by Cynical Publius
I have spent much of my adult life in the Persian Gulf and Mediterranean regions of the Middle East. I am not Jewish, which will somehow matter to certain readers. I am, instead, a Roman Catholic American who has been in the area during war and peace, with multiple military assignments in the region.
I made many Arab friends in my service. I’ve sat in a tent in the middle of the desert at night during Ramadan, playing cards and drinking chai (and painfully sticking clothespins on my ears as a penalty when I lost at those card games, which happened a lot.) I was a regular for diwaniya at friends’ homes in Kuwait. I sat cross-legged with Egyptian heavy equipment transport drivers drinking scalding hot cardamom coffee while we watched the sun come up over the desert. I am not an Arab, and I do not claim to be, but I have come to admire the richness of much of Arab culture.
And yet, I would be lying by omission if I did not note what was appalling about what I saw: women treated as property; third-country nationals cleaning toilets in orange jumpsuits and living as literal slaves; gay and lesbian people as criminals; utter religious intolerance; fascist restrictions on free speech; monarchies ruling by fiat, and more.
Amid all of this, Israel stood apart to me, a shining light in a region full of dark despotism—a true democracy with guaranteed liberties, a technological wonderland carved out of a stark desert devoid of resources, and a place where 21% of the citizenry of this ostensibly Jewish state consists of non-Jewish Arabs. In Israel, gays are not criminalized and women are not property. Is it without problems? Of course not. It is a country born in violence, and every day it deals with that reality. It has the same internal political strife that we see in all Western democracies. Crime happens. Extremists capture the national dialogue. It is exceedingly easy to point out Israel’s flaws, just as it is for any nation.
The question, especially these days, is: Given the sharp contrasts with its neighbors, why is Israel so repeatedly singled out as if it is the only (and worst) bad actor in that region, whether in the media, on X, in the United Nations, and everywhere else for that matter? And why lately do these attacks seem to be coming from people, including former military people, who should—no, who definitely—know better?
These days, if you spend enough time with strangers online discussing anything related to Israel, you will inevitably come into contact with that person who claims, “I have nothing against Jews, it’s ZIONISM I hate.” In the past, this was usually followed by something about the Rothschilds, or bankers controlling the world, or how Dachau was actually an aromatherapy spa, but these days it might just as easily be heard from someone who seems, on the surface, to share a bunch of your own views.
These people inevitably become angry and puzzled when they are labeled “antisemitic,” and their response is usually along the lines of “What? Criticizing Israel doesn’t make me a Jew-hating antisemite! How could you think that?”
If you have found yourself on either side of an exchange like this one, let me give you a scenario that might help.
There are five dry cleaners in your town. You’ve tried them all and are unhappy with all of them. Four of them are owned by Muslim immigrants from the Middle East, and all four are horrible—they overcharge you, they lose your clothes, they never have your clothes ready on time, they rarely get stains out and never offer a refund. The fifth dry cleaner is owned by Orthodox Jews. That dry cleaner’s prices are lower than the other four, they never lose your clothes and always have them ready on time.
Last week, that Orthodox Jew-owned dry cleaner failed to get a mustard stain out of your favorite shirt and would not give you a refund. So you wrote a scathing Yelp review of the Orthodox Jew-owned dry cleaner, something you have never, ever done for the other four dry cleaners over your many dissatisfied years of going to them with your clothing. If that is not enough, in addition to leaving the bad Yelp review, you also attend massive demonstrations in your town in support of the four Muslim dry cleaners, blaming their incompetence and failures on the Orthodox Jew-owned dry cleaner. Also, you chant “From the dry cleaning fluid to the fur storage area” over and over outside the Orthodox Jew-owned dry cleaner.
Which brings us to the war in Gaza.
Let me say some things about that war. First, in my experience, the IDF is one of the most professional militaries the world has ever seen. Its historic track record of stunning victories over better-funded, numerically superior foes is not the only reason I say this. The IDF’s officer corps attends the same sorts of command and staff colleges that have made the U.S. military so great. The IDF’s enlisted forces are drawn from across the entire society, giving it the natural diversity that U.S. military leaders crave. Most importantly for this conversation, it trains and practices civilian harm mitigation with the same zeal as all professional Western militaries. I could go into great detail here, but suffice it say that at the top of the mitigation list is constant warnings to civilians to evacuate tightly targeted areas before engagement with minimally destructive munitions. This is genuine risk mitigation, and is practiced only by the world’s most professional militaries. (See this piece by the chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point, for example.) Bottom line: As a matter of training and doctrine, the IDF does all it can to minimize civilian casualties—and in this it is as good as, and I’d argue maybe even better, than U.S. forces.
Second, in war it is impossible to prevent all damage to civilians. It cannot be done. Don’t believe me? Ask the remaining family of Zemari Ahmadi, killed in Kabul by mistake along with his seven children by a U.S. drone strike. Ask the families of the five U.S. troops and one Afghan interpreter killed by a U.S. B-1B laser-guided bomb in Afghanistan’s Zabul Province in 2014. Ask fans of the Arizona Cardinals what they know about Corporal Pat Tillman. Go back to the Normandy campaign in World War II and wonder why U.S. B-17 bombers killed U.S. Lieutenant General Lesley J. McNair. Heck, ask me about the time outside Habbaniyah, Iraq, where I personally was seconds away from giving the order to shoot and kill an Iraqi civilian who was trying to sell my troops some whiskey after momentarily thinking the bottles were Molotov cocktails; we eventually let him go in peace, but it could have just as easily gone the other way.
War is ugly. The “fog of war” is a real thing. Innocents die. Most importantly, there is a huge difference between killing innocents by accident, and killing them on purpose (you know, like Hamas does with its random rockets aimed at Israeli civilians). Things like the missile strike on the World Central Kitchen convoy happen in war—that is just a brutal, undeniable truth. Should responsible IDF officers suffer if negligence is proven? Absolutely. But here is the real question: If the unintentional death of innocents is inevitable in all wars, why does Israel get special disapprobation when it happens with the IDF? More importantly, why would anyone instantly (and without full knowledge) assume that the IDF intentionally targeted legitimately innocent aid workers?
The IDF’s efforts are as measured and tempered as those of any Western military at war. They are simply being singled out, amid a world of equally brutal war.
I can already hear the hue and cry—from the BDS crowd on the left and the Protocols crowd on the right—screaming: “They are leveling Gaza! Have you seen the pictures? It’s GENOCIDE!”
Listen to me, people: If you want to commit genocide, you do not warn civilians to seek safe shelter before you engage the combatants in their midst. You’re upset about the pictures of a leveled Gaza? Have you seen any of what the U.S. military did to Fallujah? Remember the “Highway of Death” in 1991? How do you think Iran treats Kurdish villages? Darfur would like a word too. War is ugly in the best cases; it is even uglier when facing a demented foe like Hamas. People who would perpetrate Oct. 7 and hide behind human shields from their own population will not go easy.
On Oct 7th hamas attacked Israel and murdered many people, including children.
They raped many women and girls, some were later murdered, too.
The world seems to overlook all of that.
No outrage, no demand for justice.
-CRICKETS-
A couple of years ago, hamas made the accusation that Israeli soldiers were RACISTS.
What proof did hamas have of this?
Israeli soldiers did not rape women from gaza!
Yeah, NOT RAPING women was proof of racism!
Now, some IDF soldiers were caught on video sexually abusing a male prisoner from gaza.
The Israeli gov’t is going after all of them.
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said, ”reports of sexual abuse of detainees are horrific.”
The White House also called the reports of rape, torture and abuse “deeply, deeply concerning.”