Clearly, the accusation that Washington is Israel’s perennially pliable puppet is logically ludicrous and factually false. 

By Martin Sherman

A dark cloud is spreading across America, casting an ominous shadow of malice and mendacity, and threatening to split open perilous fault lines in the rich tapestry of the nation’s socio-political fabric.

High-profile vitriol

One of the most disruptive figures driving this detrimental trend is media personality Ana Kasparian, a well-known public figure of Armenian origin (which she regularly invokes) and a frequent participant in popular talk-shows. A comely blonde, she is co-host of the TV program The Young Turks, an incongruous career choice, as originally, the term “Young Turks” is widely associated with the 1915 Armenian Genocide, particularly as she frequently raises this tragic event publicly.

Recently, Kasparian has adopted an acutely acrimonious attitude towards Israel—and is often afforded high-profile platforms to spew her vitriol.

For example, in a recent podcast of well-known political comedian/satirist Bill Maher, she demonstrated the malevolence, ignorance, and double standards that underlie antisemitism, in general, and its current post-2023 manifestation, in particular.

Thus, Kasparian attempted to belittle the perils Israelis face from Palestinian stone-throwing, ignoring that over a dozen Israelis, including toddlers, perished as a result of Palestinian rock-throwers. Astonishingly, Kasparian suggested that, because of its purported nuclear capabilities, Israel has little to fear from Palestinian stones—apparently implying that Israel could always “nuke” the stone-throwers. Curiously, she dismissed the prospect of Palestinians ever using nuclear weapons if they ever possessed them, since this would make the land, they allegedly love, “unlivable”—raising the question of why that would not hold equally for Israelis.

“…if we had a nuke, we’d use it this morning…”

Interestingly, when Maher interjected that while Israel never used its nuclear capability, if the Palestinians had it, they would use it in a matter of seconds, Kasparian protested that he had no way of knowing that. In response, Maher pointed out that the “obliteration” of Israel is the express goal of Hamas—articulated in the opening clause of the organization’s Charter. Indeed, this genocidal intent is not confined to Hamas. Thus, Jibril Rajoub, a high-ranking Fatah member, publicly pledged that if Palestinians “had a nuke, we’d have used it this very morning (sic).”

Further in her self-contradictory rant, Kasparian, under pressure from Maher, was forced to concede that, rather than live in any one of Israel’s numerous pro-Palestinian adversaries, she would prefer to reside in Israel, admitting she: “would probably feel the most comfortable in Tel Aviv.” Go figure.

Later in her litany of lies, Kasparian labeled IDF operations in Gaza as “random slaughter” of civilians, ignoring that the high toll of civilian casualties was largely because (a) Hamas used them as “human shields”; (b) Egypt refused to allow Gazans to flee the war zone, as is the case in every other military conflict, from Syria to Ukraine. Moreover, Kasparian’s allegations are totally at odds with assessments of objective professional observers such as Col. Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, who remarked that no other army has exercised such care in avoiding civilian casualties, attaining the lowest ratio of civilian-to-combatant deaths ever in urban warfare.

Similarly, John Spencer, chairman of urban warfare studies at West Point, described Israel’s minimizing collateral casualties as “unprecedented,” asserting that it was setting the “gold standard” for avoiding civilian casualties.

Characterizing Khamenei as ‘courageous’?

In a later appearance, on the Piers Morgan Uncensored show, Kasparian shied away from condemning the theocratic Iranian regime for the reported slaughter of Iranian demonstrators. Hotly contesting the validity of the widely-cited number of 30,000, she was, however, unable to provide any alternative estimate and unwilling to indicate exactly how many dead protesters would be “acceptable”.

Apparently willing to whitewash all of Israel’s adversaries, no matter how barbarous, if this serves to cast aspersions on the Jewish state, Kasparian balked at condemning her co-host on The Young Turks, Cenk Uygur, for characterizing the brutal tyrant, Ali Khamenei, as “courageous”. She interjected: “…well, he never capitulated to the Israelis and we live under a government [that], regardless of which party is in power, is on its knees on behalf of Israel. So, I understand what he’s talking about. He didn’t embarrass his people by getting down on his knees to…Israel, as our leaders in the United States…[Many] Americans are embarrassed by the fact that our leadership …seems to prioritize the best interests of Israel.”

Clearly, this astounding premise seems to imply the Germans should laud Hitler because he avoided “embarrassment” by choosing to commit suicide, rather than surrender.

