David As Goliath

There is a very interesting story in the New York Times this morning about how the war in Gaza is being portrayed in Israel. We have a European friend who is married to an Israeli and currently living in Tel Aviv. I understand via Sofie that she is quite disenchanted with the Israeli media’s portrayal of the war (which, according to recent polls, is supported by up to 90 percent of the Israeli population).

It’s hard for me to disentangle my own views, as a Jew living in America, about the entire situation. Listening to the BBC World Service in the morning I am appalled by what is going on. Yet scanning the New York Times a little later I see numerous justifications for Israel’s actions. And after a couple of days reading the Wall Street Journal’s opinion page, though regretful about civilian suffering and death, I am firmly behind the Jewish state.

Here’s an excerpt from today’s New York Times about the Israeli point of view:

Israelis deeply believe, rightly or wrongly, that their military works harder than most to spare civilians, holding their fire in many more cases than using it.

Because Hamas booby-traps schools, apartment buildings and the zoo, and its fighters hide among civilians, it is Hamas that is viewed here as responsible for the civilian toll. Hamas is committed to Israel’s destruction and gets help and inspiration from Iran, so that what looks to the world like a disproportionate war of choice is seen by many here as an obligatory war for existence.

“This is a just war and we don’t feel guilty when civilians we don’t intend to hurt get hurt, because we feel Hamas uses these civilians as human shields,” said Elliot Jager, editorial page editor of The Jerusalem Post, who happened to answer his phone for an interview while in Ashkelon, an Israeli city about 10 miles from Gaza, standing in front of a house that had been hit two hours earlier by a Hamas rocket.

“We do feel bad about it, but we don’t feel guilty,” Mr. Jager added. “The most ethical moral imperative is for Israel to prevail in this conflict over an immoral Islamist philosophy. It is a zero sum conflict. That is what is not understood outside this country.”

More to the point, while I have heard on the BBC and read in international newspapers that Hamas’ rockets are fired at “Israeli settlements” the truth of the matter is that they are fired at towns and cities deep inside Israel. And every year their range increases. As A.B. Yehoshua, an Israeli author who sympathizes with the Palestinians, tells the Times:

“ ‘Imagine,’ I tell a French reporter, ‘that every two days a missile falls in the Champs-Élysées and only the glass windows of the shops break and five people suffer from shock,’ ” Mr. Yehoshua told a reporter from Yediot Aharonot, a Tel Aviv newspaper. “ ‘What would you say? Wouldn’t you be angry? Wouldn’t you send missiles at Belgium if it were responsible for missiles on your grand boulevard?’ ”

The obvious response to this question is that while a country has every right to retaliate, Israel’s actions in recent weeks have been grossly disproportionate (never mind the endless arguments over who started it). The view from most of the world is that once again mighty Israel is smashing down on the powerless Palestinians of Gaza.

But again, the perception here is at odds with the way Israelis, and many Jews, feel about Israel’s position in the Middle East. As Moshe Halbertal, a “left-leaning” professor at the Hebrew university, tells the Times:

“Rockets from Hamas could eventually reach all of Israel,” he said. “This is not a fantasy. It is a real problem. So there is a gap between actual images on the screen and the geopolitical situation.

“You have Al Jazeera standing at Shifa Hospital and the wounded are coming in,” he continued, referring to an Arab news outlet. “So you have this great Goliath crushing these poor people, and they are perceived as victims. But from the Israeli perspective, Hamas and Hezbollah are really the spearhead of a whole larger threat that is invisible. Israelis feel like the tiny David faced with an immense Muslim Goliath. The question is: who is the David here?”

Israelis United on Gaza War as Censure Rises Abroad (NYT)