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Israel Is Losing

We always get lots of... pointed e-mails when we write about Israel. This piece is definitely not going to break that trend. So, let's just get this out of the way right now; responses go to comments@electoral-vote.com. We are basically teetotalers, but we will make sure to consume a stiff cup of hot chocolate before checking the inbox tomorrow.

We have noted, many times, that we are not experts on the situation in the Middle East. However, we do know a fair bit about war in general, and the history of modern warfare. We also know a thing or two about rhetoric. Our last piece on Israel was a little over a week ago, and in that item, we included an impassioned response from reader D.E. in Lancaster, PA. We did not necessarily agree with everything that D.E. wrote, but that letter did a better job than we could have done when it comes to capturing the feelings of (many) people, as they are exposed to the horrors taking place in Gaza.

As is inevitably the case, we got many e-mails that we would describe as... not helpful, let's say. Here is an example; we choose this one primarily because it's fairly short. We've decided not to include authors' initials in this item, since these correspondents did not know their letters would be utilized in this manner:

I wish you would stop giving D.E. a megaphone. They try to stop what they know is coming, but they are in fact antisemitic. I've followed enough of their posts, comments and questions over the years to say they are virulently so, and even more so when it comes to Israel. They hate Israel categorically, and they hate Jews as well. Comparing Israel to the Nazis is antisemitic. Period, end of story. They can couch it with whatever words they want, but they are disgusting, and you amplifying their message isn't helpful at all.

Let's be clear: Hamas can end the war and end the "starvation" whenever they want. Free the hostages! It is literally that simple. No country in the history of the world has ever been required to assist the enemy during war. Ever! Not only that, you, and everyone else on the left, including D.E., are utilizing antisemitic and anti-Israel publications as though they are 100% unbiased and 100% truthful. Haaretz is further to the left in Israel than Daily Kos and MSNBC are in America. They hate Netanyahu and don't really care much for their homeland either. Some of the so-called starving children images are actually Gazan children with legitimate diseases like cystic fibrosis, and not at all related to a lack of food. But, the world at large, and specifically those on your side of the aisle, doesn't care. They want Israel to be accused of genocide. They want Netanyahu to fail. I think it's fair to say that they would be perfectly fine with the State of Israel ceasing to exist.

You can keep letting D.E. spew their hatred, and you can keep up with your grossly slanted commentary, and I will now start calling you out on it. I hope others will as well, but I seriously doubt it. When it comes to Israel and the Jewish people, I know where the majority of the left stands, and probably where most of your readership stands. Just look at France. Recognizing "Palestine" is the end of France as a safe place for Jews to live and visit. The U.K. is threatening to recognize Hamas-ville if Israel doesn't back down. Think about that. They don't really care about the "Palestinians." If they did, they would recognize the nation right now. They want to use them to extort the Israelis. When they do recognize the Hamas-ians, that'll be the end of the U.K. as a place Jews should live or visit. See, this isn't much different than the Nazis, only D.E. had it reversed. Europe is once again becoming a place inhospitable to Jews. We've come full circle with the 1930s-1940s. All that they needed was Hamas killing 1,200 of my brothers and sisters, and Israel retaliating, for their true colors to shine through.

Europe is almost dead to Jews. There aren't more than a handful of countries in Europe one can visit with a Yarmulke on and feel safe. The countries that are safe are right leaning or right-ish leaning. That's no coincidence. I'll repeat what I said before. The left hates Israel. They want to see it fail. They want a one-state solution, that will be the end of the Jewish state. Until that happens, people like D.E. will do what they can to make Israelis and Jews the enemy of the world.

Clearly, this reader has strong feelings about the situation in Israel in particular, and about Judaism in the modern world, in general. That said, and we're largely putting on our rhetoricians' hats here, there are numerous reasons why we put this in the "not helpful" category. Here are half a dozen of those:

