A War Without Honor
The fog of peace may not be the best time to take stock of the casualties of war, but when the fog lifts, after the celebration and the self-congratulation, we should never forget that this was a war without honor.
On October 7, 2023, Hamas militants attacked Israel, killing about 1200 innocent people and taking 250 hostage. When Israel responded militarily, I defended Israel’s right to exist and to defend itself. Hamas was shockingly brutal and violent, targeting and terrorizing innocent Israelis. Hamas’s greatest shame, using Palestinians as human shields, showed an utter lack of concern for the lives of Gazan citizens. No honor here. Hamas should get what it deserves.
Sam Harris, among many others, painted the resulting war as black and white, rejecting any claims of moral equivalence between Hamas and Israel. He wrote:
At this moment in history, there are people and cultures that harbor very different attitudes about violence and the value of human life. There are people and cultures that rejoice, positively rejoice—dancing in the streets rejoicing—over the massacre of innocent civilians; conversely there are people and cultures that seek to avoid killing innocent civilians, and deeply regret it when they do—and they occasionally prosecute and imprison their own soldiers when they violate this modern norm of combat…
In short, there are people and cultures who revel in war crimes—and who do not hide these crimes or their celebration of them but, rather, proudly broadcast their savagery for all the world to see. Conversely, there are people and cultures who have given us the concept of a war crime as a sacred prohibition—and as a safeguard in the ongoing project of maintaining the moral progress of civilization.
In a similar vein, Mike Huckabee, US Ambassador to Israel, claimed that Israel-Gaza is a “battle between heaven and hell, between good and evil, between light and darkness.”
Harris and Huckabee alike painted Arab (Islamic) cultures as bad and barbaric, Israeli civilization as good and honorable (I added “Islamic” because of Harris’s and Huckabee’s historic Islamophobia).
As the war progressed, Israel’s response became increasingly disproportionate and vengeful and even vicious. Israel’s rulers and citizens, chanting “Death to Arabs,” reveled in the destruction of Gaza. Israel ceded its moral high ground by its excessive killings of innocent civilians.
I have friends in Gaza who were bombed from home to apartment to tent to the beach. I haven’t heard from one of those friends for several weeks. I hope that just means that she has lost internet access; I fear it means something else. Everyone I have heard from recently is starving, desperate for a small scrap of bread.
I had many conversations with Dr. Wael Nasrallah, a Palestinian pediatrician, about life in Gaza since the start of the war. He has fought tirelessly to save the lives of the innocent and maimed children, too numerous to count, brought into his hospital—victims of missiles, cluster bombs, fires, snipers and starvation. Some Israeli snipers deliberately target Gazan children, killing many with just a single, well-aimed bullet to the head or the chest. One little girl, Hind Rajab, came in with 335 bullets in her tiny body.
Dr. Nasr now, even after the declaration of peace, barely clings to the living. Within just a week, he lost his parents, two siblings, his wife Noura, his daughter, Aliya, and his only son, Bilal, from the onslaught of the Israeli army. His last surviving daughter, Safa, offered her comfort: “Daddy, I’ll be by your side, I don’t want to see you burdened with sadness.” Thirteen months later, on August 5th, 2025, Safa died in his arms. Dr. Nasr wrote:
They left before they could even speak life,
before their dreams were written,
before anyone could say to them: ‘You’ve grown.’
My children…
Smoke stole them before air,
bullets before words,
war before childhood.
No one can explain to my heart
how to live without them,
how time can pass without them in it.
I grew old suddenly in their absence,
as if tears became my only language.
They now sleep in the arms of the sky,
and I miss every moment—
a voice I can no longer hear,
eyes I can no longer see.
Oh Allah, hold my hand,
for I no longer have the strength to live without them.
As Safa’s life—Dr Nasr’s last light—has flickered out, in the unbearable darkness and unspeakable silence, he wishes he were dead and reunited with his family.
Death #40,877 has a name, Safa, a five-year-old girl who deserved a better and longer life.
I have many friends—some Israelis, some Americans (mostly evangelical Christians)—who are staunch defenders of Israel’s war in Gaza. They tell me that Israel’s war in Gaza, from beginning to now, was a just war and then offer reasons why. Let’s consider those reasons.
“Hamas is entirely responsible for all of these deaths because they started it.”