Portraying America as a subservient lackey of Jews?

Of course, while all this is reminiscent of the antisemitic trope that “Jews control the world,” it leaves one to ponder how the diminutive Israel could somehow impose its will on the most powerful nation on the planet. Indeed, this portrayal of the US as a subservient lackey of the Jews should be deeply offensive to America—and the American electorate.

Kasparian and some of her like-minded conspiratorial Judeo-phobic kinfolk (e.g., Alex Galitsky, Policy Director of ANCA, and the boorish Dan Bilzerian (who dubbed murderous Yahya Sinwar a “hero”) have accused Israel of dragging the US into numerous armed conflicts—including the present campaign against Iran.

Apart from the prima facie absurdity of the allegation, it also runs counter to Trump’s enumeration of US imperatives for the war, invoking “menacing [Iranian] activities [that] directly endanger the United States, our troops, our bases overseas, and our allies…”

Indeed, they run starkly counter to Trump’s later White House address concerning the reasons for American involvement in the war. In response to a question as to whether Netanyahu “pull[ed] the United States into this war, Trump’s riposte was “… if anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand.”

Antisemitic and un-American

Clearly, the accusation that Washington is Israel’s perennially pliable puppet is logically ludicrous and factually false. Indeed, over recent decades, both Democratic and Republican administrations have passed resolutions which Israel opposed—often bitterly.

Even a brief review of presidential decisions, from Eisenhower through Bush to Biden, should suffice to repudiate any allegations that America is in the iron grip of some diabolical Judaic cult, compelling it to sacrifice US interests (and lives) for those of Israel.

Indeed, the accusation that the US is Israel’s perennially pliable puppet is both logically ludicrous and factually false. After all, over recent decades, both Democratic and Republican administrations have passed resolutions which Israel opposed—often bitterly. A few notable examples include:

– Eisenhower’s 1956 decision to force an Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula;

– The 1991 decision of the Bush White House to withhold promised loan guarantees to aid the absorption of refugees from the former USSR;

– The 2015 decision by Obama to enter into the fatally flawed JCPOA nuclear agreement;

– The Biden administration’s partial—but damaging–embargo on munitions during the Iron Swords Operation in Gaza.

This brief, and far from exhaustive list, should suffice to repudiate any allegations that the US is in the iron grip of some diabolical Judaic cult, compelling it to sacrifice American interests (and lives) for those of the Jewish state.

Martin Sherman is the founder and executive director of the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies.

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Military expert John Spencer called the war against Iran “righteous and just,” saying the opening wave that wiped out much of the regime’s leadership was an unprecedented success.

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By removing any mention of Hamas from the battlefield, the commission portrays Israel as waging a one-sided assault on civilians.

By John Spencer, The Washington Free Beacon

The United Nations Human Rights Council’s latest report on Gaza, which concludes Israel is committing a genocide, is a case study in how international bodies can dress propaganda in the language of law.

Presented as a “legal analysis” from a trio led by Navi Pillay, the former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, anyone who reads the text with even a modest degree of critical thinking will see that it is not an impartial investigation.

It is an advocacy document that begins with a verdict and works backward, collecting fragments of information that support its claim while excluding anything that would complicate or contradict it.

The most surprising aspect of the report is not what it claims, but what it omits.

First, the report never treats Hamas as a combatant force or acknowledges that Gaza contains legitimate military targets.

It begins its summary of its findings with, “On 7 October 2023, Israel launched its military offensive in Gaza, which included airstrikes and ground operations” but never mentions Hamas as the opposing force in the war.

Instead, it vaguely references the “attacks in southern Israel on 7 October,” which it says “did not pose an existential threat to the state of Israel.”

There is no recognition that Israel is engaged in a war against a heavily armed adversary, nor any attempt to identify Hamas’s rocket launchers, command posts, or tunnel entrances.

Hamas is described almost exclusively as a political entity or as part of Gaza’s “civilian population,” never as a fighting force. By implication, every Israeli strike is portrayed as criminal, even though Gaza is filled with clear military targets.

Second, there is no discussion of Hamas’s military disposition, composition, or strength. The report makes no mention of Hamas’s tens of thousands of fighters, its organized brigades and battalions, or its command and control systems.

Readers are left with the impression that there is no military presence in Gaza at all, which of course makes any Israeli strike appear inherently illegitimate.

Third, the commission erases Hamas’s four-hundred-mile tunnel network from the battlefield.

