First, two disclaimers. Other than to thank the Americans for their assistance to Israel so far, this article expresses virtually no explicit opinion of the writer; primarily citations – from the Talmud, and from an article that appeared in Newsweek on March 25 (updated March 26). The person quoted in the Newsweek article expressed his own views there; not necessarily the views of the U.S. Department of Defense, the Army, Army University, or the U.S. Military Academy.
I join all those who thank the American administration for all the support it has given to Israel so far. However, I am among the many observers on the world scene, and Jews and Israelis in particular, who are perplexed, to put it mildly, at the decision of the U.S. government to follow up its pledges of rock solid support by then withholding certain weapons that would have helped Israel to eliminate Hamas – after Congress specifically voted for additional billions of dollars for this general purpose. The reason presented by the American government was that it didn’t want the weapons to be used in a manner contrary to the internationally accepted rules of warfare and that would harm civilians inappropriately. This, of course, from a country that notoriously carpet-bombed cities in some of its own wars (WWII, Korea, Vietnam) and nuked two whole cities in World War II.
The Talmud cannot be expected to address these issues directly, and no attempt will be made at this time to twist or contort its language to do so. But the Talmud does send us a message that is very relevant, in discussing an intended gift (Bava Metzia 81a), which can be compared to the intended gift voted by Congress to help Israel in its fight for survival. In the case of the Talmud, “an accident happened” to the gift, either while en route to the intended recipient or after it was delivered, directly affecting its status, one way or another. In the case of the gift of weapons to Israel, the only thing that happened is that Israel made it clear that it intended to use some of the weapons in Rafah, where the last battalions of Hamas are believed to be holding out, and the American government decided to withhold the weapons on the grounds they should only be used in an internationally acceptable manner, and not to indiscriminately kill civilians. It is crucial to examine whether the facts support this decision.
Let us see what Israel has done to justify – or of course not to justify – the decision of its main ally to withhold pledged weapons from them; we can begin by seeing what Israel has done with the weapons and other assets already in its possession, and how the Israelis can – or cannot – be reasonably accused of violating international law as it prosecutes its war to eliminate the enemy that violated an existing ceasefire so savagely without any provocation, and pledging to do it repeatedly until all Jews would be deprived of an opportunity to live between the river and the sea, G-d forbid.
Enter John Spencer, chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute (MWI) at West Point, and co-director of MWI’s Urban Warfare Project, among other credits, whose superbly credentialed writings include a recent article published in Newsweek on March 25, updated March 26, entitled “Israel Has Created a New Standard for Urban Warfare.” He is also perhaps the leading authority on contemporary urban warfare, having written books and a “mini-manual” on the subject in 2022, which are widely read in light of the Ukraine war and now the Gaza war. One of these books has already been translated into 16 languages.
I respectfully recommend that everyone who cares about fairness in general, and Israel and world opinion, in particular, google Mr. Spencer and the article, should order reprints that are offered together with the article, and should circulate the article as widely as possible, especially among young people in general and on college campuses in particular, as well as where naive and misinformed and uninformed people of all age groups will congregate now that the academic year is ending. But for those who will not do so, or until they do, here are some highlights from this important article that could change the fate of Israel and the free world if only read by enough people.
Spencer, surely more of an expert on the subject than just about any politician, wrote:
“In their criticism, Israel’s opponents are erasing a remarkable, historic new standard Israel has set. In my long career studying and advising on urban warfare for the U.S. military, I’ve never known an army to take such measures to attend to the enemy’s civilian population, especially while simultaneously combating the enemy in the very same buildings. In fact, by my analysis, Israel has implemented more precautions to prevent civilian harm than any military in history – above and beyond what international law requires and more than the U.S. did in its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Spencer describes how the Israelis protected the civilian human shields in Gaza, by Spencer’s documenting how many million fliers Israel dropped over them, how many tens of thousands of direct phone calls made to protect civilians, how many million text messages were transmitted, how many million voice mails were sent, and how many other technologies were used, “not used anywhere else in the world,” to notify civilians to leave combat areas, with destinations and routes, where they should go, and what route they should take, dropping giant speakers by parachute that began broadcasting for civilians to leave combat areas. Without getting any hostages released, other than at the time of the first – and so far only – major exchange, the Israelis unilaterally conducted daily pauses of all operations to allow civilians left in combat areas to evacuate.
Israel unprecedentedly actually distributed military maps to civilians so they could conduct localized evacuations. The Israel Defense Forces even tracked the population in real time down to a few-block radius using drone and satellite imagery and cell phone presence and building damage assessments to avoid hitting civilians.
The UN, EU, and other sources estimate that civilians usually account for 80-90% of casualties, or a 1:9 ratio, in modern warfare. Spencer noted that in the Battle of Mosul, in Iraq, using the world’s most powerful airpower resources, more than twice as many civilians were killed than ISIS terrorists. Yet in Gaza, on May 8, even the pro-Arab U.N. that claims that close to 35,000 Gazans have died in the war, significantly reduced its estimates of women casualties to 4,959 and children to 7,797. Furthermore, the infamous figure of 34,000+ casualties that was inspiring the world-wide protests in support of Hamas was based on Hamas lumping together combatants and noncombatants, with combatants dressing up as noncombatants. Spencer concluded that in the current Gaza war, the ratio of combatants who died compared to noncombatants is actually close to a “historically low” one to one.
Query how many “journalists” in the world media pointed out that when the IDF entered the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza, for example, Israeli doctors risked their lives to accompany the Israeli forces to help with the medical supplies that they brought, along with food and water. How many American doctors did this for the Nazis in World War II, or for the Japanese? How many trucks with humanitarian aid did the allies send into Nazi Germany? Or did the Americans send into Japan?
Ironically, Spencer noted that the careful approach Israel has taken may have actually led to more destruction; since the IDF giving warnings and conducting evacuations help Hamas to survive, along with civilians, and therefore actually prolongs the war and, with it, its devastation.
Spencer concluded that all available evidence shows that Israel follows the laws of war, legal obligations, best practices in civilian harm mitigation and still finds a way to reduce civilian casualties to historically low levels.
Three wars are being fought right now; the war in Gaza, the war about the War in Gaza, and the war of antisemitism against civilian Jews unprotected by human shields.
Many if not most supporters of Israel send money and supplies where needed and circulate articles like this one among themselves. All to the good, but not good enough.
The most effective way to fight the propaganda wars and to help Israel in its efforts to speedily win the war in Gaza and the fight against antisemitism and misinformation is by educating the misinformed and uninformed hordes of people who believe that Israel is committing genocide and do not realize that the opposite is the intended reality.
We must take a page from the Israeli army and circulate leaflets with articles like those of John Spencer (readily available from Newsweek to those who Google the article cited above) and others throughout colleges and demonstration locations, stuffing mailboxes, placing them on doorsteps, and distributing them in street corners and subways. We must attach the articles to emails and text messages and blast them indiscriminately across cyberspace, unlike the targeted blasts taking place in Gaza.
Just as the leaflets and text messages enabled Gazan civilians – and the terrorists standing right behind them – to escape Israeli missiles, so can these article reprints enable the message of Israel’s life-saving self-sacrifices to reach truth seekers and enable Jews to escape from the percolating bubbles of blood libels against the Israeli army and by extension the Jewish people.
