A Moral Case for Israel
C. Gourgey, Ph.D.
It has become predictable. I am a subscriber to the Christian Century, and every time they publish an article having to do with Israel, it is inevitably followed by a flurry of letters to the editor expressing not just disagreement but actual hatred. I find myself waiting for it to happen, and it always does.
This is typical of attitudes toward Israel today in many circles, especially liberal and progressive ones. Anti-Israel attitudes have indeed been influenced by the impression one may receive when watching news on the Gaza conflict: many reports show only scenes of destruction in Gaza with quotes of hugely inflated casualty figures from the Hamas-run “Gaza Health Ministry.” This is not to minimize the effects of the war in Gaza, but only to say that there is more to the story than these reports heavily focusing on one side would suggest.
First, what the public did not see was graphic images of what Hamas did to peaceful Jewish communities on October 7, 2023. Terrorists shouted with joy while shooting children and the elderly. Children were killed in front of their parents, and parents in front of their children. Some children were burned alive. Women suffered the most: gang raped, paraded naked before hostile crowds, some genitally mutilated. Girls with broken pelvises from repeated violent rapes. Terrorists laughing while tossing around amputated female breasts. One survivor was so traumatized that she killed herself. The public saw none of that, and there have even beeen attempts to deny that it happened.
Over two hundred hostages were taken, and they received similar treatment in captivity. We know a lot from hostages who were released. Many were deprived of food, some to the point of malnutriton and muscile wastage. Palestinian children would show food to the hostages, then happily snatch it away (which shows what they have been taught). Some hostages were kept in darkness for days. Almost daily beatings and repeated sexual abuse were common, and even children were subjected to it. Some were forced to perform sexual acts on each other. Survivors returned home to find their families had been murdered on October 7, so they lost their support systems. Those remaining in captivity under these conditions face losing their hold on reality altogether.
The latest example of Hamas’s cruelty became apparent when three hostages were released from captivity on February 8. Having suffered severe malnutrition, they were extremely thin and reminded Israelis of the emaciated figures discovered in the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps. Then Hamas added an exquisite touch of emotional sadism. For propaganda purposes they conducted exit interviews with the hostages, encouraging one of them, Eli Sharabi, to express how excited he felt to be finally reunited with his wife and daughters. What Hamas knew and Sharabi didn't was that his wife and daughters had been murdered on October 7 over a year ago.
Please do not misunderstand what I am saying. I am not justifying war as a form of collective punishment. That is not the reason for this war. The reason Israel had to respond is that Hamas promised all this was only the beginning, that it would do it again and again and again as long as it had the ability. So Hamas had to be neutralized. And Hamas was not the only threat. Israel has been fighting a war on multiple fronts, surrounded by an Iranian-led “Axis of Resistance,” including, in addition to Hamas, Hezbollah in the north, the Houthis in the south, and an increasingly militarized West Bank to the east with weapons supplied by Iran. Iran itself launched missile attacks against Israel and has openly sworn Israel’s destruction. On October 7, 2023, Israel discovered what things would look like if Iran and the Palestinians got their way.
The Palestinian Agenda
On October 7, 2023 the Palestinian agenda and vision for Israel's future were unmistakably revealed. It is a war of extermination against Israel’s Jewish population. If successful, it would amount to nothing less than a second Holocaust. To remain passive in response to this threat would have signaled that Israel could be attacked at will, had no deterrence, and was ripe for elimination.
We should not forget that this conflict is not just between Israel and Hamas. On 10/7/2023 Hamas hoped to ignite the hatred of Jews all over the Muslim world in one concerted effort finally to destroy Israel completely, meeting Hezbollah and Iran on the other side in an ovwhelming onslaught and crushing Israel in the middle. It was Israel's good fortune that these forces were poorly coordinated, but the intention to make that plan work was certainly present. October 7 was to be the model for dealing with Israel’s entire Jewish population.
