Choosing sides on October 7

Whether it’s a woke education, or no education, or ideological education, an ignorance of history seems to have distorted the strategies of Hamas and Hezbollah in their war on Israel.

It could be said that Israel was born on Easter 1903 in latter-day Moldova. For two days, mobs roamed the streets of the town of Kishinev, murdering, raping, burning, and looting in the Jewish community. Forty-nine people died – not many in comparison to later atrocities – but the horror was reported around the world.

The savage pogrom convinced the Zionist movement that Jews needed a homeland where they could live in peace and safety – Palestine.

An enraged Jewish poet, Hayim Nahman Bialik, wrote a long and powerful poem about the Kishinev pogrom, “In the City of Slaughter”.

Arise and go now to the city of slaughter;
Into its courtyard wind thy way;
There with thine own hand touch, and with the eyes of thine head,
Behold on tree, on stone, on fence, on mural clay,
The spattered blood and dried brains of the dead
.

But the poem was not so much an indictment of the savagery of the Russian peasants who killed the Jews, but of the spinelessness of men who cowered in a corner while their women were raped.

Come, now, and I will bring thee to their lairs
The privies, jakes and pigpens where the heirs
Of Hasmoneans lay, with trembling knees,
Concealed and cowering, the sons of the Maccabees!...
It was the flight of mice they fled,
The scurrying of roaches was their flight;
They died like dogs, and they were dead!

 

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Whether or not Bialik was right in accusing these Jews of cowardice, he ensured that generations of future Zionist leaders were determined never to be cowards. Immediately after October 7, The Jewish Star, a New York newspaper, published a study of the poem, calling it “the most influential secular Jewish poem of the twentieth century”. “It influenced the development of a Zionist ethos that sought to mold a strong new Jew who would not go to his slaughter like a lamb.”

And then came the Holocaust. Six million Jews perished. Six million. 

The Zionists who migrated to Israel were not going to be Jews “with trembling knees”. As of 1948 they established a state which was recognised by the United Nations. And the Israelis were determined to defend it resolutely. Moshe Dayan, the soldier and politician, explained this in 1956:

“We mustn’t flinch from the hatred that accompanies and fills the lives of hundreds of thousands of Arabs, who live around us and are waiting for the moment when their hands may claim our blood. We mustn’t avert our eyes, lest our hands be weakened. That is the decree of our generation. That is the choice of our lives—to be willing and armed, strong and unyielding, lest the sword be knocked from our fists, and our lives severed.”

How could Hamas or Hezbollah possibly believe that Israelis would not extort a ferocious revenge to protect their people and their country?

When a powerful country faces an existential threat, it is bound to set aside the norms of a just war. Even though a crisis does not exempt a desperate nation from the moral and international law against killing innocent civilians – but they do what they have to do.

On December 7, 1941, 2,403 Americans died in the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. The United States military felt no compunction whatsoever in firebombing Tokyo in March 1945, killing possibly as many as 100,000 civilians, for negligible military gain.

Neither firebombing Japanese cities nor pulverising Gaza at a cost of 40,000 Palestinian lives is easy to justify. I’d say, in fact, that it is almost impossible. But it is predictable, perfectly predictable.

And this is what makes the moral burden of this war weigh far more heavily on Hamas and Hezbollah. Lacking a clear strategic plan, knowing that they faced overwhelming firepower, fully aware that their tactics would incur stupendous civilian casualties – with all this in mind, still they attacked their enemy.

There’s an odd passage in the Gospel of Luke in which Jesus insists on the importance of common sense:

“If a king is setting out to join battle with another king, does he not first sit down and deliberate, whether with his army of ten thousand he can meet the onset of one who has twenty thousand? If he cannot, then, while the other is still at a distance, he despatches envoys to ask for conditions of peace.”

Is there a universe founded on reason and human dignity in which it is moral to use innocent civilians, women and children, old and young, one’s own compatriots, as human shields in a war? No – ultimately the only clear motivation for this fratricidal cruelty is a warped ideology in which killing Jews and the annihilation of Israel have become ends in themselves. As the 1988 charter of Hamas puts it: “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.”

None of this gets Israel off the hook. “Moral clarity” is a slogan often used by supporters of Israel – it is defending Western civilisation; its opponents are defending barbarism. It is waging a just war; its opponents are not. But it’s not that simple. Even if self-defence is a just cause (jus ad bellum in just war theory), its tactics may not be (jus in bello). Tragically, Israel’s acceptance of a high level of civilian casualties and the quiet expulsion of Palestinians from the West Bank cloud the morality of its war. Israel’s own long-term strategy is murky.

