Baptist News Global Editor (and my friend) Mark Wingfield wrote a pointed condemnation of Israel’s brutal conduct of its war against Hamas in Gaza, led by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
If you haven’t read it, please do so.
Mark and I have had some pretty intense disagreements about this war since it began Oct. 7, when I happened to be visiting neighboring Jordan. We started our debate via digital messages before I even left the region, and it continued for several months until we called a truce to save our friendship. I also need a publisher for my rants, to be honest, so I didn’t want to lose Mark as a willing editor. He generously ran several of my columns on the topic — probably with gritted teeth.
Erich Bridges
Many friendships have ended over this war — including the friendship between some American Christians and Jews — and the relationship between Israel and the United States is being sorely tested, as Mark makes clear in his piece.
Mark might be surprised that I agree with about 99% of his latest piece against Israel’s murderous conduct in Gaza. Long before this war began, I had a healthy disgust for the corrupt Netanyahu, his thuggish coalition and his willingness to do anything, including destroying Israeli democracy, to hold on to power. My disgust has only deepened, along with my horror at the deaths of thousands of innocent Palestinians and Israel’s increasing (and deserved) political isolation in the international community.
What’s missing from Mark’s piece, once you get past the righteous and justified anger, is political context, acknowledgement of the larger realities of the region and perspective on what needs to happen next for any real chance of peace.
War crimes
First, here’s where we agree:
Netanyahu already was a criminal before the war; he’s under indictment by Israeli courts for his long-term corruption. That’s one of the reasons he is trying so desperately to hang on to power and undermine the Israeli judicial system.
“Netanyahu already was a criminal before the war.”
Now he’s a war criminal. Nothing — not even Hamas’ barbaric murder of more than 1,100 Israelis Oct. 7 — justifies the indiscriminate killing of so many civilians in Gaza by the Israeli Defense Forces, along with a rising death count of journalists and aid workers cut down by IDF fire.
Yes, the number of civilian dead — now nearing 33,000, according to the Gaza Health Ministry — can and should be disputed. For one thing, daily death counts are provided by the Health Ministry, which is run by Hamas for maximum propaganda effect. It does not distinguish between civilians and armed combatants and is based on rough estimates, not body counts. For another, up to 12,000 of the dead are Hamas fighters, according to the IDF; Hamas itself admits to losing 6,000. So no, the IDF has not “murdered” 31,000 innocent civilians, as Mark claims.
But that’s a losing argument, like the disputes about daily body counts during the Vietnam War. Whatever the actual number, thousands of innocent Gazans have died under Israeli bombing — and are now beginning to starve with no way out (thanks, neighboring Egypt and Jordan, for heartlessly refusing to allow any desperate Gazans across your borders because you fear the extremists among them).
As each bloody day passes, this looks more and more like an intentional Israeli policy not only to eliminate Hamas as a military force but to destroy Gaza as a habitable place for Palestinians.
That is de facto expulsion, and it is a war crime.
As for the journalists and aid workers killed for doing their jobs and trying to help the suffering, I’ll go even further than Mark in his suspicion that the IDF’s fire might not be unintentional. I believe it was intentional — at least in some cases, including the recent killing of seven World Central Kitchen workers. The IDF knew who they were, where they were and why they were there. That’s not the “fog of war.” It also is a war crime, intended to scare away impartial observers, and the kind of thing you expect from Putin’s Russia, not a civilized democracy.
“More than being a criminal, Netanyahu has led modern Israel to yet another existential crisis.”
More than being a criminal, Netanyahu has led modern Israel to yet another existential crisis, which it has faced again and again during its embattled history. Anshel Pfeffer, a Jerusalem-based journalist for Ha’aretz, writes in The Atlantic:
Nine months (after regaining power), Netanyahu, the man who promised, above everything else, to deliver security for Israel’s citizens, presided over the darkest day in his country’s existence. A total breakdown of the Israeli military and intelligence structure allowed Hamas to breach Israel’s border and embark on a rampage of murder, kidnapping and rape, killing more than 1,100 Israelis and taking more than 250 hostage. The calamities of that day, the failures of leadership leading up to it, and the traumas it caused will haunt Israel for generations. Even leaving completely aside the war he has prosecuted since that day and its yet-unknown end, October 7 means that Netanyahu will always be remembered as Israel’s worst-ever leader. …
One man’s pursuit of power has diverted Israel from confronting its most urgent priorities: the threat from Iran, the conflict with the Palestinians, the desire to nurture a Westernized society and economy in the most contested corner of the Middle East, the internal contradictions between democracy and religion, the clash between tribal phobias and high-tech hopes. Netanyahu’s obsession with his own destiny as Israel’s protector has caused his country grievous damage.
