This is a powerfully accurate and truthful review of Israeli-Arab history. This should be required reading for anyone who is interested or curious about the Middle East. Perhaps it would be helpful if Steve Witkoff read this article.
Concise and powerful! Should be distributed to high school and college students, whose attention spans have diminished and need "short and sweet" things to read.
Students need help with a quick articulate and powerful defense when they are accused of genocide in Algebra 1. This article should be taped to the refrigerator in every kitchen.
This is a must read for anyone interested in the true unvarnished history of the Arab Israeli conflict as opposed to the post modern and Orientalist garbage and post historical narratives peddled in academia and the media
The cumulative result of 10's of 1000's of profoundly informed and considered essays by 1000's of brilliant 'specialists' and 'experts' uniquely channeled, refined, summarized and essentialized by the one and only Joshua Hoffman. Excellent. Well done. Thank you.
Obviously those lacking even a single working brain cell due to infection with the insidious antisemitism virus cannot possibly comprehend the complicated concept of cause and effect.
I would recommend remedial Sesame Street episodes - Grover is particularly effective at explaining to three year olds FIRST this THEN that - but I fear that with too many commenters no amount of tutoring will be effective.
Joshua, great recap and detailed discussion. I relate to it all as I too have been writing about this topic for years. Mainstream media, which has been a great influencer in misinformation, has forgotten the basics of journalism's 5 W's + H = Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How. They keep leaving off the WHY.
Yes, this historically accurate and powerfully written piece is spot on and should be the cornerstone to every academic foray into the topic. But that's a fantasy. Wishful thinking. The sad fact is that it's a numbers game: 15 million Jews vs 2 billion Muslims. It's also a money game: the combined GDP of the 57 member states in Organization of Islamic Cooperation is north of 30 trillion. Israel's GDP is 500 billion.
Against this backdrop, the idea that somehow the truth, known to a tiny minority, can supplant a lie propagated by a quarter of the globe is a fool's errand. Schools -- from London to Melbourne, Toronto to Madrid, Los Angeles to São Paulo, Paris to Tokyo -- have become breeding grounds for anti-Israel, anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic sentiment.
What's more, the gross deception has been paved by 2000 years of false and incendiary attacks on Jews, making the current global obsession with anti-Semitism merely a passing of the baton. So, the blood libel charge from the Middle Ages has morphed into the "genocide" charge of today.
Simply put, the 21st century retelling of the Jewish story to a generation of young people across the globe is in the hands of Islamists and their sympathizers.
The facts have always been on the side of the Jews. It's the propaganda war where Israel needs to do better. While I hope this wonderful article can help, I doubt anyone who actually needs to read it will.
Unfortunately, those who have “bought” the propaganda will call this synopsis “Israeli Hasbara” and ignore it. I also don’t think it’s sufficient to invoke “cause and effect”. Yes, it does give the entire conflict context, but we are not simply bodies in motion running into equal and opposite forces, or reacting mindlessly to violence. Vengeance could be justified using “cause and effect” — indeed, that is the “natural” human response to something like 10/7. The problem with that is that Judaism specifically forbids vengeance; self-defense and defense of one’s own people is permitted (and in some cases obligatory), but retaliation is not. Consequently, “cause and effect’ does nothing to avert the claim that Israel is engaged in vengeance in Gaza, rather than self-defense. You need to include an explanation as to the necessity of eliminating Hamas, even at the cost of human life, the obligation of Israel to protect its own citizens, and the fact that the responsibility for the safety of civilians in the event of a possible (or extremely likely!) war rests with THEIR OWN GOVERNMENT.
Meaning, even just the fact that there are no bomb shelters in Gaza is criminal. However, what Hamas did, far from providing PROTECTION for the people, they intentionally and maximally EXPOSED the people for whom THEY were legally responsible to maximal risk of death and severe injury in the event of war, by turning the Gazans’ residential areas, their busy market streets and schools, their mosques and hospitals, into the very military targets that Israel would need to strike in order to defend itself. This was a whopping war crime by Hamas. They did this by consciously building military installations under these and other crowded areas.
