Why Israeli forces should not be solicitous of Gaza's civilian population

That population shouldn't be targeted, but Israeli forces shouldn't incur any risk to protect Gazans

Earlier this week, Israel’s ambassador to the UN played a recording of a Hamas terrorist calling his parents after killing Jews on October 7. The killer, delirious with joy, shouted, “Your son killed Jews” (note: Jews, not Israelis). “Open my WhatsApp now and you'll see all those killed. Look how many I killed with my own hands!”

His father couldn’t have been more proud. "Oh my son, God bless you,” he gushed. The terrorist’s mother chimed in with this: “"I wish I was with you." The terrorist responded: "Mom, your son is a hero. Kill, kill, kill!"

Reporting on this recording, CNN hosts seemed taken aback. But what did they expect from a terrorist flush with the success of a mission to massacre Jews?

One CNN host noted that the world had witnessed the butchery of the Hamas killers, but the recording was the first glimpse into how they viewed their savagery. But the reaction could easily be inferred from the savagery. And the reaction of the parents could easily be inferred from the reaction of other Gaza residents. They openly and unashamedly rejoiced after the massacre, even knowing that, at a minimum, Gaza would be attacked on a massive scale from the air.

The reality is that Gazans hate Jews. They crave the destruction of Israel and the deaths of its non-Muslim residents.

This is clear not only from their support of Hamas and their pride in its brutality, but also from the views of Muslims in America. In a recent poll, 58 percent of Muslim American respondents agreed that Hamas was at least somewhat justified in attacking Israel.

It’s almost certain that the vast majority of Muslims sampled are not of Palestinian origin. These were Muslims from all over the Middle East and Asia and maybe some who adopted Islam here. Furthermore, it’s unlikely that more than a tiny number of them have lived in Gaza or the West Bank — hotbeds of anti-Semitism where children are instructed from an early age to hate Israeli Jews.

If most non-Palestinian Muslims in America think Hamas’ massacre was okay, imagine how Gaza’s residents feel.

The poll didn’t sample enough Muslims to be fully reliable, but consider this: In a poll of Americans (not just Muslims), 51 percent of those between the ages of 18-24 said that Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel was justified. This, even though 64 percent of respondents in that age group agreed that the attack was “genocidal.”

No wonder students on America’s campuses are demonstrating vociferously in favor of Hamas and against Israel. No wonder Jewish students no longer feel safe on some campuses, and understandably so.

If a majority of Muslim-Americans and a majority of all Americans ages 18-24 believe the massacre of Jews is justified, it has to be the case that the vast majority of Gaza residents believe this. (Keep in mind that Gaza’s population is among the youngest in the world.)

Accordingly, I think it’s inaccurate to view Gazans as “innocent” victims of Hamas’ war with Israel. Yes, nearly all of them are innocent of participating in the October 7 massacre. But they are not innocent in any broader sense. In fact, the vast majority are guilty of favoring what happened in Israel that awful day.

This doesn’t mean they should be targeted for death by Israeli forces. They shouldn’t be and have not been.

But in my view it means that if Israel gets around to invading Gaza, its troops should not accept any risk to their well being in order to protect the lives of civilians. It’s not just that the civilians they likely will encounter are guilty of approving the massacre of Jews. It’s also that many of these civilians will likely be quite willing to kill Israeli soldiers.

If any Israeli soldier dies trying to follow orders about the need to protect Gaza’s civilians from harm, it will be to the everlasting shame of the government that issued such orders. If such orders are the result of pressure from Team Biden, it will be to the everlasting shame of Joe Biden.

Finally, I want to emphasize the following items:

According to reports, 9,000 to 11,000 civilians died during the nine-month battle to liberate the city of Mosul from ISIS, with one-third of the deaths attributed to American military actions. The number of total deaths may be somewhat exaggerated, but the exact number of civilian deaths (whatever it might be) was substantial.

It is thought that 25,000–35,000 civilians died in Dresden as the result of allied air attacks during World War II. Most of the victims were women, children, and the elderly.

Never mind the use of nuclear weapons against Japan in World War II, non-nuclear air attacks on Tokyo are estimated to have killed 100,000 civilians and left more than one million homeless.

The massacre of October 7 involved atrocities worse than those committed by ISIS and the Japanese. Even the Nazis didn’t behead babies. Nor, as many have pointed out, did they publicly rejoice over their slaughter. They tried instead to conceal it.

Hamas poses more of a threat to Israel than ISIS did to the U.S. And because Gaza borders Israel, Hamas is more of a threat to the Jewish state than Japan was to America by the time we bombed Tokyo. (Germany may have been close to developing a nuclear bomb, so that’s a different case.)

Furthermore, there’s a good chance that by the time of the Dresden and Tokyo bombings, the German and Japanese regimes had considerably less support from their civilian populations than Hamas enjoys today in Gaza.

World War II was waged the better part of a century ago. But the war against ISIS was waged by the Obama and Trump administrations. Given all of the civilian deaths associated with just one phase of that war — the liberation of Mosul — Joe Biden’s demand that Israel be highly solicitous of Gaza civilians rings hollow.

Israel should listen to the demand politely — and ignore it