The incessant censure of Israel’s actions in Gaza reveals not only a disgraceful discriminatory double standard, but worse—the use of a singular standard applied to no one but the Jewish state, which, in and of itself, is the epitome of antisemitism. 

"There is always a cost to defeat an evil. It never comes free, unfortunately. But the cost of failure to defeat a great evil is far higher." - Jamie Shea, NATO spokesman, BBC News, May 31, 1999

"There are no sidelines or spectator seats, The people on the ground are considered combatants."  - Maj. David Stockwell, spokesperson for the UN forces in Somalia. Washington Post, Sept. 10, 1993  

Israel has been widely castigated for its response to the Hamas onslaught on Oct 7, 2023.

But to put Israel’s response in perspective, at least two factors need to be considered.  The first is the magnitude of the calamity that befell Israel in relation to its size. The other is how other democracies responded to unprovoked attacks – even those far smaller in relative terms.

Calculating comparisons 

In conducting this comparison, I will exclude from the discussion military campaigns carried out by the world’s major democracies over half a century ago—such as the massive bombing of over a dozen German cities, obliterating up to 80% of some of them, the US nuclear annihilation of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the intense firebombing of Tokyo, in which hundreds of thousands of civilians died, and the even more ferocious bombing of North Korean cities, which by some reports, destroyed, up to 20% the entire population. 

Instead, I will confine the discussion to the “collateral” consequences the military action by major democracies from the 1990s onwards—to preempt any claims that the ethical norms of the World War-era are no longer relevant.   

For example, take the US response to the attacks on in New York, in Washington and in Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001, in which just under 3,000 Americans died, while just over two decades later, some 1,200 Israelis (including foreign farm workers and foreign visitors) perished in Hamas’s assault on the country’s towns, villages, farms, and military bases in the areas bordering the Gaza Strip.

Accordingly, as the US population is almost 35 times that of Israel, proportionately, the fatalities Israel suffered would be between 40,000-50,000. One can only speculate as to how America would have responded to such a loss, but we can extrapolate as to the scope and size of such a potential reaction on the basis of its response to the 9/11 attacks. 

Calculating comparisons (cont.)

In the wake of these attacks, the US launched its “War on Terror”, both in Iraq and Afghanistan, with numerous civilian targets hit in surrounding countries (such as Pakistan)  as well. This resulted in massive “collateral damage”, by some estimates, totaling 350,000-400,000 deaths.  That implies the death of 120-130 enemy civilians for every US 9/11 fatality.  It should be underscored that these figures do not include “indirect” civilian deaths caused by effects, other than direct military actions related to the war, such as disease or deprivation, which would have greatly increased the war-related fatalities.       

By comparison, although the 10/7 assault was proportionally far graver, the Israeli response was significantly more restrained. Although, because of partisan bias, there is little consensus regarding the true statistics, if we adopt a widely cited estimate of 50,000 Gazans killed by the IDF, of which 17,000 were active combatants, then the ratio of Gazan civilian deaths per each Israeli 10/7 fatality is just under 24. Accordingly, although in relative terms, the 10/7 deaths were over 16 times those of 9/11, the Israeli response was almost 24 times more moderate—which, in light of the vitriol currently being hurled at Israel, is a very sobering statistic.

It should be reiterated that the commonly cited estimates of Gazan casualties are usually based on information supplied by Hamas to the UN and should be treated with appropriate caution. Likewise, it should be underscored that Gazan civilian fatalities are not the result of deliberate IDF targeting non-combatants, but in large measure, due to Hamas’s deliberate policy of forcing civilians to remain in the combat zone as “human shields”, and to Egypt’s policy of preventing Gazans fleeing the fighting—as is the case in every other war zone, from Syria, through Africa to Ukraine.

Indeed, some might find it galling that countries, which today are among Israel’s most vehement critics, such as the UK, Canada, France, and Australia, had no qualms about joining the US-led war despite the massive loss of civilian life and despite the fact that not a single citizen of their countries was targeted in the 9/11 attacks. Indeed, some of them—such as Britain—were themselves reportedly responsible for summary executions of numerous local civilians.  

500 thousand dead babies “worth the price”?