Thus, in order to take out a neighboring government, which had demonstrated both capacity and intent to commit further genocidal atrocity like that of 10/7 upon Israelis, Israel could only protect its own people (an obligation, not an “option”) in a campaign where Hamas had put its own people at maximal risk. Israel has tried to reduce that risk, but the crucial choice was between submitting themselves to genocide, or, while trying to minimize the likely high number of Gazan casualties, go ahead, defying Hamas’ attempt to cravenly protect itself by threatening the lives of its own civilians. And, predictably, the world has blamed the high body count on Israel, calling it “genocide”, and discrediting Israel’s moral position, rather than putting the blame for the carnage in Gaza squarely where it belongs. Hamas sacrificed the people of Gaza, as involuntary “martyrs”, to further its own genocidal campaign against Israel.
I’m not sure you’ve managed to convince even yourself that the Israeli government’s atrocities are Hammas’ fault. With this contorted “moral” reasoning. But maybe just enough to sleep at night. More’s the pity.
There is nothing wrong with my moral reasoning. Hamas leadership actually bragged recently that it had “sacrificed” the people of Gaza in order to defeat Israel, and that, happily, new “martyrs” were being born in Gaza all the time. I did not claim that the current Israeli government’s ethical lapses are the fault of Hamas. But Israel didn’t go to war because of Netanyahu’s special lack of ethical sense. Israel went to war because the atrocity committed against them by Hamas justified a serious defensive response. Believe it or not, Israel is not the aggressor. Hamas is. Hamas intentionally did the one thing that would lead Israel to take serious defensive action. They intentionally left the civilians exposed, so that, even with the IDF’s efforts to get people out of the way, a large number of them would be killed. Not coincidentally, it wasn’t very long before the “genocide” lie was cranked out of Hamas’ propaganda mill.. Likewise, the food shortages in Gaza have been caused by the fact that Hamas steals 80-90% of the aid donated by Israel and others, and it is a bald-faced lie that Israel has not been sending in food. The idea to air-drop food into Gaza probably won’t prevent the stealing, but at least the UN can’t make excuses as to why they won’t deliver it. You suggest that I might otherwise be kept up at night by “Israel’s atrocities”, if I didn’t blame Israel’s crimes on Hamas. I find it kind of funny that you feel the need to defend Hamas, which is a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, who were allies of the Nazis during WWII. But besides that, what keeps me up at night is Hamas’ calculated evil against both Israelis and Gazans, unjust accusations and propaganda, and the destruction of Israel’s (and Jewish) credibility by monsters, ideologues, and useful idiots. I don’t get a lot of sleep.
I am not defending Hamas. 10/7 was an atrocity. It is an atrocity to slaughter 10s of 1000s of children who were not responsible for it. Seek justice, by all means. Vengeance, as you have acknowledged, is not permitted. If Israel can sabotage pagers in a targeted attack on its specific enemies, surely it can conduct its war without slaughter. There is no justification for what is happening now, only rationalisation for a crime. For a sin.
Are you a military expert? Thr pager business was an exceptional circumstance. War is always hardest on civilians, and Israel takes more measures than the US does to minimize civilian casualties. The numbers and reports coming out of Gaza are from Hamas itself and cannot be counted on. There are military experts who have pointed out that even with those numbers, the ratio of civilian to combatant casualties is exceptionally low. The issue is not that so many people are dying (which they are, it being urban wsrfare, and the lack of civilian protection), but that Israel decided to go to war at all, knowing that Hamas would not only not protect the civilians, but might as well have tied them up and put them on the roof.
Israel's reputation with Hamas is actually that they are "soft" and "sentimental" (about children, in particular) which is why Hamas figured it had to commit absolute atrocity to get Israel to go to war despite the risk to the Gazans. Which was indeed the case.
There is so much actual evidence on how the IDF is prosecuting this war that, honestly, these propaganda based views are no longer excusable. There will be a reckoning on the other side of this monstrous action. And “we didn’t know” will never have been are more hollow refrain.