Israel rightly saw that its survival was at stake. But fighting this war posed especially worrisome difficulties. Ever since Hamas took control of Gaza, it devoted all its imports and resources to building a war machine consisting of an astonishing network of tunnels and arms of various kinds to use against Israel. Not one civilian shelter was built. Gaza was engineered to become a war state and nothing more. The tunnels were not to keep ordinary people safe but only to hide terrorists, while Hamas forced civilians to remain in harm’s way, knowing (and this is on record) that its own civilian casualties were its most potent weapon.
So Israel faced an insoluble dilemma: risk civilian casualties in Gaza, or keep its own people vulnerable to the next attack. There was no good alternative, especially with Hamas’s insistence on exposing its own civilians to maximum dnager.
Now here is a bitter irony of this war: Israel has been accused repeatedly of genocide, while Hamas actually practiced it.
Genocide is the attempt to wipe out an entire population, without exception, young and old, male and female, civilian and soldier. If Israel were attempting genocide against the Gazan population, it was singularly inept. Israel tried to minimize civilian casualties, an impossible task given the way Hamas has structured Gaza and the nature of war itself. The IDF sent advance warnings to areas and even buildings designated as targets. It dropped leaflets alerting civilians to stay away from Hamas installations that could be hit. It aborted a number of air strikes due to the presence of civilians. It also agreed to humanitarian corridors. It telegraphed in advance where it was going to strike, depriving itself of the advantage of surprise. This is not the way “genocide” is supposed to work. But Hamas’s general practice is to attack from civilian areas, leaving Israel little room in which to maneuver.
In sharp contrast, what Hamas did on October 7 and what it proposes to do in the future is exactly genocide in all its horror. Hamas went after everyone, civilians regardless of age or gender; every single Israeli was a target, singled out for the most sadistic treatment imaginable. That is how genocide works. It is profoundly hypocritical to accuse Israel of genocide while ignoring Hamas’s past actions and declared future intentions - not to mention the enthusiastic support among the Palestinian population for what Hamas did to innocent Israeli civilians.
A fair question may still remain: did Israel go too far in its response? I am not a military expert and cannot answer this question. I can only observe that there is no such thing as a clean war, and that for all Israel’s efforts however extreme they might appear, the threat from Hamas has still not been entirely eliminated and may never be. For Israel the stakes are preventing another wholesale slaughter, and it doesn’t get more serious than that. There was no other way to neutralize the threat short of taking control of Gaza, and that was bound to prove costly for both sides. As of this writing Hamas still survives, still sworn to continue what it started when it ignited this war. No one in Israel is safe as long as that holds, and for the world to insist Israel accept living with this lethal threat on its border is unconscionable.
I do not expect everybody reading this suddenly to take Israel’s side in the Gaza war, even though the truly culpable party is Hamas. But what I do hope is that at least people can understand the moral dilemmas posed by Hamas’s cynical actions and future intentions, that there is no simple or clean solution, and that a blanket condemnation of Israel does not do justice to the reality it faces. This war has been terrible for both sides. But Israel did not want this war. Hamas did.
The Neglected History
Let’s now look at the roots of this conflict. Many believe that all we need to solve it is a “two-state solution.” But two-state solutions were offered in the past, notably in 1937 (Peel Commission), 1947 (UN partition plan), 2000 (Camp David), and 2008 (Olmert peace plan). Jews accepted but Palestinians rejected every one, the 2000 Camp David plan particularly tragic since instead of responding to a genuine offer for peace, the Palestinians under Yasser Arafat launched a bloody terrorist war whose traumatic effects are still felt today.
There is also a misconception that the primary reason for the conflict is Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. The Jewish settlements in the West Bank are of course a controversial topic. I was always opposed to them and said so. Nevertheless, they are not the reason for the conflict. The forces arrayed against Israel have made it abundantly clear that the “occupation” they are “resisting” is Israel itself, on any part of the territory on which Israel now lies. They consider all Israelis, even little children, as “settler colonialists” and legitimate targets. This was true since the war Palestinians began against Israel in 1947 to wipe it out completely just barely after it was formed. It was still true in 1964 when the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) was created, calling for Israel’s destruction years before the occupation of the West Bank. And the occupation of the West Bank was itself the result of a war initiated by a coalition of Arab states bent on Israel’s destruction. It may even be morally justified now, as the only way to prevent another militarized Palestinian enclave like Gaza.
