Israeli victory far more important than international approval - opinion

Zionism is one of the more popular movements Judaism has ever experienced. There are over six million Jews living in Israel and while not every one of them would describe themselves as such, the overwhelming majority of Israeli Jews would call themselves Zionists. 

The Zionist movement wasn’t always as popular as it is today. In its inception and for its first 50-75 years, most Jews and non-Jews around the world objected to the Zionist movement. In the face of overwhelming rejection, Zionist leaders were convinced their goals were correct and they kept fighting to secure a Jewish State in the land of Israel. 

A recent PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll showed that six out of 10 Americans feel that Israel should receive more funding from the United States. Americans are more likely to sympathize with the Israelis (61%) than the Palestinians (30%). Republicans (79%) and independents (67%) express greater sympathy toward Israel than toward Palestinians. Democrats are divided, with 45% saying they have greater sympathy for Israelis, and the same proportion (45%) saying that their sympathies are more with the Palestinians.

While those poll results are encouraging, they don’t tell the entire story. Thirty-eight percent of Americans say Israel’s military response to Hamas has been too much. This is up from 26% in the week following the October attack. Seventeen percent say the response has been too little, a decline from 27% – and 38% think the attack has been appropriate. This is down from 44% previously. It seems that Americans feel Israel has a right to defend itself but disagree about how Israel is defending itself. 

Legitimate questions about how Israel is conducting the war against Palestinian terrorists, including Hamas, are being asked. US Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont wrote, “Israel is at war with Hamas, not innocent Palestinian men, women, and children. Israel cannot bomb an entire neighborhood to take out one Hamas target. We don’t know if this campaign has been effective in degrading Hamas’s military capabilities. But we do know that a reported 70 percent of the casualties are women and children, and that 104 UN aid workers and 53 journalists have been killed. That’s not acceptable.” 

Risk of driving Gaza’s population into the arms of Hamas

The American military leaders have a different concern. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin claimed that Israel’s counteroffensive was risking driving Gaza’s population into the arms of the enemy. Secretary Austin warned that Israel’s defeat of Gaza combined with thousands of civilian casualties risked turning a tactical victory into a strategic defeat.

Asked whether he is concerned that the rapidly climbing non-combatant death toll in Israel’s war against Hamas will lead Palestinian civilians to turn to terror, US Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Charles Q. Brown responded, “Yes, very much so. I think that’s something we must pay attention to. That’s why when we talk about time – the faster you can get to a point where you stop the hostilities, you have less strife for the civilian population that turns into someone who now wants to be the next member of Hamas.”

There are two wars being fought in Gaza and Israel today. The first is the war on the streets of Gaza. This is a battle Hamas and other Palestinians started with their attack on Simchat Torah – October 7. This is a brutal war with many far-reaching ramifications. The deaths of thousands of Israelis and Palestinians are a tragic result of this war. The second war being fought is in courtrooms of public opinion. The war of words is fought in mainstream media, social media, and in college classrooms. Israel is winning the first war, and it seems the Palestinians and their Iranian backers are winning the second war. 

These two wars aren’t as separate as they might seem. Israel is being judged on the world stage and will be severely sanctioned if it continues waging war without global support. How much should Israel concern itself with the second war, the one of public opinion? 

Early Zionists showed modern Israel, their descendants, that public perception should only be taken into account until it begins making your values impossible to uphold, and your objectives impossible to achieve. They learned this lesson from the Maccabees in the Hanukkah story. Instead of bending to the opinion of the majority of the world, and to Jews who had assimilated into Greeks, they stood up and fought off their enemy. 

Of the two wars Israel is currently fighting, the priority must be the war in the streets of Gaza against Hamas terrorists. The Palestinian terrorists pose a threat to Israel’s way of life. If they are allowed to continue and live on past this war, Israel will be opening itself up to further attacks like the one it saw on Simchat Torah. To quote Senator Sanders when he discussed Israeli battle practices, “That’s not acceptable.”

Israel has a responsibility to its own citizens and soldiers to use airstrikes that cause more damage to the streets and homes of the enemy than to send in ground forces to wipe out the enemy. While ground forces limit the number of civilian casualties on the enemy side, they increase the number of casualties among Israeli soldiers. While there are those who argue that Israel has a responsibility to put its own soldiers at risk to limit civilian casualties, those arguments aren’t widely accepted, especially not in Israel. 

While public perception is important, Israel isn’t going to sacrifice its soldiers’ lives, or future civilian lives to appease people marching against its existence in the streets of Europe or to gain more Facebook or Instagram likes or reposted Tweets. War isn’t a numbers game. War is fought to win safety for your people. 

The self-interest and safety of the Jewish people is where Israel’s Zionist founders set an example of where the Jewish state should focus.

The writer, a rabbi, is CEO of Israel Educational Supply.