I find that interesting; “There is so much actual evidence…” — who reported that “evidence”? You’re calling what I’m saying “propaganda”. Why do you think the vilification of Israel is more likely to be true, than a nuanced understanding? I am not saying that the IDF has perfectly executed this war. No army ever has ever done so. Yes, there have likely been pockets of both strategic error and ethical lapse. What I’m talking about is the overall intent. What is it you think the overall intent is, then? Why do you think that Israel so desires Gaza, of all places, such that it would just raze the place, kill and displace the inhabitants, and starve the remainder? Why, then, have they been warning the Gazans to get the hell out of the way? If it’s a way to get rid of Palestinians, don’t you think that if that were their aim, they could have done so in a more intelligent and efficient way, and a long time ago? Why do actual military experts say that, once you take the combatants out of the body count, the civilian-to-combatant ratio is THE lowest ever seen in the case of an urban war? Why the Hell have they tried somewhere between 5 and 9 times to offer the West Bank and Gaza to the Palestinians, only to be turned down, and now all the Pro-Pal folks are claiming that it is Israel standing in the way of their building a state? Do you even know who Hamas is, such that Israel would be so determined to mop it up? I don’t know what “evidence” you’re talking about, but if it comes from the AP, it’s getting all its information from Pro-Pal outlets, whether it’s the UN, other “Human Rights” organizations, or the “reporters” within Gaza. You are aware, I suppose, that the desire to wipe out Israel has, for all 75 years, been about 100 times as intense as the desire for the Israelis to wipe out the Palestinians? Which is why the Israeli Defense Force has to be be strong and technologically advanced (though at times it is still only as smart as the least-able person who uses the technology)? Ever heard of antisemitism? It has never gone away, it just pops up again, fresh as a daisy, whenever another excuse appears to revile the Jews for supposedly taking advantage of everyone else. Yes, we’re all scheming to take it away from ___________ (fill in the blank). Get a clue.
I only wish you would have gone all the way back to the battle of Khybar and Zaynab’s failure to effectively poison the exemplar PBUH(piss be upon him). This is one old conflict, 628 AD.
No wonder God calls us a stiff neck people. This ethnocentric tripe just makes Jewish dicks hard and clouds our minds from seeing a deeper truth. It’s just sad, really, because it is already backfiring on us.
Bullshitters like you are our most dangerous threat today.
This is a powerfully accurate and truthful review of Israeli-Arab history. This should be required reading for anyone who is interested or curious about the Middle East. Perhaps it would be helpful if Steve Witkoff read this article.
Concise and powerful! Should be distributed to high school and college students, whose attention spans have diminished and need "short and sweet" things to read.
Students need help with a quick articulate and powerful defense when they are accused of genocide in Algebra 1. This article should be taped to the refrigerator in every kitchen.
One of your best essays.
This is a must read for anyone interested in the true unvarnished history of the Arab Israeli conflict as opposed to the post modern and Orientalist garbage and post historical narratives peddled in academia and the media
The cumulative result of 10's of 1000's of profoundly informed and considered essays by 1000's of brilliant 'specialists' and 'experts' uniquely channeled, refined, summarized and essentialized by the one and only Joshua Hoffman. Excellent. Well done. Thank you.
Amen!
Obviously those lacking even a single working brain cell due to infection with the insidious antisemitism virus cannot possibly comprehend the complicated concept of cause and effect.
I would recommend remedial Sesame Street episodes - Grover is particularly effective at explaining to three year olds FIRST this THEN that - but I fear that with too many commenters no amount of tutoring will be effective.
Lololol!!!
Excellent article. History explained in a nutshell shell. Every HS and college student should read this.
Joshua, great recap and detailed discussion. I relate to it all as I too have been writing about this topic for years. Mainstream media, which has been a great influencer in misinformation, has forgotten the basics of journalism's 5 W's + H = Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How. They keep leaving off the WHY.
See https://thetruthfulproject.blogspot.com/ for all my published and unpublished rantings, um writings, on this topic. Sorry for the self promotion.
Thanks again Joshua.
Now THIS is one to share with those who haven’t read a history book and don’t question what they hear! Perfect!
Yes, this historically accurate and powerfully written piece is spot on and should be the cornerstone to every academic foray into the topic. But that's a fantasy. Wishful thinking. The sad fact is that it's a numbers game: 15 million Jews vs 2 billion Muslims. It's also a money game: the combined GDP of the 57 member states in Organization of Islamic Cooperation is north of 30 trillion. Israel's GDP is 500 billion.
Against this backdrop, the idea that somehow the truth, known to a tiny minority, can supplant a lie propagated by a quarter of the globe is a fool's errand. Schools -- from London to Melbourne, Toronto to Madrid, Los Angeles to São Paulo, Paris to Tokyo -- have become breeding grounds for anti-Israel, anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic sentiment.
