La plus ça change, la plus c'est la même chose. The more things change, the more they stay the same. That is certainly how I feel about the Israel-Palestine conflict. There were a few recent events that led to the altercation between Israel and Gaza. One is the Sheikh Jarrah incident in East Jerusalem, a legal dispute over property rights and paying rent. Protests began over an eviction of six Palestinians in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. The Israeli Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Jewish landlords, a property which has been owned by the Jewish community since 1876. Without getting into "whose fault it is," there was also a clash between Israeli police and Muslim worshipers at the Al-Aqsa mosque at the end of the Islamic month of Ramadan. Hamas issued Israel an ultimatum to cease its police and military enforcement of Israeli law. Israel ignored it by reinforcing its borders with Gaza. Hamas fired rockets into Israel targeting civilians. Israel returned fire by targeting military outposts and now there is outrage on both sides.
All of this escalated conflict led to celebrities throwing in their two cents. The Daily Show host Trevor Noah was one of the earlier "commentators," framing the conflict in terms of power balance. Comedian John Oliver proceeded to outdo Trevor Noah by accusing Israel of "war crimes" and "apartheid." Needless to say, neither one of these comedians are a fan of Israel based on their monologues. Today, my goal is to take on their pseudo-intellectual comments and show where they both went wrong.
The nature of Hamas. Before getting into any of what Noah or Oliver had to say about what is going on in the Middle East, I think it is best to ask ourselves who Hamas is. Hamas is a terrorist organization that is governing the Gaza Strip. Calling Hamas a terrorist organization is not my opinion or an attempt to call names. Hamas is officially designated as a terrorist organization by such entities as the United States, Australia, and the European Union. Hamas is oppressing its own citizens, according to the NGO Freedom House. Life under Hamas is so authoritarian that I feel sorry for the Gazan civilians that are used as pawns in Hamas' ploy. Hamas' original charter called for the annihilation of Israel. Even its 2017 revision of its charter does not recognize Israel and views Israel strictly in adversarial terms. How do you broker peace with an enemy who would solely be satisfied if you no longer existed?
Body Count Argument. One of the main arguments used by these comedians is that a higher body count means that one side is right. Rather than look at motive, intent, or morality, Noah tells us that we should "ask who is dead and who is alive." Oliver similarly argues that because there are ten times as many casualties on the Palestinian side as their are on the Israeli side, the higher body count makes the Palestinian side right.
For one, the appropriateness or moral justification is not based solely on how many civilians die. But let's ask ourselves why the disparity exists in the first place. Hamas uses its citizens as human shields by planting its military complexes amongst residential areas. Its goal is to maximize casualties so that the international community, including Noah and Oliver, can feel a sense of outrage and support a terrorist organization. Conversely, Israel uses the Iron Dome to protect its citizens, something that Oliver takes issue with. Israel's goal is to minimize civilian casualties. Why should Israel doing a better job at protecting its citizens render Israel the bad guy? If it were not for Iron Dome, there would be considerably more dead Israelis. If the goal is equality, how many Jews need to die to make Noah or Oliver happy?
Power Balance and Military Might. One of the main arguments that Noah particularly uses is that because Israel is more powerful, it has more responsibility. He analogizes the situation to a teenager fighting his younger, four-year-old brother. Let's forget that most sibling rivalries do not entail one sibling trying to kill the other, as we see with Hamas trying to exterminate Israel. Essentially, the argument that both Noah and Oliver make are that "if you are weaker, you are in the right." By that "logic," that would mean the Taliban was right, as were the white nationalist protesters at Charlottesville in 2017. Military might does not have bearing on whether one side is right or not. If anything, both sides have a moral obligation to behave properly in a time of war, something which Hamas does not care about at all. All Noah and Oliver do in framing the problem in such a way is to absolve Hamas from any responsibility.
Let's bring up another point about military might. While Noah acknowledges that "Israel could crush Gaza 'like that,'" what he glosses over is that Israel has not done so. Those who criticize Israel love to lob the argument of "Israel is being disproportionate." If Israel were to be proportionate, it would use all of its military might to indiscriminately target civilians, which is exactly what Hamas has done for years. But Israel does not do that. It does its best to target military outposts only, which is all the more challenging when Hamas intentionally hides among civilians. Using civilians as human shields is a tactic that even the United Nations has criticized on more than one occasion. Israel even gives a one-to-two-hour warning to Gazan citizens, a painstaking courtesy that no other army has extended in such a situation. Military experts actually have lauded Israel for doing such a good job at minimizing Palestinian civilian casualties (Merriam and Schmitt, 2015).
