This excerpt is drawn from my forthcoming book, The Elephant in the Middle East: The Spiritual Battle Christians Often Miss Behind the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Complete sources, citations, and references are documented within the book itself.
Background
Israel possesses nuclear weapons and advanced technologies that could have reduced Gaza to rubble in a single day — much as other nations in history have done when attacked. Think of Dresden and Hiroshima, where entire cities were erased in the name of ending a war, or Grozny, leveled by Russian bombardment. By comparison, Israel’s restraint is striking. Instead of unleashing its full destructive capacity, it deliberately chose the harder, slower, and costlier path: to go after Hamas operatives specifically, as much as possible. This is no easy task when Hamas fighters dress like civilians, utilize child-soldiers, operate from schools and hospitals, and hide among families. The price of this restraint has been enormous — thousands of Israeli soldiers and civilians killed, the economy drained, and the war prolonged. Yet it reflects Israel’s moral decision not to annihilate Gaza, but to dismantle Hamas while striving, however imperfectly, to minimize harm to innocents.
In war — especially when fighting an enemy that deliberately violates every norm of international law by using children as soldiers, turning hospitals into bases, and hiding weapons in schools — civilian casualties and atrocities cannot be avoided. Sadly, in every conflict throughout history, there are always some soldiers who abuse the fog of war to act out of hatred or vengeance. Israel is not exempt from this human reality. But when compared with the conduct of other nations in past and present wars, Israel stands out as exceptionally cautious and restrained. Its record shows repeated efforts to minimize harm to civilians, even in the most impossible of circumstances.
After the horrors of October 7 — when Jewish Israelis were slaughtered, violated, beheaded, and consumed in fire — much of the world responded with little more than hollow words, gestures of solidarity that rang painfully shallow. Yet, within days, global criticism began to mount, particularly regarding Israel’s military response in Gaza. This rapid shift exposes a striking double standard in global attitudes toward warfare. Historically, when nations have suffered attacks of such magnitude, their responses have been far more devastating.
For comparison’s sake, in late 1945, the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed up to 246,000 civilians. By comparison, since the war began in 2023, around 64,000 Palestinian casualties have been reported — most of them Hamas-affiliated.
In contrast, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) operate under one of the most stringent moral codes of any modern military. The IDF’s ethical doctrine, known as “Tohar Haneshek” (“Purity of Arms”), emphasizes minimizing harm to civilians — even when it places Israeli soldiers at greater risk. Israel regularly warns civilians before strikes (via leaflets, phone calls, and “roof knocking”), a practice nearly unparalleled in modern warfare. While no army is without fault, individual Israeli soldiers who violate these ethics are investigated and, in many cases, tried and disciplined. This is not the norm in much of the world.
The intense scrutiny placed on Israel is often hypocritical — but not entirely unproductive. Jewish history and theology carry a unique moral burden. As a people historically shaped by suffering and covenant, Israel is held — perhaps providentially — to a higher standard. Rather than resent this, we can also see it as part of a divine calling to gradually elevate the ethics of war itself. That evolution is slow, costly, and imperfect — but arguably, it is unfolding before the eyes of the world, even when the world chooses not to see it.
Those who accuse Israel of “responding too strongly” should be honest: what exactly is the “right response” when hundreds of your children are kidnapped, families are burned alive, and entire communities are massacred? To stand by and do nothing? That is not peace‑seeking — that is national suicide.
Is Israel Really Committing Genocide in Gaza?
Propaganda, emotions, and biased headlines aside, let’s take a sober look at the facts…
In August 2025, the Palestinian population (both Gaza and the West Bank) was estimated at 5.6 million. In 2023, before the war began, it stood at 5.4 million. An increase of 200,000 in two years is not evidence of genocide — it is evidence of population growth. Now, let us look more closely at Gaza.