In fact, the word “tunnel” appears only once in the report—to cast doubt on whether Mohammed Sinwar was killed inside one beneath the European Hospital complex (Israeli aerial footage “purportedly showed a tunnel underneath,” but “the Commission’s geolocation analysis of the aerial surveillance footage” suggests the Israelis were wrong, the report states).

It’s impossible to write about the war without writing about the tunnels that are central to Hamas’s military strategy, enabling it to move fighters, store weapons, hide hostages, and launch attacks from beneath hospitals, schools, and neighborhoods.

Fourth, there is no acknowledgment of the harm and destruction caused by Hamas itself inside Gaza. Thousands of Hamas rockets have misfired or fallen short inside Gaza, killing Palestinian civilians.

Hamas has turned homes and apartment buildings into booby traps, collapsed tunnels under neighborhoods, and carried out direct killings and torture of its own people. None of this appears in the report.

Fifth, the report ignores Hamas’s well-documented practice of human shielding. The terrorist organization has embedded its command centers, weapons caches, and fighters in schools, mosques, hospitals, and private homes, a practice that human rights groups, NATO, and even the U.S. Department of War have acknowledged.

The commission makes no reference to it, because to do so would force an acknowledgment that many Israeli strikes on civilian sites are legally justified under the law of armed conflict.

Sixth, the report treats the issue of hostages as almost irrelevant. Hamas’s kidnapping of more than 250 civilians on October 7, many of whom remain captive, is one of the clearest and most egregious war crimes of the conflict.

Yet “hostages” are mentioned only four times in the 72-page document, and not as a central issue. Worse, the report goes so far as to question whether securing their release is a legitimate strategic objective for Israel.

In doing so, the commission not only diminishes the gravity of hostage-taking but undermines one of the most basic rights of any state: the duty to protect its citizens and to recover them when they are held illegally by a terrorist organization.

To cast doubt on Israel’s right to pursue this objective is to excuse a war crime and to suggest that the victims of October 7 are somehow outside the scope of international concern.

Finally, the report excludes any recognition of the unprecedented humanitarian measures Israel has taken while fighting Hamas.

Israel has facilitated the delivery of over two million tons of aid into Gaza since October, provided more than two million vaccinations, supplied 14 million liters of water a day, kept electricity flowing to desalination plants, supported hospitals, and transferred patients for medical treatment.

No other military in history has waged war while simultaneously providing this level of aid to the enemy’s civilian population. The commission erases these facts because they undermine the claim of genocidal intent.

Taken together, these omissions create a distorted picture. By removing Hamas from the battlefield, the commission portrays Israel as waging a one-sided assault on civilians.

By ignoring Hamas’s crimes against its own population, it absolves Hamas of responsibility for civilian suffering. By erasing Israel’s humanitarian efforts, it denies evidence that contradicts the accusation of genocidal intent. This is not an investigation. It is narrative construction.

The report does not stop at omission. It also builds its case on selective inclusions. Every casualty number provided by Hamas’s Health Ministry is repeated uncritically.

The report even cites a Guardian and +972 Magazine article claiming that 83 percent of those killed in Gaza are civilians, without mentioning that the article itself admits the figure rests on data that excludes many unnamed combatants.

The commission also combs Israeli speeches for provocative lines it can present as evidence of intent, such as Netanyahu’s reference to “Remember Amalek,” a phrase engraved on Holocaust memorials.

Statements by controversial ministers like Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir are highlighted as possible “incitement to genocide.”

Meanwhile, statements by Israel’s prime minister, president, or minister of defense indicating that the war is against Hamas rather than Gaza’s civilian population are ignored, as are Hamas’s explicit calls to annihilate Israel.

What the report never demonstrates is the one thing the Genocide Convention requires: specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.

Israel’s stated intent has been consistent and clear: to return its hostages, destroy Hamas’s military capacity, remove Hamas from power, and defend its citizens. That is not genocide. That is war.

This war is brutal, tragic, and costly in lives. Israel’s conduct, like any nation’s, should be subject to scrutiny under the laws of armed conflict.

But the Pillay Commission avoids that balanced legal analysis because it would complicate its conclusion. The result is not only a false indictment of Israel but a dangerous dilution of the term “genocide” itself.

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Urban warfare expert John Spencer dissected Israel’s two years of fighting in Gaza, explaining what sets this war apart from others and the unprecedented measures Israel is taking to limit civilian casualties.

