In response to Frank Sherman’s letter last week, in which he defended his wife Valerie Myntti from my earlier criticism, it is nice to know that husband and wife are in synch. Once again, the falsehood of “genocide” is invoked, and he clearly seems to feel Israel’s actions in Gaza are immoral.
I would say those actions are the result of dealing with a terrible moral dilemma: How to protect Israeli citizens from genocidal forces in the region while also honoring the Jewish tradition of protecting life wherever possible. It is like the moral dilemma of being confronted with a terrorist holding a child in front of him and aiming a gun at your family. It is all too easy to make moral judgements from a safe distance. The Jews of Israel who are in the crosshairs need to decide what to do. As always, Jews, including Jewish residents of Israel, have differing opinions of what is the right course. Some support and some oppose the course chosen by their government, just like here in the U.S. Some focus on getting all the hostages back and are ready to give up the war. Others feel Israel will never be safe if Hamas survives.
Mr. Sherman echoes the claim that the IDF is committing genocide in Gaza, because the IDF is forced to follow the direction of the right-wing Netanyahu government. But the tangible evidence is clear: If genocide were the intent, hundreds of thousands, or more than a million, Palestinians would be dead after nearly two years of war, given Israel’s military capabilities and the urban concentration of the population in Gaza. Actual genocides in the past 100 years have generally wiped out more than 50 percent of the target population. Widely reported Hamas death counts of 60,000 include those who died of natural causes and other causes unrelated to IDF action. Using that figure, Palestinian deaths in Gaza are about three percent (at least 1/3rd of whom are combatants). This is evidence Mr. Sherman, and so many others, choose to ignore when they shout, “Genocide!” For more details, check this out: https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-gaza-genocide-canard/.
All civilian deaths in war are tragic, but these are happening in a war Hamas started and refuses to end, and which was designed by Hamas to maximize civilian casualties. And the death toll of civilians relative to combatants is the lowest ever achieved by any army, according to Maj. John Spencer, who teaches at West Point and is the world’s leading expert on urban warfare.
Jewish Voices for Peace, of which Mr. Sherman’s wife is a member, has only 32,000 active members, doesn’t believe the Jewish state should exist, and last Saturday marched in NYC with Arab, Palestinian, and other groups that chanted, “Global Intifada,” i.e. “Destroy Israel, violently attack Jews worldwide.”
Charles Marsden
Ely