But if we have to blame one side for this tragedy, it must be Hamas and Hezbollah. They picked a fight they could not win. As US President John Adams wrote to his wife 200 years ago: “Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war.” 


Where do you stand on October 7? Tell us in the comments below.  


Michael Cook is editor of Mercator

Image credit: Unsplash


 

Showing 10 reactions

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  • Frank Daley
    commented 2024-10-13 12:24:19 +1100
    Ah mrscracker, I saw what you did there!

    You discretely ignored my documented factual points and in a stake of panic launched into the “conspiracy narratives” strategy for when the truth is just too scary to one’s preconceived ideas.

    From one perspective I could take it as a compliment, akin to a 2021 tweet from US lawyer Robert Barnes “Noah was also called a conspiracy theorist…until it rained.”

    However you will read no conspiracy narratives from me as I only use historically verifiable facts. Sure we can both agree there are plenty of “old Jewish conspiracy narratives” which is why you won’t ever find me quoting from, for example, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” as it and other similar works are not historically verifiable.

    For me, verifiable information was sufficient to highlight my points, and I could have trotted out numerous more examples of the point about the extensive building of the 6 million narrative that happened before World War II had even started.

    But the thrust of my response was that the author seemingly made no effort to consider the points of view from both sides. Such is particularly important at this moment in time as the Western world has devolved into name calling and extracted itself from the process of conducting diplomacy via discussions and listening and totally shutting off “the other side” and refusing to even listen.

    Along these lines, Pope Francis has highlighted on more than one occasion the need to build bridges rather than walls, and refusing to even consider the grievances and documented historical concerns of the other side reflects a wall building rather than a bridge building strategy.

    So mrscracker, I encourage you and the author to listen and study both sides, especially in relation to the well documented ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian peoples that has been underway for more than 70 years, where I mentioned but one example that occurred during the 1948-1949 Arab-Israeli war.

    One final point of note since you seemed to imply that I might be in some way “anti-Jewish”, and while unlike myself you may not be a Christian, but as I read the New Testament I see Jesus Christ, the Jewish Messiah, regularly lambasting and condemning the hypocrisy and hardheartedness of the Jewish leaders. Extending that example to the current historical situation, I find no conflict between loving Jesus Christ and the Jewish people as I do, and at the same time strongly condemning the historical and current depravity of its treatment of the Palestinian peoples, that is now extending even more forcefully to its neighbors in countries such as Lebanon and Syria. What would Jesus Christ say to both recent and current Jewish leaders I wonder!
  • mrscracker
    Oh my goodness. It never fails that any matter dealing with Israel will bring out all the old Jewish conspiracy narratives. Plus ca change… It’s a shame.
  • Frank Daley
    commented 2024-10-09 16:33:57 +1100
    This article is deeply flawed in both its premise and its one-sided historical examples.

    Let’s start with the article’s basic premise, that the “modern” state of Israel was fundamentally a result of a “savage pogrom” in 1903.

    FACT CHECK: FALSE

    To give but one example of the error of this premise, let’s take the June 20, 1899 example from a page 3 article in The New York Times, titled (quoting verbatim) “CONFERENCE OF ZIONISTS; Elect Delegates at Their Meeting in Baltimore. WILL COLONIZE PALESTINE Rabbis Gottheil and Wise Were Chosen Members of the International Executive Committee.”

    Yes indeed, colonial aspirations over Palestine have always been the goal.

    The article then goes on to imply that Israel’s growth preceding the establishment of the state of Israel by the United Nations in 1948 was driven by attacks on Jewish people across the diaspora. However the author seems to be totally unaware of the extensive sponsorship programs that gave significant financial incentives for people from the Jewish diaspora to move to Israel.

    Next, I won’t go too far down the “rabbit hole” of the author’s breathless repetition of the claim that 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, and I defy the author or anyone else to scientifically show how such a number could have been killed given the time-span involved as well as the size and scope of the facilities within the concentration camps.

