Seeing Terrorism Through Israel’s Eyes

Every nation has a right to defend itself. Visiting the state of Israel with a group of Columbia students as the country fought Hamas in Gaza, I had the opportunity to speak to Israelis about the conflict. In Israel, 94 percent of the Jewish population supports the Israel Defense Forces’ response to Hamas terrorism, according to the Jerusalem Post. What is most interesting is the fact that Israelis recognize the heavy toll being paid by Gaza’s civilians but nonetheless believe their actions are justified.

What, then, can possibly account for the great rift that seems to exist between Israeli perceptions of the situation and those of many Americans and Europeans—including members of my own Columbia tour group? I believe that the problem lies with the West, and not with Israel. In their attempts to be “fair” and “even-handed,” many Westerners have completely overlooked some of the fundamental elements of the conflict, forming opinions that are both irrational and hypocritical.

A common criticism of Israel’s Gaza operation in the West is that while Hamas was wrong to launch rockets, Israel was equally unjustified in killing so many Palestinians, civilian or otherwise. This argument is predicated on the fundamentally flawed notion that there is some kind of moral equivalence between the state of Israel and the terrorists of Hamas. In reality, no such moral equivalency exists, and I challenge anyone who believes otherwise to answer the following: Name one instance in the past 10 years when Israel has targeted a school, hospital, or bus with the express intention of killing as many innocent people as possible.

Hamas targets civilians almost every day with its rockets and suicide bombers, yet there is not one instance in which Israel has done the same. Hamas’ charter calls for the destruction of the state of Israel, while Israel’s prime minister, Ehud Olmert, has said frequently that “we did not declare war on Gaza’s residents, [but rather on] Hamas.” Hamas flagrantly uses human shield tactics to maximize Palestinian civilian deaths, while Israel drops leaflets and fires dummy missiles to encourage civilians to leave the line of fire. In our legal system, we judge a party’s guilt according to the principle of mens rea, or “guilty mind.” Looking at this basic set of facts that no one (other than Iranian clerics) attempts to deny, we can see that on the tactical level there is simply no justification for viewing Israel and Hamas in the same light.

One could still assert that the civilian death toll resulting from Israel’s actions is too high. I completely agree, as do all Israelis. Our task, however, is to determine who is responsible for these civilian deaths and to understand how assigning blame affects the level of future fatalities. As noted, Hamas operates out of densely populated urban areas because it knows that any meaningful Israeli response would elicit a large number of civilian casualties, which would give Hamas a public relations victory.

During Israel’s operation in Gaza, many good-hearted Western moderates have criticized Israel precisely because of this situation. Unfortunately, they make two critical errors in logic. The first is that they fail to recognize that Israel doesn’t get to decide how much collateral damage is inflicted by a given attack. That is, Israel’s choice is not whether to kill a given number of Palestinians—its choice is between dropping a bomb on a terrorist hideout and killing the terrorist along with 10 civilians, or doing nothing and allowing that terrorist to fire rockets at Israelis. In other words, Israel’s choice is a binary one. The second (and sadly ironic) mistake that many make is that by blaming Israel for these civilian fatalities, they are doing exactly what the terrorists intended—validating and encouraging Hamas’ human shield tactics and effectively contributing to more civilian deaths in the future.

Several years ago, Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of Israel’s Likud Party, said that the world has “a triple standard. There is a standard for the dictatorships in the world. There is a standard for the democracies. And there is still a third standard for Israel.” If, for a moment, we imagined that rockets were bombarding American cities, and that an entire generation of American children had grown up spending part of every day inside a bomb shelter, what would be the response in this country? After Sept. 11, 2001, when Al Qaeda attacked the United States for the same reasons that Hamas is now attacking Israel—in protest of “occupation” of Muslim lands—did anyone call for George W. Bush to sit down and negotiate with Osama bin Laden? Given that Israel confronts an enemy that is committed to its destruction, rejects meaningful diplomacy, and hides amongst civilians, what other option does the country have? Ultimately, I am not asking readers to believe that Israel is always right and that the Palestinians are always wrong. Rather, I am asking readers to understand that Hamas’ terrorism is unjustifiable, and that Israel is entitled to defend itself in the only way it can.

Jon Hollander is a Columbia college junior majoring in economics.
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