Israel in Gaza: justified or genocide?

I have to say I am actually quite confused by the extent of the protests in the US and Europe relating to Gaza since the Hamas attack in Israel on October 7, 2023. Especially on university campuses. Why are all these young people, who are presumably intelligent and, in other contexts, sympathetic and thoughtful, so worked up against Israel?

What Happened on October 7, 2023

Just to restate the facts: on October 6, 2023 there was effectively a cease-fire in place. Israel pulled all its soldiers out of Gaza and forcibly removed any Israeli citizens in 2005, leaving Gaza to govern itself, with the help of billions of dollars in aid from the United Nations and other countries. So, contrary to what is commonly stated, there was no occupation in effect in Gaza on October 6, 2023. Early on October 7, without any warning, hundreds of Hamas fighters crossed the Israeli border and systematically and brutally murdered approximately 1,200 people, almost all civilians, including many women and children, in villages near to the border and at a music festival which had continued through the previous night. Many of these victims were also tortured and/or raped. This is documented in the horrifying videos, audio clips and eye-witness accounts from that day – of families, including women and children, being deliberately assaulted, mutilated and killed, sometimes in front of other family members. These sources also demonstrate the sickening relish of the Hamas attackers as they did their butchering and then gleefully boasted about it to their friends and families in phone calls and on social media.

The attackers also carried off approximately 250 hostages, many of whom were stripped and paraded through the streets in Gaza, where they were jeered and spat on by Gazan residents. After the attack, Hamas officials also made it clear that they would do the same thing “again and again” whenever they had the opportunity.

Justified Military Response

Any country on the receiving end of such an outrageous, brutish atrocity would be thoroughly justified in responding militarily to what is clearly an act of war. If it had the military capability, it would not hesitate to try to track down and destroy the perpetrating organization both to avenge the attack, but more importantly to ensure that it could never be repeated. And this is what Israel has done. It launched a military campaign to destroy Hamas and ensure that it would never be in a position to instigate such an attack again.

A lot of people are understandably upset and angry about the number of civilians who have been killed in Gaza since Israel began its military action. We all recoil from graphic news images of crushed and bloodied bodies being dragged from rubble, or orphaned, crying children with horrific injuries.

But this is a feature of every war. Especially if the target of the military activity is deliberately hiding its fighters and resources in densely populated areas. There is also plenty of evidence that Israel has taken significant measures to try to minimize the casualties, including making phone calls and distributing leaflets to warn civilians to leave areas where military action is planned. Perhaps they could do more, but it seems very likely that, as John Spencer, Chair of Urban Warfare at West Point said in a Wall Street Journal article, “Israel has done more to prevent civilian casualties in war than any military in history.”

Protestors Demand the Destruction of Israel

So what are the protestors literally screaming about? A cynic might suggest that some of the protesting is performative – and stirred up by outside activists, many of whom are probably filled with the same ideological hatred of Israel that motivated the murderous attackers on October 7. One notable characteristic of the protesting, and rationalizations provided by sympathizers, is a tendency to either completely ignore what happened on October 7, or else provide a bland and succinct acknowledgement that Hamas’s actions on October 7 were unacceptable, and then quickly change the subject to the history of the treatment of Palestinians by Israel. Few details are offered, except that Israel is an occupying power that has stolen the natural and historical homeland of the Palestinians, and, even prior to October 7, subjugates and persecutes the Palestinians.

The main demand of the protestors always seems to be to “Free Palestine.” If you accept the premise that Israel somehow illegally stole a large part of Palestine and continues to occupy the rest, then this may seem like a perfectly reasonable and uncontroversial demand – like “Free Tibet.” However, it is usually not spelled out what exactly these demands mean and they are often couched in vague slogans such as, “From the River to the Sea.” Much has been made of the fact that, when asked, many protesters don’t even know which river and which sea are being referred to in this contentious chant – evidence of the depressing reality that the vehemence of people’s beliefs often seems to be in inverse proportion to their grasp of the relevant facts. However, even if one is completely clear that the river and sea in question are the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, it is still left unclear or at least unstated what is being sought. The area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean includes all of the State of Israel, as well as Gaza and the West Bank. So what does it mean to “free” all of that area? What happens to Israel? Many pro-Israel supporters take this demand to mean that the entire State of Israel would be removed from the area, along with its Jewish population, either by moving them somewhere else, or even by killing all of them. The latter is certainly what Hamas is seeking, as they state explicitly in their 1988 Charter:

So how did we end up with liberal American college students supporting a campaign whose primary demand seems to be to obliterate an entire population? What am I missing?

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No Moral Confusion

Indeed, my dear Walrus, your perplexity seems to be widespread. In attempting to explain this apparent mystery, many critics of the pro-Palestinian protestors suggest that the protesters are simply morally confused – that the activism around this issue is just another instance of the problems of seeing every situation through the rigid social justice framework of “oppressor” vs “oppressed.” In this strawman characterization, the naïve protesters naturally identify the poor Palestinians as the oppressed group – due to their lower standard of living, the destruction of their neighborhoods and the killing of their civilians in the tens of thousands by Israel, and of course, their brown skins. The Israelis are obviously the wicked oppressors, given their first-world economic wealth, their powerful military, and the fact that Jews, in the experience of most US college students, are mostly white skinned.

