The Self-Defeating Obsession With Civilian Casualties

If we truly cared about civilian casualties, we should proactively work to defeat those who instigate and celebrate them.

Israeli soldiers operating in Gaza (photo: IDF/X)

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“Many people would sooner die than think. In fact, they do.” — British philosopher Bertrand Russell

At its core, philosophy is an intellectual endeavor that delves into the complexities of — among other topics — ethics, embracing the nuanced interplay of diverse perspectives.

It invites us to critically examine foundational questions and concepts, fostering a discourse that values the richness of varied interpretations over the rigidity of definitive answers. In this way, philosophy encourages a continuous, reflective dialogue that challenges assumptions and expands our intellectual horizons.

The essence of philosophical inquiry lies in its commitment to examining the multifaceted nature of truth, recognizing that absolute certainty is often elusive. This approach underscores the importance of open-mindedness and intellectual humility, acknowledging that different viewpoints can coexist and contribute to a more comprehensive grasp of important issues at hand.

One such issue at the mercy of disproportionate debate throughout this year-long Israel-Hamas-Hezbollah-Iran war is the concept of “civilian casualties.” It monotonously makes for clickbait headlines, provides talking-heads with too much to talk about, and produces fake empathy wrapped in buzzwords of the day.

First, let me state the obvious: I and every other Israeli that I know do not have any semblance of joy or pride in civilian casualties on the enemy side. I also know for a fact that, as a matter of formal policy and habitual practice, the IDF does not in any way support the deliberate killing of civilians in Gaza, Lebanon, or anywhere else. To that point, Israel’s reputable Channel 12 News reported earlier this month that 80 percent of the Palestinians killed during the year-long war in Gaza are Hamas operatives or their families (who many of these operatives use as human shields).

At the same time, we have to accept — no matter how hard it is to do so — that civilian casualties are an unfortunate reality of war. Hence why it is unwise to start them, no less to implicitly or explicitly root for those who do.

We also have to accept — and first, educate ourselves about — the so-called “rules” of war. There are many, but I will include a few pertinent ones here:

1. International “rules” recognize that civilians are often killed during war and, most of the time, these deaths are actually not indicative of a war crime. Instead, the legal test for “proportionality” requires that each individual strike be looked at with a particular balancing analysis: The strike must be intended to achieve a military objective.

2. When combatants deliberately place weapons caches in and under schools, hospitals, and mosques, they have made each of these places legitimate military targets. By Hamas purposefully building its headquarters underground beneath the largest hospital and medical complex in Gaza, international law holds that the hospital is no longer just a civilian target; it is a legitimate military target. This does not give the Israeli military free reign to attack hospitals, schools, and mosques; however, it does mean that an Israeli attack on civilian infrastructure which has been turned into a military target by use of human shields is not illegal under international law.

3. If human shields are being used voluntarily — meaning the human shields are there, on their own volition — the target remains a completely legitimate military target. If human shields are being used involuntarily, a balancing test should be used to determine whether the anticipated military advantage of a successful strike would outweigh the anticipated loss of civilian life. (IDF guidelines state that if it cannot determine whether a human shield is being used voluntarily or involuntarily, military personnel must presume civilians are being used against their own will.)

4. A comparison of the number of civilian casualties on one adversary’s side versus that of the other is not relevant to a proportionality analysis.

But here is one of my main philosophical arguments: These “rules” should only apply to the parties that respect and adhere to them. In other words, because Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and others are jihadist terrorist groups that curse the Western (civilized) world at every beck and call, they not only reject these “rules” outright. They double down by twisting them in their nefarious favor.

As far as I can tell, the entire basis of “rules” is to make following them beneficial to the most amount of people possible. When people follow these “rules,” conditions are supposed to improve.

But in a conflict where one party agrees to follow these “rules” and another does not, instead manipulating them to gain mischievous advantages over those following the “rules,” conditions regress rather than progress. In some cases, like this war between Israel and the Iranian axis, they serve as a bonafide double-negative — by penalizing the “rules” follower (Israel) and rewarding the “rules” breakers (Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iran).

What is the point of these “rules” then?

I am not implying that Israel should just dick around and indiscriminately fire away at civilian population centers (like Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and other jihadist terror groups do).

Rather, I am unapologetically stating that the world should quit being so preoccupied with the notion of “civilian casualties” in Gaza, Lebanon, and other places from where these terrorist organizations operate, cynically use civilians as human shields, and hide their assets among civilian infrastructure as a matter of formal policy and habitual practice.

If we truly cared about civilian casualties, we should proactively work to defeat those who instigate and celebrate them. Spoiler: That is not Israel.

Another spoiler: Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and other jihadist terror groups are all capable of being defeated (or at least severely downgraded, effectively rendering them defeated).

