Gaza

Donald Trump’s ill-conceived remarks yesterday about America taking over Gaza makes this a good time to share some of my thoughts on the Gaza war.

Israel Supporters

The MAGA crowd, and some of my acquaintances and family members, are 100% supportive of Israel’s actions in Gaza. They believe that the terrorists that pulled off the October 7, 2023, raid need to be eradicated at all costs. And if the Palestinians don’t want to have their towns bombed and people killed, all they have to do is return the hostages and turn over all the Hamas leaders to Israel. So the destruction of the buildings and deaths of civilians is all on them.  Also that Hamas uses hospitals and schools as hiding places with civilians as shields, so of course Israel has to bomb them.

Here is how I would answer that.

Worse than 40 October 7 Raids

First let’s agree that the October raid was horrible with 1,200 killed, women brutally raped, and 250 taken as hostages. This has been described as the worst terrorist attack in Israel’s history. Now let’s imagine that a raid like this was to occur every year for 40 years. Unimaginably terrible, right? But what Israel has done to the Palestinians in the last 15 months is much worse. Here’s why.

First, there have been about 40 times as many civilians, including women and children, killed in Gaza as in the October 7 raid. So about the same number of people would be killed in 40 years of raids as in the last 15 months.

 Israeli survivors of the October 7 attack could be taken to a modern, fully equipped and stocked hospital for treatment. Family members of the dead could grieve at funerals and bury their loved ones in cemeteries. Survivors and their families had homes to go to with sufficient food to eat and water to drink. They could go about their lives without a constant fear of death coming at any moment.

The Palestinians had none of these luxuries. The dead were often left buried in the rubble. Injured survivors either died alone or were carried to makeshift hospitals. Children had limbs amputated and women were given Caesarian sections without anesthetics. Survivors did not know if their missing family members were dead or alive, and if alive where they were. They lived in constant fear of another bomb or of IDF soldiers using them for target practice. The Palestinian people were herded, homeless, from one “safe” location to another, and sometimes the “safe” places were bombed.

Israel has kept supplies of food, water and medical supplies out of Gaza, holding up long lines of trucks at the border. There are credible reports of Israelis living in the West Bank stopping and looting the aid trucks, stealing the supplies for themselves. This has likely added to the death toll and certainly added to the misery of the Palestinians.

An estimate in January put the number of Palestinians dead and wounded at 46,000 and 109,000. I’m sure it is higher than that. That’s 40 times the number of dead in the October raid.

So, I argue, it would have been better for humanity for Israel to allow Hamas to carry out one raid a year for 40 years than to do what it did. And, of course, that would not happen as Israeli border security would be greatly enhanced.

Self-Defense?

Israel and its supporters call the Gaza war “self-defense”. If killing 40 times as many people in revenge for a raid is self-defense, then imagine what the Palestinians could now do should the tables be turned. If Israel was helpless with no army, air force or allies to defend itself, and the Palestinians had an army, warplanes, and bombs supplied by an ally, and they bombed every Israeli town and city to rubble, killing nearly 2 million Israelis (40 x 48,000), would the same people call this self-defense?

Israel’s excuse was they were hunting and killing the Hamas terrorists who were behind the October raid. Netanyahu has been charged with war crimes by the International Criminal Court – doesn’t that make him a terrorist? Do you suppose that Israel would turn him over to the Palestinian army?

Antisemitism

Israel and its supporters love to play the “Antisemitism” card when anyone shows any opposition to the Gaza war. Millions of Jews around the world are opposed to what Israel did, and is still doing, in Gaza. Almost 1 / 3 of American Jews consider it genocide and 60% favor a Palestinian state. Are these people Antisemites? One can oppose government policies and acts without being against the country. If you don’t like what Trump is doing does that make you anti-American? (his followers might think so but most Americans wouldn’t). Or if you don’t like Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, does that make you anti-Canadian?

God’s Punishment?

Most Christians and Jews believe that the Jews are God’s chosen people and that they have to support Israel’s actions to protect itself from the evil Arabs. But the Old Testament is full of stories of God punishing His Chosen People for their sins. A recurring punishment was invasion by neighboring tribes, sometimes including taking Jews as prisoners back to their country (e.g. Babylon). Perhaps October 7 was God’s way of punishing His people for their sins? If so, what must God have in store to punish them now??

Demonstrations

Finally, I’ll share my thoughts on the pro-Palestinian demonstrations, and other acts on both sides.

Demonstrations protesting the destruction of Gaza and the killing of thousands of civilians broke out across North America, often on university campuses. These were widely condemned by the media and right-wing governments as antisemitic. If they stopped at condemning Israel’s actions, I would argue, they were not antisemitic. But many went further calling for the eradication of Israel and death to Jews, which, I argue, was both antisemitic and wrong.

The phrase “from the river to the sea” is claimed to be the rally cry of the Palestinian terrorists whose objective is to push the Israelis into the sea and take over all the land they once had. But that is also the objective of many extremist Israelis – for Israel to take over the West Bank and Gaza. To me both extreme views are wrong. Call one Antisemitism and the other Islamophobia if you wish, the names don’t matter.

Also wrong is blaming any Jewish or Palestinian person living in other countries (like Canada or America) for the raid or the war. They may have family members involved on one side or the other but they are not responsible and it is wrong to blame them. It is much more wrong to persecute them for it. Both sides have been guilty of this.

 One last thought. I have avoided calling the war “genocide”. There are strict definitions of the word (e.g. by the Genocide Convention) that many say the Gaza war doesn’t quite meet. Amnesty International says it does; the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that it does not. I don’t care what it’s called, genocide, ethnic cleansing, or something else. It was absolutely horrible and should never have been allowed to happen.

 Sources:

https://www.newarab.com/news/one-third-american-jews-view-israels-war-gaza-genocide

https://www.vox.com/politics/378913/israel-gaza-genocide-icj