The unfortunate fact is that the Muslim world could never tolerate an independent Jewish presence anywhere in its midst. Muslims were happy with Jews as long as the latter knew their place as dhimmis, second-class citizens often subject to humiliation. Muslims claimed credit for having been nicer to Jews than Christians were because at least they weren’t burning Jews at the stake. What a low bar for tolerance! Yet for all this talk of tolerance, a Jewish state in the heart of the Muslim world was considered an intolerable provocation.
In spite of notable exceptions, and those did exist (such as the admirable actions of Albanian Muslims sheltering Jews during the Holocaust), antisemitism runs very deep in the Muslim world. Practically from the moment they are born, Palestinian children are taught that Israel is Palestine and that Jews are evil. And not only evil but subhuman. Jews are repeatedly called “descendants of apes and pigs” by Muslim clerics quoting the Qur’an. Copies of Mein Kampf in Arabic were found among the possessions of Hamas fighters. One October 7 terrorist called his parents on the cell phone of his latest victim, bragging to them “I killed Jews!” (not just Israelis). In fact, every war in which Israel was involved was initiated by the Muslim side. Islamic antisemitism has driven this conflict ever since its beginning, and it will never be resolved until this is recognized and confronted.
By and large, the Palestinian people have still not accepted the fact that Jews have always lived in the region and have a right to continue living there and to govern themselves just as Muslims do. The “settler-colonialist” accusaiton is a slanderous projection onto Israel of conflicts with which it has nothing in common. The fight for Jewish survival in the Middle East is not the struggle for civil rights in America, nor is it the resistance against apartheid in South Africa - though one would hardly know this from many of Israel’s critics. These comparisons are based on a misreading of history. If anyone usurped the land, it was the Muslims who conquered it in the seventh century. Muslim authorities have even tried to erase traces of historic Jewish presence in the land that archaeologists have found, because such evidence threatens their claim to be the true “indigenous” inhabitants. They accuse Jews of being invaders from Europe, when many (including my family) are indigenous to the Middle East, with many refugees expelled from Arab countries. In fact, there are as many Jewish refugees from Arab lands as there are Palestinian refugees from the creation of Israel, but you don’t hear about them because Israel absorbed them and gave them full citizenship. The Arab states did no such favor for their Palestinian brethren, preferring to keep them in squalid refugee camps and then blame Israel for their plight. If the “nakba” (Palestinian term for Israel’s creation) was truly a “catastrophe” (which is what the word means), it was self-inflicted. The Palestinians could have had a state of their own over 75 years ago had not their hatred of Jews overcome their own self-interest. Gaza could have become a flourishing seaport, with no blockades necessary to keep out materials for the manufacture of weaponry, had Hamas devoted its considerable resources and contributions toward building up Palestinian society instead of tearing down Israel’s.
The Reality We Face
So where are we now? The exchange between Jewish hostages and Palestinian prisoners tells us a lot. A few Jewish hostages, mostly civilians, for hundreds of Palestinians, many of them hardened terrorists with a record of killing Jews, sworn to resume their previous occupation. First, that tells us Jewish society values life far more than Palestinian society does, willing to pay an exorbitant price just to get a few of its people back. In fact, Islamic extremists consider the Jewish valuation of life a weakness and have said so. Second, and ominously, the release of so many committed killers still sworn to their cause tells us we can be sure this current war will not be the last.
Yahya Sinwar, the leader of the October 7 massacre, was freed from an Israeli prison in an exchange of over 1,000 Palestinian terrorists for one Israeli hostage. Too late, many in Israel now regret that crazy deal. For all we know, the terrorists who will plan the next October 7 may be getting their release as these words are being written. Israel is taking a big chance by letting them go, and may possibly regret it in the future. But the impact of the hostages’ suffering on Israeli society was too great to be ignored. Yet it is virtually certain that unless the problem of Islamic antisemitism is recognized, confronted, and neutralized, there will be another concerted attack on Israeli civilians and another massive response by Israel, and another round of hypocritical one-sided condemnation of Israel that will solve nothing and lead nowhere.