Of course, the supporters of Israel are quick to remind us that, unlike in the US, where the vast majority of Jews are Ashkenazi, of central European descent, and indeed generally white-skinned, the majority of Jews living in Israel are Mizrahi Jews, of Middle Eastern and north African descent, with browner skins which are largely indistinguishable from those of the Palestinian population, and this geographical nuance is cited as further evidence of the confusion of the protesters.

It may be that some, and possibly many, of the protestors are indeed making such simplistic assessments of the situation. However, you don’t need to reduce the conflict to a binary intersectionality case study to be able to justify a large degree of outrage about the plight of the residents of Gaza.

70 Years of Oppression

First of all, the attack on October 7, 2023 by Hamas did not just come out of the blue. Supporters of Israel in this war often talk as if everything in Gaza was just hunky dory before October 7. You yourself just mentioned that there was a cease fire in operation, and that Israel had pulled out of Gaza years earlier. But that neatly glosses over 70 years of injustice against the Palestinians. In 1948, Zionist organizations unilaterally seized the Palestinian lands that now make up the state of Israel, and quickly began a process of ethnic cleansing to expel most Palestinian inhabitants, and in some infamous cases, such as in the village of Deir Yassin, or in Haifa, murdering many of them. While the numbers are, of course, disputed, most people agree that at least seven hundred thousand Palestinians left the territory claimed by Israel during this process of “Settler Colonialism,” leaving behind homes and possessions, and moving to overcrowded refugee camps in the West Bank and Gaza or on the borders of neighboring countries.

Since the 1967 war, Israel has also occupied the West Bank, and maintains what is effectively an Apartheid system where there are different laws for Israeli citizens, who are typically Jews illegally establishing settlements in the occupied territory, and the Palestinians. Israeli citizens are subject to Israeli civil law, whereas Palestinians are subject to military law, and arrest and conviction rates and sentences for comparable crimes are overwhelmingly higher for the latter.

Apartheid in Gaza

Even in Gaza, which was no longer technically occupied by Israel prior to October 7, Israel still creates enormous hardship for the Palestinians. Due to Israel’s strict border controls, most Palestinians cannot freely move outside the Gaza territory. According to a 1922 report by Amnesty International, titled Israel’s Apartheid against Palestinians “The blockade [of Gaza] is a form of collective punishment. It forces Gaza’s population – the majority of whom are refugees who fled in 1948 or their descendants – to live in increasingly dire conditions. There are severe shortages of housing, drinking water, electricity, essential medicines and medical care, food, educational equipment and building materials. In 2020, Gaza had the world’s highest unemployment rate, and more than half of its population was living below the poverty line.”

On top of that, Research by a group of Israeli Defense force (IDF) veterans shows that, after years of operating as an occupying army in the West Bank, Israeli soldiers have become desensitized to the plight of Palestinians and effectively treat them as non-humans. During the current fighting in Gaza, there is also evidence that the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) has expanded the definition of “combatant” to justify killing almost anyone with impunity.

Disproportionate, Genocidal Response by Israel

This attitude is reflected in the completely disproportionate numbers of deaths in Gaza compared to the number killed on October 7. While the exact numbers will always be debated by each side, no one disputes that as of September 2024, over 40,000 people have been killed in Gaza, the majority of which were innocent women and children. According to one commentator, within seven days of October 7, 2023 Israel had already dropped more bombs than were dropped in an entire year during the US war in Afghanistan. The massive disparity in deaths alone indicates that the Israelis are very comfortable with killing large numbers of Gazans as part of their retaliatory military activity, and Palestinian supporters are not off the mark to describe this as a “genocidal” campaign.

Other nations have also taken note. South Africa filed a case at the International Court of Justice, which is the United Nations’ highest court and which has jurisdiction over disputes relating to the International Convention on Genocide, to which both South Africa and Israel are signatories. CNN reported that the case “argued that Israel’s air and ground assaults on Gaza were intended to ‘bring about the destruction’ of its Palestinian population, and that comments made by Israeli leaders signaled their ‘genocidal intent.’”

Evidence of this is found in statements by senior Israeli government and military officials which indicate deliberate intent to exact revenge on the population of Gaza. Netanyahu himself stated on October 7, the day of the Hamas attack, “we will exact mighty vengeance” and that the IDF would turn parts of Gaza “into rubble.” On October 9, Israel’s Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, declared, “We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly,” and Major General Ghassa Alian, the Israeli Army’s coordinator of government activities in the territories told the Gazan population in Arabic, “There will be no electricity and no water. There will only be destruction. You wanted hell and you will get hell.” There is also evidence that many on the extreme right in Israel see the war as a pretext to take over the whole of the Palestinian territory. For example, there was a video of a Captain Amichai Friedman, a rabbi in the Nahal Brigade, telling a group of cheering soldiers that, “This land is ours, the whole land, including Gaza, including Lebanon.”

In May 2024, Netanyahu and Gallant (as well as three Hamas leaders) were also personally accused of war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC), who cite evidence showing that Israel is deliberately creating the conditions for mass starvation of Gazan residents, by blocking aid transportation and other actions.

Hamas Attack was Inevitable

Given this history of mistreatment of the Palestinians by Israel stretching back almost 80 years, acts of resistance by Palestinians are understandable, if not inevitable. Briahna Joy Gray, in a debate at the Dissident Dialogues event in May 2024 asked the US audience (see video location 36:44) to imagine their own grandparents being suddenly forced to leave their homes and live in miserable conditions in refugee camps in a neighboring state. “The people who have had that experience….are never going to let up wanting to have the right to return to their homes,” she said, and, in her view, we should not expect the Palestinians to either.

