Ending the Gaza carnage
Yes, our outrage is selective. In a world of double standards, Nicholas Kristof reminds readers how much we have one toward Israel (New York Times):
Rabbi Marvin Hier in The Jerusalem Post condemned “an unprecedented double standard” that relentlessly criticizes Israel’s bombing of Gaza but is unbothered by the Allied bombing of civilians in Germany and Japan in World War II. And the World Jewish Congress cites “criticizing Israeli defensive operations, but not those of other Western democracies” as an example of antisemitism.
A fair criticism, Kristof writes, and a false one.
In 2023, for example, the United Nations General Assembly adopted 15 resolutions critical of Israel, and only seven resolutions critical of all other countries in the world together, by the count of one pro-Israel group. Does anyone think that represents even-handedness?
People are more focused on Israel than on what Unicef describes as a “wave of atrocities” currently underway against children in Sudan, while the number of children displaced by recent fighting in Sudan (three million) is greater than the entire population of Gaza. University students in America and Europe protest about Gaza but largely ignore the 700,000 children facing severe acute malnutrition in Sudan, after a civil war began there last April.
The Darfur region of Sudan two decades ago endured what is widely described as the first genocide of the 21st century. Now bands of gunmen once more are killing and raping villagers belonging to particular ethnic groups. I was seared by my reporting from Darfur during the genocide, and it staggers me that the world is ignoring another round of mass atrocities there.
Not to mention that some of the worst crimes against civilians in recent years were committed against Arabs were “by by Arab rulers themselves, in Syria and Yemen.” But Gaza right now is the most dangerous place in the wold for a child.
Consider that in the first 18 months of Russia’s current war in Ukraine, at least 545 children were killed. Or that in 2022, by a United Nations count, 2,985 children were killed in all wars worldwide. In contrast, in less than five months of Israel’s current war in Gaza, the health authorities there report more than 12,500 children killed.
Among them were 250 infants less than 1 year old. I can’t think of any conflict in this century that has killed babies at such a pace.
Kristof adds the obligatory “of course Israel has a right to respond” and Hamas should release its hostages, etc.
Because of America’s support for Israel’s invasion and diplomatic protection for it at the United Nations, this blood is on our hands, and that surely justifies increased scrutiny.
Yet here’s another double standard: We Americans condemn Russia, China or Venezuela for their violations of human rights, but the United States supports Israel and protects it diplomatically even as it has engaged in what President Biden has called an “over the top” military campaign.
So yes, some of the campus outrage is selective, and yes, we condemn some attrocities of war here and ignore others there. Double standards, Kristof concludes, “run in many directions, shielding Israel as well as condemning it.”
But it seems to me that in a world of screens (like this one) screaming for our attention, people have only so much bandwidth. Our selective attention goes to places with the most cameras in places that look the most like our homes, and to people who seem most like us.
I’ve noted before that the left is more critical of its friends than its adversaries. We expect little of our adversaries and wield little leverage for modifying their behavior. But the U.S. is heavily invested in its ally Israel, both financially and culturally. We have both interest and leverage. For Jewish Americans, history and family. For Christians, a theological heritage. For others, a kind of moral muscle memory that grants Israel undeserved grace because of crimes visited during the Holocaust.
“[W]e should never let our very human tangles of double standards and hypocrisies be harnessed to deflect from the tragedy unfolding today for the children of Gaza, or America’s complicity in it,” writes Kristof. Netanyahu may not be movable, but Israel can be pushed. So push.
For supporters of Israel reluctant to demand better behavior, whether from a sense of loyalty or a sense that because of Hamas’ attrocities, Gaza “had it coming,” perhaps the New Testament provides guidance.
To whom much is given, much will be required (Luke 12:48).
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