Just wars can still be bad wars: Marc Champion on Israel-Gaza

In a deeply polarized discourse on Gaza, perspectives on Israel’s security and the impact of ongoing conflict reflect diverse views. Addressing the complexities, Marc Champion explores the consequences of Netanyahu’s strategy, contrasting public support with strategic implications. Amidst global scrutiny, the debate navigates ethical dilemmas, historical comparisons, and the imperative of long-term stability in a volatile region.

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By Marc Champion

I’ve written a lot about the war in Gaza since October, taking the starting point that both Israelis and Palestinians have a right to live in security, that Hamas’ goals and actions make it the enemy of both, that no hurt can justify collective punishment, and that counterproductive wars make for very bad policy.

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The former Texas Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower once said there’s nothing in the middle of the road but a yellow strip and dead armadillos. Consider me roadkill.

The visceral, polarizing nature of this 70-year-old dispute is reflected in the correspondence I get in response to columns. Some are, let’s just say brief, and best ignored. But in an age of trolling I’m always struck by the sincere and thoughtful nature of most. That was especially true of responses to a piece published this week.

The column argued that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s strategy was finally clear and involved Gaza’s long-term occupation, while preparing for the war’s expansion to Lebanon in a bid to restore Israeli security. I also said this was much more likely to do the opposite. In fact, the decisions seemed more aimed at keeping Netanyahu’s government coalition and job intact than assuring Israel’s long-term interests.

So here’s a summary of responses I received and think are worth highlighting, because they echo many others over the last eight months and I think get to the heart of why so many who identify with Israel find the international backlash against its operation in Gaza so bewildering, if not antisemitic. The comments I get each deserve a response, but I can’t physically answer them all, so I’d like to do so here.

Among the most common is that Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran started this war and are committed to Israel’s destruction. Having seen what that means on Oct. 7, how on earth can Israelis ever feel safe until all of three have been either destroyed or incapacitated?

I have a lot of time for this position, but consider the enormity of what’s being asked. Israel spent the last eight months trying to destroy Hamas, with its few tens of thousands of troops and tenuous supply lines. The Israel Defense Forces have yet to succeed, despite a scorched earth operation that lost Israel much of the sympathy it enjoyed after Oct. 7.

Hezbollah, meanwhile, has more than 100,000 troops and 150,000 rockets and missiles, many of which can reach Tel Aviv and Haifa, as well as direct supply lines to Tehran. Iran itself is a nation of 84 million with a substantial missile arsenal and military, as well as a stable of militias it can deploy from Iraq and Syria. The chances of an Israeli invasion of Lebanon getting evacuees back in their homes for the September school year are very slim. The risk of escalation that causes much larger disruption is high.

Another common response I get is that Israel should not be expected to negotiate a cease-fire with Hamas that leaves the organization intact and its leaders alive and free. After all, the US and other allies offered no such courtesy to Germany’s Nazis at the end of World War II.

I have no respect whatsoever for Hamas. It is nobody’s liberator and ideally they would surrender and face captivity. Yet they have hostages and have not surrendered. They are also a terrorist movement, driven by ideology and it’s hard to kill an idea by military force alone. Nobody negotiates with enemies because they want to, only because it is the best available course.

I’m also often told to stop picking on Netanyahu, when opinion polls say most Israelis support the war. They agree with him that Hamas must be destroyed and that Hezbollah must be driven deep enough into Lebanon that tens of thousands of Israeli citizens forced to evacuate their homes along the border can return in safety. Isn’t that democracy?

Not really. Democracy isn’t about following what polls say at any given moment. It’s about periodically choosing the leader voters think will best look after their interests. I doubt either Hamas or Netanyahu would be chosen for that job today, and for very good reason.

Finally, many say that if Palestinian civilians get hurt in the process, it’s the fault of Hamas, which uses them as human shields, not Israel. Did anyone complain about collateral damage when the allies bombed Dresden and other cities in 1945, killing hundreds of thousands of German civilians?

Hamas does bear primary responsibility for the Palestinian suffering that has followed Oct. 7. But first, I don’t think finding past examples of atrocities is ever a good argument for new ones — Dresden’s carpet bombing isn’t today seen as the allies finest hour. Beyond that, Israel in 2024 is and should be held to a higher standard than Hamas, or any fighting force in the 1940s.

Hamas isn’t an existential threat to Israel. It succeeded on Oct. 7, because the country’s leaders and security services were looking the other way. That won’t happen again. As for Hezbollah and Iran, these are very real — and potentially existential — problems Israel will have to face. But it should do so at a time of its choosing and with allies — not rolling on from Gaza, alone, at a time when Hezbollah can sell its actions as a defense of Palestinians.

It is problematic as a non-national and non-Jew to write about how Israelis should protect themselves and their children. But the same is true seen from the Palestinian side, where the sense of facing an existential threat is ever more acute. It also has been the case for all wars I’ve covered or written about, from the former Yugoslavia through to Iraq and Ukraine. But my conclusion over the years has been that it’s even harder to write dispassionately about conflicts in which your own country, friends and families are at stake. It can be harder still to see your own long-term interests clearly, when you feel under attack.

Most Serbs backed their country’s decision to go to war in the 1990s, failing to understand that this inevitably would draw in outside powers and lead to their defeat. Most Americans thought invading Iraq was right and necessary to prevent another Sept. 11, only to realize much later it had been a strategic disaster, justified by falsehoods.

One recent note, from a reader who has had a daughter and son serve in Gaza, struck home though. “I prefer not to lie to my children — we owe them our survival,” the author said. “I told them:

We — the older generation — are responsible for what happened on October the 7th.
We enjoyed being called the ‘startup nation’.
We loved being the first to receive the corona virus vaccine.
We were all too happy to “buy” peace while a barbarous regime was preparing for war. We — the ‘adults’ — ALL closed our eyes and looked the other way…

So, I do not blame October 7 on Netanyahu. I blame it on my generation. Netanyahu is the ‘product’ of our making.”

That’s my generation, too.

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