In Steven Spielberg’s film Munich, the mysterious “Papa” tells Avner, the reluctant Mossad assassin: “The world has been rough with you, with your tribe. It’s right to respond roughly to such treatment.”
Israel’s response to the October 2023 Hamas-led massacres and kidnappings of over one thousand civilians, as well as to missile and drone attacks from Iran and its regional militias, has been vigorous, and it has been rough.
Pursuing victory—ending the threats to Israeli towns and cities from Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and the regime in Tehran—requires not just the spycraft which Israel excels at but the application of determined, and at times overwhelming, military force.
In Gaza, Israel has been fighting a foe that conducts almost all military operations from civilian sites, which never allowed Palestinian families to shelter in its vast tunnel network, and for which dead Palestinian children are “necessary sacrifices” (to quote the late Hamas commander Yahya Sinwar). Israel’s army has been operating in some of the most difficult urban warfare conditions in history.
Fighting well-trained and heavily-armed militants amid apartment buildings necessitates the widespread use of artillery and airstrikes that have inevitably killed civilians and caused so much damage to structures across Gaza—not dissimilar to US and allied forces’ 2014–2016 aerial bombardments of Mosul, Raqqa, and other Iraqi and Syrian cities that were deemed militarily necessary during the campaign to defeat the Islamic State (ISIS).
Tragically, thousands of Palestinian civilians have died during the fighting over the past two years. As someone who has worked on Middle East issues for two decades, including on the bloody conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Libya, witnessing yet more lives snuffed out in a region screaming for a brighter future is excruciating.
But here is a simple truth: Hamas’s leaders could have released the hostages and ordered their men to lay down their arms at any point in the past 24 months. They knew Israel would respond forcefully to the massacres, rapes, and abductions of October 2023—as any government would and should. They knew Palestinian women and children would be collateral damage as they fired missiles and launched attacks from apartment buildings, inviting airstrikes. As the death toll rose, and Israel’s government made clear its determination to see the hostages released and Hamas vanquished, its leaders could have ended the war at any time.
However, Hamas’s leaders’ calculus was undoubtedly informed by the international discourse surrounding the Gaza conflict, perhaps above all by the warped media coverage and political rhetoric in the United States and Europe, which all too often placed responsibility for, and the onus on ending, the conflict on Israel, and not Hamas.
Preeminent news outlets routinely accept Hamas’s allegations and lies at face value and downplay or overlook the group’s actions, whether its use of human shields that have caused thousands of civilian deaths or its vicious tyranny and misogyny. Entrenched animus towards Israel crackles between the lines in so much reporting on the conflict.
The Biden administration compounded the problem by trying to walk a fine rhetorical line, which satisfied no one and left an impression of moral equivalency between Hamas’s actions and Israel’s conduct of the war.
It is hardly surprising that Hamas was disinclined to contemplate ending the war when Washington’s foremost foreign policy preoccupation for much of 2024 was criticizing or threatening Israel.
One-sided media coverage and feckless political gesturing have fanned the flames of the anti-Israel protest movement that erupted within days of Hamas’s October 2023 attacks, including the adoption of the illogical, ahistorical, and absurd charge of “genocide” and the widespread sanctioning of slogans that call for violence against “Zionists” and other supporters of Israel.
In many respects, it is heartening to see young people engage in activism in this age of screen-induced torpor. But when protestors disregard or downplay Hamas’s role in the suffering in Gaza, or appear utterly unmoved by the ongoing massacres and starvation in Sudan or by the recent slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Arab Muslims in the civil wars in Syria and Yemen, one must ask what is unique about this conflict—or about Israel—that breeds such singular animosity.
To be clear: none of this is to say that people should not be deeply moved or angered by the death and destruction in Gaza. Thousands of innocents have died, and countless more mourn their loss. The devastation in parts of Gaza is unfathomable.
Nor is it to say that Israeli political and military leaders should not be held accountable for failures and violations. Indeed, it is likely there will be more scrutiny of, and accountability for, some Israeli officials’ actions than we have been accustomed to in the United States in recent decades, whether through the ballot box or commissions of inquiry. Israel’s diverse civil society is vibrant, its multi-party democracy sturdy, and many Israelis have misgivings about the ferocity of Israel’s war on Hamas and the government’s failure to chart a way forward for peaceful coexistence with the Palestinians.
The Trump administration’s determined diplomacy in recent months has brought the Israeli hostages home, largely put an end to the hostilities, and given Israel and the Arab world a path forward for forging a more stable and prosperous Middle East. Israel’s bold action against Iran and Hezbollah in the past 18 months—defanging Tehran’s “Shia Crescent” that threatened Israel and the Gulf states and imposed misery on millions of Arabs has significantly improved prospects for a less turbulent Middle East. President Trump’s pragmatism and domineering style play well with many regional leaders, and his foreign policy team’s inventive diplomacy and strong relationships will be indispensable in the coming months.
As the protagonist Avner in Spielberg’s Munich was told, “the world has been rough” with Israel over the past two years, as it has with the Jewish people for two millennia. Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza and US support deserve scrutiny. However, the coverage and political gesturing in the West have been, at best, disproportionate and prejudiced, and, at worst, dishonest, malicious, and likely to extend the war and the suffering.
About the Author: Ludovic Hood
Ludovic Hood is a veteran foreign policy advisor specializing in Middle East policy. He has lived and worked in the region as a US diplomat. The views expressed are the author’s own.
Image: Shutterstock.com.
