Having more time to think about this only increases how appalling the New York Times opinion piece, “This Is the Story of How the Democrats View It on Gaza,” by Ben Rhodes truly is for Israel, for the United States, and for anyone who cares about the truth. A feature-length essay of more than two thousand words about Gaza should meet the most basic journalistic standards. This one does not. It repeats misinformation, inserts falsehoods, and advances a moral narrative that bears no resemblance to the laws of war or the realities of modern conflict. Worse than the errors are the implications. If these arguments are taken seriously inside Washington, they threaten not only Israel’s security but America’s.
The author claims that supporting Israel’s right to defend itself and to conduct military operations to retrieve unlawfully taken hostages makes Democrats hypocrites when defending a rules-based order, racial equality, and democracy. This is false. An explicit condition of the rules-based order since 1945 is that sovereign nations may defend themselves after an armed attack. It is the most basic tenet of the U.N. Charter. Israel did not choose this war. It was launched against Israel on October 7 when Hamas executed a large-scale cross border assault that killed more than 1,200 people and kidnapped more than 250. Any democratic state, including the United States, would have responded with immediate and overwhelming military force to achieve their goals as quickly as possible. That is the standard the author refuses to apply to Israel.
The piece repeats claims that no source should publish. It asserts that top Israeli leaders described Palestinians in Gaza as human animals living in an evil city and that Israel cut off access to food and water while bombarding Hamas fighters and civilians alike. The truth is clear and well documented. The statements in question, made by Israel’s Defense Minister two days after October 7, referred to Hamas, not to Palestinians. They described a siege of Hamas positions in Gaza City before a major urban operation. Critics may inaccurately argue that Israel permits too high a civilian death toll as collateral damage while targeting Hamas, but only the uninformed or the deeply biased believe Israel intentionally targets civilians. These accusations are false, and to pretend the facts are ambiguous is not analysis. It is distortion.
The argument that President Biden gave Israel unconditional support is also false. The administration held up key arms shipments, including large diameter munitions
and other vital equipment. It pressured Israel for months not to enter Rafah even though Hamas leaders and Israeli hostages were there. No one in the region believes Israel has enjoyed unconditional American backing, especially not Israeli soldiers who have been forced to adapt operations in real time because of delayed or restricted U.S. support.
The article relies on an emotionally charged but morally incoherent equivalency. It argues that if one believes a Palestinian child has equal dignity to an Israeli or American child, one cannot support the Israeli government while hiding behind platitudes about peace. This argument is appalling. It ignores the most fundamental distinction in the laws of war. There is a clear difference between a baby kidnapped by Hamas and murdered with bare hands and the tragic death of a child in urban combat who is being used as a human shield by Hamas. The laws of war do not judge outcomes alone. They judge intent, precautions, proportionality, distinction, and military necessity. Israel has taken more measures to reduce civilian harm than any military in history, including layered warnings, evacuation corridors, daily pauses, roof knocking, safe zones, and an unprecedented combination of precision fires and restrictions on ground maneuver that often put its own soldiers at greater risk to protect civilians. I have studied and documented urban warfare for decades. No other military has attempted to do what the IDF has done in Gaza.
The author also invokes the biggest lie of this war, the claim that Israel is committing genocide. There is no genocide in Gaza. Israel has no intent to destroy in whole or in part the civilian population of Gaza. It sought to destroy Hamas as a military and political organization while doing more to feed, house, vaccinate, provide medical care, and prevent harm to the civilian population than any nation in history. Wanting to destroy your enemy is not genocide. It is war. War is not illegal, and in some cases it is necessary. Although the author cites the claims of misguided human rights groups, academics, and a biased United Nations commissioned study, there are many more academics, military professionals, and legal experts who have clearly stated that Israel’s actions in Gaza do not meet any standard for genocide.
Every nation, including the United States, has faced the moral dilemma of civilian deaths in a legitimate war of self-defense. Nations must prioritize their own citizens and their own survival. That is not hypocrisy. It is a foundation of the laws of armed conflict. I wonder what the author would say about the urban operations of World War II or the U.S. campaigns in Seoul, Hue, Fallujah, Mosul, and Raqqa.
The moral argument in the article collapses the moment it is applied to any conflict other than Gaza. That reveals its purpose. It is designed to delegitimize Israel’s right to wage a lawful war and to delegitimize any American support for that war, not to explain the rules-based order. It also rewards the strategy of using civilians, protected sites, and dense urban terrain as shields.
One of the most alarming parts of the piece is not its factual errors but its worldview. As an American citizen, it is frightening to read such naive beliefs from someone who once served as a deputy national security adviser to the President. The author suggests that supporting Israel’s war of self-defense violates democratic values. If that view guided U.S. decision making during a crisis, we would invite disaster. In any major threat to the United States, a future President will face the decision to use force in defense of ourselves or our allies such as countries in NATO. The logic promoted in this piece implies that America should respond to mass casualty attacks with inaction or with a form of moral self-negation that no state can survive.
The truth is the opposite. American security, democratic legitimacy, and the rules-based order depend on the willingness and capability of free nations to defend themselves. Supporting Israel as it fights a terrorist army that hides behind civilians, embeds in schools and hospitals, and openly seeks genocide is not hypocrisy. It is consistent with every principle the United States has upheld in its own wars. The NYT piece misunderstands the facts, misrepresents the law, and advances a moral argument that collapses under the weight of reality.
Israel is fighting a war it did not start, under legal constraints no enemy of ours has ever respected, while trying to rescue hostages brutally taken from their homes. That is the reality. Everything else in the article is rhetoric designed to obscure what both Israel and America know to be true. Supporting an ally in a lawful war of self-defense is not a betrayal of our values. It is an expression of them.
.John Spencer is the Executive Director of the Urban Warfare Institute
He is the coauthor of Understanding Urban Warfare
Learn more at www.johnspenceronline.com
X: @SpencerGuard
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.
" All you need to know about Ben Rhodes: his nickname in the Obama White House was “Hamas” -per presidential historian @TeviTroy. "
Thanks for your moral, intellectual outrage and stating the truth. Sublime work. From Oct 2023 you have clarified, you are my hero and buddy in this media war.