Time was never on Israel’s side in this new war against Hamas. It was clear from the beginning that if Israel did not accomplish a military miracle against Hamas, which we knew was next to impossible, the global pressure on Israel to end the war prematurely was bound to grow. And so it has. As predicted, we saw the continued interference by governments around the world – beginning with South Africa, and then Europe, Turkey, and a host of others, including – and especially – the United States.

This was a very complex war from the beginning. The shock to Israel was huge when, on October 7th, 2023, more than 3,000 Hamas terrorists swarmed into Israel and viciously murdered 1,200 Israelis in a savage, early morning attack. Some 240 others were taken hostage and carried back to Gaza.

Israel was unprepared for this massive attack, and the weeks that it took to fully respond to it with the necessary force cost many more lives.

Blaming the Victim

Hamas broke a host of international laws that morning, but the world hardly took notice of their flagrant infractions and, almost immediately – and incredibly – began to blame Israel. When Israel’s expected military response didn’t come right away, the world had time to mobilize against the tiny Jewish state. And the victim became the accused.

The war began slowly. At 8:23 am on October 7, barely hours after the attacks began, Israel announced a state of alert for war. This was the signal to begin mobilizing its army reserves. Two hours later, Israel’s first air strikes on Gaza began. The next day, Israel declared itself in a state of war, and on October 9, Israel ordered a complete siege of Gaza, shutting down all delivery of electricity, water, food, fuel, and other supplies that Israel had been providing to the Hamas-run enclave prior to the attack.

As more than 360,000 Israeli military reserves gathered along the Gaza border, the world wondered when the ground invasion would begin. A combination of Israeli unpreparedness and international interference slowed the process down, but in the final days of October, Israeli troops finally began their ground offensive in Gaza.

International Interference

The war is now nearly nine months old, and Israel’s victory is still not at hand. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s vow to utterly destroy Hamas has been continually thwarted by a host of issues, including and especially international interference with Israel’s conduct of war, beginning with South Africa’s accusation of Israel’s supposed “genocide” in Gaza (false but highly effective as a political weapon against Israel).

And then there was American pressure on Israel to hold back on the tactics that were necessary for Israel to achieve its goals in this war, not to mention the distractions of the five other smaller wars that Israel is also being forced to fight simultaneously with its war in Gaza continues.

In addition to the war in Gaza in its south, Israel is fighting a daily barrage of rockets and explosive drones from Hizb’allah in Lebanon in Israel’s north, as well as from the Houthis in Yemen. There is also an internal threat from terrorists living inside of Israel and carrying out murderous attacks within the country. And in April, in the midst of all this, Iran attacked Israel with more than 300 drones and missiles.

And if that isn’t enough, it gets worse.

While Israel is fighting a multi-front war for its survival, the world is nurturing a growing opposition to Israel on all fronts. In addition to the tsunami of anti-Israel/pro-Hamas demonstrations that began in American universities and spread to major cities around the world, then in stepped the International Court of Justice, which ordered Israel to immediately stop its war on Rafah.

The Chief Prosecutor of the court, Karim Khan, requested arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister and Defense Minister. According to Khan, Israel is charged with: “Causing extermination, causing starvation as a method of war, including the denial of humanitarian relief supplies, deliberately targeting civilians in conflict. We submit that [these are] crimes against humanity.”

And if that were not enough, on Friday, May 23, the court ordered Israel to “immediately halt its military offensive and any other action in Rafah which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”

Israel responded to the order immediately with a statement of its own, which said, “Israel has not and will not conduct military actions in the Rafah area which may inflict on the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”

The court seemed to be bowing to Hamas’s lies, accepting and responding to Hamas’s accusations that Israel was disregarding the safety of the civilians and carrying on its military offensive without ensuring Israel’s plan to evacuate as many of them as possible before beginning its offensive.

In fact, when the IDF announced this commitment, detractors dismissed it, saying that such an evacuation of over one million people could not be done in less than several months. In fact, the IDF had already evacuated nearly one million Gazan civilians from Rafah in less than two weeks before beginning its major assault on Hamas in Rafah.

The ICJ’s order was clearly made with prejudice, without the necessary research or consideration of the facts. Depending on the false statistics provided by Hamas, the court’s move was unprecedented political insanity and virulent, internationally sanctioned-anti-Semitism. There is no equivalency between Israel and Hamas.

When Khan requested warrants for Netanyahu and Gantz, it also requested warrants for three Hamas leaders, making his request for warrants no less despicable. In fact, it makes them more outrageous and dangerous.

The three Hamas leaders – Yahya Sinwar, the head of Hamas in Gaza; Mohammed Dief, Hamas’ military chief; and Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’ international organization (who, despite the current suffering in Gaza, is himself a billionaire and lives in splendor in Doha) – have nothing in common with Netanyahu and Gantz. These three men are terrorists and are being charged with extermination, murder, hostage-taking, rape, and sexual assault, as they should be.

They are the ones who were responsible for the savage attack on Israel on October 7, and they are the ones who should absolutely be arrested, charged, and punished for their role in the horror of October 7.

Dozens of countries have designated Hamas a terrorist organization, which it clearly is, but that doesn’t seem to matter. Israel, on the other hand, is a sovereign, democratic state (the only one in the Middle East and the only Jewish nation in the world) whose government is elected by the people and whose laws protect its civilians. It was Israeli civilians who were brutally attacked, raped, butchered, and murdered. They were the victims of Hamas’ criminal savagery. But that doesn’t seem to matter either.

By creating a false equivalency between Israel and Hamas, Khan is putting the victim in the same category of guilt as the terrorist organization that carried out the carnage. That is a travesty of justice.

Israel’s Duty to Respond

Israel didn’t ask for this war. And Israel didn’t start it. But when such a horrendous attack occurs on so many innocent civilians, there MUST be a response, or it will happen again….and again.  Israel has not only the right but the obligation to respond and defend itself and its citizens, even as it abides by its own laws and constraints in the heat of war. Israel’s leaders, while they have made many mistakes in carrying out this war, have most certainly not targeted civilians “as a method of war,” but they rather have made every effort to uphold the standards of moral behavior, even in the heat of a most terrible war.

To suggest that there is an equivalency between Israel and Hamas shows a deep lack of knowledge, judgment, and understanding of the situation, as well as an inability to grasp that Israel has both the right and the duty to carry out this war against Hamas. This is Israel’s greatest war since its founding in 1948, and it is a war for Israel’s very survival. It leads right up to the terrorist government in Teheran, which is the enemy of all democratic countries in the world. It is the Iranian government that has inspired, funded, and encouraged Hamas and helped to plan this war against the Jews.

The longer this war takes, the more pressure Israel will be under to end it before Hamas is destroyed in Gaza. Ironically, the more pressure that the world puts on Israel to end the war prematurely, the more people in Gaza are likely to die. The Biden administration needs to wake up and figure out who the bad guys in this war really are and assist our long-standing ally, Israel, in every way possible.

With or without international support, Israel will continue to fight this enemy in every legal way possible, but without the support and aid from the United States, the odds are against our tiny ally. If Israel should fail, then Biden’s legacy will be that he was responsible for the end of the world as we know it.

“The Lord shall cause your enemies who rise up against you to be struck down before you; on one road will they go out toward you and on seven roads will they flee before you.”  Deuteronomy 28:7

Image: AP