How can anyone talk about genocide without first defining it? Genocide is the willful aim to destroy a complete nation, tribe or social unit that represents a particular way of life other than the party holding this aim. So the Israelis are genocidal because their aim is to destroy Hamas and the Jihard too, but this does not apply to the attitude of the IDF to the Gazians, which unfortunately are getting in the way and are sometimes used as human shields instead of having freedom to seek safety.
When compared to recently past battle-grounds where the proportion of civilians to enemy killed has been 4 or more to one, the IDF has made very serious efforts to inform the Gazians where it is planning to strike, before it does so. The loss of civilians is inevitable but in this particular war the numbers of civilians killed is about the same as the murderous Hamas terrorists. This unfortunately is the lowest proportion that we can manage so far. War is hell, but Hamas can easily stop it, if they were not so politically bloody minded!
I'd be careful about making comparisons, and in any event as you note genocide is about the willful aim to destroy another group, so ratios are irrelevant.
My point is that the loss of civilians is not inevitable. That is a choice one makes when one opts to pursue their goal using extreme violence aka war.
And I disagree that Hamas can easily stop it, which would require total surrender, just as Israel can't easily stop its offensive because both sides are members of a complex system caught in a positive feedback loop.
Steve, it disappoints me that in all your writings you omit the fact that Hamas continues to hold over 50 Israeli hostages (for nearing 2 years!). That, in light of the points you make in the numbers of those killed in Gaza, that the bulk of those killed are Hamas and that their leadership refuses to accept that their reign of terror and commitment to indiscriminately killing Israeli’s/destroying Israel must end. You also provide zero ways history can guide both sides at this points ways to peacefully exit and coexist. I find your writings possibly cathartic to you, but in general unhelpful to both sides.
Duly noted about the hostages. Perhaps you missed them but I had a few months ago an entire post dedicated solely to the hostage issue. I don't think it's appropriate to mention them in the context of this particular post. I'm not sure how you define "bulk" but it should be pretty apparent that by now the bulk of being killed are civilians, considering that Hamas was estimated to have around 25,000-30,000 members, most of whom were killed in the early stages of the war, and we have just crossed the 55,000-mark.
As for ways history can guide both sides toward peace, I think I've made the case here that avoiding unnecessary harm, which almost seems too much to ask these days, is a starting point.
But I'm open to suggestions if you have any ideas or questions you'd like me to address.
i greatly appreciate your response Steve. That said, I would love it if you can share your source(s) (I am genuinely asking and promise I'm not being snide) on both the number of those 55k killed, as well as the 25-30k "Hamas members". I struggle to believe that only 1-1.5% of Gaza is Hamas affiliated. Is it really possible to build 350 miles of tunnels, rule the government and the people with so few? Somehow, these number don't feel credible. I am open to be convinced.
Sure thing. First, the assessment of the US National Conterterrorism Center is that Hamas had 20,000-30,000 (https://www.dni.gov/nctc/terrorist_groups/hamas.html). Estimates have changed over time. Israel claimed to have "eliminated" 17,000 as of Sept. 2024 (https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/hamas-weakened-prolonged-guerrilla-conflict-looms), at a time when there were already over 41,000 reported killed in Gaza (and before over 1,000 bodies were recovered during the 2025 cease-fire). The IDF also claimed in Dec. 2024 to have apprehended over 2,300 Hamas terrorists (https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-833676?utm_source=chatgpt.com). Why the IDF hasn't updated those numbers is a bit of a mystery to me, also perhaps suspicious: As long as it doesn't give a solid number, the ambiguity allows ordinary people to assume that the majority of those dying in Gaza now are terrorists.
As for construction of the tunnels, I assume that many ordinary Gazans were paid as day laborers to help dig them. In my eyes, that doesn't make them necessarily Hamas members, more likely people desperate to put food on the family table. I'm not an engineer, so I couldn't say how many people it took to build all those tunnels. In 2014, the Simon Wiesenthal Center reported that “Hamas officials openly admitted that children were used to help build their terror tunnels and that at least 160 Palestinian kids died during so-called work accidents.”(https://www.wiesenthal.com/about/news/wiesenthal-center-urges-52.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com) So, it can be both true that only 1.5% of the population are Hamas members and that there was sufficient labor to complete 300-350 miles of tunnels over the course of the decade or more previous to October 7.
