Telling Israel To Minimize Civilian Casualties Is Rude
And Biden's telling Americans that he lectures Israelis on this is even worse.
Greetings from Arizona, where it’s sunny and warm. I’m writing to you from a coffee shop, sitting out in 78-degree weather with a pleasant breeze. If it sounds like I’m rubbing it in your face, that’s because I am.
I apologize for the hiatus. Moving back to Arizona was a lot of work. When you move, you’d think you hire a moving company who will pack everything for you, and then it’ll take a week to unpack. What you miss is that the stress of moving could be pretty paralyzing, and, also, you’ll spend a lot of time seeing everyone before leaving and catching up with everyone back in Arizona whom you haven’t seen in quite a while. But I’m finally settled. So expect me to flood your inboxes.
Where do I begin? Oh, right, there’s a war in the Middle East. There’s another one in Europe, too, rumor has it. The only place where turmoil is absent—for now—is the Indo–Pacific and East Asia. It turns out that, when you assure the entire world that you’re done with it to give your complete focus to Asia, evil tyrants in the rest of the world, in Moscow and Tehran and Gaza, take you for your word, concluding that you’re done with them, and they have a free range. Who could have thought!
Speaking of Tehran, I recently published an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, arguing that the Islamic Republic gave the green-light for the attack of October 10: “Why It’s Obvious Iran Approved Hamas’s Attack.” Take a look.
Since the attack, President Joe Biden and his communications surrogates have been adamant that they have been clear to Israel that they should be very mindful of civilian casualties. That’s a terrible message.
Indeed, Israel must be wary of civilian casualties. Israel knows it. Because of the anti-Jewish double standards that Israel faces in wartime, it goes out of its way to minimize civilian casualties more than the U.S. military does.
It’s also worth adding that the understanding of civilian casualties in the United States is somewhat spoiled. The last time the United States fought an existential war was in the 1860s. Since, even at the height of World War II, the war was not existential for us. When you don’t fight with the fear of losing your nation, you have the luxury of putting extra care into the welfare of the enemy and civilians in war zone.