Israel & Gaza: Separating Fact from Fiction

Eighteen months into a conflict marked by unfathomable loss, one of the most disturbing things we see is the reinvention of what actually happened. The terrorists and their supporters spew an endless stream of hate and lies. It is crucial to continue to dispel their myths and hold on to the truth.

Myth #1: Israel bears responsibility for this war.

Reality: On October 7, 2023, Hamas militants breached Israel’s borders, slaughtering 1,200 civilians and abducting 250 hostages—acts of barbarism that ignited this war. Hamas’s founding covenant explicitly seeks Israel’s annihilation, declaring, “Israel will exist until Islam obliterates it.” For decades, Israel has extended olive branches, only to face rejection by the Palestinian leadership. In 2005, Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza, dismantling settlements in a bid for peace. Instead of fostering prosperity, Hamas seized power, diverting billions in aid to construct terror tunnels and rockets. Their 20-year campaign of violence—including tens of thousands of rockets fired at Israeli cities—culminated in the October 7 invasion and massacre, a calculated effort to terrorize and derail regional normalization.

As Stephen J. Gordon poignantly observes:

G-d told us to live with our neighbors in peace… then He surrounded us with enemies.

Myth #2: Israel is committing genocide.

Reality: Genocide requires intent to destroy a people-precisely the ideology enshrined in Hamas’s charter, which cites Islamic scripture urging followers to “kill Jews.” Israel’s military response, however brutal the toll, operates within international law’s strictures, including just war theory. Urban warfare experts emphasize that the IDF is fighting a just war of self-defense and it employs unprecedented safeguards: real-time legal reviews, precision targeting, and civilian warnings-even as Hamas embeds fighters in hospitals and schools. While Hamas-run Gaza authorities report over 50,000 Palestinian deaths, Israel is clear that at least 20,000 were terrorist combatants. The distinction is stark: Hamas glorifies death; Israel mourns the necessity of self-defense.

John Spencer, Chair of the Army’s Urban Warfare Studies declares:

The Israel Defence Forces not only operates under legal necessity, it documents and reviews its actions at a level few modern militaries do, particularly when fighting a terrorist group embedded in a civilian population.”

Myth #3: Israel’s defeat is inevitable.

Reality: Hamas clings to the delusion that time, victimhood propaganda, anti-Zionist indoctrination, relentless terrorism, and a globalized intifada will erase Israel. Yet history refutes this. Israel’s 10 million citizens-backed by one of the world’s top 10 militaries-are anchored in a land promised to the Jewish people for millennia. Beyond strength, Israel seeks to uplift humanity by helping other nations with agtech solutions, water desalinization, medical breakthroughs, and other high-tech innovations. Peace treaties with Egypt, Jordan, and Abraham Accords nations underscore this vision.

As Ambassador Yechiel Leiter states:

Our place in the world could be transformative if others would just stop making war, stop trying to destroy us, stop getting the way of history, and normalize relations as we did with the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco.

Hamas’s nihilism—its cult of martyrdom, Jihad, and Jew hatred—threatens not only Israel but the civilized world. Yet the arc of history bends toward resilience. Israel did not choose this war, but it will end it. It does not seek genocide, but it will vanquish those who do. And as the eternal covenant reminds us:

He who watches over Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps.

The truth is undeniable:

Hamas’s ideology of hate and annihilation meets Israel’s resolve to survive and achieve a lasting peace. Amid the ashes of Gaza, faith remains our compass and the Jewish state, our beacon.