Solomon D. Stevens
Almost everyone I meet believes that the conflict in Gaza is easy to understand. There is right. There is wrong. I often hear that all we need to see the conflict correctly is something called moral clarity. But whose moral clarity? Moral clarity cuts more than one way. Israel can be seen as doing no wrong, or Israel can be seen as the source of all evil.
Wouldn’t it be nice if complex issues could be understood without nuance? Understanding Gaza demands that we accept that its complexities do not yield easy answers.
We have to begin by recognizing that no country is beyond reproach for some of what it does, and no war is wholly just. This is true for the United States, and it is true for Israel. Some of Israel’s politicians want the best for Israel, its neighbors and the world, and some do not.
When it comes to the war in Gaza, we have to resist the lure of quick and easy answers. What we do know is that Israel is fighting a war with an unconventional enemy: a terrorist organization that has a stranglehold on those in Gaza. We know from its founding Covenant that Hamas is not a national liberation movement, hoping to establish its own, independent country to live in peace with its neighbors. Its goal is to wipe Jews — not just Israelis — off the face of the Earth. After the barbaric attack on Israel’s innocent civilians on Oct. 7, 2023, Israel has been at war with a group that seeks to increase the number of its own casualties.
These are facts.
But as it is with all wars, facts can be lost and replaced by myths. The most dangerous myth right now is that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, that it is intentionally seeking the complete destruction of the people there and that Jews are therefore becoming the new Nazis. This myth is being perpetrated by those who want to delegitimize the state of Israel in the eyes of the world, but unfortunately many people of good will have begun to accept this myth as the truth.
It is true that many civilians have died in Gaza as Israel has sought to destroy Hamas. But there are, sadly, always civilian deaths in wars, and no nation before has ever fought a war like this, where its enemy seeks the death of its own civilians. This is unprecedented but not widely understood.
There are some, of course, who do not seek to understand; they are driven by their hatred of Jews and Israel. They spread lies intentionally because they seek the destruction of Israel. Some of these contemptible people have Ph.D.’s or serve as news reporters, and some are our neighbors.
Consider the current food crisis in Gaza, which is receiving daily attention in the press and on social media. The suffering is real, but the starvation there is planned and promoted by Hamas, which has worked systematically to ensure that Israel (and the United Nations before it) is unable to deliver food to the people who need it.
Israel has been caught in a trap. If it allows food into Gaza, the food is stolen by Hamas and used to support terrorism. If it blocks food from entering, it is condemned by world opinion for seeking to kill the innocent. Right now, Hamas is winning the war of world opinion.
And as Mark Thiessen pointed out in The Washington Post, the world has the expectation that it is Israel’s responsibility to feed the civilians in Gaza. “Far from deliberate starvation in Gaza, Israel is attempting to do something no nation has ever done or even been expected to do: feed the population of the aggressor force that attacked it while the war is still going on.” As Thiessen reminded us, Allied forces did not feed the populations of Germany or Japan. We destroyed entire cities, killed millions of civilians and left people to suffer until their governments surrendered.
At the same time, many strong supporters of Israel are critical of the way in which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has conducted this war, saying that he has lost his way and that no further military purpose can be served by continuing it. If Hamas cannot ever be completely eliminated by military action, why keep attacking? Will this bring back the hostages? And what price will be paid by both Israelis and Gazans? These are questions that must be answered.
Israel is not blameless in all of this. It has made bad decisions during the war, as all countries that fight wars do. But we need to embrace nuance. In order to reach a resolution to this painful conflict, we need more thinking and less moralizing. ■
Solomon D. Stevens has a Ph.D. in political science from Boston College and is the author of a book on the Middle East.