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John Spencer, one of the foremost warfare experts and chair of the Modern War Institute, wonders how people can claim Israel is the escalating force when Hezbollah has fired 8,000 rockets at populated areas and internally displaced tens of thousands of Israelis.

“people have lost their minds on who are terrorists, who are actually defending their civilians, who are trying to get their civilians killed, people trying to rewrite borders, call people resistance fighters.”

“I think the whole narrative of now we have a ‘two front war,’… pic.twitter.com/ow6ipndOnr

— John Spencer (@SpencerGuard) September 24, 2024

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John Spencer, a renowned urban warfare expert, analyzed Israel’s conduct in Gaza and detailed how Israel is becoming the golden standard for modern combat.

I had a discussion with @jimsciutto @CNN today about my research (to include 3 trips into Gaza observing the IDF first hand) on Israel's operations against Hamas in Gaza. Is Israel being proportionate, following laws of war, trying to prevent civilian casualties, winning? pic.twitter.com/X7ZMnl1HbD

— John Spencer (@SpencerGuard) August 24, 2024

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The IDF should be commended for its efforts to reduce civilian harm, not charged in an international court alongside Hamas leaders.

By John Spencer, JNS

In May, the International Criminal Court announced applications for warrants for the arrests of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense minister, Yoav Gallant.

“Today we once again underline that international law and the laws of armed conflict apply to all,” said the court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan.

“No foot soldier, no commander, no civilian leader—no one—can act with impunity.”

The charges follow a U.S. State Department report that was similarly critical of Israel for not doing enough to prevent the loss of civilian lives.

As someone who has visited the frontlines in this war, and who has written about, visited, and engaged in various urban battles over the past two decades as a U.S. Army officer and researcher, even as I applaud the court’s attempt to hold those guilty of war crimes accountable, I believe the ICC prosecutor’s decision is wrong.

Worse, if granted, the warrants could perversely have the opposite of the effect intended:

By holding all states to such a high standard when it comes to avoiding civilian harm, governments may feel hamstrung to respond to attacks in the future, even in self-defense.

That could have a chilling effect on countries that adhere to international legal norms while providing a bonanza for rogue states like Russia or non-state actors like Hamas that ignore these norms.

The war in Gaza is unlike almost any other I’ve seen.

The terrain, the density of tunnels under population centers, the nature of the enemy, and the presence of hostages all combine to make this war an exceptionally fraught one for Israel to fight bloodlessly.

What I saw in Gaza convinced me that Israel has taken the necessary steps to avoid civilian casualties, even as it has come under unwavering criticism for its handling of the war.

As the Israeli Defense Forces now conducts a constrained ground operation into Rafah, the last Hamas holdout in southern Gaza and where the remaining Israeli hostages are believed to be held, the Israeli government continues to announce temporary evacuations of southeastern Rafah, instructing civilians to move out of harm’s way.

Israel has gone above and beyond what is traditionally required of armies.

In Gaza, they faced 40,000 enemy defenders in dense urban terrain featuring some 400 miles of deeply buried military tunnels, at a depth of 15 to over 200 feet, purposely built under civilian and protected sites.

The defenders were equipped with over 15,000 rockets and a full array of small arms, mortars and improvised explosive devices.

The enemy had defenses that took at least 15 years to prepare and fortify.

Hamas held over 200 hostages, disguised themselves as civilians and used ordinary Gazans as human shields to manipulate external actors, especially the United States, to stop Israel from escalating and instead to push for a ceasefire.

Largely because of Egypt, there was almost no possibility for the 2.2 million civilians in Gaza to completely flee the war zone by land.

The laws of war are clear.

Militaries must distinguish between unarmed civilians and combatants as well as between civilian-use objects (hospitals, schools, etc.) and military targets (ammo dumps, bases, etc.).

But militaries must also take constant care to “spare civilian populations, civilians, and civilian objects to include all feasible precautions to avoid and minimize incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects.”

There is no place on earth in which it is harder to uphold these principles than in a densely packed city, especially against a combatant who wears no uniform, or who attempts to blend in with civilians.

Historically, the main approach militaries take to preventing civilian casualties in this kind of terrain has been to evacuate city centers before the main battle begins.

Only during the last two decades of counterinsurgency and counterterrorism wars have some countries like the United States developed concepts pertaining to “civilian harm mitigation.”

