Two Lenses Through Which Many View the Gaza War
Recently, I exchanged a series of emails with a fellow Brookline Town Meeting member who is convinced that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Neither of us changed the other’s mind. But as the discussion unfolded, I realized that our disagreement was not primarily about casualty figures, humanitarian aid, inflammatory statements by Israeli politicians, or even international law. We were looking at the same war through fundamentally different moral lenses.
My correspondent focused on the scale of Palestinian suffering and the conclusions of organizations such as Human Rights Watch and historians such as Omer Bartov who see evidence of genocidal intent. He also pointed to inflammatory statements by Israeli politicians such as Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich as evidence of Israel’s true aims.
I found myself asking a different set of questions. What obligations does a government have to protect its citizens after the October 7 massacre? How should we judge military actions against an enemy that deliberately embeds itself among civilians? Why are the assessments of military professionals who study urban warfare often dismissed as inherently biased, while the conclusions of NGOs and academics are frequently treated as authoritative? And is it fair to infer the intentions of an entire country and military from the rhetoric of a few particularly extreme politicians while giving less weight to the views of other elected officials, military leaders, legal advisers, and the actual conduct of military operations?
The exchange helped me understand that the genocide debate is not simply a dispute over facts. It reflects two profoundly different frameworks for understanding war, morality, state responsibility, and self-defense.
Many NGOs, activists, academics, and commentators focus primarily on the scale of Palestinian suffering: civilian deaths, displacement, destruction, hunger, and inflammatory rhetoric from some Israeli politicians. Viewed through that lens, the cumulative effect can appear genocidal—or at least consistent with genocidal intent.
But many military experts and analysts see the situation very differently.
Israel is fighting an enemy that deliberately embeds itself within civilian infrastructure, operates extensive tunnel networks beneath densely populated areas, stores weapons in homes, schools, mosques, and hospitals, and openly seeks Israel’s destruction. Hamas’s founding charter and repeated statements by its leaders have reflected genocidal and eliminationist ambitions toward Israel and its Jewish population, and the October 7 massacre demonstrated a willingness to target civilians on a massive scale. Hamas initiated the war through murder, kidnapping, and ongoing rocket attacks, and continues to fight from within civilian populations.
Military analysts such as John Spencer and Andrew Fox, along with groups such as the High Level Military Group, argue that Israel has taken measures to reduce civilian casualties that are unusual in modern combat: evacuation warnings, text messages, phone calls, humanitarian corridors, pauses in fighting, and accepting tactical disadvantages in order to move civilians away from combat zones. These analysts also emphasize the unprecedented challenges posed by Hamas’s extensive tunnel networks and systematic use of civilian infrastructure for military purposes.
This does not mean Israel has acted perfectly, nor that criticism is illegitimate. Civilian suffering in Gaza is real and devastating. But genocide is not simply a synonym for a destructive or tragic war. Under international law, genocide requires specific intent to destroy a people as such.
Recent developments further illustrate the complexity of judging intent. Israel has not fully destroyed Hamas’s military capabilities, nor has Hamas disarmed. Yet Israel has largely ceased major combat operations following the return of the hostages and has given diplomatic efforts an opportunity to pursue further stabilization and disarmament. Critics may disagree with these decisions or their effectiveness, but they are difficult to reconcile with the claim that Israel’s true objective was the destruction of the Palestinian people. If genocide requires a specific intent to destroy a group as such, then decisions to suspend military operations before achieving total military victory deserve consideration alongside the evidence cited by genocide accusers.
What increasingly concerns me is that many genocide accusations against Israel seem to contain a profound moral blind spot. They often evaluate the war almost exclusively through the lens of Palestinian suffering while giving insufficient moral weight to Israel’s obligation to protect its own citizens from future massacres, kidnappings, rocket fire, and existential threats.
The degree of intellectual and moral hubris reflected in some of these accusations is troubling. Historians, activists, NGOs, and academics—many with little or no operational military expertise—often make sweeping condemnations of Israeli military conduct with enormous confidence while dismissing or ignoring the assessments of experienced military professionals who specialize in urban warfare, counterinsurgency, and the law of armed conflict.
Modern urban warfare against an enemy embedded within civilian infrastructure is extraordinarily difficult. Yet many critics speak as though the military dilemmas involved are simple and morally obvious, despite never having had responsibility for protecting civilians while simultaneously fighting an enemy committed to their destruction.
This does not mean military experts are infallible, nor that moral criticism is invalid unless someone served in combat. Military institutions can make grave mistakes, and democracies must remain open to ethical scrutiny. But there is something deeply concerning about the certainty with which some commentators accuse Israel of genocide while appearing to give little serious weight to the realities of warfare, Hamas’s tactics, or the obligations any state has to defend its own people.
A moral framework that demands Israel prioritize enemy civilians while minimizing or dismissing its responsibility to defend its own population is not morally balanced simply because it emphasizes compassion. In my view, it risks becoming morally distorted.
More broadly, I worry that the term “genocide” is being misused in ways that diminish both its legal meaning and its moral force. Words matter. When the most serious accusation in international law is applied without sufficient attention to intent, military context, or the nature of the enemy being fought, it risks becoming a political slogan rather than a precise moral and legal judgment.
The term “genocide” entered our vocabulary because the world needed a name for the attempted annihilation of the Jewish people and other victims of the Holocaust. There is a profound and troubling irony in seeing that same accusation now directed at the world’s only Jewish state. The Jewish people have endured centuries of persecution, expulsion, and massacre, culminating in one of history’s greatest genocides. Many hoped the Holocaust would mark the end of that long campaign of hatred. Instead, we have witnessed its continuation in new forms: in the openly genocidal ambitions of Hamas, Iran, Hezbollah, and their allies, and in the false accusation that the Jewish state is guilty of the very crime that gave rise to the word genocide. A concept created to name one of history’s greatest crimes against the Jews is now being used to falsely accuse the Jews of committing that very crime.
