Destroying Gaza to Save It

This is something I’m grappling to understand right now.

Israel’s justification for the gaudy destruction of life and property in Gaza is self-defense, which it defines as fully incapacitating Hamas. Taking this justification at face value, to be accepted as credible, given the extreme liberties it is taking with civilian life, it seems to me that Israel bears a strict responsibility to demonstrate that its operations are a) as narrowly tailored to achieving that goal as possible, and b) consistently achieving demonstrable success at that goal.

On its face, based on publicly available information, the justification for their actions have not cleared these bars and so the justification does not seem credible at all. What the world sees is a sickening and incomprehensible murderous assault on a defenseless civilian population, the leveling of their homes and indefinite displacement of those fortunate or unfortunate enough to survive. (I will never forget the image of the child emerging from the rubble under which his entire family had been buried, open palms to the heavens, screaming, “Why am I alive???”)

The Israeli government has failed at every level to show that in its targeting practices it is concerned with preserving innocent civilian life, much less that this is a priority. “Israel does everything possible to protect civilians/Hamas is using the Palestinian population as human shields” is deployed by uncritical defenders as a meditative mantra, a protective talisman to hopefully foreclose all further questioning. The “pro-Israel” camp (I put it in quotes bc it tends to be synonymized with people who blindly rubber-stamp any Israeli govt action, and certainly does not represent the only way to be pro-Israel; for example I consider myself to be extremely pro-Israel, while disagreeing with the “pro-Israel” camp on lots of things) uncritically parrot this empty rhetoric as well.

But at the beginning of the war, as has been noted in prior missives here, a parade of high-level Israeli officials proclaimed that there is no such thing as a Palestinian civilian (Herzog), that they exist but are “animals” (DefMin Gallant) representing the “side of darkness” (Bibi), that the expectation they should be seriously considered in Israel’s military actions is outrageous (Bennett), which is why the goal in Gaza was “not precision but damage.” (DefSpox Hagari) These statements were made at a moment when these officials felt they had full public and US support and could speak frankly about what ‘needed’ to be done. ‘Finally the world understands, and we can stop pretending and be real about things,’ is what I heard as the common subtext, and they were  broadcast and published my heart sank into a swamp from which it has yet to emerge. Because I knew in those moments that what followed would be unadulterated carnage with an unlimited tolerance for the deaths of innocents. And here we are.

I have yet to see anyone in the “pro-Israel” camp seriously grapple with these statements. I’ve only seen them glibly dismissed as ‘words spoken in anger’ that have ‘since been corrected’ and other such facile nonsense. Because while it’s true that as time progressed, as the tower of innocent corpses reached the sky, as public opinion started to curdle and US pressure started turning up, official protestations that “civilians are not being targeted” have grown—these statements are obvious cya of a different nature and quality than the original proclamations. (And indeed, high-level government officials are still making the first kind of statement, they’re just being muted and shut down now as it’s set in that they’re unacceptably uncouth, eg the Intelligence Ministry recommendation to clear Gaza out, and the official a little over a week ago who said it should be “nuked”.)

These statements sit on my guts like day-old cholent. It’s clear that at the highest level of governmental decision-making Israel’s position re Palestinian civilians is a hard DGAF.

So that set the stage.

The next question is, have Israel’s military actions reflected an intention to protect civilian life? Even accepting the premise that Hamas uses civilians as human shields—does that just validate whatever the Israeli government does? This is another conversation I don’t see anyone on the “pro-Israel” camp having. For example, it is both shocking and telling to me that there appears to be literally no limit on the amount of death and destruction that Israel and its defenders are willing to tolerate in pursuit of its objective of eliminating Hamas for Israeli “self-defense.” However many innocent Palestinians the govt says need to be killed, however many blocks of residential buildings turned to rubble, the “pro-Israel” camp appears prepared to defend reflexively as existential necessity. No critical thinking required or accepted. If Israel said, We have determined that what is required to eliminate Hamas and reestablish our self-defense capacity will entail destroying 3/4 of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure, killing tens of thousands more innocent children (sadly! unavoidably! frown emoji!), and turning hundreds of thousands more into refugees — to save Gaza we must destroy it — the “pro-Israel” camp would nod, make posters, and smear dissenters as Hamas-supporting anti-Semites.

