On the 7th of October 2023, Israel woke up to her worst nightmare. As the sirens blared and citizens of Israel looked for shelter, a couple of thousand Islamic terrorists from Hamas attacked the bewildered civilians from air, sea, and land. As thousands of rockets and missiles rained down on Israel leaving in its wake destruction and a trail of dead bodies strewn on the streets, hundreds of terrorists on motorbikes, on foot, and followed by tractors breached the fence separating Israel from Gaza. Simultaneously, terrorists also attached the beaches of Israel riding on motorbikes, overwhelming the unsuspecting Israeli soldiers. As the embers and smoke engulfed Israel, some of the Islamic terrorists descended on paragliders. 

After descending on Israel, the terrorists went city to city, village to village, and kibbutz to kibbutz hunting down women, children, and men alike. The world saw images of charred bodies, burnt babies, raped and dishonored women, and bloodied and murdered men. Several Jews were taken hostage by the terrorists as they cried and screamed for help, amidst the chants of Allahu Akbar, they were beaten, spat on, dishonored, and kidnapped – carried at the back of their trucks to Gaza.

If the massacre on the 7th wasn’t enough, as Israel vowed to eradicate Hamas and started pounding them, the world, at least the part of the world that had no moral compunctions in asking Israel to simply roll over and die, put the battered and bruised nation on trial. It was almost as if a section of the global media wanted to guilt-trip Israel into accepting its annihilation. The moral burden of a war they did not start was put squarely on their shoulder – shoulders that had not been granted the time to even carry their dead. One would not be off the mark if one were to observe that far more than the guns and rocket battle that rages on between Israel and Hamas, it is the war of the moral burden that Israel has been battling to manage. The main theme of this battle of morality was a section of the world telling Israel that it must stop the war in Palestine because civilians were dying – again – a war that Israel did not want, did not start, and had done everything to avoid till over 1300 of their innocent civilians were butchered.

However, as I walked around Jerusalem and Tel Aviv earlier in January as a part of the Sharaka delegation, talking to several people – from the Orthodox to the Conservatives and even the Leftists, I began to understand that an overwhelming sentiment among the people of Israel was that Hamas had to be obliterated and at this point, there was no way Israel could achieve that without the ongoing war. As a Hindu, the moral clarity that the Jews displayed was – as incorrect as it may sound under the circumstances – refreshing. Encountering people who were mostly in agreement about the fundamental problem was a paradigm I was hardly used to.

While Israel mostly agrees on the fundamentals of the beast, they have hotly contested ideas of what the Nation’s priorities must be and which priority would be morally a just one for the state of Israel and its people. I must add here, that there certainly does exist a section of the Jewish community, who in their radical Left bubble, believe that Israel’s battle against the manifestation of pure evil could or maybe already has translated into a mindless ‘genocide’ in Palestine. However, as my conversations revealed, there seems to be a remarkable shift in the discourse post the attack of 7th October where even sections of the Left are reconsidering the paradigms they believed in – Is it only Hamas that is evil and what does Israel need to do to not only tell its story here on, but also – survive.

Expectations of puritanic morals while walking through hell

The most predominant narrative in the global corporate media against the ongoing war is that Israel’s campaign to obliterate Hamas is not commensurate action versus what was done by Hamas – Hamas killed 1300, Israel is killing thousands, millions more (numbers depend on which media you choose to follow – if it is the Hamas media, then the numbers could be more than the combined population of Africa) in their bloodlust, in their search for retribution.

To make it simpler – the predominant narrative against Israel is that Hamas is an ‘extremist organization’ that murdered 1300 people and took hundreds as a hostage. Against this onslaught, Israel has a right to defend itself, however, in their quest for defense and the obliteration of Hamas, they are claiming the lives of thousands of civilians in Palestine – innocent women and children included. There is a seemingly large section that believes that Hamas’ actions were the ‘language of the oppressed’ and the ‘language of resistance’ – which is to say that Israel deserves its fate at the hands of Hamas because there is no peaceful road to resistance and fighting supposed occupation.

In Israel, I posed this question to many – what about the civilian lives being lost in Palestine? In Gaza? Does Israel have a moral compunction when it comes to the rules of war?

Voices from Israel

At the hostage square in Tel Aviv, thousands gather regularly to demand the return of hostages. There are prayer circles, a tunnel of messages, an empty Shabat table with the hostage names on it, and several tents for different purposes – one for example – was of Kibbutz Nahal Oz – remembering the hostages taken from that Kibbutz and demanding their return.