What's more, the gross deception has been paved by 2000 years of false and incendiary attacks on Jews, making the current global obsession with anti-Semitism merely a passing of the baton. So, the blood libel charge from the Middle Ages has morphed into the "genocide" charge of today.
Simply put, the 21st century retelling of the Jewish story to a generation of young people across the globe is in the hands of Islamists and their sympathizers.
The facts have always been on the side of the Jews. It's the propaganda war where Israel needs to do better. While I hope this wonderful article can help, I doubt anyone who actually needs to read it will.
Unfortunately, those who have “bought” the propaganda will call this synopsis “Israeli Hasbara” and ignore it. I also don’t think it’s sufficient to invoke “cause and effect”. Yes, it does give the entire conflict context, but we are not simply bodies in motion running into equal and opposite forces, or reacting mindlessly to violence. Vengeance could be justified using “cause and effect” — indeed, that is the “natural” human response to something like 10/7. The problem with that is that Judaism specifically forbids vengeance; self-defense and defense of one’s own people is permitted (and in some cases obligatory), but retaliation is not. Consequently, “cause and effect’ does nothing to avert the claim that Israel is engaged in vengeance in Gaza, rather than self-defense. You need to include an explanation as to the necessity of eliminating Hamas, even at the cost of human life, the obligation of Israel to protect its own citizens, and the fact that the responsibility for the safety of civilians in the event of a possible (or extremely likely!) war rests with THEIR OWN GOVERNMENT.
Meaning, even just the fact that there are no bomb shelters in Gaza is criminal. However, what Hamas did, far from providing PROTECTION for the people, they intentionally and maximally EXPOSED the people for whom THEY were legally responsible to maximal risk of death and severe injury in the event of war, by turning the Gazans’ residential areas, their busy market streets and schools, their mosques and hospitals, into the very military targets that Israel would need to strike in order to defend itself. This was a whopping war crime by Hamas. They did this by consciously building military installations under these and other crowded areas.
Thus, in order to take out a neighboring government, which had demonstrated both capacity and intent to commit further genocidal atrocity like that of 10/7 upon Israelis, Israel could only protect its own people (an obligation, not an “option”) in a campaign where Hamas had put its own people at maximal risk. Israel has tried to reduce that risk, but the crucial choice was between submitting themselves to genocide, or, while trying to minimize the likely high number of Gazan casualties, go ahead, defying Hamas’ attempt to cravenly protect itself by threatening the lives of its own civilians. And, predictably, the world has blamed the high body count on Israel, calling it “genocide”, and discrediting Israel’s moral position, rather than putting the blame for the carnage in Gaza squarely where it belongs. Hamas sacrificed the people of Gaza, as involuntary “martyrs”, to further its own genocidal campaign against Israel.
I’m not sure you’ve managed to convince even yourself that the Israeli government’s atrocities are Hammas’ fault. With this contorted “moral” reasoning. But maybe just enough to sleep at night. More’s the pity.
There is nothing wrong with my moral reasoning. Hamas leadership actually bragged recently that it had “sacrificed” the people of Gaza in order to defeat Israel, and that, happily, new “martyrs” were being born in Gaza all the time. I did not claim that the current Israeli government’s ethical lapses are the fault of Hamas. But Israel didn’t go to war because of Netanyahu’s special lack of ethical sense. Israel went to war because the atrocity committed against them by Hamas justified a serious defensive response. Believe it or not, Israel is not the aggressor. Hamas is. Hamas intentionally did the one thing that would lead Israel to take serious defensive action. They intentionally left the civilians exposed, so that, even with the IDF’s efforts to get people out of the way, a large number of them would be killed. Not coincidentally, it wasn’t very long before the “genocide” lie was cranked out of Hamas’ propaganda mill.. Likewise, the food shortages in Gaza have been caused by the fact that Hamas steals 80-90% of the aid donated by Israel and others, and it is a bald-faced lie that Israel has not been sending in food. The idea to air-drop food into Gaza probably won’t prevent the stealing, but at least the UN can’t make excuses as to why they won’t deliver it. You suggest that I might otherwise be kept up at night by “Israel’s atrocities”, if I didn’t blame Israel’s crimes on Hamas. I find it kind of funny that you feel the need to defend Hamas, which is a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, who were allies of the Nazis during WWII. But besides that, what keeps me up at night is Hamas’ calculated evil against both Israelis and Gazans, unjust accusations and propaganda, and the destruction of Israel’s (and Jewish) credibility by monsters, ideologues, and useful idiots. I don’t get a lot of sleep.