Turning anyone who is not 100% on your side into the enemy is counterproductive, and most certainly does not win friends or influence people.
Over-the-top, vitriolic rhetoric? Ibid.
More specifically, declaring D.E. to be an antisemite, much less a "virulent" antisemite, is entirely out of bounds. In particular, there is a world of difference between "I have a long history of engagement with, and respect for, Judaism, and here are some examples" and "I have a Black friend."
Making broad, and unsupported, assertions about what "we" (V & Z) think/feel/believe is one of the most obvious of cognitive biases. This is Attribution Theory 101. It is exceedingly difficult, even with the benefit of hundreds of thousands of words we have written on the situation in Gaza, to know what we think/feel/believe. We get dozens of messages every week, on a whole variety of subjects, in which a reader asserts that we think/believe something, and they are WAY off. It is a particular error to assume that, just because we print someone else's opinion, we agree with it. Meanwhile, it is exceedingly probable that when someone feels strongly about a subject, and when they are determined to lash out at anyone who feels differently, there will be some projection that takes place.
Word games are not generally helpful either, and are more likely to alienate people and to undermine one's position than they are to win people over. For example, "some of the starving children actually have cystic fibrosis" is about as tone-deaf a defense as we can imagine.

To give another example, the above message also indulges in some sleight-of-hand that pops up a fair bit among SOME supporters of Israel. To wit, when it serves the argument, then Israel = Judaism. And then, when it serves a different argument, Israel ≠ Judaism.
Finally, and most importantly, it is a very rare conflict of any sort where one side is completely in the right, and one side is completely in the wrong. The current mess in the Middle East is NOT one of the rare exceptions. Anyone who comes from the vantage point that Israel is 100% right, or from the vantage point that Israel is 100% wrong, is being intellectually dishonest.

And now that we've affirmed this particular reader's belief that we are co-presidents of the Hamas Fan Club, let's take a message from a reader with a very different point of view. We regularly get variants of this message, too (and, once again, we will withhold the identity of the author):

In a post in November of 2023, you had set forth the following criteria for what would constitute a genocide:

Killing members of the group

Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group

Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part

Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group

Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group

You concluded that the actions of the Israelis (up to that point of course) did not meet any of these criteria. Would you care to revisit that opinion taking into account Israeli actions since that November 2023 post?

We will offer a few remarks, but they are surely not the remarks that this reader (and others who have sent in this same basic e-mail) want to hear:

Within just a few hours of the October 7 attacks (where, recall, Israel was the victim), virulently anti-Israel content began to circulate on TikTok. It was on other social media platforms, as well, but was ubiquitous on TikTok. It did not take long (perhaps a week, perhaps less) before that included claims of genocide.

It is not clear, to this day, why TikTok was at the center of this. Was it organic in some way, given the age of the user-base (a lot of college students)? Was it somehow the work of bad actors in China, as the platform is Chinese-owned, and China benefits from political turmoil in the world in general, and in the U.S. in particular? Somebody knows if this is the case, but that somebody is not us. In any event, what's important for our purposes is that the talk of "genocide" began to be bandied about well before it was possible for the facts on the ground to justify that conclusion.
It is somewhat difficult to interrogate the views of someone who has reached the conclusion that a genocide is taking place, as there's a lot of emotion there, and so even the most gentle Socratic questioning tends to trigger a defensive response. Nonetheless, it often appears that these folks don't have a broad understanding of modern, total warfare. Total warfare almost invariably involves targeting civilian populations, including children, because those populations are the backbone of the war effort as a source of war materiel, volunteers, political support, money, etc. If one believes that the situation in Gaza is a genocide, then they need to consider whether the firebombing of Dresden is a genocide. Sherman's march. The nuclear bombs dropped on Japan. Operation Rolling Thunder. The Siege of Leningrad. The Siege of Vicksburg. Pretty much every other siege. The Bataan Death March. The Iraq War. If some or all of those things are NOT genocides, then why? What distinguishes them from the events in Gaza?
Turning to the other side of that coin, the no-question-about-it genocides in eastern Europe in World War II, in Turkey/Armenia in World War I, in the former Belgian Congo, in Gold Rush-era California, etc. involved mass slaughter, with the number of victims in the hundreds of thousands or millions. They often involved torture. In some cases, there was medical experimentation. These dimensions, by all indications, do not exist in Gaza. So, a second question that one must ask themselves is: Do these things not make a substantive difference? Is mass suffering, often leading to death, the same thing as mass killings, often on a large scale, often accompanied by other atrocities?
And now, having laid out those observations, our actual answer to the question posed, such as it is: It is no longer useful to debate whether the term "genocide" is appropriate, for two reasons. On an academic/intellectual level, that word was once a "break glass in case of emergency" word, only to be used with extreme caution, in the most dire of circumstances. But in the last couple of years, that ship has sailed, in part due to Israel-Gaza, and in part due to casual (and often completely inappropriate) use in other contexts (e.g., "white genocide"). At this point, "genocide" is like "terrorist," a word that is losing (or has already lost) a precise meaning, and that is now more of a value judgment.