Walking around, I met a couple who had come to the hostage square to show their solidarity – grieve with their community. They spoke at length about the war upon Israel and how it was one they did not start. “In a war, you attack soldiers. Not civilians. Soldiers are supposed to fight with each other. Why take our children and our daughters”, the wife said, inching towards tears.

The husband was far more emotional, I could see, however, his emotions manifested more in rage than tears. When I asked him how he felt about the accusations that Israel was committing a genocide of Palestinians and killing several more civilians than Hamas had killed, he was livid. “It is not true, and even if it is, I don’t care”. The wife shot him a look, saying, “We can’t say that. We can’t say it’s ok for innocent people to die”.

“Innocent? Civilians from Palestine came and killed us. These were people who used to work for us. They had work permits. They would come to Israel to earn and we were good to them. We thought peace was possible. Then they do this”, he said.

“I know it is not nice to say this. But I don’t care how many people die. They are dying because Hamas did not let them leave. We asked them to leave. Israel needs to finish Hamas and I don’t care what the price is”.

“How can they say we are worse? Did we rape more of their women? Kill more of their toddlers in their sleep? In their homes? Did we say they took 200 hostages so we will take 500 of their innocents? I understand people are dying, but they are dying in a war where their own government (Hamas) did not let them evacuate. How can the world hold Israel responsible for wanting to end the terrorist organization that did this to us?”, he said.

I spoke to another woman who was manning a tent in the memory of those kidnapped from Kibbutz Nahal Oz – one which is 800 meters from Gaza. She spoke at length about how she grew up so close to Gaza that as children, they would simply cross over to shop – since the produce was always cheaper there. She said she grew up with the hope that peace was possible and that they could live in harmony and brotherhood. But then, one day, so many she knew died or were kidnapped – 5 from her Kibbutz itself.

5 people were kidnapped by Hamas on 7th October from Nahal Oz. 2 have returned, 3 remain in captivity. The stall was so people don’t forget. #BringThemHome pic.twitter.com/vPB6hTYqYo

— Nupur J Sharma (@UnSubtleDesi) February 5, 2024

At the hostage square, the moral dilemma of those reeling from the horror of October 7th was palpable. And could they be blamed for it? They had lost thousands of their civilians with the most unimaginable horror inflicted upon them. Hundreds, including babies, had been taken hostage. The rage they felt was natural – especially as a people who deal with the generational trauma of the Holocaust. In that rage, while some felt morally obligated to think about the civilians of Palestine, others were pushed to feel no such compulsions. Indeed, Hamas did not let civilians leave. It is true that it was not just the quintessential Hamas terrorists who conducted the terror act in Israel – there were average civilian Palestinians who entered Israel to torture civilians, celebrated when mangled bodies were taken back to Gaza, and even, partook in holding Israelis hostages. It is indeed true that those very Palestinians who were working in Israel on work visas were the ones who passed on information for the terror attack to be conducted ‘successfully’. Under these circumstances, how is a common Israeli, who has lost family and friends, supposed to feel any sympathy that the world expects them to feel?

Perhaps we should go a step further. While decent people would feel inherent guilt when blamed for the “death of civilians”, how does one expect Israelis to feel sympathy when it is the elected government – Hamas – that prevented their citizens from moving to safety? Would it even be fair to place moral responsibility of those deaths on the shoulders of the victims who are not trying to weed out the perpetrators?

In the course of understanding this moral conundrum of the Israelis, I posed this question to Lieut-Maj. Ran Bar-Yehoshafat. He had returned from the war in Gaza only a couple of days ago before our delegation interacted with him.

In his hour-long talk, Lieut Maj Ran Bar Yehoshafat spoke on the bravery of Israeli citizens who neutralized terrorists on the 7th of October even before IDF responded, and the overall intelligence failure of Israel. However, there was one part of his talk that stood out – what he said while fighting in Gaza after the 7th October massacre.

Lieut Maj Ran Bar Yehoshafat spoke about how in every house they entered, they were confronted with the ugly face of terrorism – they would enter a house and see articles that would make them believe that these people were “normal” – just like them. But then, he would touch a bag of diapers and realize that grenades were hidden in it.

He further spoke about how there were about 40,000 “card-carrying members” of Hamas, however, several thousand others were belonging to other Jihadi organizations like Islamic Jihad and so on, and how there were several thousand average civilians who were not attached to a terrorist group but were terrorists who would, kill Israelis or celebrate the murder of Israelis. He spoke about how when the bodies of the Israeli civilians were taken back to Gaza, there were “civilians” who were spitting at the hostages.