The Hamas attack was brutal and barbaric, and Hamas merited a severe military response. Yet Israel’s military response, once justified, soon became brutal and barbaric. According to just war theory, any response should be aimed only at the legitimate targets in war (i.e., soldiers, not civilians). But Israel’s overwhelming response has poorly discriminated between combatants and non-combatants. Israel has deliberately and directly aimed at women and children, hospitals and schools (both protected under international law), tents of refugees in designated “safe” areas, and rescue operations. I don’t know the golden citizen/combatant ratio—but Israel, in bombing hospitals and sniping children, has violated that ratio. While Hamas is clearly responsible for some Palestinian deaths, even deaths of civilians, Israel is responsible for every excessive death that surpasses the golden ratio. Please don’t tell me that #40,877, Safa’s death, is justified simply because Hamas started it (or is covered by the golden citizen/combatant ratio).
“Palestinians demand the ethnic cleansing of Israel’s 7 million Jews.”
Israel’s desire not to be bordered by a country that demands its cessation is legitimate; Israelis have a right to live in peace and security. But while it’s true that Hamas, the de facto leaders of Gaza, demands the cessation of the State of Israel, it’s not true that Palestinians, one and all, demanded the ethnic cleansing of Israel’s 7 million Jews. Long before its brutal attack on innocent Israeli civilians, Hamas had squandered its moral leadership in Gaza. Many of the billions of dollars that were given to build up Gaza were diverted by Hamas into secret tunnels, weapons, and personal bank accounts. Moreover, Hamas subverted a democratic Gaza: it hasn’t held an election since 2006 (in which Hamas received less than 45% of the popular vote). Little wonder that before the invasion, 72% of Gazans believed that Hamas was corrupt and only 29% trusted the Hamas government. While Hamas has the power, it long ago relinquished the right to represent Gazans. And any claim that Hamas represents the views of “the Palestinians” is simply false. Please don’t tell me that Safa deserved to die because she was a Palestinian (who, as such, demanded the ethnic cleansing of Israel).
“You’re being anti-Semitic because you criticize Israel but don’t criticize Russia, the Congo, and Sudan.”
I grieved with my Israeli friends over the Hamas attack. I also grieved over Russia’s attacks on my friends in Ukraine (and have written against Trump’s scurrilous support of Putin). I feared for my Iranian friends when Israel and the US recently bombed Tehran. I have not, however, written about the needless deaths in the Congo and Sudan. This is not to my credit—I should care. But it’s a big world and there’s only so much time; so I’ve focused on the places where I have friends, friends who are suffering. And it is not anti-Semitic that my care for Safa (and Dr. Nasr and his only son and his wife, etc and etc) kindled my belief that the Israeli government has gone too far.
“You should expect a lot of deaths in modern combat in civilian population areas.”
Maybe I should have. But this many? Over 65,000 mostly innocent Palestinian civilians (though I suspect we will learn, when the rubble is cleared and the dust is settled, that the number of innocent deaths is vastly greater)? At any rate, to those who argue thusly, give me the number of civilian deaths that one should expect—you know, just the right number of dead Safas—so that I can adjust my moral expectations.
“You did it, too, in Japan, Germany and Iraq.”
Yes, we (USA) did it, too. We needlessly killed countless innocent civilians by dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, fire bombing Dresden, and “shocking and awing” Iraq. Shame on us, too.
I wish the defenders of Israel’s devastation would tell me what is just the right number of friend-deaths in Gaza—how it goes all the way to 40,877 and beyond.
But I don’t really want to be argued with. Safa’s death is not the conclusion of a good argument; Safa’s death should not lie hidden under the rubble of rationalizations or obscured by the fog of peace. We all should sympathetically understand Safa’s death. As Dr. Nasr wrote:
No one can explain to my heart
how to live without them,
Please, please don’t argue Safa away.
While Israel had some initial justification for its military response, those justifications evaporated sometime between dropping that first bomb and death #40,877. And #40,877 has a name.
From the sniping of children (a practice which started prior to the war which certainly contributed to Hamas’s frustrations) to the bombings of hospitals and schools and tents in sanctuary camps to the attacks on rescue vehicles to the blockades of food to the extra-judicial bombings of the Hamas peace delegation in Qatar (all war crimes)–somewhere between that first bomb and #40,877–Netanyahu ceded the moral high ground, attaining the moral status of terrorist and war criminal.
Sadly, Netanyahu and his enablers will likely walk off proudly into the sunset, lauded in Israel and the US as a conqueror, unprosecuted for violating norms of combat. And all those nations complicit with the war crimes–including the United States–share in the shame (sadly, again, to no consequence). Defenders of Israel’s war will think that the end justified the means. But it does not. There is no honor here.
Hamas should get what it deserves. Netanyahu and his enablers should, too.
So he told you a story and you just believed him? No wonder you can't assess the genocide LOGICALLY. This is a scammer. He's an Egyptian dentist in Tbilisi. He forges pics from a guy on Instagram.