This is not to say that Israel is perfect and does no wrong. I do not say that. There is always time to talk about the sins of Israelis. But we have to face the nature of this conflict. The attack on 10/7/2023 was unprovoked and aimed not at the “liberation” of the West Bank but at the destruction of Israel itself. The hope was to ignite a regional war to finish Israel once and for all, and it almost succeeded. The preceding wars against Israel were similarly unprovoked, chosen not by Israel but by its enemies. This conflict will not be solved until the hatred of Jews that motivates this aggression is seen for what it is and rooted out of Palestinian society.
If the Palestinians ever do reform to the point where they will accept peaceful coexistence, very unlikely in my own lifetime but one never knows for the distant future, will there be resistance from Israeli settlers? I imagine there will, and I would oppose it strongly were Palestinians genuinely interested in peace. But we are a very long way from that, for one very obvious reason.
One thing the 10/7/2023 massacre, with overwhelming support and even celebration from the people of Gaza, should have made abundantly clear if it was not already: Palestinians as a whole are not interested in peaceful coexistence, and they never have been. Ever since the war Palestinians initiated in 1947 as they violently rejected the "two-state solution," the Palestinian position has been maximalist. They were never to be satisfied with a state of their own next to a Jewish state. They wanted all of it, and would settle for nothing less. This they have proved over and over again. Their attack on innocent Jews, many of them peace activists, that started the current war should have dispelled any remaining doubts. I was admittedly naïve to have thought otherwise.
I was once an outspoken advocate for a Palestinian state. I was wrong. A Palestinian state on the West Bank, right next to Israel's major cities, would undoubtedly become a staging area for more terrorism and October 7s. Therefore, as odious as the occupation of the West Bank is, the alternative is even worse. As long as the genocidal (and that is no exaggeration) aspirations of Palestinians together with the most radical segments of the Muslim world persist, Israeli control of the West Bank is necessary to prevent the creation of another Gaza. This is truly tragic, and I hope temporary, but it is the hard reality we now face.
The Role of Religion
The world seems obsessed with the Jews. Only Israel faces worldwide demands to conduct a “moral” war. No matter what Hamas does, only Israel is the object of widespread demonstrations all around the world siding with Hamas (as even the demonstrations on US campuses have been doing) and calling for Israel”s destruction. The Russian atrocities in Ukraine, including gang rape and widespread torture as well as the intentional targeting of civilians and destruction of their homes, do not garner nearly as much attention. The Chinese persecution of millions of Uyghur Muslims goes nearly unnoticed. Nor has much been made of the massacres of hundreds of thousands of Muslims by the Assad regime in Syria. (Apparently wars with Muslims are bad only when Jews are fighting them.)
So why this need to single out Jews? The question has perplexed many for a long time. We can only speculate, but it is an informed speculation. Jews have suffered most at the hands of Christians and Muslims. What do these two have in common? Both have appropriated the Jewish story and made it their own. The Jewish Bible constitutes three quarters of the Christian Bible. Christians read it and identify with it, as if it were about them. Christians wanted what the Jews had, their scripture and their history. From the very beginning, when Christianity became a Gentile movement separating from the Jewish community, the resentment of Jews grew until it flowered into full-blown antisemitism. Jews were condemned for refusing to interpret their own scriptures Christologically. The historic message from church leaders to the Jewish people can be summarized: “It’s not your story anymore. It’s ours.”
Something similar happened in Islam. If one reads the Qur’an (as I have, in its entirety) it becomes obvious that it would not exist without the Jewish story upon which it is based and infused throughout. Islamic monotheism derived from Jewish monotheism. Muslims also consider the Qur’an a “correction” of Jewish scripture.