Narrating another story, he says that Israel had asked Gazans to evacuate. It was Hamas who had forced them to go back North. Explaining why Hamas did that, Lieut Maj Ran Bar Yehoshafat says that Hamas is throwing civilians at the IDF so when the IDF would shoot them, they would know their positions. “If you are a soldier, and you see two people covered in black coming towards you in a war, what do you do? You shoot them. Hamas knows this”, he said.

Now, the general tone of what Lieut-Maj. Ran Bar-Yehoshafat said was not limited to him. I met several reservist soldiers who narrated similar experiences while fighting in Gaza. They also reiterated, over and over again, including Lieut-Maj. Ran Bar-Yehoshafat, that IDF was not seeking civilians to kill. That IDF was not actively on a mission to find babies and women to murder. However, if Hamas itself wants to use civilians in a war with an Army, the moral burden of that decision could not be placed on the shoulders of Israel.

“Despite what they did, I don’t want to harm babies from Gaza. I don’t want to burn them in the oven”, I was told.

The difference between us and them: MK Amichai Chikli, Minister of Diaspora Affairs talks about what Israel is doing to minimize civilian lives lost

In Israel, an interaction with Minister of Diaspora MK Amichai Chikli also laid threadbare the dilemma of Israel when it came to answering queries about the “genocide” it was accused of committing in Gaza.

When asked about what Israel was doing to minimize civilian casualties in Gaza, Mr Chikli started with an irrefutable example of how Hamas was manipulating the casualty toll to further the global “genocide” charge against Israel. He spoke about the Al-Ahli al-Arabi Hospital episode, where Israel was accused of bombing the hospital based on the statement of Hamas, however, as it turned out, it was a rocket that the Islamic Jihad had fired at Israel but fell on the Gaza hospital instead.

Initially, based on the screeches of Hamas, the Iranian channel Press TV wrote, “More than 500 were martyred in the bombing of the Baptist [Ahli Arab] Hospital in central Gaza.” In the video shared with the post on X (formerly Twitter), the ticker under the video reads, “Over 500 Palestinians murdered after Israeli Warplanes bombed Ahli Hospital in Gaza City”, which was later debunked as a false claim.

In a post, Reuters wrote, “An Israeli air strike killed hundreds of Palestinians at a Gaza City hospital crammed with patients and displaced people, health authorities in the besieged enclave said.” Reuters has refused to delete their post even today.

Update: About 500 Palestinians have been killed by the Gaza hospital blast. The health minister in the Hamas-run government of Gaza accused Israel of a massacre. The Israeli military blamed it on a failed rocket launch by a Palestinian militant group https://t.co/UvnEZBSFbA pic.twitter.com/ogEHsm5TsF

— Reuters (@Reuters) October 17, 2023

Al Jazeera, Associate Press, The New York Times, Washington Post, MSNBC, and CNN – the entire global media jumped on the bandwagon to claim that Israel was committing genocide by bombing a hospital. From 200-300 casualties to 500, 3,000, and other outlandish numbers, accusations flew thick and loose. To make the dishonesty far more stark, the global media maintained that it was the Health Ministry that had released these numbers – failing to mention to its unsuspecting readers that the “Health Ministry” was essentially Hamas.

Mr Chikli cited this indisputable incident of blatant propaganda to say that the casualty numbers that are released by Hamas are not reliable – an argument that one can’t particularly discredit.

“According to Hamas, none of the casualties are terrorists, or as they call it, militants. And they are right, you know why? None of the terrorists in Gaza wear uniforms. Even more, they don’t carry their weapon with them. They have the Kalash (Kalashnikov) or RPG at home. When they walk in the street (they appear to be) citizens. (They then) go to their apartment, take the RPG, and send a kid to see where the tanks and forces are. And after the kids, they will come with the RPG to shoot. This is their tactic. This is the nature of Hamas”, he said. He further talks about the 500 km of tunnels under Gaza – saying that a house may look like an average civilian’s house, but beneath it, there are tunnels where Hamas is hiding.

He then talks about a unique dilemma of IDF – he says that while IDF has a strict fire policy where they don’t shoot even if they know terrorists are hiding among possible civilians – a policy that has been maintained despite the atrocities of 7th October. But let us consider this statement for a moment.

War is messy. It is never easy and certainly, never bloodless. We know for a fact that average Palestinians were involved in the 7th October attack, not just in the active commission of crimes but also in passing information before the attack. Further, we also know that the average Palestinians celebrated the 7th October massacre when hostages and Israeli dead bodies were taken back to Gaza. Through various accounts, it is evident that what the world chooses to call “civilian casualty” is not all “civilian” but includes those who partook in the massacre, gave information for the massacre, celebrated the massacre, and those who “appear” to be civilians but are, as Mr Chikli explained, those who keep their Kalashnikovs in their homes – to be used at an appropriate time against Israelis. it is also a documented, fact that Israel had urged Gazans to travel to the north before the war began and it is indeed Hamas that ensured civilians were not allowed to leave so they could be used as human shields.