The attack by Hamas on October 7 was horrifying and totally wrong in that it deliberately targeted innocent civilians and involved countless acts of inhuman savagery. However, sympathizing with Israel, and acknowledging its right to defend itself against that specific attack does not negate the legitimacy of criticism of and resistance to all of the other wrongs against the Palestinians committed by Israel. Israel may have expected the rest of the world to forget about these in the face of the most recent and heinous atrocity, but the protestors are fighting to ensure that that doesn’t happen.

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Thank you, oh Carpenter, for trying to explain the apparent outrage of these pro-Palestinian protestors. However, I am still pretty unsatisfied.

Formation of Israel Approved by UN General Assembly

Unlike your simple one sentence description describing Israel as an aggressor who illegally stole Palestinian land, the history of the formation of Israel is quite messy and complicated. First of all, Israelis did not just suddenly and unilaterally seize their territory. After decades of effort by Jewish activists and supporters dating back to the end of the 19^th century, the formation of the State of Israel was actually approved by Resolution 181 of the United Nations General Assembly which was passed in November 1947, with 72% of the member countries voting in favor.

This resolution followed the recommendations of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine, which was formed to find a solution to the issue of Palestine. This was after the British, who had governed the area since the end of the First World War under a League of Nations Mandate, and who had struggled with ongoing fighting and disagreements between Arab and Jewish groups in the area, especially after the Second World War, finally threw in the towel and referred the matter to the UN. Resolution 181 called for a partition of the territory of “Mandatory Palestine” within two months of the withdrawal of British armed forces, which would be completed no later than August 1, 1948.

In the plan, 56% of the territory was allocated to the Jewish State and 42% to the Arab State, with the other 2%, comprising Jerusalem, Bethlehem and adjoining areas to become an international zone. The rationale for the Jewish State to have a larger area was because there was expected to be a large amount of immigration into this State from many countries in Europe in the aftermath of the Holocaust, and also from majority Arab countries in the Middle East, where Jewish populations had also experienced significant prejudice and persecution. Furthermore, much of the land allocated to the Jewish State was undeveloped and sparsely populated desert land.

Arab States Try to Destroy New State of Israel

The British finally pulled out their military forces on May 14, 1948. At midnight on the same day, the Jewish People’s Council approved a proclamation declaring the establishment of the Jewish State.

The surrounding Arab States of Syria, Iraq, Transjordan (the predecessor to the modern state of Jordan), and Egypt, none of which had voted for or accepted the UN Resolution 181, promptly invaded the newly declared State of Israel the very next day, intending to take back the territory and/or drive out the Jews. King Abdullah of Transjordan hoped to incorporate much of the Arab State portion of Mandatory Palestine territory into Transjordan.

These countries had well developed standing armies with aircraft, tanks and modern artillery, and they assumed that they would be able to quickly overrun the Israeli forces. Egyptian generals predicted they would take Tel Aviv in 2 weeks. Even the Israeli Council’s own military advisors put their chance of victory at 50:50. However, Israel did eventually prevail militarily and in 1949 Israel signed armistice agreements with Egypt, Syria and Transjordan. Iraq also withdrew its forces, despite never signing an armistice agreement. As a result of this victory, Israel ended up with 78% of the Mandatory Palestine territory, up from the 56% originally allocated.

So, to recap, the original territory declared by the Jewish Council to be the new State of Israel in 1948 was approved by a substantial majority of the member countries of the United Nations, and the additional areas were only absorbed into Israel as the result of an immediate attempt by neighboring Arab countries to destroy the fledgling Israeli State altogether – facts that don’t exactly fit your narrative of an evil colonial power seizing the lands of an oppressed indigenous population.

Biased Protestor Language

One telling phenomenon in this dispute, which tends to undermine the possibility of constructive or balanced debate, is that supporters of Palestine, including you, oh Carpenter, always seem to use carefully selected and value-laden words from other historical contexts to describe aspects of the situation – almost as if there is an unwritten protestor “style guide”. The governance by Israel of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank is described as “apartheid”. The treatment of Arab populations living in territory claimed by Israel at the time of its formation is “ethnic cleansing”. Civilian casualties in the war in Gaza are a “genocide”. These words are associated with behavior by some other unrelated party that has been universally condemned in the past, and their routine usage in this context is presumably intended to encourage a reflexive moral condemnation of the Israeli actions denoted by the terms. However, it doesn’t take much reflection or examination of the facts to see that these “clever” descriptors are generally completely unjustified.

Population Displacement for Both Sides

Let’s start with the “ethnic cleansing”. There were approximately 1.3 million Arabs and 600,000 Jews living in Palestine in 1947, shortly before the British withdrew. It seems to be generally accepted that over 700,000 of the Arabs living in the areas of Mandatory Palestine that were eventually claimed by Israel left these areas. However, it is hotly disputed how they came to leave. The Palestinians claim they were all forcibly expelled by the Jews, or else fled out of fear of attacks by Jewish forces. Israel supporters point to evidence that, in many cases, Palestinians left of their own volition, sometimes encouraged by the Palestinian or Arab forces because it was expected that they would soon be able to return after the Jews had been defeated and despite the encouragement of many Jews for them to stay.

