Why many American Jews are deeply conflicted about Israel’s war

In a time of algorithm-supercharged anger, snap analysis and instant ideological gratification, I find myself painfully conflicted about the war in Gaza. I suspect I’m not alone.

While many of my fellow American Jews on the far left and right are frozen in their black-and-white interpretations of the ongoing violence, most of us find ourselves struggling in the morally gray middle.

At the basis of my internal conflict is my unabated rage at the barbaric attack that occurred on Oct. 7. How can one apply dispassionate analysis to Gaza while still haunted by the evil terrorism wrought by Hamas? The “eye-for-an-eye” human impulse that beats within me demands justice — the dismantling and destruction of Hamas, no matter what.

That’s how my heart beats. Then, there’s my mind, which knows that there is no simple justice in war.

As a member of Congress, I served on both the House Armed Services Committee and the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense. I visited Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel and Gaza (even Rafah) dozens of times. I’ve found myself frequently seated next to generals like Joseph Dunford, David Petraeus, Ray Odierno, George Casey and Stanley McChrystal. When I reflect on my heart’s instincts, my passions are tempered by lessons learned.

First, there is the “counter-insurgency math,” explained concisely by Gen. McChrystal: “Each [insurgent] you killed has a brother, father, son and friends, who do not necessarily think that they were killed because they were doing something wrong. It does not matter — you killed them. Suddenly, then, there may be 20, making the calculus of military operations very different.”

Even as my heart demands that Israel be allowed to do what it must, I cannot help but ask: How many more terrorists are created with each civilian death? Over how many generations? Does the counter-insurgency math add up in Israel’s favor?

“Total victory,” I hear from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “Dismantle and destroy Hamas!” I support the notion.

But what does “total victory” look like? Eradicate the organization’s command, control and communications? Kill or imprison every senior officer? Kill or arrest every recruit, courier, flag-waver?

If the return of hostages and an ultimate surrender by Hamas is the goal, in what world would Hamas concede? When in the course of human warfare — or human nature, for that matter — has a terrorist organization such as Hamas signed its own death warrant? They may burn out over time, but they don’t self-immolate.

Almost tortuously, the dispassionate analysis always ends up where I began: But how can Israel possibly leave operational the mass murderers of its own people? What signal does that send? That all one must do is kill and kidnap Jews and wait for the inevitable winds of antisemitism and anti-Zionism to swing around and reward you for your savagery? How can any Jew feel safe when the murder of their brothers and sisters triggers the cluck of tongues in mouths, while the response triggers deafening chants on college campuses?

This brings me to the Biden administration’s decision to pause a single shipment of heavy bombs to Israel. Biden’s calculus is that while Israel must go after those responsible for the Oct. 7 massacres, a ground operation in Rafah — a city now sheltering over 1 million people — is a strategic and humanitarian mistake when there are other ways for Israel to pursue an acceptable end-state in Gaza. Meanwhile, the White House and Congress have surged billions of dollars in security assistance to Israel since Oct. 7, passed the largest ever supplemental appropriation for emergency assistance to Israel and led an unprecedented coalition to defend Israel against Iranian attacks.

Netanyahu’s political survival is irreconcilable with an immediate cease-fire. Only “total victory” will do, as unattainable as that might seem. And perhaps that’s why he invoked the phrase, linking his longevity to the endless pursuit of the undefined goal.

Yet 62 percent of Israelis prefer a hostage deal to an operation in Rafah, according to a new poll by the Israel Democracy Institute. In another poll by Channel 13, 52 percent of Israelis do not believe the operation will achieve “total victory.” And a poll by Israel’s public broadcaster found that the largest portion — nearly half of Israelis — support a hostage deal involving the release of all hostages in return for “a complete end to the war and release of thousands of terrorists.”

As Jews in Israel and the U.S. are left seeking answers to the unanswerable, there’s no easy solution to be condensed into a tweet or soundbite. Short of endless war, the only real solutions may emerge in the murky territory between passion and pragmatism, in a “best of the worst-case” scenario. It’s a maddening, ungratifying equation — one bereft of justice and destined to cause even more moral conflict within our community and beyond.

But in a community that often measures ourselves in numbers (6 million murdered in the Holocaust) we have learned, painfully, that math may be right, but it is rarely just.

Steve Israel represented New York in the U.S. House of Representatives over eight terms and was chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee from 2011 to 2015. Follow him @RepSteveIsrael.