These best practices were developed by various commanders and units against insurgents and terrorists in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria and then collected in a policy and adopted officially in a Department of Defense instruction in December 2023.

Many of these concepts and practices have never been attempted in unconventional warfare where the military objective is to overthrow a ruling power and destroy its military.

Israel has obviously made mistakes—all militaries do.

Aid and food convoys came under attack earlier this spring, mostly a result of faulty intelligence in a split-second decision.

The ICC prosecutor has accused Israel of “starvation of civilians as a method of warfare,” and “intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population.”

This kind of accusation ignores mountains of evidence to the contrary which I saw firsthand.

To its credit, Israel has implemented almost all the civilian harm mitigation practices required for urban warfare and legal norms spelled out by international humanitarian law (IHL), as well as created a few new ones no military has ever tried.

For example, the IDF provided ample time for civilians to evacuate Gaza’s major cities.

At the beginning of the war, Israel waited several weeks after civilians had been cleared before beginning its full ground invasion in Gaza.

To prevent accidental targeting, the IDF provided safe routes for civilians to use and a humanitarian zone for them to flee to.

Despite reports of the IDF conducting operations near the routes and safe zone, they positioned IDF soldiers along the route or halted operation near the routes to protect civilians.

At the same time, there is video documentation of Hamas preventing civilians from using the routes, attacking civilians on the routes by shooting at them and emplacing rocket launchers next to the routes and zones to draw Israeli fire.

Historically, the most common tactic to evacuate cities smoothly has been via social media and dropping flyers. The IDF did both, but also utilized other methods to locate, notify and encourage civilians to temporarily evacuate main combat areas.

As of January 2024, Israel had dropped more than 7.2 million flyers, but also made over 79,000 direct phone calls, sent over 13.7 million text messages, and left over 15 million pre-recorded voicemails to notify civilians that they should leave combat areas.

The IDF flew drones equipped with speakers into Hamas-held territories and parachuted in large speakers that broadcasted for civilians where to evacuate.

No military has ever deployed all these other direct electronic measures to reach civilians.

The IDF also conducted what are called “roof knocks” ahead of many air strikes—a procedure whereby the IDF calls everyone in a building, provides time for them to evacuate, and if necessary, drops small munitions on the roof to signal an imminent attack.

No other army in the world does this.

The IDF fields legal officers at the brigade and division level to approve targets and provide guidance to avoid civilian casualties and violations of IHL.

As far back as November they conducted daily pauses of combat operations for several hours to allow civilians to pass through friendly lines during the battles.

As the war progressed, Israel learned the operational tactics of Hamas, which was bent on increasing civilian harm to win over global and regional sympathies.

As such, the IDF evolved and adapted to various civilian harm mitigation approaches.

By December, the IDF had begun handing out their military maps to Gazans.

These maps were used to communicate directly to civilians, not only to make evacuations more orderly but also to notify civilians where the IDF would be operating on a day-to-day basis.

This information of course was useful for Hamas and increased the risk to IDF soldiers.

Or consider the IDF’s creation of a Civilian Harm Mitigation Cell (commanded by a one star general) during the war.

The cell developed a new methodology to track civilian presence in real time.

Using cell phone presence, satellite, drone footage, and street-by-street battle damage assessment, this methodology can determine the percentage of residents remaining in areas of Gaza.

The new awareness and real-time mapping software enabled the IDF to take additional precautions and limit operations in densely populated areas, no doubt reducing civilian casualties.

Similarly, other restrictions the IDF has imposed include altering their rules of engagement and release authority for strikes, including the implementation of standard military control measures such as “no fire areas” on protected buildings and sensitive sites.

Conducting an operation, entering, or even returning fire in some locations requires the approval of the IDF Chief of General Staff.

The IDF conducted large “call out” operations in which the IDF encircles a location, such as the Al-Nasser Hospital, or entire neighborhoods (tens of thousands of people), then instructs noncombatants to evacuate through IDF positions.

If anything, these operations increase the risk to the IDF. Then, large facial recognition assets are used to identify Hamas members trying to blend in with the evacuating civilians, who are then detained.

Rather than argue that the IDF did not implement all the above measures, pundits either cherry pick from among these practices, or like the State Department report acknowledges, make assumptions without access to needed information.

They also interpret the effects of IDF operations, irrelevant of the context of each action, to claim based on their own kabuki dance of statistics that these measures do not matter because they have been ineffective.