I know it causes cognitive dissonance to think that so few people relative to the entire population are Hamas members, but that seems to be the reality. I think there is also cognitive dissonance about the number of civilian casualties, and the easiest way for our brains to resolve that dissonance is to assume that the majority of people killed must be terrorists. And while I think that assumption was valid during the first several months of the war, I don't think it has been for a while, certainly not since Israel resumed the war in March.
[⚠️ Suspicious Content] Steve, I applaud your tackling the abominable immediate use of the term "genocide" for the Israeli counter-attack after the Hamas assault on Israeli civilins on Oct 7, 2023. My opinion is that too many people have become caught up in "virtue-signalling," embracing the loudest opinion that they hear which is praised as being "on the right side of history" and is easy to embrace against an often maligned minority (in this war, Jews).
Fortunately, former Israeli PM Ehud Olmert was given a long interview on US TV by Fareed Zakaria and then on PBS News Hour. Unfortunately, most Americans watch biased Fox News. Olmert's choice of "war crimes" for the continuing bombardment of Gaza by the IDF in April-May, now June is a more accurate term. Your note that even after WWII the preference was to say "crimes against humanity" in individual court cases. "Genocide" is the accusation now against Jews/Israelis because it is such a heavily loaded word; it is used to express hate, not the IDF actions.
I agree that Israel until the most recent months in 2025 was using the right to defend oneself, one's country. It is not required to risk your own army on the ground to enter tunnels that your attacking enemy has built to hide in - and to hide kidnapped hostages in - but not to shelter civilians. This describes attackers using their own civilians as shields. How else could the IDF reasonably stop the actions of Hamas in Gaza if not by bombing their tunnels, which were under most buildings in Gaza, including schools and hospitals, which was the situation except probably during the last 3 months..
The IDF may have originated with the ideals of purity of weapons, but war, mostly a ground war, amid a tribal society in 1947-48 is very different from war in 2024-25. Ukraine's self-defense war vs. Russia's invasion demonstrated that.
It is not a surprise that Gazans see the IDF response to Hamas's assault very differently. The calls to "globalize the intifada" and to take back land that was offered and refused, instead to demand "from the river to the sea" (to eliminate Israel) are absurd goals after 70+ years, in my opinion. Worldwide, people who are in desperate situations flee. Lately there is a big backlash blocking immigrants, but the Palestinians had more than half a century to decide to "move on." Of course the UN has subsidized the Palestinian unhappy goal to stay and mourn.
It is also surprising to read and hear so many stories about lovely Palestinian homes and memories lost. The western and international press have depicted Gaza as the most crowded poverty-stricken place on earth (they haven't heard of parts of India or China, etc.). They rarely mention the authoritarian methods of Gaza's rulers.
I do not endorse what the IDF under Netanyahu has been doing in most recent months, and I do not think ordinary Palestinians deserve the suffering they have endured since their leaders have refused a "2-state solution" several times during decades. But Israel must retain the right to exist (like many other redrawn countries after 2 world wars) and the right to defend itself. Both Gaza and Israel need new pragmatic leaders.
[Hackers seems to have erased opening paragraphs, which Lynne Kane adds here AND Hackers in my iMAC often add "Suspicious content," which I will leave as documentation.]
[⚠️ Suspicious Content] Steve, I applaud your tackling the abominable immediate use of the term "genocide" for the Israeli counter-attack after the Hamas assault on Israeli civilins on Oct 7, 2023. My opinion is that too many people have become caught up in "virtue-signalling," embracing the loudest opinion that they hear which is praised as being "on the right side of history" and is easy to embrace against an often maligned minority (in this war, Jews).
Fortunately, former Israeli PM Ehud Olmert was given a long interview on US TV by Fareed Zakaria and then on PBS News Hour. Unfortunately, most Americans watch biased Fox News. Olmert's choice of "war crimes" for the continuing bombardment of Gaza by the IDF in April-May, now June is a more accurate term. Your note that even after WWII the preference was to
say "crimes against humanity" in individual court cases. "Genocide" is the accusation now against Jews/Israelis because it is such a heavily loaded word; it is used to express hate, not the IDF actions.
Thanks, Steve. I always appreciate your thoughtful commentary. What we have on our hands is a fine mess!
Prays to all the innocent people in this horrible battle. Prays for the safety. Thank you for all the heartfelt truth.