Most Israelis already realize that Netanyahu is the worst of the 14 prime ministers their country has had in its 76 years of independence. But in the future, Jews might even remember him as the leader who inflicted the most harm on his people since the squabbling Hasmonean kings brought civil war and Roman occupation to Judea nearly 21 centuries ago. As long as he remains in power, he could yet surpass them.
Netanyahu is widely despised in Israel, as witnessed by growing demonstrations against his rule even during a time of war. But he hangs on because of his extremist coalition — and the hope he can remain in power even longer if he crushes Hamas.
Mark is right: It’s neither antisemitism nor anti-Israel theology to denounce Israel’s current war policy in Gaza and its growing oppression of Palestinians in the West Bank. It’s right to call on U.S. leaders, including Joe Biden, to confront Netanyahu and limit arms sales to Israel if the bloodshed continues. Above all, it’s right to “work to imagine a better future in which both Palestinians and Jews may live safely in their homelands,” as Mark writes.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to supporters at a Likud Party gathering on November 17, 2019, in Tel Aviv, Israel. (Photo by Amir Levy/Getty Images)
Wrongheaded solutions
But has Israel, almost overnight and in the wake of the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust, become “an evil empire”? No. It’s simplistic and wrongheaded to say so.
We don’t have to equate the modern nation state of Israel with the biblical chosen people of ancient Israel to realize the modern version has faced nearly impossible odds since its founding. Its borders were carved by United Nations agreement out of ancient lands fought over for millennia — occupied by Arabs, Jews, Christians and Muslims. Many Palestinian Arabs were violently displaced; others left willingly, thinking they would soon return with avenging Arab armies.
Modern Israel was born into a war for survival from Day One, as surrounding Arab states immediately attacked it. They attacked several more times before the Egypt-Israel peace agreement in 1979, followed by a similar deal between Israel and Jordan in 1994. But more conflicts followed — between Israel and Palestinian factions, Israel and Lebanon, Israel and Iran (via its proxies).
“The relationship between successive Israeli governments and the Palestinians has been a case study in failed opportunities.”
Amid all this, the relationship between successive Israeli governments and the Palestinians has been a case study in failed opportunities. Palestinian leaders, intent on the impossible dream of establishing a Palestinian state within current Israeli borders, rejected the best coexistence deals they were going to get from more liberal Israeli regimes decades ago. A long period of international neglect of the endless conflict followed, allowing bad actors like Netanyahu and Hamas to flourish. They’ve used the opportunity to oppress Palestinians from both sides and set the stage for more terror and bloodshed.
Now Israelis are living in shock and fear for their future — and Gaza lies in ruins. Netanyahu and Hamas, meanwhile, cynically refuse to negotiate in good faith because more bloodshed works to the advantage of both.
What comes next?
What is the United States to do amid such a mess? Biden faces difficult choices. He cannot abandon Israel or cut off all military aid to America’s closest Mideast ally while it is at war with one enemy and faces growing attacks from several others — including Hezbollah, which is far more powerful than Hamas. Nor can he ignore outright slaughter and war crimes against Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
He’s searching with increasing urgency for a middle path, while also working with other powers in the region to set the stage for a lasting ceasefire and possibly the resurrection of two-state negotiations with a reinvigorated Palestinian Authority and more responsible Israeli leadership. Neighboring Arab states, weary of war, would welcome such a development for the sake of stability, if nothing else.
“There must be a two-state solution, or there will be no solution.”
Sound unrealistic? Maybe. I contend it’s the only way forward. The other most probable scenario is a wider regional war involving Lebanon, Syria, Iran and possibly others.
We do Biden and potential future peace no favors by pressuring him to abandon America’s closest friend in the region — and the only Jewish homeland in a hostile world — amid war. Nor should we help Palestinians seek what cannot be attained: a “Free Palestine” within Israeli borders, which is what most Palestinian leaders still demand. Such a Palestine never will happen unless Israel as it currently exists is destroyed.
There must be a two-state solution, or there will be no solution. No solution is exactly what Netanyahu and the Palestinian rejectionists want, because it extends their violent rule.
The growing anti-Israel movement in the United States is justified if it seeks to stop the oppression and killing of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. It is wrong, and self-defeating, if it continues to engage in mindless virtue-signaling, antisemitic attacks on American Jews simply for being Jews and political opposition to the Biden administration in 2024 election swing states, which might well put Donald Trump back in the White House.
Anyone who thinks that last possibility would help Palestinians needs psychological counseling.
Erich Bridges, a Baptist journalist for more than 40 years, has covered international stories and trends in many countries. He lives in Richmond, Va.
Related articles:
Netanyahu has turned Israel into an evil empire | Opinion by Mark Wingfield
‘Useful idiots’ won’t end the Israel-Hamas war, and neither will a cease-fire | Opinion by Erich Bridges
