Everything you think about Gaza is based on a lie.

Stop asking if Israel committed war crimes. Start asking who told you that.

A collapsed building in Gaza, probably because it harbored Hamas infrastructure (photo: Mohammed Ibrahim/Unsplash)

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I was watching a presentation by an Israeli journalist at a U.S. synagogue when, during the Q&A portion toward the end, someone stood up and asked: “Are you prepared to accept that Israel has committed war crimes in Gaza?”

That question tells you almost everything you need to know about how many of Israel’s harshest critics, including Jews themselves, form their opinions.

Let’s start with the obvious: How does this person know Israel committed war crimes? Not through personal experience. Not through intel on the ground. Only through what they’ve seen and read, primarily via the media.

But there’s a glaring problem with that: The media is not inside Gaza. The Israeli government does not allow foreign press into Gaza during wartime unless they are embedded with the IDF.

Why?

Because Hamas will try to kill those journalists — and then, without hesitation, claim Israel was responsible. It’s happened before. So news outlets have no direct access to Gaza during the war. Their reporting comes from “sources” inside Gaza — and those sources are Hamas operatives or people coerced by Hamas into echoing its propaganda.

Gaza has no independent press, no free speech, no plurality of voices. It’s a dictatorship run by a genocidal Islamist terror group. And yet, many Westerners — even Jews in safe, comfortable suburban synagogues — treat Hamas talking points as matters of fact.

So, asking a visiting Israeli journalist thousands of kilometers away from Israel if he is “prepared to accept that Israel has committed war crimes in Gaza” is like saying: “Are you prepared to accept that the media thinks Israel is committing war crimes in Gaza because Hamas said so?”

That’s the intellectual foundation of this accusation. That’s the extent of the proof. No serious court. No neutral evidence. Just the mouthpiece of a terror group, amplified by media organizations eager to criticize Israel and consumed uncritically by well-meaning but profoundly misinformed people — including some Jews who seem desperate to separate themselves from the “bad” Jews they see on TV (i.e., the ones defending themselves).

Here’s another uncomfortable truth: You can’t trust what the media says about Israel — not because all journalists are malicious, but because the system they operate in is deeply compromised when it comes to covering this conflict. Western media outlets regularly parrot Hamas claims without meaningful scrutiny, often publishing casualty numbers, strike locations, or accusations of Israeli wrongdoing verbatim, as though they came from a neutral, reliable source.

But basic journalistic ethics demand verification, especially in war zones. Reporters are supposed to confirm information independently, seek out multiple perspectives, and disclose the limitations of their access.

When it comes to Gaza, these standards are routinely abandoned. The media lacks direct access, relies on Hamas-run “ministries” for figures, and rarely includes the Israeli perspective unless it fits a predetermined frame — usually that of Israel as aggressor and Palestinians as passive victims.

The result is a warped picture, one in which Hamas is treated as a legitimate source of truth, and Israel as a guilty party before the facts are even checked. This isn't journalism; it’s narrative laundering.

And the consequences aren’t just bad headlines. They create a global echo chamber where people who know nothing about military law or battlefield conditions feel emboldened to accuse the Jewish state of genocide — because they read it in a headline, saw it in a viral clip, or heard it from a pundit who never set foot in the region.

In no other conflict would this kind of reporting be tolerated, but when it comes to Israel, truth becomes optional — and that’s a tragedy not just for Israel, but for journalism itself.

Now, let’s address a more balanced question: Is it possible that individual Israeli soldiers have committed war crimes? Yes, just as it is possible that some Ukrainian soldiers have done so in the war with Russia, or that American soldiers did so in Iraq or Afghanistan. That is a tragic yet inevitable reality of war. But we don’t generalize that onto the nation’s entire moral standing, or assume there is a systematic policy of brutality.

And yet, critics of Israel imply that the Jewish state — as a matter of military doctrine — targets civilians. That’s what makes their question so loaded. The subtext is: “Isn’t Israel’s whole military campaign a war crime?” That is not only false; it’s libelous.

Let’s talk about what Israel actually does.