If this complexity isn’t enough, Israel realizes that unless Hamas is eradicated, its very existence will continually be threatened – a realization that is far more cavernous given the massacre of 7th October.

Now, if it is the elected government of the Palestinians that has decided to use them as a shield against an army, the moral burden of that decision has to rest on the shoulders of Hamas. What the world wants, essentially, is for Israel to take vicarious responsibility for the actions of Hamas and give up on their right to self-preservation and fight against terror, because they are morally obligated to preserve lives – lives which more often than not – are either motivated to murder or celebrate the murder of Israelis.

There is something almost Machiavellian about the guilt-tripping of the Jews in this case. They have been asked, nay, forced, to prove their moral superiority by not only understanding their massacre and feeling burdened by their legitimate campaign of self-preservation but also, being morally responsible for the actions of the very people who perpetrated the massacre against them.

The subtle agenda-pushing is a work of art that must be fully appreciated. The world is essentially pushing the narrative that Palestinians are lovely people who are very very… very sad about the “loss of lives” in Israel. They are empathetic and don’t support terrorism of any form. However, they are also terribly sad that the world is not understanding the historical context of why these lovely, peaceful, delightful people from Palestine raped, beheaded, and tortured Jews in Israel. In turn and as a result, while it was the Jews who got raped, beheaded, and tortured, it was the Palestinians who were the real victims not only because Israel launched a counteroffensive against them but also because the barbaric, Islamophobic world was refusing to understand why the Palestinians were forced to murder babies, rape women, behead civilians, and torture/murder the men. Further, Israel is a genocidal, out-of-control, war-mongering state because it refuses to see why its people simply had to be raped and beheaded as retribution for their mere existence. Israel not only refuses to accept its genocide but has the temerity to claim that they have a right to eradicate terrorists who heaped these unimaginable atrocities against them. What makes it far worse, is that Israel also does not recognize why Hamas simply has to use its babies as human shields – a terrible decision forced upon Palestine by Israel refusing to accept its genocide.

As I have said before, This is what the apologists want the world to believe:

1. When Muslims kill non-Muslims, it is because the Muslims are the oppressed victims and the unbridled violence is the language of the oppressed.
2. Since Muslims are the oppressed, they have a right to indulge in violence against non-Muslims and should not be blamed for it.
3. Once they indulge in violence, there should be no ill will towards the Muslims because that would be Islamophobic.
4. Muslims, even though they celebrate the violence against non-Muslims, are not the same as those who committed the violence.
5. The non-Muslims against whom the violence has been perpetrated are the actual aggressors because they did something to anger and hurt the Muslims – anger and hurt which is justified, and therefore, the violence is the legitimate act of the victims (the Muslims – not the ones being raped and murdered).
6. Any cognizance of the fact that their religious doctrine ordains them to kill the non-Muslims is immediately and automatically Islamophobic.
7. After the Muslims kill and rape the non-Muslims and others celebrate that torture, any act of self-defense or retaliation is oppressive and genocidal.

The truth is that very few “civilians” in Gaza and Palestine are civilians in the real sense of the word. They are people who are trained to eradicate Jews and are the very people who elected Hamas to power – Hamas – whose charter explicitly calls for the annihilation of Jews in the name of Allah.

The Preamble of the Covenant of Hamas reads, “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.” Therefore, we can be politically correct about the situation since that is what the Liberal world expects, but the truth is that the very foundation of modern Palestine and its government is based on the genocide of Jews.

The Jews, harboring the generational trauma of exodus, are forced to feel the moral burden of fighting for their survival. While amid war, Israel might have to measure its stand and the average Israeli may feel the need to be politically correct so the world doesn’t look away, decency demands blunt articulation from the rest of us.

Israel is morally superior because they are fighting a war they did not start. Israel did not start the cycle of violence and hate. Israel did not behead as retribution for beheading. Rape in retribution for rape. Kidnap as retribution for kidnapping. Israel did not elect a terrorist organization to deal with a terror organization. Israel picked and honored its dead. Begged the world to not look away and vowed to fight for its own – a stand that any moral, just, and spirited nation would take. Israel did not celebrate the images of burnt babies and raped women. Israel did not spit on dead bodies. Israel tasked its army to deal with a terror organization – that the terror organization that governs Palestine refuses to protect its own is a moral burden they have to carry – certainly not Israel.