This isn’t a war, really

I’ve spent the last few weeks being browbeaten by fellow Jews who are outraged at (in their words) “Israel’s immoral slaughter of Palestinian innocents.” I’m subjected to articles by Jewish reporters with headlines like “Harris Cannot Dodge Gaza Genocide Issue Forever.” So, I’ll cop to feeling a bit perplexed by the views of American Jews who have never lived in Israel, don’t speak Hebrew, have little understanding of Israeli politics, and never served in the military, yet somehow feel entitled to second guess the Israeli government and IDF commanders.

According to Pew Research, 16% of American Jews think that Hamas has a valid reason for attacking Israel. Maybe it’s part of a general trend here in the US of ignorant people greatly overestimating their expertise to solve complex problems. The war is quite perplexing in general, though, so perhaps I should not feel stupid for failing to comprehend this hydra-headed paradox.

Just last week, Hamas rejected yet another ceasefire deal—as one does when one is desperately trying to “stop the slaughter,” “end a genocide,” and bring an urgent end to a “famine” and “humanitarian crisis.” Then, Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, speaking in Istanbul, said that his organization intends to revive suicide attacks, stating that the only way to address the current situation is through an all-out struggle—as one does when claiming the moral high ground and trying to reach an honorable resolution to a war he started.

Meanwhile, pro-Palestinian protestors in Toronto chanted, “There is only one solution, intifada revolution,” referring to a conflict that killed over 1,000 Israelis through wanton suicide bombings, shootings and stabbings—as one does when seeking a two-state solution wherein Jews and Arabs will live side by side in peace.

In parallel, an IDF unit risked their lives to rescue an Israeli Muslim hostage, who then received medical treatment from an Orthodox Jewish doctor—as one does when running a crushing, racist “apartheid” system that discriminates against non-Jews. At the same time, Israel coordinated the delivery of over a million polio vaccines into Gaza to help stem an outbreak among the area’s 640,000 children—as one does when perpetrating a “genocide.”

While we’re on that subject, how is it that Gaza, with 36 hospitals built with EU donations, thousands of UN relief workers on the scene for decades, and some of the highest per capita healthcare spending in the Arab world, failed to vaccinate its children? Could it be that Hamas doesn’t value the lives of the children it purports to protect? They certainly want to cash in on every child death with the media when they can blame Israel. Asking for a friend.

The vaccine delivery and humanitarian corridors complement Israel’s facilitation of 20,000 aid trucks delivering thousands of tons of food to Gaza—as one does when trying to “starve a population in a genocide.”

Yes, it’s all a bit confusing. Americans want an unconditional ceasefire, seemingly unconcerned that such a deal might leave dozens of hostages to die in the hands of Jew-hating terrorists. They somehow think that there’s a peace agreement in the offing with Hamas, which has publicly committed to murdering every Jew in Israel. A disturbingly high proportion of otherwise sentient Americans claim it’s Israel’s duty to prematurely suspend their justified dismantling of the Hamas death machine, which has attacked Israel for almost 20 years, while Hamas publicly declares it intends to fight to the death.

Hamas, which sent thousands of heavily armed militants across an international border on Oct. 7 and committed mass murder, infanticide, mass rape, and other war crimes, including the abduction of civilian hostages, now screeches in protest of Israel’s justifiable retaliation and resolve to neutralize its genocidal terror threat—while hiding its militants in tunnels and leaving non-combatants to die up top.

If it were any other country, Israel’s response would either be ignored or praised for its calibrated consideration of civilians while putting their own fighters at risk. If Hamas were any other political entity in the world, it would be broadly condemned for irresponsibly attacking a far superior force without provocation and putting their own civilians in harm’s way as they hid underground like the cowards they are. They’d be vilified for breaking one of the most fundamental rules of human existence: If you wage war, plan to fight a war, and don’t complain about how it’s going, especially when you’ve rejected innumerable offers for a ceasefire.

This is not any other country, though, and you start to see that this isn’t really a war, either. For Hamas, it’s a publicity stunt, a large-scale suicide mission that amounts to a massive re-running of Yasir Arafat’s original 1970s playbook: The more Jewish children you kill, the more world attention and sympathy you get. If Hamas didn’t burn Jewish children alive on October 7, the world would not be paying much attention to them.

And, it’s working out amazingly well for Hamas. They’re getting massive amounts of positive media coverage, while world opinion is solidly against Israel. College campuses are again ablaze with angry protests against Israel. The news is full of anti-Israel stories.

Except, if you look a little closer, you’ll see that it isn’t working that well for Hamas. The story of the war, now approaching its first anniversary, is losing steam. According to Pew, just 22% of Americans are tracking the issue closely. Pew reported, “On many questions about the war, sizable numbers express no opinion.” According to New York Magazine a mere 14% of Americans under 50 say they are following the war extremely or very closely.

Keep that last figure in mind when contemplating the breathless reporting about campus protests. New York further reported that under-30 voters listed “Israel/Palestine” 15th among the 16 “major issues” they were asked to rank in importance. An Axios poll revealed that just 8% of college students say they’ve participated in a campus protest about Israel, on either side.

This poll also found that college students ranked the Middle East conflict as the least important issue out of nine choices. Health care was their top concern, followed by funding for education. For Americans in general, it turns out that “War in the Middle East” ranked 13th out of issues that mattered most to the USA, with only 2% saying it was important, according to a Gallup poll.

One reasonable question to ask is, “If Americans aren’t following the story, and don’t care much about the issue, why are we hearing about it so often?” I’ll venture a guess: It’s a money-maker for news corporations. Dead kids in Gaza are great clickbait, even if the images are fake. Disinformation campaigns that make Jews look like amoral, bloodthirsty killers are good for the bottom line, even if they cause a massive uptick in antisemitic violence in the US.

The result is a situation where the views of a small group of (ignorant) well-funded anti-Israel loudmouths are controlling the narrative. They’re also elbowing their way in front of many far more serious crises around the world, including 18 million citizens in need of humanitarian assistance in Myanmar, 6.2 million people in Mali facing starvation and death from a civil war, 4.3 million Somalis facing food insecurity, and on and on. Have you heard much about Myanmar, Mali, or Somalia in the news lately? Didn’t think so. Somehow, when there are no Jews involved, it’s just doesn’t rate coverage.

Where the Hamas strategy does appear to be working is with younger Americans. Despite lukewarm interest on campus, according to Pew, 38% of Americans under 30 think Israel’s reasons for fighting Hamas are valid, versus 67% of Americans 50-64 and 78% of Americans over 65. Forty-six percent of Americans under 30 describe Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza is “unacceptable.

This is a big split, and it doesn’t bode well for the future of American support for Israel. As today’s youth become tomorrow’s adult voters, the political parties may start to pull back from supporting Israel. Israel needs to work harder on articulating the value of the alliance to the American people. Until then, we’ll be at the mercy of profitable loudmouths and their effective media campaigns.