I am not defending Hamas. 10/7 was an atrocity. It is an atrocity to slaughter 10s of 1000s of children who were not responsible for it. Seek justice, by all means. Vengeance, as you have acknowledged, is not permitted. If Israel can sabotage pagers in a targeted attack on its specific enemies, surely it can conduct its war without slaughter. There is no justification for what is happening now, only rationalisation for a crime. For a sin.
Are you a military expert? Thr pager business was an exceptional circumstance. War is always hardest on civilians, and Israel takes more measures than the US does to minimize civilian casualties. The numbers and reports coming out of Gaza are from Hamas itself and cannot be counted on. There are military experts who have pointed out that even with those numbers, the ratio of civilian to combatant casualties is exceptionally low. The issue is not that so many people are dying (which they are, it being urban wsrfare, and the lack of civilian protection), but that Israel decided to go to war at all, knowing that Hamas would not only not protect the civilians, but might as well have tied them up and put them on the roof.
Israel's reputation with Hamas is actually that they are "soft" and "sentimental" (about children, in particular) which is why Hamas figured it had to commit absolute atrocity to get Israel to go to war despite the risk to the Gazans. Which was indeed the case.
There is so much actual evidence on how the IDF is prosecuting this war that, honestly, these propaganda based views are no longer excusable. There will be a reckoning on the other side of this monstrous action. And “we didn’t know” will never have been are more hollow refrain.
I find that interesting; “There is so much actual evidence…” — who reported that “evidence”? You’re calling what I’m saying “propaganda”. Why do you think the vilification of Israel is more likely to be true, than a nuanced understanding? I am not saying that the IDF has perfectly executed this war. No army ever has ever done so. Yes, there have likely been pockets of both strategic error and ethical lapse. What I’m talking about is the overall intent. What is it you think the overall intent is, then? Why do you think that Israel so desires Gaza, of all places, such that it would just raze the place, kill and displace the inhabitants, and starve the remainder? Why, then, have they been warning the Gazans to get the hell out of the way? If it’s a way to get rid of Palestinians, don’t you think that if that were their aim, they could have done so in a more intelligent and efficient way, and a long time ago? Why do actual military experts say that, once you take the combatants out of the body count, the civilian-to-combatant ratio is THE lowest ever seen in the case of an urban war? Why the Hell have they tried somewhere between 5 and 9 times to offer the West Bank and Gaza to the Palestinians, only to be turned down, and now all the Pro-Pal folks are claiming that it is Israel standing in the way of their building a state? Do you even know who Hamas is, such that Israel would be so determined to mop it up? I don’t know what “evidence” you’re talking about, but if it comes from the AP, it’s getting all its information from Pro-Pal outlets, whether it’s the UN, other “Human Rights” organizations, or the “reporters” within Gaza. You are aware, I suppose, that the desire to wipe out Israel has, for all 75 years, been about 100 times as intense as the desire for the Israelis to wipe out the Palestinians? Which is why the Israeli Defense Force has to be be strong and technologically advanced (though at times it is still only as smart as the least-able person who uses the technology)? Ever heard of antisemitism? It has never gone away, it just pops up again, fresh as a daisy, whenever another excuse appears to revile the Jews for supposedly taking advantage of everyone else. Yes, we’re all scheming to take it away from ___________ (fill in the blank). Get a clue.
I only wish you would have gone all the way back to the battle of Khybar and Zaynab’s failure to effectively poison the exemplar PBUH(piss be upon him). This is one old conflict, 628 AD.
No wonder God calls us a stiff neck people. This ethnocentric tripe just makes Jewish dicks hard and clouds our minds from seeing a deeper truth. It’s just sad, really, because it is already backfiring on us.
Bullshitters like you are our most dangerous threat today.
'"Cause and effect," or: "How I learned to stop worrying and blame the jizya tax for present-day mass slaughter": A lesson in whataboutism.'
Perfect.
Love the line about how peace is a pause between wars, not an end to conflict.
Also the Soviet influence and particular strategy is so important.