This, of course, is not the only example of brutal responses by democratic countries to attacks, even when they did not necessarily impact their own homeland or their own citizens directly. 

Thus, after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, the US, under George H.W. Bush, launched the First Gulf War (1990-1991) against Iraq to expel Iraqi forces from the oil-rich kingdom. The fighting was followed by the imposition of severe US-led UN sanctions on the Iraqi regime. The sanctions were maintained long after the war, until 2003, well into the Clinton and George W. Bush presidencies, for a number of reasons, including ensuring disarmament and the enforcement of UN resolutions. The sanctions devastated the Iraqi society—including greatly increased child mortality rates, malnutrition, and the spread of disease due to a lack of medical supplies and clean water.

US administrations showed little regret at the vast human suffering their policies inflicted on Iraqi civilians. This was starkly illustrated in a May 1996 interview on 60 Minutes by Lesley Stahl with Madeleine Albright, the then-US Ambassador to the UN and later Secretary of State under Bill Clinton, on the grave impact of US-led sanctions against Iraq on its civilian population. 

Stahl asked: "We have heard that half a million [Iraqi] children have died. I mean, that is more children than died in Hiroshima … you know, is the price worth it?"

Albright's chilling response was: "I think that is a very hard choice, but the price, we think, the price is worth it."

Clearly, this approach is far more belligerent and callous than anything that is occurring in Gaza due to IDF measures imposed on the civilian population there.

NATO bombs civilians

Yet another example of civilian casualties inflicted by democratic countries—including Israel’s most caustic critics—is the NATO bombing of Serbia in the late 1990s.

Although exact figures are difficult to come by, reports range up to 2,000 (with some Serbian source citing numbers as high as 5,000) - including women, children, and the elderly, killed in   documented attacks by an Alliance that included not only the air forces of the US and UK but also Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Holland, Italy, Turkey, and Spain.

The NATO air campaign hit residential neighborhoods, old-age sanatoriums, hospitals, open-air markets, columns of fleeing refugees, civilian buses and trains on bridges, and even a foreign (Chinese) embassy. Scores of deaths were reportedly caused by the use of cluster bombs dropped on, or adjacent to, known civilian areas (by the Dutch air force).

Significantly, NATO bombing operations were typically conducted from high altitude, which greatly reduced the danger to NATO military personnel in the air, but dramatically increased it for the Serbian civilians on the ground. 

Moreover, the military losses inflicted by NATO on the Serbian forces during almost 80 days of aerial bombardment, unchallenged by any opposing air power, were unimpressive, with military casualties reportedly meager—around several hundred, certainly not significantly above 1,000.

“There is always a cost to defeat an evil”

Of course, when comparing this NATO response to that of Israel in Gaza, it should be borne in mind that the civilian populations of the countries participating in Operation Allied Force were never attacked in any way—or even remotely threatened—by Serbian forces.

When questioned about the grave consequences of the military action against the Serbian regime, Jamie Shea, NATO spokesman, claimed that "we try to do our utmost to ensure that if there are civilians around we do not attack," adding adamantly that "NATO does not target civilians...let's be perfectly clear about that." He insisted that NATO planes had bombed only "legitimate designated military targets" and if more civilians had died, it was because NATO had been forced into military action. Although he conceded that some civilians had died in the bombing, Shea argued: "There is always a cost to defeat an evil. It never comes free, unfortunately. But the cost of failure to defeat a great evil is far higher".

But this is precisely what Israel has been telling the world since October 7.

These are several illustrations from the recent decades (from the 1990s) that clearly show that the leading Western democracies have little reservations about inflicting significant civilian fatalities when engaged in military combat. Indeed, proportionately, they have shown themselves willing to wreak far greater death even when, at times, their own homelands and/or citizens were not subject to any aggression from the opposing party. 

The epitome of anti-Semitism

Accordingly, the incessant and escalating censure of Israel’s actions in Gaza—coupled with explicit threats of possible sanctions—betray not only the application of a disgracefully discriminatory double standard, but of the application of an unrealistically stringent singular standard valid for no one else but the Jewish state.

When applied to actions of manifest self-defense, indeed, self-preservation, is in itself, the epitome of anti-Semitism.