Mark Potterton argues in the Daily Maverick that the war in Gaza is not a fair war and makes his arguments, while maintaining a tenuous relationship with facts and truth.
Potterton contends emotively that the war in Gaza is horrific and that images of injured civilians are rightly disturbing, but fails to acknowledge that Hamas's declaration of war on October 7 was also horrific. The terrorist group took 250 innocent civilians hostage, killed 1,200 people and raped women live on camera. The piece also fails to acknowledge the existential threat that Hamas poses to Israel, and that the war could end immediately if the terror organisation frees the hostages and surrenders.
War is indisputably terrible, but it is an unfortunate reality that if a terrorist organisation declares war on Israel by slaughtering civilians, the response will not be an invitation to sit around the table and discuss peace. Hamas knew the consequences of its actions when it started this conflict.
Ultimately, Potterton makes the case that Israel does not wage a just war — one that he says would be proportional, a last resort, have a high likelihood of success, and need to protect civilians.
Firstly, one has to ask what Potterton would have Israel do instead as a response to a continued threat to its very existence?
Hamas has vowed to wipe out Israel from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, eliminating its 9-million citizens. On October 24 last year, Hamas member Ghazi Hamad said on Lebanese TV: “Israel is a country that has no place on our land [...] because it constitutes a security, military, and political catastrophe to the Arab and Islamic nation.”
Hamas swore to repeat the October 7 attacks “time and again until Israel is annihilated”.
If there was ever a necessary war, it is this one, as Israel—like any country—has the right to defend itself from an enemy that wishes to see its complete obliteration. However, Israel is the only country in the world the media criticises for defending its people.
Potterton also tries to make the case that Israel has failed at being proportionate, as evidenced by civilian casualties.
All loss of life is tragic, but figures from the Hamas ministry of health are not reliable. Even the United Nations (UN) has revised its death statistics. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs revised its child fatalities from 14,500 as reported on May 6 to just under 7,800 the next day. It dropped its estimate from 9,500 female fatalities to almost 5,000 and yet this barely made media headlines as it failed to fit with the narrative that Israel is indiscriminately killing civilians. Potterton’s argument that the war is not proportional fails even a cursory examination.
He writes: “the street protests around the world have underlined that the response has not been proportionate”.
One doesn’t have to be a military scholar to conclude that street protests are not a measure of the complexities of urban warfare and proportionality.
Potterton then goes on to say that a key principle of the just war theory promotes the preservation of human life. He rightly decries many innocent women and children being injured and killed. But he doesn’t identify the true culprit.
He does not mention that Hamas soldiers disguise themselves as civilians and store weapons in children’s bedrooms described by the New York Times as “blurring the boundary between civilians and combatants”.
The fact that four hostages were rescued in June from two civilian apartments proves that Hamas uses ordinary people as pawns because when they are killed, the world blames Israel. It is not Israel seeking to kill innocents, but rather Hamas who cynically knows the power of optics when innocent people die.
In fact, Israel tries to mitigate civilian casualties John Spencer, chair of the Urban Warfare Studies Modern War Institute at West Point, who served in the US military for over 25 years, has stated that "the steps that Israel has taken to prevent casualties is historic in comparison to all these other wars."
Attempting to prevent civilian casualties is one of the very things Potterton argues makes a just and fair war. The story fails to mention that Hamas has not agreed to any ceasefire terms.
There will be no quick solution, that Potterton demands, to the war until Israel’s right to exist is accepted and the hostages returned. Potterton calls for diplomacy, suggesting Israel has ignored using this instead of war, but diplomacy is of no use when dealing with terrorist organisations that even in peacetime fire rockets into Israel.
In his argument, Potterton states a just war is based on Judeo-Roman Christian principles, but surely such principles also require being truthful. Yet he falsely claims that Gaza is a place where there has been continuing fighting between Israel and Palestinians over several years. This is simply not true.
Israel unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005, with a self-government established, giving it independence, and only controlling some of its airspace for safety reasons. Only one side in this war, Hamas, has continued fighting by firing rockets into Israel during peacetime, often from hospitals or schools. Facts matter, and the article evades and misrepresents what is truly taking place.
The article then ignores the most essential truth of all- that Israel is a country, like all countries that has a right to exist and protect its citizens.
Rolene Marks is a spokesperson for the SA Zionist Federation.
