected. There is no way of knowing, from the polling results released, how many want Biden to be less of a supporter of Israel, and how many want him to be more of one.

Johnson said the NAACP does not believe Biden’s support for Israel is responsible for the trend but wants the US to more forcefully advance peace by withholding weapons.

By withholding weapons from Israel, the Bidenites would give Hamas reason take heart, and instead of advancing peace, that weapons embargo would make the terror group — realizing that Israel could no longer count on its American ally for resupplies of weapons— even more determined to hold on, with its four battalions still intact in Rafah, and with thousands of other Hamas operatives regrouping in the north, where the IDF now finds it necessary to return to areas it once thought had been emptied of Hamas combatants. Such a cutoff of American weapons, essential to Israel’s survival, will encourage Hezbollah to open a full-fledged second front, raining rockets, missiles, and drones down on the Galilee, and pouring its combatants across the border into the Galilee to confront the IDF while so many of its men are still tied down in southern Gaza. And behind Hezbollah, most worrisome of all, sits the malignant power of Iran, ready to be unleashed if the Iranians sense that Biden’s “ironclad” guarantee of Israel’s security has melted away. As, we know, it has.