We have now heard President Biden announce on several occasions that Israel must observe the “rules of war” when retaliating against Hamas. Surely, he is concerned about the loss of civilian lives, as we all are. But how will this apply to the current mission that Israel is forced to carry out?
The president has referred to Oct. 7 as “pure, unadulterated evil,” much like what we saw during World War II. Simply stated, it was then as it is today, good versus evil. Interestingly, back in the 1940s, the United States and its allies made their position clear. They stated that civilian casualties were “an unfortunate but inevitable result in a war of self-defense.” Today it seems that Israel finds itself in the same situation.
Opinion
In preparation for D-Day in March of 1944, the U.S. and British air forces targeted railways across France, Belgium and Western Germany. The experts recorded that there were approximately 100 civilian casualties per air strike.
Winston Churchill expressed his concern regarding the numbers of the French who had been killed with President Roosevelt. He posited that not only would there be casualties in excess of 10,000 and many more injured, but that the bombings would result in a “legacy of hate” toward the Allies.
Roosevelt responded: “However regrettable the attendant loss of civilian lives, I am not prepared to impose from this distance any restriction on military actions by the responsible commanders, that in their opinion might mitigate against the success of our invasion.”
In 1944, several strategically located Nazi facilities were bombed by the Allies. One of them had civilian hospitals on either side of it. Another example was the Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen. The British dropped bombs and destroyed the building but, unintentionally, hit a nearby school, and over 100 innocent civilians lost their lives. Furthermore, there were the factories in Auschwitz and Buchenwald that we bombed, knowing that the plants would have Jewish slave laborers inside of them. Furthermore, when British POWs were captured and held there, the bombings continued. The Roosevelt administration believed that the bombings were still justified.
Additionally, we have the obvious historical truths: 40,000 killed in the bombing of Hamburg (July, 1943); 25,000 killed in the Battle of Dresden (February, 1945); 100,000 fatalities in the firebombing of Tokyo (March, 1945); 200,000 dead as a result of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (August, 1945).
Any follower of Judeo-Christian principles understands the injunction: “If one comes to kill you, rise up and kill them first.” I like to remind people that the Israel Defense Forces are just that, simply in place to defend the land and its people. There is no offensive mission. They seek no additional territory nor to proselytize anyone. The objective is nothing more than peace in their ancestral homeland. We can only hope that the U.S. government will continue to support Israel despite the reality that war is ugly, indeed war is hell. May God help us to stay strong in our convictions and to bring this tragic chapter in history to a close.
Rabbi David Sirull
Adas Yeshurun Synagogue