The truth may be some combination of all these things. There clearly were ugly acts of violence by both sides during this period (although recent research about of some of the most infamous incidents, such as the massacre by Jews of the Palestinian population of Deir Yassin, suggest that some historical accounts have been exaggerated). In any case, approximately 150,000 Arabs did stay, and the number of Arabs citizens of Israel grew to over 500,000 by 1975 and over 2.6 million by 2024. So not a very effective “cleansing” after all!

It is also important to understand that a similar transfer of people also happened in reverse. Within a few years of 1948 over 700,000 Jews also left neighboring Arab countries to come to the new State of Israel, often after experiencing mistreatment and violence by majority Arab populations in the originating countries, and in many cases leaving behind possessions and property which were never reclaimed. So this was by no means a one-sided displacement of people.

Security Not Apartheid

As for the claims of “apartheid”, this term was used in South Africa to describe the racist treatment of black South Africans, who were subject to a range of unfair and degrading laws and restrictions within their own country imposed by the white ruling government. The situation in the West Bank and Gaza is very different. Neither territory is part of Israel. However, Israel occupied both areas after 1967, when the neighboring Arab countries again provoked a war with Israel, in which Israel again prevailed. (The same countries tried yet again in 1972, with the same result).

The Arab populations in both areas have since repeatedly attacked Israel and rejected multiple attempts to broker a peace agreement. In an attempt to break the cycle of violence, Israel pulled out all of its forces and citizens from Gaza in 2005, in the hope that the Gazans would become self-governing and peaceful. Instead, they elected Hamas, which is dedicated to the destruction of Israel, and which continued to organize attacks against Israel, including frequent rocket attacks and suicide bombings. Given that experience, Israel has been forced to continue to occupy the West Bank to try to maintain security. As is typically the case during an occupation, the residents of the occupied territory are subject to military laws, which can be very different from those that apply to the citizens and armed forces of the occupying country.

Justified Not Genocide

Perhaps the craziest claim against Israel, and, given the history of the Holocaust, the most offensive, is that of genocide. The definition of genocide (in Article II of the UN Genocide Convention) is when any of five specifically enumerated acts are “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such”. The five acts include killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, preventing births or transferring children to another group. As I have already pointed out, there is strong evidence that Israeli forces have taken extraordinary measures throughout this latest conflict to prevent civilian casualties. The handful of undeniably aggressive quotes by Netanyahu and certain other Israeli officials or military personnel that you mention hardly prove a systematic policy to intentionally kill civilians. They are also frankly understandable given the horrors of October 7. And in most cases, when using terms like “animal”, there is, in almost every example cited, nothing to suggest that the speaker was referring the population of Gaza in general as opposed to the members of Hamas in particular, in which case, given Hamas’s unambiguous status as a terrorist death cult, most civilized people would likely agree with even the most strongly worded sentiments.

Furthermore, in practical, if somewhat macabre, terms, if Israel actually did intend to commit a genocide of the residents of Gaza, they could have done a much more effective job than by killing 30 or 40 thousand civilians. They have the military resources (including nuclear weapons) to completely destroy the entire population of Gaza. So any accusation of genocide or genocidal intent is also an accusation of utter incompetence, a charge that few people would agree is a fitting one for the Israeli Defense Force, which is generally and rightly regarded as the most powerful military force in the region.

Israel Not Guilty of War Crimes

As for the ICC’s arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant, and the accusation that Israel’s military response is using “starvation of civilians as a method of warfare,” this is completely unjustified. At the time of these accusations, the Wall Street Journal noted that, “Hamas lists 31 Gazans who it claims died of malnutrition and dehydration in seven months of war.” So, once again, if Israel actually was trying to starve the Gazan population, it would so far only be guilty of gross ineffectiveness.

Hamas Responsible for Civilian Casualties

Your complaints about disproportionality are also a distraction. The rules of war require that civilian casualties should be proportional relative to the war objectives not to the number of casualties inflicted by the opponent. There is no “eye for an eye” calculus involved. Israel is not killing Gazan civilians as a retaliatory goal. While Hamas does not report the numbers, the 42,000 deaths include thousands of Hamas fighters – some estimates put this number at over 5,000 – which presumably no one considers unjustified. The other deaths represent the unavoidable collateral damage which occurs in every military conflict.

It is also clear that, whatever the actual the number of civilian casualties is, that number is significantly higher than it might otherwise have been specifically because of the way that Hamas is fighting – by locating their soldiers and their tunnels in densely populated areas, including near or even underneath hospitals and schools, thereby enlisting the surrounding population as human shields. This horrific callousness was laid bare in recently leaked texts written by Sinwar, the Hamas military leader, to other Hamas officials. He has resisted pressure to cut a cease-fire deal, noting that, “We have the Israelis right where we want them.” He described mass civilian casualties as “necessary sacrifices” and asserted that the deaths of Palestinians would “infuse life into the veins of this nation, prompting it to rise to its glory and honor.”

Cease-Fire Demands are Anti-Semitic

Your suggestion that the pro-Palestinian protestors are just trying to ensure that no one forgets that the Palestinians have been grossly and illegally mistreated by Israel all the way back to its founding in 1948 is not credible. Even if that were straightforwardly true (which, for all the reasons I have said, it isn’t), the protestors routinely demand that Israel immediately stop its current military activities, which would prevent it achieving its stated goal of destroying Hamas. They attempt to justify this demand by inaccurate accusations that Israel is committing war crimes such as genocide.

