What Are Israel’s Choices in Gaza? The Insanity of Double Standards and Uninformed Analysis.

War is uncertain by its nature. It is human. It is political. And it is absolutely uncertain. To say there is only one way for the war in Gaza to end is not connected to the complete history of war.

To claim that Israel has already achieved its goals and should end the war is not accurate and is often disconnected from reality. Likewise, saying that Israel cannot achieve its goals is also untrue and full of double standards.

From October 8 forward, Israel’s goals in Gaza, as stated clearly and consistently by its political leadership including the Prime Minister, the Minister of Defense, and members of the war cabinet, have not changed. These goals are:

· Return all hostages

· Dismantle Hamas’s military capabilities and end its political rule in Gaza

· Ensure that Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel

These three goals are both legal and just in the aftermath of the October 7 attack, when Hamas and other forces from Gaza invaded Israel. In response, Israel exercised its rights under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter and declared a self-defense war against Hamas. This legal framework affirms the inherent right of a nation to defend itself following an armed assault, and Israel’s military operations in Gaza are grounded in that right.

How Israel could, and still can, achieve these goals has been widely debated. Many of the commentators who analyze the strategy, the context, the legal questions, and the progress rely on double standards that are applied only to Israel. Their arguments are often filled with fallacies about war, strategy, tactics, geopolitics, and history. Worse, some of these arguments are completely disconnected from the political and military realities on the ground.

Here are just some of the double standards, though not all, because there are many more, reserved only for Israel when it comes to what a nation can or cannot do in war, and how wars are assessed:

· A neighboring country refusing to allow civilians to evacuate combat areas, thus forcing Israel to fight Hamas while it uses its entire population and infrastructure as a human shield. This is a double standard with no historical comparison.

· Measuring legal adherence to the laws of war by citing daily casualty counts from the enemy force, which is an internationally designated terrorist organization. Many also use other data points, often manipulated or misapplied, to make faulty comparisons to dissimilar conflicts. The purpose is to politically and socially delegitimize Israel’s goals. This is also known as effects-based condemnation. In this framework, no matter what Israel does to prevent civilian harm, or what Hamas does to increase it, only the effects, often reported through manipulated or false data, are judged. This is not how war is assessed for any other nation. This is not how the laws of war apply to any other military. It is a double standard.

· Demanding a postwar day-after plan before the enemy military and government are defeated. The idea that an attacking military must present a plan for replacement governance before the opposing force has been defeated through force or surrender is a double standard. Victory and defeat must come first. Replacement comes after, not before.

· Providing humanitarian aid to the enemy’s population during wartime, while battles are ongoing, while the enemy still controls territory, continues to launch attacks, and holds hostages. Israel has done this out of moral responsibility and to balance military objectives with humanitarian imperatives. However, the argument that this is a legal requirement is a double standard.

· Dictating which legal tools a nation may use to fight an enemy. For example, criticizing the use of large-diameter munitions in an urban area, such as a 2,000-pound bomb, even when the enemy is embedded in dense urban terrain and operating from fortified underground tunnels that require deep penetration. This is a lawful and necessary capability in many conflicts. Yet when Israel uses it, it is singled out. That is a double standard.

· Claiming that there can be no population displacement or border change during or after an armed conflict. The idea that a terrorist army directed by the government of Hamas can cross a sovereign border, invade a country, commit atrocities, take hundreds of hostages, and that in the war that follows there must be no voluntary or temporary displacement of civilians, or any change to border control or security arrangements, is a double standard. The laws of war prohibit forced displacement, not temporary or voluntary displacement during wartime.

· Not allowing civilians the option to escape the war. Preventing civilians who want to leave Gaza from doing so is an unprecedented double standard. It affects both Israel and the people of Gaza.

· Tying a nation’s legitimate war goals to an unrelated political issue. Despite the clear context of this war, the attacked country is pressured to make concessions to a separate political entity that has rejected international mediation. Forcing Israel to link the war in Gaza, which it did not start, to the broader political effort of creating a Palestinian state with a different governing group, the Palestinian Authority, is a double standard.

If even a few of these double standards were removed from the conversation, it becomes clear that there are multiple ways Israel could have, and still can, achieve its goals in Gaza:

· Move all civilians out of harm’s way. Temporarily displace civilians from combat areas. All civilians who want to leave should be allowed to leave.

· Destroy Hamas’s will to continue the war through force, using continued and coordinated military operations. Hamas can absolutely be defeated by military means.

· Hamas surrenders. Through a combination of military and political pressure, what remains of Hamas’s leadership, both political and military, agrees to end the war, return all hostages, disarm, and relinquish control over the Gaza Strip.

· Once Hamas is defeated, Israel and others begin post-conflict operations. These may include establishing secure zones or bubbles of Palestinian-led governance. This could involve localized authorities or the creation of a new centralized leadership. The postwar phase should also involve reconciliation, disarmament, demilitarization, and deradicalization programs.

John Spencer is executive director of the Urban Warfare Institute

He is the coauthor of Understanding Urban Warfare

Learn more at www.johnspenceronline.com

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The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.