For Israel, double standards are deadly

For Israel, double standards are deadly

BY ALAN STEIN

From the beginning of the war Hamas launched with its barbaric Oct. 7 massacre, Israel has been subject to strong pressure and double standards.

According to the United Nations, the expected ratio of non-combatant to combatant casualties in modern warfare is 9 to 1. In Gaza, the ratio has been no more than 1.3 to 1 and has likely been less than 1 to 1 given that Hamas lately admitted it did not have documentation for half the deaths of women and children it had claimed!

According to John Spencer, America's most respected expert on urban warfare and former chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point, the IDF has done more than any other army in history, including our American army, to prevent civilian casualties. Despite that, even President Biden has kept insisting too many civilians in Gaza have been killed and Israel must do more.

It's virtually unheard of for a country at war to provide food and other aid to its enemy. Yet almost immediately after Israel was attacked on Oct. 7, President Biden insisted such aid be sent to Gaza, while saying the aid would stop if he found Hamas was stealing any of it. Even though it was quickly determined that Hamas was stealing 60% of the aid, President Biden kept pressing for Israel to help send increasing amounts of aid to Gaza and effectively strengthen Hamas.

By early February, Israel was preparing for the most critical operation of the war, rooting Hamas out of Gaza and cutting off its supply lines from Egypt. It wound up putting that operation off for nearly four months because of heavy pressure from President Biden.

President Biden initially pressured Israel to respect the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and put off any operation there until after the Ramadan holiday, a period during which attacks on Israel traditionally increase dramatically. The most prominent of those attacks was in 1973, on Yom Kippur, Judaism's holiest day.

The pressure continued after Ramadan, with Administration officials arguing Israel had no credible plan for moving civilians out of Rafah and it would take four months to move civilians out of danger if it was even possible. President Biden even cut off the resupply of some arms.

Finally, in early May, Israeli officials could delay no longer. They warned civilians to move from Rafah to safe areas. Rather than four months, it took a week for Israel to help 800,000 civilians get out of harm's way.

The Israeli army then carefully moved into Rafah, neutralizing numerous terrorists with very few civilian casualties. It quickly found and began destroying numerous rockets, tunnels, and other terror infrastructure, much of it in and below UNRWA facilities, including schools and hospitals.

At least 20 tunnels were discovered underneath the border with Egypt, used to smuggle weapons to Hamas. This explained why Egypt was so adamantly opposed to Israel entering Rafah and taking control of the critical Philadelphi corridor.

Delaying the operation in Rafah nearly four months had a number of negative consequences.

It, minimally, lengthened the war in Gaza by nearly four months, causing four extra months of misery for the people in Gaza.

It meant four months with no pressure on Hamas to release hostages, four extra months of torture for those hostages, four months during which Hamas murdered an unknown number of hostages.

It meant four months during which pressure was put on Israel to stop putting pressure on Hamas, enabling Hamas terrorists to resume operating in areas where Israel had established control, leading to more battles and more deaths of Israeli troops, of Hamas terrorists and of civilians in Gaza.

It meant four months during which Hamas was able to organize itself in Rafah, strengthen itself with additional weapons smuggled in from Egypt through those tunnels underneath the Philadelphi corridor and booby trap buildings and tunnels in Rafah.

While I have been composing this, eight soldiers were killed by an explosive likely smuggled in during those four months.

It meant four more months during which the Houthis effectively kept the Red Sea shipping lanes closed, continually attacking merchant ships and the naval forces sent to protect them with no effective response.

It meant four more months during which Iranian terror proxies escalated their attacks on Israel with rockets, along with Iran itself conducting the largest single day missile and drone attack by one country on another in history. After Israel respected Ramadan by putting off its necessary operation in Rafah, Hezbollah celebrated the Jewish holiday of Shavuot by firing more than 250 rockets at Israel.

It meant four more months during which the world has ignored the way Iran has been installing more centrifuges and greatly increasing its stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons grade levels.

In a gross understatement, the double standard applied to Israel has been devastating for the people in Gaza, deadly for Israelis, a horrendous crime against the hostages being held in Gaza and made the world a far more dangerous place.

The lost lives can never be regained, but our government needs to stop doubling down on its mistakes.

Alan Stein, Ph.D., is a former longtime resident of Waterbury. He and his wife Marsha currently split their time between Netanya in Israel and Natick, Mass. He is president emeritus of PRIMER-Connecticut (Promoting Responsibility in Middle East Reporting) and the founder of PRIMER-Massachusetts and PRIMER-Israel.

Published in the Waterbury Sunday Republican on June 23, 2024.