Many of these groups also cite a standard of civilian harm mitigation measures, like the new Defense Department policy, that no military has yet followed, especially in a conventional war.

Regardless of the facts, critics frame the fighting by comparing the war in Gaza to single battles, in a counterinsurgency or counterterrorist campaign, that do not pose nearly the same military challenges.

Again, to its credit, the IDF managed to successfully evacuate over 850,000 civilians out of 1 million people (85% to 90%) from northern Gaza before the heaviest fighting began, and now in Rafah there are reports of temporary evacuation of a similarly high percentage.

These percentages are consistent with urban warfare history, that shows that no matter the effort, about 10% of a population always stays.

The majority of the criticism and condemnation of Israel’s actions in Gaza focuses on the combatant to civilian ratio in the war.

But even that metric does not show that the IDF has not been effective in reducing civilian harm given the context of the size, disposition (i.e. tunnels under civilian areas) and tactics of Hamas.

The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry estimate of over 36,000 civilian deaths does not acknowledge a single Hamas casualty.

It also does not distinguish between those killed by the IDF and those killed by the misfiring of the more than 13,000 rockets launched by Hamas or other terrorists—estimated at between 10% to 20%.

Nor does the figure account for the killing of civilians by Hamas or for deaths by natural causes. This figure is a literal count of every death in Gaza since Oct. 7.

Israel now publicly estimates it has killed around 15,000 Hamas operatives.

Common sense would be to subtract the IDF estimate of Hamas fighters from the Gaza Health Ministry’s figure for total deaths in Gaza to get 21,000 civilian deaths according to Hamas.

That would be a 1 to 1.5 or 1.6 ratio.

But even the Gaza Health Ministry recently announced it had incomplete data for over 11,000 of the casualties it claims and cannot provide the names of more than 10,000.

This acknowledgment was followed weeks later by the United Nations acknowledging that over 10,000 names were unverifiable, and that of those names accounted for, the number of women and children was less than half that previously reported by the Gaza Health Ministry.

So, combined with Hamas’ historic practice of exaggerating casualty figures, the combatant-to-civilian death ratio is more likely one to one, which would be historically low for high intensity urban warfare.

Consider the 2016-2017 Battle of Mosul, the biggest urban battle since the Second World War.

The U.S.-led Iraqi Security Force operation led to the death of 9,000 to 11,000 civilians in order to take out 3,000 to 5,000 Islamic State combatants in the city.

That is a 1 to 2.5 combatant to civilian death ratio.

Perhaps the 1945 Battle of Manila is a more apt comparison, given its variables similar to Gaza, such as a high number of defenders, tunnels, and hostages.

During that American operation, 100,000 civilians were killed to defeat 17,000 Japanese defenders. That is a one to six combatant-to-civilian ratio.

Or take the 1950 Second Battle of Seoul, another battle with similar variables to the war in Gaza, when American forces likely killed tens of thousands to destroy the 8,000 North Korean enemy defenders and recapture the city.

There is no record of how many civilians died in the city battle out of the estimated 2 million-plus civilians who perished in the war.

So, applying all the numbers available, the IDF’s 1-to-1.5 if not one-to-one combatant-to-civilian ratio would be considered more humane than almost any other battle, past or modern, in urban warfare with even remotely similar conditions.

Before the war in Gaza, the United Nations and many other international organizations regularly stated that civilians accounted for 90% of the casualties of modern urban wars.

The truth is that no one knows how many civilians have died in Gaza, especially not Hamas.

There has never been a war or battle fought in urban settings where an organization could track the civilian deaths on a day-to-day basis and down to the single digit. It is impossible.

The fog of urban war is thicker than that of any other battleground.

A year after the 2016-2017 Battle of Mosul, the Iraqi government did not know how many civilians had died there, with estimates ranging from 11,000 to 40,000.

The IDF has also reduced an already low combatant-to-civilian casualty ratio in the war.

Even The New York Times stated that the IDF had reduced the daily civilian death toll in Gaza by more than half by December and by almost two-thirds from its peak by January.

By the time the IDF reached the city of Khan Younis in February, the civilian deaths caused by IDF actions in the war were very low in comparison to the heaviest fighting in northern Gaza.

Another much-leveled accusation, one the ICC prosecutor continues to make, is that Israel has conducted “large-scale bombing that has caused and continues to cause so many civilian deaths, injuries, and suffering in Gaza.”

This is likely related to the misplaced coverage of Israel’s use of 2,000-pound bombs.

