PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania — There is something ghastly about quibbling over wartime deaths, just as The New York Times did in devoting nearly three full pages to analyzing the fate of thousands of Gazans during the last two years.
Across the Times’ editorial pages, a Brown University professor and a Times columnist sparred over whether Israel’s attacks on Gaza are equivalent to genocide. They each managed to undermine their own arguments.
Omer Bartov, a professor of Holocaust and genocide studies, contends that Israel’s actions indeed constitute genocide in a July 20 opinion piece headlined “I’m a Scholar of Genocide. I Know It When I See It.” It is possible, but I do not quite see it.
Three days later, last Wednesday, columnist Bret Stephens counters that Israel has killed far fewer Gazans than it could have in an op-ed headlined “No, Israel Is Not Committing Genocide in Gaza.” He is right. Israel probably killed fewer Gazans than it could have.
Both Bartov and Stephens skirt around the most critical facts: Thousands of Gaza’s people – many of them women and children – have died after Oct. 7, 2023, and we still do not know if most of their deaths were necessary to allow Israel to implement its military strategy.
The war has been confusing and uncomfortable for many Jews. Some Jews dismiss these deaths as Hamas’ doing, others have joined the ranks of protesters. I fall into the segment of those who know that Israel must protect its citizens, yet question if so many people had to die for that purpose.
Perhaps little of that could be avoided. Maybe it was necessary. Some advocates for Israel would claim that many Gazans, even if they are not part of Hamas, probably celebrated the terrorist invasion that claimed 1,200 Israeli lives on Oct. 7, 2023. Such thinking does not justify so many deaths. How can we distinguish between our enemies and those who are not?
Says Yair Lapid, the centrist leader of Israel’s political opposition, in a Times news report, “Israel will never convince the world of the justness of our war against terror as long as we are led by an extremist minority government with ministers who glorify blood and death. (Israeli soldiers) do not fight, die and get injured to erase a civilian population – they fight to return the hostages and ensure Israel’s security.”
The rival authors self-harm their credibility in their own op-eds. Bartov’s most glaring words to undermine his authority conclude his piece: “An Israel liberated from the overwhelming burden of the Holocaust may finally come to terms with the inescapable need for its seven million Jewish citizens to share the land with the seven million Palestinians living in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank in peace, equality and dignity.”
While Bartov can claim expertise on the Holocaust, he is no expert on Israel’s history. Israel has been open to compromise since 1947 when the United Nations authorized creation of the modern state of Israel. As late as July 2000, then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak proposed a two-state solution that was ignored by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
Of course, the current governing coalition led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opposes a two-state solution, but their stance differs from Israel’s historic approach. Perhaps Bartov means to refer to Netanyahu, but by neglecting to make this clear he only confuses the issue.
Stephens damages his credibility at the outset as he writes, “It may seem harsh to say, but there is a glaring dissonance to the charge that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
“To wit: If the Israeli government’s intentions and actions are truly genocidal – if it is so malevolent that it is committed to the annihilation of Gazans – why hasn’t it been more methodical and vastly more deadly? Why not, say, hundreds of thousands of deaths, as opposed to the nearly 60,000 that Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry…has cited so far in nearly two years of war?”
Why bother with a numbers game? Reports by Hamas that Israel’s attacks killed almost 60,000 instead of far more trivializes the deaths of Gazans.
Both Stephens and Bartov are arguing over a technicality: The killings must be intentional to constitute genocide. Stephens will not leave it there and Bartov cannot prove it. It wastes time, navel-gazing and newsprint.
Practically speaking, Israel went too far. It admitted so in three incidents in which the Israel Defense Forces mistakenly killed people in Gaza. Two episodes occurred within five days in mid-July, with the first in Nuseirat on July 13 when at least 10 people were killed by a shell near a water distribution point, the Times reports.
The IDF said that a “technical error” caused an Israeli munition to land dozens of meters from its target, an Islamic Jihad militant, according to the Times. The IDF said in a statement that it was aware of reports of casualties and added that “the incident is under review.”
On July 17, three people were killed in an Israeli strike on the Holy Family Catholic Church compound in Gaza City where several hundred Palestinians were sheltering. The Times reports that the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated on its official X account that Israel “expresses deep sorrow over the damage” and that the military was “examining this incident.”
Bartov’s approach is particularly disturbing. He muddies the waters by trying to build a case that Israel is committing genocide. Maybe it is, but his case is not conclusive. “In determining what constitutes genocide, therefore, we must both establish intent and show that it is being carried out,” he writes.
“That intent has been publicly expressed by numerous officials and leaders,” he adds. He refers to Netanyahu’s threat that the IDF would turns parts of Gaza, where Hamas was operating, “into rubble.”
Most glaring are the words of Nissim Vaturi, the Knesset’s deputy speaker, who said that Israel’s job must be “erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth.”
These and other statements amount to strong evidence of “intent,” and it not only falls short of being proof but can also be disputed for strategic reasons.
Bartov likewise takes up extensive space reciting how many Jews recount the Holocaust to defend Israel. That may be true, but Bartov ignores how activists repeatedly compare Israeli actions to Hitler’s abuses. More than two decades ago, I learned that Israel-bashers protested in front of a Holocaust memorial in Miami Beach. Just a few days ago, I read that someone compared the plight in Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto in World War II.
We need clarity about Israel’s military response in Gaza. We are not getting it when The New York Times publishes clashing opinion pieces that do nothing but cloud the issues.
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Bruce S. Ticker is a Philadelphia-based columnist.