Meanwhile, on a practical level, the people who are suffering in both Israel and Gaza don't give a damn what term is used. They are just suffering and dying.
And finally, along the same lines as what we wrote above, about the other letter, the use of "genocide," and the pushback (often angry) against those who disagree or who are leery, can definitely be counterproductive, and serve to push potential allies away.

If readers would like to read a bit more about how words like antisemitism, genocide, etc. are being used as weapons by partisans on both sides, then Politico had a pretty good piece just this week.

Now, in the interest of giving as well-rounded a presentation as we can, we want to share an e-mail that belongs more in the "helpful" bin. It is from a reader who shared last week's item with a friend in Israel, and forwarded that friend's response. Do keep in mind that it's a response to D.E.'s letter, which was Israel-critical:

Thank you for expressing concern for human life. That is a value I share deeply. But to move forward, we must ground this conversation in moral clarity and factual context.

There is indeed a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, but it is critical to ask why. Not in vague terms, not in political slogans, but with honest scrutiny.

The Crisis in Gaza Didn't Begin in a Vacuum

Before October 7, 2023, Gaza had electricity, water, schools, hospitals, and work permits, much of it facilitated by Israel, even as Hamas smuggled weapons and built terror tunnels. Over 18,000 Gazans crossed into Israel daily for work. That is not apartheid. That is cooperation.

Then Hamas launched one of the most barbaric attacks in modern memory, not against soldiers, but against children, the elderly, and families in their beds. The goal was not resistance. It was extermination.

So yes, Israel responded. As would any country. The real question is: how did Hamas respond in return?

By using hospitals as command centers

By hiding weapons in schools

By holding Israeli hostages in tunnels under civilian homes

By stealing food, fuel, and aid intended for their own people

Even now, Israel authorizes hundreds of aid trucks daily. The tragedy is that much of that aid never reaches the innocent because Hamas either loots it or uses it as leverage.

On the Holocaust Comparison: A Dangerous False Equivalence

To compare Gaza to the Holocaust is not only historically inaccurate, it is morally outrageous. Nazi Germany built industrial death camps to eliminate an entire people. Israel, by contrast, warns civilians to evacuate war zones, pauses fire to allow humanitarian corridors, and pleads for hostage returns to end the war.

What Hamas did on October 7 was far closer in spirit to Nazi ideology than anything Israel is doing now. They filmed themselves burning families alive. They celebrated mass murder. They still hold toddlers and Holocaust survivors underground.

Punishment vs. Responsibility

Are children in Gaza suffering? Yes. And it is devastating. But are they suffering because Israel wants them to? No. They are suffering because Hamas decided they were more valuable as victims than as citizens.

The question is not whether innocent Palestinians deserve protection. They do. The question is, who is endangering them? And the answer is: their own rulers.

Israel's "Endgame"

Israel's objective is not to destroy a people. It is to destroy a terror regime that has vowed, explicitly, to repeat October 7 again and again. Every rocket, every tunnel, every hostage confirms that Hamas is not interested in peace. Not in two states. Not in coexistence. Just destruction.

If Hamas laid down its weapons today, the war would end.

If Israel laid down its weapons, Israel would end.

Where Do We Go From Here?

True peace requires two things: moral honesty and the rejection of extremism on all sides. But no peace can begin while one side continues to glorify genocide and use its own children as shields.

And this needs to be said clearly: Articles and commentary that frame Israel as the villain, while erasing or minimizing Hamas's responsibility, do not help the Palestinian people. They empower the very regime that brought Gaza to ruin.

Every time we draw false equivalence, every time we circulate unverified images without asking who stole the aid or who controls the streets, we signal to Hamas that its strategy is working. That terror pays. That human shields succeed.

So yes, let us speak about suffering. Let us speak about hope. But let us speak truthfully.