How can anyone talk about genocide without first defining it? Genocide is the willful aim to destroy a complete nation, tribe or social unit that represents a particular way of life other than the party holding this aim. So the Israelis are genocidal because their aim is to destroy Hamas and the Jihard too, but this does not apply to the attitude of the IDF to the Gazians, which unfortunately are getting in the way and are sometimes used as human shields instead of having freedom to seek safety.
When compared to recently past battle-grounds where the proportion of civilians to enemy killed has been 4 or more to one, the IDF has made very serious efforts to inform the Gazians where it is planning to strike, before it does so. The loss of civilians is inevitable but in this particular war the numbers of civilians killed is about the same as the murderous Hamas terrorists. This unfortunately is the lowest proportion that we can manage so far. War is hell, but Hamas can easily stop it, if they were not so politically bloody minded!
I'd be careful about making comparisons, and in any event as you note genocide is about the willful aim to destroy another group, so ratios are irrelevant.
My point is that the loss of civilians is not inevitable. That is a choice one makes when one opts to pursue their goal using extreme violence aka war.
And I disagree that Hamas can easily stop it, which would require total surrender, just as Israel can't easily stop its offensive because both sides are members of a complex system caught in a positive feedback loop.
Steve, it disappoints me that in all your writings you omit the fact that Hamas continues to hold over 50 Israeli hostages (for nearing 2 years!). That, in light of the points you make in the numbers of those killed in Gaza, that the bulk of those killed are Hamas and that their leadership refuses to accept that their reign of terror and commitment to indiscriminately killing Israeli’s/destroying Israel must end. You also provide zero ways history can guide both sides at this points ways to peacefully exit and coexist. I find your writings possibly cathartic to you, but in general unhelpful to both sides.
Duly noted about the hostages. Perhaps you missed them but I had a few months ago an entire post dedicated solely to the hostage issue. I don't think it's appropriate to mention them in the context of this particular post. I'm not sure how you define "bulk" but it should be pretty apparent that by now the bulk of being killed are civilians, considering that Hamas was estimated to have around 25,000-30,000 members, most of whom were killed in the early stages of the war, and we have just crossed the 55,000-mark.
As for ways history can guide both sides toward peace, I think I've made the case here that avoiding unnecessary harm, which almost seems too much to ask these days, is a starting point.
But I'm open to suggestions if you have any ideas or questions you'd like me to address.
i greatly appreciate your response Steve. That said, I would love it if you can share your source(s) (I am genuinely asking and promise I'm not being snide) on both the number of those 55k killed, as well as the 25-30k "Hamas members". I struggle to believe that only 1-1.5% of Gaza is Hamas affiliated. Is it really possible to build 350 miles of tunnels, rule the government and the people with so few? Somehow, these number don't feel credible. I am open to be convinced.
Sure thing. First, the assessment of the US National Conterterrorism Center is that Hamas had 20,000-30,000 (https://www.dni.gov/nctc/terrorist_groups/hamas.html). Estimates have changed over time. Israel claimed to have "eliminated" 17,000 as of Sept. 2024 (https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/hamas-weakened-prolonged-guerrilla-conflict-looms), at a time when there were already over 41,000 reported killed in Gaza (and before over 1,000 bodies were recovered during the 2025 cease-fire). The IDF also claimed in Dec. 2024 to have apprehended over 2,300 Hamas terrorists (https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-833676?utm_source=chatgpt.com). Why the IDF hasn't updated those numbers is a bit of a mystery to me, also perhaps suspicious: As long as it doesn't give a solid number, the ambiguity allows ordinary people to assume that the majority of those dying in Gaza now are terrorists.
As for construction of the tunnels, I assume that many ordinary Gazans were paid as day laborers to help dig them. In my eyes, that doesn't make them necessarily Hamas members, more likely people desperate to put food on the family table. I'm not an engineer, so I couldn't say how many people it took to build all those tunnels. In 2014, the Simon Wiesenthal Center reported that “Hamas officials openly admitted that children were used to help build their terror tunnels and that at least 160 Palestinian kids died during so-called work accidents.”(https://www.wiesenthal.com/about/news/wiesenthal-center-urges-52.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com) So, it can be both true that only 1.5% of the population are Hamas members and that there was sufficient labor to complete 300-350 miles of tunnels over the course of the decade or more previous to October 7.