    Of course, even if the figure was 1 million or 100,000 or 10,000 no matter how big or small the Holocaust was, it was driven by hatred, both of neighbor and of God. However I raise it because of the author’s breathless repetition of the 6 million figure that, based on the sheer physical requirements of murdering 6 million people doesn’t make any scientific sense. Also as the author should know, for the Jewish people, numbers are particularly symbolic, and the 6 million figure has been widely used throughout the 20th century to describe potential massacres of Jews. For example, in The New York Times, July 20, 1921 we have an article titled “BEGS AMERICA SAVE 6,000,000 IN RUSSIA. Massacre Threatens All Jews as Soviet Power Wanes”. Here is the link to The New York Times web site article for anyone who wants to fact check https://www.nytimes.com/1921/07/20/archives/begs-america-save-6000000-in-russia-massacre-threatens-all-jews-as.html

    Reiterating that this 6 million figure was being bandied around a full 10 years before Hitler rose to power in Germany. Another example, this time from The Gazette of Montreal, December 29, 1931 (notably over one year before Hitler rose to power in Germany, we have a page 6 article titled “SIX MILLION JEWS FACE STARVATION”.

    I could go on, but hopefully you get the idea, never ever study history just from a single narrative, especially when that narrative is the one written by the victors!

    Some final comments, and again stressing the importance of studying history from multiple perspectives and certainly never assuming that “Western” historians are fundamentally telling the truth, the author totally neglects to discuss the Arab-Israeli war of 1948-1949 that even according to Britannica “displaced at least 600,000 – 700,000 Palestinians” who were of course primarily Christians and Muslims. Nor did the author acknowledge the presence of the Hagana Zionist military organization that operated in Palestine from 1920 to 1948 and committed numerous atrocities against the Palestinians. Unfortunately the portrayal of all blame on Hamas and Hezbollah totally ignores history, and if you are going to quote from the 1988 charter of Hamas, what about also giving us some quotes from the legions of Zionists, living and dead, expressing their desire to exterminate the Palestinians and establish a greater Israel, that would include not just the territory in its current borders, but also large swathes of other countries, including Lebanon and Syria. Such quotes and even videos of past and present Israeli politicians, ex-politicians and numerous others are easy enough to find if you want to present a balanced perspective.

    Bottom line, it’s beyond time for Mercator to present a balanced view of both history and current affairs, rather than lamely repeating one-sided propaganda.
  • Paul Bunyan
    commented 2024-10-09 12:00:14 +1100
    Hitler was not a “Catholic turned atheist.” He referred to his Christian upbringing and motives for why he was fighting against the Jews.

    The Catholic church also refused to excommunicate Hitler. That’s incredibly revealing.
  • Stephen Ireland
    followed this page 2024-10-09 11:16:27 +1100
  • Emberson Fedders
    commented 2024-10-09 11:07:54 +1100
    One doesn’t need to choose sides in this situation. They are both in the wrong.
  • Kathy Ungar
    commented 2024-10-09 04:15:58 +1100
    The new president of Iran is thankfully a moderate – a medical doctor who repeatedly spoke in favour of peace at the UN and of wanting to restore normal relations with the West. Unfortunately Netanyahu has responded by reckless escalation (see Jeffrey Sachs’ recent comments on Judge Napolitano’s show Judging Freedom). This is very dangerous for the entire region and could even start off World War III. Israel should sack Netanyahu and his war party and start putting adults in the room asap. Diplomacy saves lives.
  • mrscracker
    “How could Hamas or Hezbollah possibly believe that Israelis would not extort a ferocious revenge to protect their people and their country?”
    *******
    That was Iran’s goal all along. To disrupt the peace accords. Israel’s neighbors want peace. Iran does not. This isn’t about Hamas or Hezbollah vs Israel, they’re simply Iran’s mercenaries. It’s about Iran & it’s allies seeking power in the region.
  • Kathy Ungar
    commented 2024-10-09 00:23:14 +1100
    Israel’s psychotic actions after October 7 were predictable – more shame to Hamas for provoking them – but hardly inevitable. We all have free will. Israel is deeply, deeply responsible for the carpet-bombing of Gaza, for sniping at children and other innocents, for arbitrary detention, abuse and rape of Palestinians including minors and for killings and evictions in the West Bank (not run by Hamas). Let’s stop giving Israel such an easy ride. With due regard to condemning Hamas atrocities of October 7 (the real ones, not the fake ones), let’s be more honest about Israel’s own atrocities – now carried out on an unspeakable scale. And let’s also talk about those Arab peace initiatives and international injunctions which continue to be ignored – even as Israel continues to spread its settlements and shout about an ‘existential threat.’
  • Michael Cook
    published this page in The Latest 2024-10-08 22:09:09 +1100