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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