I know it causes cognitive dissonance to think that so few people relative to the entire population are Hamas members, but that seems to be the reality. I think there is also cognitive dissonance about the number of civilian casualties, and the easiest way for our brains to resolve that dissonance is to assume that the majority of people killed must be terrorists. And while I think that assumption was valid during the first several months of the war, I don't think it has been for a while, certainly not since Israel resumed the war in March.
Very insightful, especially the Gazan perspective that I also had not considered. Thanks for this.
I wish our so called government will see your point of view….
Such a shame that the human approach has been replaced with self centred blindness
[⚠️ Suspicious Content] Steve, I applaud your tackling the abominable immediate use of the term "genocide" for the Israeli counter-attack after the Hamas assault on Israeli civilins on Oct 7, 2023. My opinion is that too many people have become caught up in "virtue-signalling," embracing the loudest opinion that they hear which is praised as being "on the right side of history" and is easy to embrace against an often maligned minority (in this war, Jews).
Fortunately, former Israeli PM Ehud Olmert was given a long interview on US TV by Fareed Zakaria and then on PBS News Hour. Unfortunately, most Americans watch biased Fox News. Olmert's choice of "war crimes" for the continuing bombardment of Gaza by the IDF in April-May, now June is a more accurate term. Your note that even after WWII the preference was to say "crimes against humanity" in individual court cases. "Genocide" is the accusation now against Jews/Israelis because it is such a heavily loaded word; it is used to express hate, not the IDF actions.
I agree that Israel until the most recent months in 2025 was using the right to defend oneself, one's country. It is not required to risk your own army on the ground to enter tunnels that your attacking enemy has built to hide in - and to hide kidnapped hostages in - but not to shelter civilians. This describes attackers using their own civilians as shields. How else could the IDF reasonably stop the actions of Hamas in Gaza if not by bombing their tunnels, which were under most buildings in Gaza, including schools and hospitals, which was the situation except probably during the last 3 months..
The IDF may have originated with the ideals of purity of weapons, but war, mostly a ground war, amid a tribal society in 1947-48 is very different from war in 2024-25. Ukraine's self-defense war vs. Russia's invasion demonstrated that.
It is not a surprise that Gazans see the IDF response to Hamas's assault very differently. The calls to "globalize the intifada" and to take back land that was offered and refused, instead to demand "from the river to the sea" (to eliminate Israel) are absurd goals after 70+ years, in my opinion. Worldwide, people who are in desperate situations flee. Lately there is a big backlash blocking immigrants, but the Palestinians had more than half a century to decide to "move on." Of course the UN has subsidized the Palestinian unhappy goal to stay and mourn.
It is also surprising to read and hear so many stories about lovely Palestinian homes and memories lost. The western and international press have depicted Gaza as the most crowded poverty-stricken place on earth (they haven't heard of parts of India or China, etc.). They rarely mention the authoritarian methods of Gaza's rulers.
I do not endorse what the IDF under Netanyahu has been doing in most recent months, and I do not think ordinary Palestinians deserve the suffering they have endured since their leaders have refused a "2-state solution" several times during decades. But Israel must retain the right to exist (like many other redrawn countries after 2 world wars) and the right to defend itself. Both Gaza and Israel need new pragmatic leaders.
[Hackers seems to have erased opening paragraphs, which Lynne Kane adds here AND Hackers in my iMAC often add "Suspicious content," which I will leave as documentation.]
[⚠️ Suspicious Content] Steve, I applaud your tackling the abominable immediate use of the term "genocide" for the Israeli counter-attack after the Hamas assault on Israeli civilins on Oct 7, 2023. My opinion is that too many people have become caught up in "virtue-signalling," embracing the loudest opinion that they hear which is praised as being "on the right side of history" and is easy to embrace against an often maligned minority (in this war, Jews).
Fortunately, former Israeli PM Ehud Olmert was given a long interview on US TV by Fareed Zakaria and then on PBS News Hour. Unfortunately, most Americans watch biased Fox News. Olmert's choice of "war crimes" for the continuing bombardment of Gaza by the IDF in April-May, now June is a more accurate term. Your note that even after WWII the preference was to
say "crimes against humanity" in individual court cases. "Genocide" is the accusation now against Jews/Israelis because it is such a heavily loaded word; it is used to express hate, not the IDF actions.
Eloquent. Thank you.