Hamas' survival is not the path to Palestinian freedom. It is the single greatest obstacle to it.

And silence, or worse, misplaced outrage, only ensures that more innocent lives will be lost.

This is very clearly a sympathetic-to-Israel perspective (makes sense, given who wrote it, and given that it's a response to D.E.'s perspective). However, we hope it's evident as to why it's different from the first message above. If it's not evident, well, it's something of a gut feel kind of thing. That said, if readers want specifics as to the differences, we would draw their attention to the observations above about vitriol (and, by extension, lack thereof), and about framing one side as 100% right and the other as 100% wrong.

Moving along, there's actually a purpose here that is related to the focus of this blog (beyond a general comment on helpful vs. unhelpful discourse). We mention total war above and, of course, the first great "philosopher" of total war was Carl von Clausewitz. One of the primary themes of his posthumous magnum opus Vom Kriege (On War) is that "war is a continuation of politics by other means." One of the implications of this is that it's not enough to win on the battlefield, you have to win the hearts and minds of your own populace, and of others whose support you need.

By all indications, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has the hearts and minds of (most of) his populace squarely in hand, which is why he has just announced plans to grow more aggressive in Gaza, and to fully occupy the territory. However, the hearts and minds of the international community are much more in doubt.

As the first e-mail above alludes to, several major western nations, including the U.K., France and Canada, are on the cusp of recognizing Palestine. It does not matter what those nations' motivations are, or if they are being hypocritical. The bottom line is that the recognition would be a huge setback for Israel, both as a symbolic rebuke, and also as a practical change of circumstances that would, among other things, trigger a bunch of violations of international law that those nations have promised to abide by.

Meanwhile, in the U.S., support for Israel is noticeably softening. Many moderate Democrats, who previously took a position that was either pro-Israel or was neutral, are shifting their positions to something along the lines of "something has to be done to save the poor people of Gaza." Just this week, the Pod Save America guys, also known as the "Obama Bros," noticeably recalibrated their position on Israel, to a much more Israel-critical posture. Republican support for Israel is also weakening. Donald Trump himself told a Jewish donor: "My people are starting to hate Israel." And recall the criticism from Michael Savage, who is himself Jewish, above.

In terms of U.S. domestic politics, the shifts in public opinion could very possibly reverse the dynamic of the 2024 elections. Then, Democrats had no answer on Gaza that would not infuriate some major segment of the party's base, while Republicans could go all-in on a pro-Israel stance. In 2026, it might be that Democrats can unite on a position that is pro-Gaza (not necessarily anti-Israel or pro-Hamas, mind you), while the Republicans are the ones who are divided.

In terms of geopolitics, it's not so easy to go it alone when world opinion turns against you, as the United States showed in Vietnam. It's rather harder when you are a smaller nation that relies on the western, industrialized democracies for money and armaments. Netanyahu probably can't afford to think too much about long-term implications, but it's something that supporters of Israel should be very concerned about.

And note that when one side in a conflict is losing the war of public opinion, it doesn't necessarily mean the other side is winning. As far as we can tell, pretty much everyone knows that Hamas are a bunch of bastards, that they are the single-biggest obstacle to peace in that region, and that they are substantially responsible for their people's suffering. Even the Arab League knows it, which is why all 22 member nations of that organization joined the EU and 17 other nations in signing a declaration this week declaring that Hamas has to go.

Again, we are not experts here, though it sure looks to us like the writing on the wall is becoming clear. Israel isn't going to like it, but one day the Palestinians will be recognized by most or all nations, and given territory they will control (probably with some acreage being shifted around, and with some sort of international governance of Jerusalem). Meanwhile, Hamas will be forced from power, which they won't like, either. If this is indeed where things are headed, one can only hope they get there sooner, rather than later, so the suffering on all sides can come to an end. If this did come to pass, and if the peace held, it would take one of the most vexing issues of the past 75 years of American foreign policy off the table. Maybe THE most vexing issue (though China is also in the running).

That was pretty long, so here's another reminder that responses go to comments@electoral-vote.com. We may share some of them on Friday. However, if we do, we won't withhold initials, because forewarned is forearmed. (Z)

This item appeared on www.electoral-vote.com. Read it Monday through Friday for political and election news, Saturday for answers to reader's questions, and Sunday for letters from readers.

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