Both Christianity and Islam owe their existence to Jews and Judaism. Both demanded that Jews accept their version of the Jewish story, and when Jews refused and insisted on remaining Jews they were condemned as rebellious and rejected by God. The conclusion is hard to avoid: Christians and Muslims never forgave the Jews for giving them their religions. Each claims the Jewish story as its own, so the persistence of Jews as Jews holding onto their story is an affront to these new faiths. An outspoken antisemitic Palestinian Christian pastor in Bethlehem has openly denied the Jews' right to their own story, and he is not alone. The stubborn refusal of Jews to recognize that they have been replaced has led to an almost metaphysical hatred of Jews within both Christian and Muslim communities. If we underestimate the power of the religious impulse, we will not fully understand this conflict.
There has been some reform of these anti-Jewish attitudes, mostly on the Christian side, but they still persist strongly in segments of both Christian and Muslim communities, accounting for the obsession with any significant news stories in which Jews are involved. And so clashes with Jews are especially notorious and always draw special attention.
And while progress has been made in some Christian circles, the old antisemitism still persists. Some of it is overt, but much of it goes under the cover of anti-Zionism. Anti-Zionism, the denial of a Jewish state’s right to exist, is a form of antisemitism because it means leaving Middle Eastern Jews at the mercy of a hostile Muslim population whose revealed intention is to subjugate or destroy them. Anti-Zionism is not to be conflated with criticism of Israel, which is as legitimate as criticism of any other country. I may have my criticisms of you, and you may accept or reject them. But if I deny your right to exist, that is something else entirely. Denying that anti-Zionism has anything to do with antisemitism is disingenuous and hypocritical.
Those who attacked Israel during this war did not even consider Jews human, seeing Jewish bodies and minds as legitimate targets for any conceivable sadistic experiment. What more can be expected from a society in which children are schooled in the hatred of Jews, taught that even their own holy scriptures call Jews less than human, descendants of apes and pigs? When they are taught that Jews are enemies of their prophet, cheaters and deceivers who rebel against the will of God? Can they even see the Jews who want to reach out to them in peace? The October 7 atrocities were the natural consequence of the religious dehumanization of Jews. The religious encouragement of antisemitism must be called out or it will continue to fuel this conflict.
Here is just the latest example. This month Hamas released four Jewish hostages as part of a deal. But these hostages were different: they were dead. Two of the bodies were small children whom Hamas had executed. The third, promised to be their mother, turned out to be a Palestinian woman, the fate of the mother still unknown. This is the kind of psychological warfare Hamas inflicts on Israel’s Jewish population, designed for maximum emotional as well as physical pain. The fourth body belonged to Oded Lifshitz, a peace activist who, before his captivity, drove Palestinians who needed medical care to hospitals in Israel. Hamas considered him no different from all the other Jews they demonize.
Hamas does these things - with overwhelming support from the Gazan population - because they believe their religion wants them to. And there is no official Islamic authority speaking out against these atrocities. Instead, we find worldwide demonstrations in support of them. “I killed Jews!” one terrorist shouted happily. It is Jews they hate, not just Israelis.
The conclusion cannot be escaped that this conflict will not end until Islam is reformed and Palestinians start seeing Jews as human beings with equal rights. Applying pressure only on Israel when every single war was instigated from the Arab side, and when Israel believes it is fighting for its life, is not a way to end this conflict. It will only prolong it. Those who do indulge in such criticism owe it to themselves to study the history and understand exactly how we got here. It is also not helpful to criticize Jews for crying too much about antisemitism, when antisemitism is at the core of this conflict and expresses itself today in the blatantly anti-Jewish content of many anti-Israel demonstrations and pronouncements.
No matter what pressure Israel’s critics try to exert, to stop defending itself or to create a Palestinian state, Israel cannot be coerced into signing its own death warrant. Christians didn’t want Jews in Europe and now Muslims don’t want them in Israel, but Jews have always lived in the region and Israeli Jews have nowhere else to go. They have as much right to be there as their Arab neighbors. Israelis cannot comprehend why the world doesn’t seem to understand this, but as long as it doesn’t this conflict will go on and on with no end in sight, and we will wonder why, after all the bloodshed and grief, there is still another war in Gaza.