I recently had the very random good fortune of speaking briefly with a high-ranking military official in a government other than Israel, who works closely with Israeli military counterparts. What they kept saying (with a weary, glazed look in their eye) was, “I just don’t agree with their targeting methodology.” The point being, there is a range of strategies — and within that, a range of bombing strategies — to achieve the goal of incapacitating Hamas. And Israel has been choosing a strategy at the very low end of regard for civilian life. (This is consistent with an article I saw last week about how the US has been pleading with Israel to use more targeted “smart” bombs in its campaign, which Israel has rejected in favor of continuing to use “dumb” bombs with the far higher expected destruction and casualties; see Hagari quite above.)

This person speculated (and he marked it as speculation, tho I also mark that he was very well-informed) that Israel’s goal (or that of many in the govt) is not to reoccupy Gaza, but also not to let the majority of expelled Palestinians back in either—instead turning it into a largely depopulated buffer zone. (& this is consistent with AgMin/former Shin Bet Director Avi Dichter’s recent statement that “We are rolling out the Gaza Nakba…Gaza Nakba 2023. That’s how it will end.”)

I mention this in part because I feel like a lot of liberal Zionists have the kind of parasocial relationship with Israel where they project their own high moral aspirations onto the Israeli government and end up extending it massive unearned benefit of the doubt based largely on vibez. Like in our zeal to defend Israel and combat anti-Semitism we are not really grappling with the actual people and positions populating this nasty, incompetent government of spoiled children, foaming ideologues, and racist thugs.

Like, genuinely curious, does it ever occur to the unconditionally “pro-Israel” that its leaders might actually be more aligned with the bad-guys of history than the good-guys? And that that very badness might be expressing itself in the decisions they make about the conduct of this war, it’s strategy and tactics?

According to the UN, 1/3 of all Gaza buildings have been destroyed by Israeli bombs. Over a million displaced, over 4000 children killed. Israel has claimed that it’s all 100% necessary to incapacitate Hamas; in light of all the death and destruction, the most basic morality I could conceive of would dictate holding them strictly accountable to that standard. But Israel has provided truly scant evidence that that is happening — evidence of the quality that only people already on their side would accept. Where’s the clear and verifiable evidence of all the Hamas command centers? Where’s the rapidly growing list of assets and commanders seized and killed? Instead what we get is unverified vignettes staged (I’m not saying they’re all false, but they do feel very staged) for CNN and social media. An unserious propaganda campaign met with cynical howls on the left, ‘look how stupid they think we are.’ Given the level of destruction and death — holding Israel to its own standard of justification — we should have a growing body of clear, compelling evidence. I have not seen anything close to this.

To be clear, I observe this from a place of deep distress. My hope was that with all the destruction and death, there would at least be some counterweight that the dirty work has been efficacious…of course also tied to the sense that progress means moving closer to the end. Instead, it’s more piles of civilian corpses, more living misery and oppression of innocents, more and more unverified “evidence” that raises as many questions as it answers.

It seems that the last redoubt of uncritical Israel-defenders is the wholesale moral deflection of the consequences of any and all Israeli military actions onto Hamas. This blanket justification for unlimited ‘collateral’ damage is an implicit proclamation of unwillingness to hold Israel accountable for any decision regarding the campaign against Hamas.

As a moral stance? Bankrupt.

As a solution for haunting cognitive dissonance? Priceless.

Fwiw, I have not been able to bring myself to call for an unconditional ceasefire because I do feel that the country has a right to defend itself and the threat of Hamas must be addressed. The majority of my time since 10/7 has been dedicated to mourning the massacred, praying for the hostages, contemplating the barbaric evil of Hamas, and grieving the absence of humanity in the responses among many on the (non-Israeli) left. 

But those waving the flag and defending all Israeli actions uncritically as an existential necessity for national self-defense, seem effectively — notwithstanding the vestigial expressions of liberal concern that often preface their defense — to value innocent Palestinian life exactly as much as those they are waving the flag to defend and support against all critics: Bibi, Herzog, Bennett, Galant, Smotrich, Ben Gvir, and the rest. These are certainly not my people, and the future they envision — the future they have been invested with the power to bring about and are currently working diligently to realize — is a hellscape.

Netanyahu has said that this war will go on for months, without giving any actual timeframe. This makes all the sense in the world for him, a notorious by-any-means-necessary survivor whose political career ends the next day.

What will be left of Gaza and it’s people by then?