Israel’s campaign against Hamas is completely justified as a response to the actions of Hamas on October 7 and its avowed intention to make such attacks again and again. This is so clear cut that it is hard not to reach the conclusion that the pro-Palestinian protestors, in trying to hold Israel to standards which they would not apply to any other country in the same situation, are motivated by more than humanitarian concerns, or even social justice-framed sympathies for an oppressed minority. There is clearly a deeper-seated anger or hatred in play. It is hard not to detect that irrepressible and thousands-of-years old antipathy for the Jewish people, the world’s longest running hate crime of anti-semitism, as being at the core of these protests.

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Walrus, Walrus, I am a bit taken aback by your vehemence. Let’s not get diverted into incendiary conjectures about the motivations of people who are calling out Israel’s actions.

Formation of Israel was Not Legitimate

Your elaboration about the events surrounding the formation of the State of Israel in Palestine, and subsequent events may be broadly accurate, but it is incomplete. Yes, UN General Assembly Resolution 181 was voted and passed by the United Nations. However, UN General Assembly Resolutions are not binding. The Resolution represented only a plan or recommendation which was to be transferred to the UN Security Council to handle implementation.

The Security Council didn’t have a chance to ensure the plan was implemented since Israel jumped the gun and declared statehood on the same day the British ended their Mandate. Besides being non-binding, the plan contained in the Resolution was also completely rejected by both the Arab Higher Committee, which was the main political organization of the Palestinian Arabs, and all the Arab countries in the UN at that time. The British also opposed any partition of the Mandatory area unless a plan was devised that was supported by all parties, and so Great Britain abstained in the UN Vote.

There is also evidence that Jewish organizations and supporters applied considerable and unethical pressure in various important countries to influence their votes in favor of the Resolution. This included the US, where Jewish groups, which provided a large portion of campaign contributions to the Democratic party, lobbied intensely and threatened to withhold funds and Democratic candidate endorsements in the upcoming and tightly contested US elections; India, where Prime Minister Nehru complained that Zionists had tried to bribe India and that Nehru’s sister, the Indian Ambassador to the UN had received death threats; and France, where Jewish activists with influence over US policy warned the French delegation to the UN that planned US aid to France, which was badly needed for post war reconstruction, might be blocked if France did not support the Resolution.

One State Solution is Possible

You gave a long explanation about why calling for Freedom for Palestine is essentially a call for the destruction of Israel, but that is not the case at all. In looking for a solution to this ongoing dispute, Israel supporters, including the US have only every considered a “two state solution”, where the territory is divided between Israel and the Palestinians. But there is an alternative, which is to create a single state where all the people in the territory of Mandatory Palestine could live together in a single, liberal country, with full religious freedoms and protections as exists in many modern countries, including the US.

Israel and its supporters insist that this could never work because of security concerns. However, as Yousef Munayyer, a Palestinian-American writer and political analyst, notes in his conversation in Episode 41 of Coleman Hughes’s podcast, Conversations with Coleman, there is no basis for saying it is an unworkable approach since it has never been tried. Such a “One State Solution” was actually considered in the original preparatory work of the UN Committees that eventually led to the UN Resolution 181. If such an approach actually satisfied the yearnings of Palestinians to become citizens of a real country located upon their historical indigenous homeland, this could lead the vast majority of Palestinians to move past their historical grievances and become productive citizens of a moderate, democratic, and eventually prosperous nation, living peacefully side-by-side with the Jewish inhabitants.

If this was combined with some amount of reparations to be paid to displaced persons and their families, as was the case for Indigenous peoples of the United States after the Second World War, that would increase the sense of fairness and chances of a successful outcome. And this could apply both to displaced Palestinians and those Jewish immigrants who were forced out of other countries. Given the vast amount of aid funding, political instability and military conflict that this ongoing injustice has cost already, perhaps the rest of the world would see such further cost as a comparative bargain to bring about a resolution.

Ethno-State of Israel

Part of the reason people reject the idea of a One State Solution is because Israel is essentially an “ethno-state”, where members of one ethnic group, the Jews, have special rights, such as the Law of Return, which grants all Jews, and their descendants and spouses, an automatic right of immigration which is not extended to non-Jews. Jews also receive preferential treatment in the allocation of land by the Israel Land Authority, which controls 90% of the land in Israel.

Because the population of Arabs living in the overall territory of Mandatory Palestine still outnumbers the Jews (as it did at the time of the formation of Israel, as you noted earlier), a single state with democratic elections would very possibly move away from providing any special treatment for any one group. This is said to be an unthinkable outcome by Israelis and their supporters (the rhetoric always becomes strident but oddly vague on this point, with dire warnings about how this will cause the “destruction of Israel” but it would actually be in keeping with the United States and most other advanced democratic countries, where, while there are strong protections for the freedom to practice any religion, there is also a careful separation of religious and state institutions.

So the pro-Palestinian demonstrators who chant “Freedom for Palestine” or even “From the River to the Sea” are not calling for the destruction of anything, or even the displacement of Jews. They are simply demanding a country built on the same liberal principles as the rest of the developed, democratic world. It is the defenders of Israel who are trying to preserve an ethnically prejudiced, illiberal status quo. This is justified based only on the unproven and frankly implausible presumption that because a small segment of the stateless, impoverished Palestinian population have committed evil, and sometimes outrageous acts of violence, the entire 7 million Palestinians living in the Mandatory Palestine area must be treated as a dangerous sub-species permanently incapable of becoming productive and peaceful citizens of a modern multicultural society.