Many have tried to argue that the 2,000-pound bomb, which is commonly deployed against enemy forces in bunkers and tunnels, has rarely been used in urban areas.

This is not only false, but the claim is always made without mentioning what Israel has used the bombs against; Hamas in their 400 miles of deep-buried tunnels.

The United States military dropped over 5,000 of these heavy bombs in the 2003 invasion of Iraq in just one month (March 19 to April 18, 2003) including in Baghdad, a city of over 5 million residents at the time.

They dropped four 2,000-pound bombs on just one building trying to kill Saddam Hussein and his sons in Baghdad.

In the 42 days of the First Gulf War (January 17 to February 27, 1991) the U.S. military dropped 11,179 Mk-84 (2,000-pound) bombs as well as 4,616 other 2,000-pound bombs on military targets in urban areas across Iraq.

All war is hell, but when a nation is forced into combat there are laws of armed conflict and recently developed civilian harm-mitigation measures that seek to reduce that hell for civilians caught in the crossfire.

Because of the constraints of modern war—which is increasingly urban, hybrid, and fought in civilian areas—for the ICC to rule against Israel will in fact criminalize the very act of war itself in its current manifestation.

The result is that any government or military, even one provoked or attacked without justification, will be hamstrung with regard to responding proportionately.

Such a ruling would make a mockery out of Article 51, which allows countries to act in self-defense.

No doubt Israel, just as the United States did in Iraq and Afghanistan, has made mistakes, and thousands of innocent lives have certainly been lost.

Yet the IDF has also employed nearly all the best practices used by other militaries, in addition implementing many none have ever tried.

The question becomes, if any country can take all these precautions and still be considered beyond the pale of modern war, can any country that seeks to adhere to international humanitarian legal norms fight wars at all, particularly ones in urban settings, even to defend themselves?

Ironically, by singling out the Israeli leadership for war crimes, the court may reduce the deterrent effect other states seek via fielding large armies and deploying expensive weapons.

The result could be a blank check to rogue actors like Hamas as well as rogue states like Russia, Iran, or North Korea.

The IDF should be commended for its efforts to reduce civilian harm, not charged in an international court alongside Hamas leaders—particularly when compared to measures Hamas has taken to increase civilian suffering in Gaza.

The post What the ICC/ICJ/UN gets wrong about Israel appeared first on World Israel News.

“The IDF should be commended for its efforts to reduce civilian harm, not charged in an international court alongside Hamas leaders,” says military analyst.

By World Israel News Staff

An urban warfare expert and U.S. army veteran called the International Criminal Court‘s decision to investigate Israeli leaders for war crimes “wrong,” and stressed that the IDF has “gone above and beyond what is traditionally required of armies” in order to prevent civilian casualties.

John Spencer, the Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the War Institute, warned that the ICC probe into Israel is not just unfounded, but may strengthen terror groups.

A ruling against Israel may make self-defense off limits to countries that adhere to international legal norms, “while providing a bonanza for rogue states like Russia or nonstate actors like Hamas that ignore these norms,” he wrote in an article published on his X account.

“The ICC has accused Israel of ‘starvation of civilians as a method of warfare,’ and ‘intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population.’ This kind of accusation ignores mountains of evidence to the contrary which I saw firsthand,” he continued.

Spencer said that after visiting Gaza, it was clear to him “that Israel has taken the necessary steps to avoid civilian casualties, even as it has come under unwavering criticism for its handling of the war.”

The warfare analyst noted that Israel had provided plenty of advance warning to civilians to evacuate cities where intense fighting against the terror group was meant to begin, including calling and messaging residents, as well as dropping flyers and leaflets telling them to leave.

He challenged the narrative around the death toll in Gaza, noting that the Hamas statistics – which the UN quietly acknowledged are exaggerated – cannot be used to determine the number of civilians killed in the conflict.

“The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry estimate of over 36,000 civilian deaths does not acknowledge a single Hamas fighter death,” Spencer wrote.

It also does not distinguish if a civilian died due to the misfiring – estimated between 10% to 20% — of the more than 13,000 rockets fired by Hamas or other terrorists that have landed inside Gaza. Nor does the figure account for the killing of civilians by Hamas or any deaths by natural causes. Literally this figure just counts every death in Gaza since October 7th.”

Spencer ended the article by emphasizing that the ICC charging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant was a total misinterpretation of rules of warfare and human rights.