It is first-class nonsense to suggest that these terrorist organizations are simply “an idea” and “you cannot defeat ideas.” By this illogical logic, we should just throw up our hands and let every terror group run wild because they have “an idea” at their core. It is a convenient excuse for inaction, wrapped with a pseudo-intellectual veneer.

In reality, these terror groups are not just “an idea.” They are well-funded, heavily armed organizations with structured leadership, military capabilities, and a clear agenda: genocide (not so different from the Nazis). They fire rockets, build terror tunnels, and use human shields.

These activities are not abstract concepts; they are concrete threats that can and should be met with force. Reducing these terror groups to just “an idea” is a gross oversimplification that ignores the real, tangible dangers they pose.

Secondly, let’s not kid ourselves into thinking that ideas cannot be defeated. History is full of ideologies that were once considered unstoppable until they met their end. Nazism, for instance, was “an idea” that led to a world war and the Holocaust. It was defeated through military might and strategic persistence. The same goes for many extremist movements throughout history. The notion that “an idea” makes an organization invincible is both defeatist and delusional.

Moreover, defeating these terror groups is not solely about eradicating every last extremist thought; it is about dismantling their abilities to act on those thoughts. By crippling their infrastructure, cutting off their funding, and targeting their leadership, you significantly reduce their capacity to terrorize and kill. Sure, the extremist ideology might linger, but without the means to enforce it, they becomes far less of a threat.

Some argue that, while all of this might be true and accurate, the cost in civilian casualties is too high to bear. These poor women and children do not deserve what these terrorist organizations bring and threaten to bring on them, the argument goes.

If these terrorist organizations and the people they govern lived in a silo, I might agree — but they do not. They live on the borders of a vibrant democracy that has given so much to the Western (civilized) world in so little time. What kind of world would we be creating if we normalized the act of forsaking Group A’s civilians at the expense of the bordering Group B’s civilians living with constant lethal terrorist attacks emanating out of and overtly encouraged by those in Group A?

It seems to me that a far more logical and humane approach would be to defeat those in Group A whose warped ideology prevents peace, calm, and coexistence — even if that means civilians in Group A die as a result. Indeed, if we want Group A to realize that people from their group starting wars is doing them far worse than far better, more and more of their people will protest against those who start these wars.

I understand that people in Gaza, for example, cannot really protest against Hamas because the terror group incessantly jails, tortures, and murders dissidents like clockwork. The same protocol is used by Hezbollah, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and other terrorist regimes (unsurprisingly). But eventually, if more and more people protest against genocidal warmongers, and if enough of the world gets behind these people, they can break through.

It will take time and lots of dead people, but ultimately, this is the story of many civilized nations today. People in the U.S. and Canada and Holland and France and Argentina did not just wake up one day and decide they were going to escape the shackles of their oppressors. They waged many civil wars and spared countless lives to literally fight for the freedoms, liberties, and rights that many of us are fortunate to have today.

The so-called Arab world has not yet reached this point, and the Palestinians are no exception to this reality. Their freedoms, liberties, and rights have little to do with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and much more to do with their long-standing kleptocratic leadership that — dating back to the 1960s and persisting to this day — preaches Islamic-inspired genocide against the Jews and oppresses Palestinians who do not toe the party line.

As we have seen time and again, regime change from outside influences alone will not foment enduring change. It is only through a combination of tenacious internal resistance (i.e. civil war) and some outside help that people can affect the change they want to see (if change is indeed what they want).

The other option is more war and more suffering for the people of Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, and many other places across the Middle East. The Arabs are utterly incapable of defeating Israel militarily, as evidenced by multiple genocidal escapades that Arab countries and terror groups alike have embarrassingly failed at executing since 1948.

On October 7th, Hamas exacted an overwhelmingly heavy price on Israel, but we did not buckle. We roared back and have reminded those Arabs who declare themselves to be our enemies that they have zero chance of destroying Israel by military force or terrorism.

And while they can continue to take their shots if they so wish, Israel will always impose a far greater and more paralyzing price on them, like we have marvelously witnessed with the existential debacles that Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah currently find themselves in. Hence why they are all begging the Iranian regime to come save their sorry you-know-whats.

And Israel has conducted these urban wars while keeping civilian casualties unbelievably low — so low that armies across the world, big and small, will study these wars for years to come.

But if there is one thing that the West should take away from Israel’s ferocious rebound following October 7th, it is that — when dealing with jihadist cowards who hide behind defenseless people — civilian casualties ought not to be an area of extraordinary emphasis.

The first and main lesson should focus on the importance of defeating these demented souls, at virtually all costs, so they cannot repeat their heinous crimes against humanity, and so the people around them will learn that living in a warzone is overwhelmingly worse than living in peace, calm, and coexistence with their neighbors.

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