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Carpenter, I don’t think your claim that a single state in Mandatory Palestine would be a peaceful, liberal country  is credible at all. However, before I respond to that, let me react to your points about the UN General Assembly Resolution 181.

Longstanding International Commitment to Jewish State

I agree with you that Resolution 181 was not agreed to by the Arab Higher Committee, and was also not “binding” on any member state. However, the reason that the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine recommended the plan to divide Palestine, despite opposition from the Arab Higher Committee and all the neighboring Arab countries was because it had become clear that the Palestinians would not accept any proposal which included any territory for the Jews. The Palestinians insisted, and many of their representatives, including Hamas of course, continue to insist to this day, that the whole territory should be a Palestinian state, and the Jews be damned.

Yet there had been commitments by Britain and the international community going back decades prior to 1948 to create a homeland for the Jews in the Mandatory Palestinian territory, including the Balfour Declaration of 1917 which envisaged the creation of a Jewish homeland in the whole area encompassing the subsequently defined area of Mandatory Palestine and Transjordan. After the horrors of the Holocaust during the Second World War, including the active collaboration of citizens of almost every country in Europe to assist the Nazis to wipe out the Jews from the whole region, there was a compelling need to make good on this commitment and to finally provide the Jews a safe haven where they could live free from hatred, persecution, and mass murder.

Fifty Muslim States vs One Jewish State

You also argued that it is a problem that Israel has laws that favor Jews over non-Jews because that makes it an “ethno-state” which is inconsistent with being a modern, liberal society. Yet there are approximately 50 majority Muslim countries today, many of which incorporate substantial aspects of Islamic law in their legal systems, including severe punishments up to and including death for blasphemy against Islam or apostasy (the renunciation of Islam), and you, and the protestors you are defending, seem to be just fine with that. With so many countries looking after the interests of their Muslim majorities, it seems eminently reasonable that there should be at least ONE state where Jews can have some autonomy and safety.

So while the Jews evidently did take matters into their own hands when they finally declared the formation of the State of Israel, this division of territory did have the support of the majority of the United Nations members at that time, and was considered a morally desirable outcome given the tragic history of the Jewish people, both the most recent abominations led by the Nazis and the persistent mistreatment and hatred stretching back more than two millennia throughout the world.

Gazan Residents Still Support Hamas

As for your suggestion that Israel, and its allies should believe that the Palestinians just want to live peacefully alongside the Jews, simply because a “single state solution” has not been tried, that is not an argument. I am not aware of any evidence to support this claim, and there is plenty of evidence to the contrary. Despite its actions on October 7, not to mention the years of corruption and authoritarian policies and actions since it took over governance of Gaza, recent polls (taken since October 7, 2023) suggest that 40% of the residents of Gaza still support Hamas, and a staggering 80% believe its actions on October 7 were justified!

These scenes of Gaza residents jeering and spitting on Jewish hostages as they were paraded through the streets after capture tells you all you need to know about the attitudes of the Palestinians. Contrast this with the behavior of the Israelis. As I have noted already, the IDF has gone to considerable effort to limit civilian casualties, despite Hamas’s deliberate tactics to use the Gazan population as human shields. As Sam Harris points out in his podcast, Making Sense, there is a reason why the Israelis wouldn’t ever try to use their own population as human shields (besides the fact that it is immoral and also a war crime). It is because it wouldn’t work! Hamas and other jihadist organizations worship death. They genuinely believe that killing Israelis, whether civilian or not, is a sacred cause, and they want to maximize, not minimize civilian casualties!

Palestinian Sympathizers Down Play Hamas Atrocities

Another telling indicator is that fact that, while I don’t disagree that the Palestinians have various legitimate grievances about the history of and current behavior of Israel, such as the ongoing establishment of settlements by Jewish groups in the West Bank, it is rare for pro-Palestinian protestors to even mention the heinous acts by Hamas soldiers on October 7. Your claim that most of the protestors and most Palestinians themselves don’t support the actions of Hamas, nor its calls for the death of the Jews, and that they simply want to create a mini Denmark in the Middle East where everyone lives in placid, liberal harmony, would be a tiny bit more credible if the protestors and sympathizers routinely started off with clear denunciations of Hamas and its actions. Especially because of these are, unlike the bogus and seeming rote charges of genocide against Israel and its allies, very clear cases of war crimes.

The denunciations one could reasonably expect would include unambiguous and loud condemnation of the rapes and acts of torture, demands for the release of all hostages, and outrage at the deliberate use of civilians as human shields. But the campus and street protestors avoid all these topics. And not just the protestors. As Barri Weiss, of the Free Press, has repeatedly highlighted, many international women’s organizations stayed shockingly silent as news of the rapes and torture of women emerged.

When pressed, many questioned whether the evidence (most of which was, necessarily, provided by Israeli sources) was reliable, or else eventually issued bland and generalized denunciations of violence against women everywhere. This was quite a turnabout for groups who have previously insisted that silence about many other forms of injustice is a form of violence and a clear indication of acquiescence if not outright endorsement of the injustice. Where is Ibram X. Kendi when you need him? He could release a new edition of his best-selling book and call it, “How to be an Anti-Anti-Semite”. But don’t hold your breath.