What Would You Do? It's a fair question to ask, but it was one that neither Noah nor Oliver bothered to ask. How would the United States react if it were attacked? We have an idea: it's called Pearl Harbor. Could any country say that they would not defend their borders if their civilians were indiscriminately barraged with rocket-fire from a belligerent entity? Hamas has set its genocidal intent on Israel before, and has done so unambiguously. Noah and Oliver imply that Israel should just "sit back and see what happens" because they allege Israel is the oppressor. There have been multiple times in history where Jews were expected to "sit back and take it," and I can tell you it did not turn out well. If someone says they want to wipe you out of existence, that is the sort of threat you take seriously.
Oliver criticizes Israel for attacking civilian areas, but conveniently forgets is that this conflict is a war. As we already brought up, Hamas hides amongst its citizens and uses them as human shields. As previously mentioned, Israel does its best to minimize civilian casualties. At the same time, civilian casualties during wartime are as lamentable as they are inevitable, an inevitability that is acknowledged by the Rome Statute [Article 8(2)b(4)].
Conclusion. If nothing else, this has reminded me why I don't take my opinions on foreign policy from celebrities. They presented themselves as objective, unbiased observers of the conflict when they were far from it. Although Noah and Oliver have First Amendment rights to say what they want, there is still a moral obligation to not propagate one-sided lies, especially given the media influence they have.
I did not cover the West Bank today mainly because the current military conflict is with the Gaza Strip. Even so, Oliver's accusation of there being apartheid of Palestinians (particularly in the West Bank since Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip back in 2005) is a baseless one (see my previous coverage of the allegations of Israel being an apartheid state here and here). My analysis today also does not cover treatment of Israeli Arabs within Israel's borders, something both Noah and Oliver briefly touch upon. Am I here to say that Israel is perfect? As I have said before and will say again, no nation-state is perfect. There are a lot of complexities within that part of the world, but other developed countries also have their issues with how they treat minorities. It does not render the United States, France, or Denmark apartheid states. I'm not here to say that Israel does not have serious internal issues (because it does, like any country), but it is disingenuous to disproportionately criticize and demonize Israel while ignoring or minimizing much more egregious human rights violations (e.g., the civil war in Syria or literal concentration camps in China).
The situation either inside Israel's borders or in the West Bank has more historical, legal, and moral nuance than the situation with Hamas, which may not be saying much given who Hamas is. With Gaza, it is clear-cut. Hamas is a known terrorist organization knowingly and belligerently targeting Israeli civilians. It has no qualms with oppressing its own citizens, disregarding norms about warfare, or using violence towards its desire to see a world without Israel. Israel unquestionably has the moral high ground when it comes to the conflict with Hamas. The fact that Oliver or Noah cannot see the qualitative difference between Israel and a terrorist organization such as Hamas makes me wonder why anyone listens to them in the first place.
Thank you for this essay. Dennis Prager destroyed John Oliver's arguments in a video on PragerU. As you mentioned (above) the Ottomans sold the land of Sheikh Jarrah to Jews in 1877. Like the article says above, were it not for the Iron Dome, Israel would have seen hundreds of casualties.
ReplyDeleteAnother response we can give Noah is that ten times more Germans were killed in WWII than British. Yet the British weren't the bad guys! More Germans were killed in Dresden and yet virtually no Americans were killed in the Homefront. If the Japanese dislike Hiroshima they should have never bombed Pearl Harbor.
These celebrities are not getting the attention they require during lockdowns and so they feel a need to voice their opinions on foreign affairs to stay relevant. No one cares. Their opinions suck. They don't know anything about politics.
Gaza started this war. When Hamas hides in schools and deliberately attacks non-military targets such as schools and hospitals that is a war crime. The IDF is the most moral army in the world and calls civilians on their cell-phones about incoming airstrikes to warn them to flee. Hamas does no such thing while they aim at Israeli civilians. Yes, when children die that is a tragedy but what is Israel supposed to do? It is not Israel's fault Hamas places their batteries in highly densely populated areas. When Hamas uses children as human shields, that is evil. If your upset that children die, blame Hamas. Israel does not targets children.
In short, the liberals who take the side of terrorists are evil.