10 | MAY 27 • 2021

essay
The Four Absurd Criticisms
of Israel’s War Conduct
M

uch of the media
and many experts
and observers have
succumbed to what can be
described as a
complete loss of
rational think-
ing when it
came to evalu-
ating the Israel-
Hamas war.
Israel’s critics
invented an
entirely new set
of illogical rules of war for
Israel that one can only con-
clude is aimed at leaving the
Jewish state defenseless and
allowing the terrorist group
Hamas to attack freely.
There are four key themes
that are propagated in arti-
cles, interviews, social media
and by well-known comedi-
ans, all of which are simply
absurd.

1. USING THE RATIO
OF DEATHS TO DECIDE
WHICH SIDE IS RIGHT
OR WRONG
It has been noted repeatedly
that the ratio of deaths in
Gaza to Israel is about 20:1.
To those pointing out the dis-
parity it therefore follows that
Israel’s war conduct is unjust,
while Hamas’ is not really of
much concern because, well,
look at the numbers.
America’s military campaign
to eliminate ISIS in Syria and
Iraq, however, demonstrates
the incredible hypocrisy in
how Israel’s conduct is treated
versus the rest of the world.
The battle against ISIS was
conducted in part by the

Combined Joint Task Force,
a U.S.-led coalition which
included Australia, Belgium,
Canada, Denmark, France,
Jordan, the Netherlands, Saudi
Arabia, Turkey, UAE and U.K.
The task force reported that
airstrikes from 2014 through
2019 led to 1,257 civilian
deaths which were character-
ized as unintentional. Other
credible estimates cited by
the New York Times shows at
least 7,500 civilians killed. Few
coalition soldiers were killed
resulting in a casualty ratio far
above the current conflict in
Gaza; in fact no one bothered
to even calculate the ratio.
While civilian deaths were
lamented, the general interna-
tional attitude was praise for
the final destruction of ISIS.

2. URGING ISRAEL TO ACT
“PROPORTIONALLY”
A recent comment by Comedy
Central’s The Daily Show host
Trevor Noah encapsulates
this preposterous thinking:

“I just want to ask an honest
question: If you’re in a fight
where the other person cannot
beat you, how hard should you
retaliate when they try to hurt
you?”
Writer Bari Weiss replied:
“Just so we have this straight:
A country should accept a
terrorist group launching
deadly rockets at its civilian
population because a comedi-
an thinks that the terror group
won’t win?”
In fact, the concepts of
“overwhelming force” and
“shock and awe” were imple-
mented by the U.S. in wars in
the Middle East and are regu-
larly adopted by armed forces
around the world to defeat
their enemy.
Somehow Israel is seen as
immoral due to its greater
power and is expected to use a
lower amount of force against
Hamas under some invented
notion of “proportionality”
that critics seek to apply only
to Israel.

3. DECRYING ISRAEL’S
IRON DOME COMPARED
TO GAZA’S LACK OF
DEFENSES
Incredibly, Israel has been
castigated for having a rocket
defense system since Gaza
does not have similar defens-
es for airstrikes. The bizarre
notion is that it is inherently
unfair that one side in a con-
flict has better defensive mea-
sure than the other.
An article in the
Washington Post even sug-
gested that Iron Dome
perpetuates the conflict
as it allows Israel to avoid
resolving the conflict through
negotiation; the article does
not suggest that the pathway
to peace is for the interna-
tional community to disarm
Hamas.
Not mentioned by Israel’s
critics is that Israeli airstrikes
are a response to Hamas
rockets and if Hamas stopped
firing rockets and disarmed its
rocket stocks, Israel would not
engage in retaliatory airstrikes.
Once again, the only con-
clusion from this absurd view-
point is that if more Israelis
died, its actions against Hamas
would be more justified.

4. CIVILIAN DEATHS
AUTOMATICALLY MEAN
ISRAELI WAR CRIMES
It is universally acknowl-
edged that civilian deaths
are a tragic and unfortunate
consequence of all wars, but
when caused by Israel they
are treated as automatic war
crimes even when Hamas
continues to fire rockets.

Salo
Aizenberg
Times of
Israel

An Israeli in her home after a rocket hit from the Gaza Strip, in the
southern city of Ashdod, on May 18, 2021.

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