This reluctance to call out the crimes of Hamas is telling, and it hard once again not to arrive at the conclusion that many of the Palestinian sympathizers actually think these crimes were justified, or at least less notable crimes than they would have been in any other context because the victims were, in most cases, Jews.

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Anti-Zionism is Not Anti-Semitism

Oh Walrus, I think you are failing to appreciate the depth of anger and despair felt by many Palestinians over many decades. To your allegation that most pro-Palestinian supporters think that Hamas’s actions on October 7, 2023 were justified simply because the victims were Jews, where is the evidence for that claim? If a powerful state subjugates an entire ethnic group, taking most of its land, and forcing its people to live in dire circumstances, it has to expect some very serious push back or “resistance”, not because of the ethnicity of the subjugating group, but just because of its actions.

Objecting to the cause of Zionism (ie the whole project of seizing a majority of Mandatory Palestine to create a new state and condemning Palestinians to decades of penury) is not the same as being an anti-semite. In such a situation, some radical groups are bound to emerge that will take extreme actions. The actions of Hamas on October 7, 2023 were not justified, but they are understandable, and fairly predictable, given the dire lot of the residents of Gaza.

Palestinians Paying the Price for Western Guilt about the Holocaust

Let me also respond to your argument that the seizure of Palestinian territory to form the state of Israel is justified due to the need for a homeland for the Jews, especially in the light of the Holocaust and all prior persecution of the Jews around the world. I understand and agree that the Jews have also suffered greatly as a group. It may also be that the provision of some territory to enable the formation of a Jewish state was indeed warranted. But why should the world be allowed to sacrifice the interests of the Palestinian people, against their will, to alleviate its collective guilt on this matter?

The UN Charter prohibits the seizing of land by force and requires member countries to respect the right to self-determination of peoples. Would any other country accept losing a large chunk of its territory as restitution for the crimes of the Nazis and their enablers? How about the US handing over New England, or The United Kingdom giving up the Midlands, or maybe Wales? Why is it OK for the Palestinians to be treated this way. During the history of Zionism, other territories were considered. For instance, there was a proposal in 1903 to allocate some territory in Uganda. So it wasn’t even a foregone conclusion that the new state had to be in Palestine.

The Palestinians seem to have been arbitrarily singled out to accept this outrageous infringement of their indigenous heritage. It is hard not to draw the conclusion that the world powers, in their support for the UN Resolution 181 despite the unanimous opposition from all the Arab states at that time, and their support for the State of Israel ever since its formation, think that the Palestinian people are less deserving of fair treatment that their own populations.

The pro-Palestinian supporters are simply trying to remind the world that the Palestinians have been grossly mistreated not just by Israel, but by all the countries that acquiesced in Israel’s original land grab, and that this grievance needs to be addressed. One can acknowledge that the actions of Hamas on October 7, 2023 were a heinous crime, but the awful events of that day were also just a brief moment in the long and tragic history of the Palestinian people since 1948. The Palestinians and their supporters should be forgiven for attempting to co-opt the international attention that this event has provoked to try to refocus attention on the longer term and ongoing injustice against them.

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Longstanding Jewish Ties to Palestine Region

It is a fair question as to why the state of Israel should have been formed in 1948 in the area of Palestine rather than anywhere else in the world. However, there is a good answer, and it was certainly not arbitrary. The Palestinian people are not the only group that can claim to be indigenous to this area. The Jews also originated here.

The original inhabitants of the area known as Palestine were a diverse group called Canaanites, who dated back to the third millennium BCE. They lived in small, fortified towns ruled by local chieftans. The Egyptian pharaohs conquered the region during the second millenium BCE. Israelite tribes began to form in this area in the 13^th Century BCE as Egyptian influence began to wane. The Philistines (which is the origin of the name Palestine) arrived from the Aegean basin in the 23^rd century BCE, and were defeated by the Israelites, who went on to rule the area for a few hundred years before the area was conquered and ruled by the Assyrians. After that is was ruled by the Babylonians, followed by a series of other ancient empires, including the Persians, Greeks and Romans, and, starting in the 7^th century AD, various Islamic dynasties.  The final empire to control the area was the Ottoman Empire which ruled the area from the 16^th century until the First World War, after which the British took over control under a mandate from the League of Nations, as I previously mentioned.

Population Displacements Common Throughout History

So the Jews’ connection to this area are at least as ancient and valid as the Palestinians. However, whatever the merits of the competing claims of indigenous heritage between the Palestinians and the Jews, this has little bearing on the current situation. There are probably few countries in the world today where current political power is vested in the group with the oldest or best documented indigenous history. That is not how state formation typically works.

Over the last 100 years, the number of countries has increased from around 60-70 in the 1920s to almost 200 today. Borders have constantly been redrawn due to wars, decolonization activities, and the break-up of empires such as the Soviet Union. In many cases, the changes involved large scale displacements of people. Consider the separation of India in 1947 to create the separate nations of Pakistan and India which resulted in the displacement of 10 to 15 million people, not to mention widespread riots and atrocities resulting in the death of 1-2 million people. Or the Vietnam War which, along with the related conflicts in Cambodia and Laos resulted in the displacement of approximately 10 million people. Or the 12 million ethnic Germans who were expelled from Russia, Poland and Czechoslovakia after the Second World War. Or the 1.2 million Greeks forced to leave Turkey in 1923 under the Treaty of Lausanne. None of this was fair or just for the people involved. But there is no going back, and as Bill Maher points out in his recent collection of essays (“What this Comedian Said Will Shock You”),

 “Was it unjust that even a single Palestinian family was forced to move upon the founding of the Jewish State? Yes. But it’s also not rare, happening all through history, all over the world and mostly what people do is, at some point, make the best of it.”

