A week after Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, Michael Walzer told The Free Press that Israel’s war against Gaza was just, but he warned against the needless killing of noncombatants. “We do know what ought not to be done, and we just hope it is not done,” he said at the time.
Yesterday, I called Walzer, the author of Just and Unjust Wars, back to see what he makes of Israel’s prosecution of this war, six months in.
“I think the IDF has been trying to adhere to the rules in an environment that probably requires some loosening of the rules,” Walzer told me.
He said: “I think that certainly the siege could have been handled very differently.”
Walzer added: “I read somewhere they have opened or allowed 20 bakeries in northern Gaza to reopen, and I thought, ‘Why did it take a phone call from President Biden to open bakeries where people are obviously hungry?’ And then I thought, ‘How can there be 20 bakeries waiting to reopen when all we’ve seen of Northern Gaza is rubble?’ So, there’s a problem in the way the war has been reported, but also the way Israel has conducted the siege.”
As Walzer sees it, Israel has stumbled into an “asymmetry trap” set by Hamas, with large numbers of Palestinian noncombatants having died.
Given that Hamas appears not to care at all about noncombatants—and, in fact, derives a PR boost every time Palestinians are killed—“I don’t know if there was any alternative,” Walzer said.
He noted, for example, that Israel’s use of massive bombs to root out Hamas’s underground infrastructure has had very mixed results.
“Some of the bombing, like the 2,000-pound bombs, were used not for targets on the surface but to get at the tunnels,” he said. “They didn’t know what would work. Those bombs did collapse some of the closer to the surface tunnels, but didn’t get at the really deep ones.”
I asked Walzer what a best-case scenario over the next six months might look like.
“A cease-fire that brings the hostages home, and then either a move toward a political way of dealing with Hamas, or a resumption of the war at a very low level that is a special-forces operation,” he said.
Peter Savodnik is a writer and editor for The Free Press. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @petersavodnik.
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It’s telling that the casualty reports from Hamas authorities always goes something like this - “30,000 dead, mostly women and children “ . How can it be that Palestinian men aren’t apparently being effected if it’s not the case that those men are underground and willingly sacrificing their wives, mothers, sisters and children on the alter of oppressed victim hood - now with our President’s support.
To help Peter Savodnik and Michael Walzer (and indeed anyone else) understand what it is going on re the Humanitarian Aid to the Gaza Strip, COGAT does a daily update. COGAT is the IDF coordinating arm for humanitarian aid. There are now 21 bakeries operating in Gaza (mostly North Gaza) producing over 2 million loaves of bread, rolls and pita.
On 7 April 322 lorry loads of humanitarian aid entered the strip, including 35 lorries carrying food for North Gaza.
The breakdowns of the exact aid may not be exciting, but they are there.
You can also see how many trucks were cleared by the IDF (322) , how many were transferred for delivery (302) and how many the UN actually distributed to the population (110). Figures for 7 April. So appears to be the usual pattern re distribution. So where is the hold up? Not on the Israeli side seemingly.
It constantly surprises me that journalists and others are not checking the site for accurate info on the humanitarian aid and then asking the hard questions. https://govextra.gov.il/cogat/humanitarian-efforts/home/