As I did with my last article, let me clearly state that Hamas’s terror attacks against Israel on Oct. 7 were heinous and a war crime. Anyone who uses the attacks and the ensuing war as justification for anti-Semitism, Islamophobia or any form of hate is deeply troubled.
Israel has the absolute right to defend itself. Any sovereign nation does. I have never and will never question that. What I do question is how Israel goes about defending itself. The killing of civilians should be avoided at all costs, but, as with war, it will happen. While we cannot prevent this, it is possible to minimize it. During dozens of interviews with activists and officials from both sides of the conflict, many journalists and interviewers, such as Piers Morgan, have raised the question of what a proportional response is. Some, like The Young Turks’ Ana Kasparian and former Navy SEAL Jocko Willink, have called for special forces to be activated and sent into Gaza to strike Hamas targets. Others, like in my previous article, call for Israel to turn Gaza into a “tent city” with no buildings, or to flatten it into a parking garage. I have already written at length why this is a dangerous language that can lead to genocide. We have seen it happen in the past and it is currently happening in other parts of the world.
We hear of Hamas using civilians as human shields and it would be unethical to say that statement is false. The issue with this point is that we all know that Hamas is in the tunnels they have built under Gaza. Israeli Defense Force (IDF) spokespersons and the United States and other Western countries have acknowledged this. Acknowledging this is crucial for my next point. With Hamas operating from their network of tunnels, what purpose does bombing residential neighborhoods and, most recently, an ambulance convoy serve? While the IDF warns before striking with lethal munitions, we must accept reality. According to the United Nations, “more than 80% of its [Gaza’s] population lives in poverty…with an unemployment rate of 47%.” How are people with no way out supposed to leave? The elderly cannot evacuate, and families with children or family members in the hospital cannot leave. A population of 1.1 million people cannot evacuate in 24 hours. Even in the United States, evacuations before a natural disaster result in traffic jams the length of interstates. Now try asking that of impoverished people with little to no recourse.
On Oct. 30, the Israeli military ordered the evacuation of the Al-Quds Hospital in Northern Gaza. The very same day, this order was reinforced with Israeli missiles striking targets within 200 feet of the hospital. Now, this was not an empty hospital. It was filled with approximately 400 patients and hospital staff. There were also thousands of Palestinian refugees packed inside seeking refuge. While we still do not know who is responsible for the bombing of the Al-Ahli Hospital, I will attribute blame to no one. For a nation that claims to not target civilians, its strikes in these neighborhoods have been devastating. On Nov. 1, the IDF bombed the Jabalia refugee camp for the second straight day to eliminate a Hamas commander. The IDF has yet to present evidence that he was there, but Palestinians who lived in this camp are still pulling their mothers, fathers, siblings and children from the rubble. According to a Reuters report, “at least 195 Palestinians were killed” in these twin attacks with “some 120 still missing under the rubble and at least 777 more…wounded.” Palestinian civilians have felt the brunt of this conflict. Between 2008 and 2020, Palestinian civilians have accounted for 95.7 percent of all casualties. So far, Palestinian civilians continue to be the victims of this decades-long conflict. These 5,590 Palestinians were not human shields, but they will continue to be portrayed as such. It removes any agency from the IDF and places these deaths solely in the hands of Hamas. That is not how war works.
In the Western coverage of the war, there has been a clear distinction on the value of human life. The simple use of “died” instead of “killed” speaks volumes when “killed” is used almost exclusively for Israeli civilian casualties but “died” for Palestinian civilians. Just like the Israeli victims of the Hamas terror attack were killed by Hamas, the Palestinian victims of the war have been killed by Israel. In a CNN article from Oct. 25, 2023, writers refer to Israeli victims as being “killed,” while those who have lost their lives in Gaza as a “death toll.” If this isn’t convincing, in the next sentence, the writers say that “at least 35 UN workers have also been killed.” It is time we humanize Palestinians. Palestinians are not barbarians or Nazis or children of the darkness. Arabs are not dirty or primitive or criminal. This is textbook Islamophobia and must be condemned in the strongest terms just like I suggest we do with anti-Semitism or any other form of hate. Hate must not be accepted even within the confines of war. Civilians should not be held responsible for the actions of their government.
Palestinians are not responsible for the actions of Hamas, an illegitimate government that has not seen an election since 2006. Israelis are not responsible for the actions of their government. We need not attack one another because we identify as Jewish or Muslim, Israeli or Palestinian. The conflation between the people and their religion and the people and their government must end, or we will see another Rwanda or Cambodia or Bosnia.