Palestinians’ Missed Opportunity

But the not the Palestinians. Backed by the Arab League (consisting of 22 Arab countries) in the United Nations, the Palestinians have continued to demand a “redo” for 80 years! They have rejected numerous offers from the Israelis to reach a compromise, including a proposal brokered by Bill Clinton in 2000 for the Palestinians to receive 95% of the original area of the West Bank as part of a two-state solution.

Yassir Arafat’s response to this offer was to walk away and launch the Second Intifada. And to what end? No matter what the Palestinians, or their elected representatives like Hamas do, what horrors they commit, what misplaced outrage they manage to engineer among naïve sympathizers in liberal democratic countries, Israel isn’t suddenly going to give in. To quote Bill Maher again, “Where do youP think Israel is going? Spoiler alert: Nowhere. It’s one of the most powerful countries in the world with a $500 billion economy, the world’s second largest tech sector after Silicon Valley and nuclear weapons.”

Accepting that the Palestinians didn’t get the outcome they wanted, the rest of the world has been very generous to try to help the Palestinians develop into a successful entity. The UN has provided billions of dollars in aid and support, including over $20 billion provided to UNRWA, the UN agency responsible for assisting Palestinian refugees.

If they had been used productively, these funds could have helped the Palestinians develop a stable, peaceful, prosperous nation. They could be a major trading partner to Israel, instead of a bloody thorn in its side. But instead, their leaders channeled much of these funds into grievance projects, such as the massive network of tunnels constructed under Gaza to support Hama’s infamous military objectives and the purchase of weapons. Their schools teach shocking messages of hate about Jews to their children, often with the connivance of UNRWA, and their leadership figures are corrupt and despotic, killing off political opponents or critics and controlling media to suppress dissent.

Anti-Zionism is Indistinguishable from Anti-Semitism

As for your assertion that it is possible to be opposed to Zionism without being anti-semitic, I fully accept that one can disagree vehemently with Israeli actions or policies and not be guilty of ethnic prejudice. Like in any functioning democracy, half of the citizens of Israel may disagree with specific actions of their own government at any moment in time. But the topic of Zionism has a special status among many Jews, especially those who live as minorities in other countries all over the world. The idea of the existence of “Zion” is a bedrock for Jewish religion and culture and also as a literal backstop destination should the ongoing prejudices and conspiracy theories directed at Jews in many countries once again boil over into threatened or actual physical violence. And that is why, for many Jews, a rejection of Zionism is a rejection of a core element of their very Jewishness, and hence IS a form of antisemitism.

The Telling Double Standard Regarding Israel

There is also the issue of double standards. As I have just recounted, there are groups all over the world who have experienced massive and unfair displacements and persecutions, and seemingly intractable territorial disputes. But over time, the sides eventually reach some accommodation and move on. This includes Muslim peoples in many cases. Yet it is only the Palestinians who have nurtured their grievances at history’s treatment of their predecessors for almost 80 years. The entire Arab world refers to the formation of Israel as the “Nakba” (which means “catastrophe”), and this is a defining theme in Palestinian lore. This dogged focus on just one of many unfair displacements of Muslim or Arab populations make it clear that a large part of the unrelenting outrage among Palestinians and the wider Arab international community is the identity of the offending party.

The Arab world today seems strangely unconcerned about other cases of the persecution and/or displacement of Muslims. Bashar al-Assad put down the Arab Spring in 2011 and provoked a civil war resulting in the death of approximately 500,000 mainly Muslim citizens and over 6 million refugees fleeing the country, yet no one on US university campuses is protesting his continued rule; the Chinese government has imprisoned over one million Muslim Uyghurs in concentration camps, yet the campus protestors who have so much empathy for the plight of the Palestinians can’t seem to summon the energy to object. However, when the persecutor happens to be the Jewish State, the outrage bursts forth.

Although they generally reflect a very negative attitude towards any religion other than Islam, there is a special place in Muslim holy scriptures, including the Koran and the Hadiths, regarding the Jews, including many highly negative descriptions as well as repeated exhortations to kill Jews. This bias is reinforced by brain-washing of children in schools in many middle eastern countries, including Palestine, though the use of hateful texts such as the infamous, 100 year-old fabrication called the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, which purports to describe the evil plans of Jews conspiring to take over the world, despite having been thoroughly debunked in Europe.

When the loathing of a certain other group is so deeply ingrained, it is perhaps easier to understand why, to many Arab Muslims, the loss of Palestinian territory, the undeniable reality of the economic and military superiority of Israel compared to its Arab neighbors, not to mention the embarrassing defeat of multiple Arab armies in three separate wars that were supposed to destroy Israel, is the ultimate humiliation. Like the misogynist boxer who is felled by a competent woman, the Palestinians and their Arab League allies simply cannot let it go because losing out to the Jews, and even the very existence of a powerful Jewish state in their midst, is at odds with their whole world view. It is the very vehemence of the opposition to Zionism by Palestinians and their supporters, above so many other injustices experienced by Muslims, that betrays the anti-semitism that underlies it.

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