“The IDF should be commended for its efforts to reduce civilian harm, not charged in an international court alongside Hamas leaders – particularly when compared to measures Hamas has taken to increase civilian suffering in Gaza,” he concluded.

The post ICC accusations false, IDF protecting Gazan civilians: Expert appeared first on World Israel News.

‘This imaginary standard of zero civilian casualties in a war where Israel is required to meet a new standard is very problematic,’ Spencer emphasized.

By Hugh Fitzgerald, Frontpage Magazine

John Spencer served in the US Army for twenty-five years, including two tours in Iraq.

Since then, he has been a Professor of Urban Warfare at West Point. Recognized as an expert in his field, John Spencer has become more widely known for his recent writings on the IDF’s conduct in its war against Hamas in Gaza.

His latest posting on the subject can be found here: “‘Israel is measured by double and triple standards,’ does more than anyone to prevent civilian harm, US warfare expert says,” All Israel News, June 27, 2024:

“Israel is being measured by double and triple standards” in its fighting in Gaza, a standard “that does not exist anywhere in the world,” said John Spencer, head of Urban Warfare Studies at West Point, at a recent “War Room” briefing in collaboration with the Jerusalem Institute for Public and State Affairs (JCPA).

Spencer, the world-renowned urban warfare who served for 25 years as an infantry soldier and did two tours in Iraq, has publicly and repeatedly defended and praised the Israel Defense Forces’ performance during the Gaza War in recent months.

“The IDF uses tactics that no army has ever seen to prevent harm to civilians and still fulfill its mission,” Spencer told the JCPA after visiting the soldiers of the IDF’s 98th Division in the field.

He also stridently rejected international accusations that Israel was using starvation as a weapon, bombing indiscriminately or committing genocide.

“It’s all a lie,” Spencer declared, noting that if the standards currently applied to Israel were applied to Western countries in the future, it would make anti-terror warfare almost impossible.

Such standards include requiring the massive evacuation of a population before entering an area, not using heavy “bunker-buster” bombs to reach enemies hidden away underground, and the demand to prevent any and all civilian casualties.

“It’s impossible and unimaginable,” Spencer stressed….

“This imaginary standard of zero civilian casualties in a war where Israel is required to meet a new standard is very problematic,” Spencer emphasized.

He has made this point repeatedly over the past months. In an article in Newsweek in March, Spencer brought up the IDF’s operation at Al-Shifa Hospital as an example of the lengths the army goes to prevent civilian harm in Gaza.

“Israeli media reported that doctors accompanied the forces to help Palestinian patients if needed. They were also reported to be carrying food, water and medical supplies for the civilians inside,” Spencer wrote.

“None of this meant anything to Israel’s critics, of course, who immediately pounced. The critics, as usual, didn’t call out Hamas for using protected facilities like hospitals for its military activity.”

One more statistic, that is not included in this piece by Spencer, but that he has provided in many of his other articles on the Gaza war, tells us as a great deal about the IDF’s solicitude for the lives of civilians.

This is the ratio of civilian-to-combatant deaths.

The UN has said that in all the wars fought since 1945, the average ratio was 9:1, or nine civilian deaths for every combatant death.

In Afghanistan, the Americans managed to reduce that ratio to 4:1, and in Iraq to 3:1. But no army in the world has come close to what the IDF has achieved in Gaza.

Hamas has claimed 38,000 dead, without providing separate figures for civilians and Hamas combatants.

The IDF now says it has killed 17,000 operatives — and that is without counting those members of Hamas who were killed when the rubble of bombed buildings landed on top of them.

That would mean 21,000 civilian deaths.

From that number we have to subtract the 800 Gazans who die each month of natural causes; over eight months that figure would account for 6400 civilian deaths.

That brings the total number of civilian deaths to 14,600. How many of those 14,600 civilians were killed not by the IDF, but by the estimated 20% of Hamas rockets that fell inside Gaza?

A most conservative estimate would be 200 a month, or 1,600 over the first eight months of the war.

That brings down the number of civilians killed by Israeli fire to 13,000, while the number of combatant deaths so far is 17,000.

The civilian-to-combatant ratio in Gaza is thus 13:17, which is less than 1:1 – a ratio unheard of, as Professor Spencer has said, in the annals of modern warfare.

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John Spencer, a renowned military expert and combat veteran, discusses the IDF’s use of certain weapons that are being condemned across the world and how Israel is doing everything it can to protect civilians.

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