The IDF has an entire unit devoted to warning civilians before strikes. They make hundreds of thousands of phone calls. They drop leaflets. In this war alone, they have issued more than 12 million voice messages and 14 million texts.¹ These efforts are unmatched by any military on Earth. And yet, they are dismissed or ignored by Israel’s critics.

Sorry to get overly intellectual, but if you want to sound somewhat smart during a Q&A session, let’s talk facts: Under international law, particularly the principle of proportionality, civilian casualties during war are not in and of themselves war crimes. Proportionality requires that the civilian harm not be excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage. Every strike must have a valid military objective. Civilian deaths that result from such strikes — while tragic — do not necessarily violate the laws of war.

By contrast, what does violate the laws of war is the deliberate targeting of civilians without military necessity — exactly what Hamas does. Not only does Hamas fire rockets indiscriminately into Israeli civilian neighborhoods, it deliberately embeds its military infrastructure within schools, hospitals, mosques, and apartment buildings. This is called the use of human shields — and under international law, it is a double war crime: attacking civilians and using your own civilians as cover.

Articles 51(5)(b) and 52(2) of the First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions are clear: when a civilian site is used to store weapons or conduct military operations, it becomes a legitimate military target. When Hamas places rocket launchers under hospitals, those hospitals are no longer protected under the laws of war. And when Israel strikes such targets, it does not violate international law — Hamas does.

But here’s where Israel goes even further.

Before a strike is approved, the Israeli military does not allow the officer or pilot to make the call. Every potential target is analyzed by military lawyers who specialize in international humanitarian law. These lawyers are not in the military chain of command. They do not answer to generals. They are personally liable for their decisions.

In many cases, the legality of a strike is even brought to the Israeli Supreme Court for instant review. Name one other country that has this level of oversight. You can’t.

So, why do some Jews still believe — or need to believe — that Israel is guilty?

Some are simply uninformed. They consume the same media diet as everyone else and don’t understand how war reporting in Gaza works. Others suffer from a deeper psychological need: to feel morally superior by distancing themselves from Israel. In a world that increasingly demonizes Israel, these Jews believe that public skepticism of Israel proves their virtue. They want to be the “good Jews” — the ones who protest, the ones who critique, the ones who “speak truth to power.”

But in doing so, they fail to see how they become pawns in a larger anti-Israel campaign, a campaign built on distorted narratives, manipulated images, and weaponized grief.

Judaism holds truth as sacred. Lying in court or gossiping falsely is considered a serious violation of both civil and divine law. From the Torah: “Do not spread false reports. Do not join the wicked by being a malicious witness.”²

The great sage Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel taught that, without truth, justice and peace are impossible. The Talmud adds that when truth is abandoned, “the world cannot endure.”³

That’s not metaphor; that’s moral reality.

If you’re so concerned about war crimes — if your causes are supposedly “justice” and “peace” — then your starting point must be truth. Not what you heard in a viral video. Not what an anonymous “eyewitness” said to a stringer for Al Jazeera. Not what Hamas told Reuters. But truth as it is defined in Jewish law, Jewish ethics, and international law: verifiable, impartial, and accountable.

And truth, real truth, reveals a picture that is far more complex and inconvenient than the soundbites suggest.

If you truly care about war crimes, then start with Hamas, a terror group that targets civilians, hides behind its own people, and turns hospitals into bunkers. If you truly care about justice, then recognize that Israel (for all its flaws) is one of the only countries in history that sends lawyers into battle before it sends soldiers. And if you truly care about peace, then stop giving moral cover to a genocidal regime and start honoring the Jewish value that makes peace possible: truth.

You don’t have to agree with every Israeli policy, but if you believe that Israel is uniquely guilty of war crimes because you heard or saw it somewhere — and you don’t hold Palestinian terrorists to the same or higher standards — then the problem isn’t Israel. It’s you.

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1. “IDF intel unit’s calls with Gazans reveal cracks of dissent against Hamas rule.” The Times of Israel.

2. Exodus 23:1

3. Shabbat 104a