As of September 2025, the Palestinian Health Ministry — effectively Hamas’s propaganda outlet — claimed that a total number of 64,231 Palestinians — militants and civilians — had been killed. Even these numbers, however, are highly dubious and were labelled as “completely unreliable” by The Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Of the reported deaths, most were men and boys — the demographic from which Hamas draws the vast majority of its fighters. It is also important to note that the media often classifies 17‑year‑olds as “children,” despite the fact that many of Hamas’ combatants are under 18, some reportedly as young as 12. In practice, Hamas systematically recruits and deploys child soldiers, a hallmark of Islamist warfare.
For the sake of argument, let’s assume that the genuine civilian toll is around 30,000 (since the war began in October 2023). Out of Gaza’s 2023 population of 2.23 million. By any honest definition, a 1-2% loss — tragic as it is — does not constitute genocide. For many who casually hear the term “genocide” applied to Gaza without checking the data, the actual population figures might come as a surprise. I mean, according to the BBC, “Genocide is defined as a mass extermination of a particular group of people.”
For comparison, an estimated 100,000 Ukrainians have been killed and half a million injured defending Ukraine since Russia’s invasion, yet the world does not routinely accuse Russia of committing “genocide” against Ukraine. Why the double standard? And why is it that we never see mass demonstrations around the world against the genocide of Christians at the hands of Muslims in the Middle East and Africa? For instance, “62,000 Christians in Nigeria have been murdered in a genocide perpetrated by Islamist jihadist groups, including Boko Haram.”
The gap between facts on the ground and the headlines in many Western media outlets is not driven by reality, but by anti-Israel pro-Muslim propaganda that weaponizes language to distort reality.
In fact, Alice Wairimu Nderitu, the UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, stirred controversy when she stated that Israel’s actions in Gaza did not meet the legal definition of genocide — emphasizing that such a charge requires clear evidence, not political outrage. Her position stood in stark contrast to claims made by other voices and rising political pressure from various member states and anti-Israel advocacy groups.
Nderitu was later dismissed from her post at the UN. She also reported facing harassment and threats for her stance, highlighting not only the internal tensions within the UN but also the growing politicization of legal terms like “genocide” — which, when misused, risk undermining both justice and credibility in international diplomacy.
Likewise, Jacob Lew, U.S. Ambassador to Israel between 2023 and 2025, openly acknowledged what many already suspected — Hamas had been fabricating its numbers from the very beginning:
We could almost never get answers that explained what happened before the story was fully framed in international media, and then when the facts were fully developed, it turned out that the casualties were much lower, the number of civilians was much lower, and, in many cases, the children were children of Hamas fighters, not children taking cover in places. They were the children of the fighters themselves.
But by the time the truth finally surfaced, the international media had already framed the story in a strongly anti-Israel way — portraying it as the alleged genocide of children — and this shaped the opinions of billions around the world.
In September 2025, after widespread accusations that Israel was committing genocide, the UK government — despite being a frequent critic of Israel — issued an official statement declaring: “Israel is not committing genocide in Gaza.”
Sadly, facts mean little to those who seek to exploit the media in order to brainwash the world against Israel and the Jewish people. What follows is just one example among many.
The Middle East Monitor (MEMO) is an Islamist, pro-Muslim Brotherhood, anti-Israel nonprofit funded by Qatar. It is followed by millions — not only Muslims — on social media. On September 12, 2025, MEMO published a viral post falsely claiming that as of April 2025, Israel had killed 680,000 Gazans (remember, even Hamas reported only 64,000 dead). The deceptive post went even further, alleging that 380,000 of the victims were babies and children under the age of five. Not by coincidence, this was posted just three days after Israel struck Qatar in an attempt to assassinate Hamas leadership. The following week, in her 15 September 2025 speech, UN’s Francesca Albanese declared, “We shall start thinking of 680,000 [dead] because this is the number some claim.” She then conceded, however, that “it will be hard to prove this number.”
This scene was carefully staged. Where do you think she got that number from? That’s how propaganda works. Albanese shields herself from blame by claiming she’s merely quoting others, while knowing full well that no one will bother to check or verify the figures. And yet, because the claim was made in an official UN speech, countless people will accept it as truth.
This kind of grotesque exaggeration is nothing less than classic antisemitism, fabricating monstrous blood libels to paint Israel as a baby-killer and to provide a ready-made excuse for hating the Jewish state.
