Open Letter to Jeffrey D. Sachs On Gaza, Hamas

By Oded J.K. Faran and Walter E. Block | September 12, 2025

Professor Jeffrey D. Sachs
University Professor and Director of the Center for Sustainable Development
Columbia University

Dear Professor Sachs:

We are grateful for the publication of your highly critical open letter to H.E. Gideon Sa’ar, Foreign Minister of Israel, in response to his speech at the United Nations Security Council on August 5, 2025. Your letter was succinct, passionate, and clearly heartfelt. However, we believe it to be profoundly mistaken. We now wish to share our reflections on your essay, just as you did with Minister Sa’ar’s speech.

The Fallacy of Omission-Based Criticism

You begin by criticizing Minister Sa’ar for his “failing to recognize why almost the entire world, including many Jews such as myself, are aghast at your government’s behavior.” This constitutes an inappropriate form of criticism. Academic discourse demands that critics address what an author has actually stated or written, not what they have allegedly omitted. Following your methodology, we could equally criticize you for failing to mention American slavery before 1865 in your letter. Such criticism would be as inappropriate as your castigation of Sa’ar for failing to address Jewish opposition to Israeli policy.

Nevertheless, since you have raised this issue, we shall address it directly. The reason many Jews of your perspective are dismayed by Israel’s legitimate self-defense is a fundamental absence of moral clarity regarding justice. Were any other nation subjected to the barbaric attacks of October 7, 2023, and responded as Israel has, you would undoubtedly support their actions. Your differential reaction stems from what can only be characterized as Israel Derangement Syndrome.

The Universal Military Objective: Surrender

Consider the fundamental objective of military action throughout history. What was the goal of the Allies in both World Wars? What did the Union seek to achieve in 1861? What is the aim of virtually any military force when it takes up arms? The answer is singular: surrender. All sought the capitulation of their enemies as the pathway to peace. Why should Israel be held to a different standard? Why should it not demand both the release of hostages held by Hamas terrorists and the complete submission of Hamas? Only Israel Derangement Syndrome can account for your contrary viewpoint.

Historical Parallels: Appeasement and Its Consequences

There exists another troubling explanation for your position. You appear to be adopting the role that many German Jews assumed during Hitler’s rise in the 1930s. They attempted various forms of appeasement, hoping that such accommodation would earn gentler treatment from the Nazis. You now take a similar stance, apparently expecting that Muslims will accord Jews less hostility in recognition of your opposition to Israeli policy. In effect, you are signaling to Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis: “See, not all Jews oppose your terrorist acts. We do not all support the IDF’s defensive war against you. Some of us, including myself, oppose Netanyahu and his militarism. We seek peaceful coexistence. Please take this into account when you achieve power and do not treat us as harshly as you otherwise might.”

This appeasement strategy is not unique to Jews. The phenomenon exists across ethnic groups, hence the phrase “Uncle Tom” in American parlance. The powerful film “Django Unchained” depicted this dynamic through the character of the enslaved butler who sided with his master against the film’s protagonist, a black bounty hunter.

While the appeasement position you advocate is not necessarily counterproductive in all circumstances (it failed catastrophically for Jews in Nazi Germany but arguably saved lives among black Americans in the antebellum South), you write as if the alternative approach of principled resistance must inevitably fail. You offer no evidence whatsoever for this contention of yours.

The Question of Moral Responsibility

Continuing with your essay, you claim that “Israel is engaged in mass murder and starvation… has caused the deaths to date of some 18,500 Palestinian children.” While these numbers may or may not be accurate, the critical question remains: who bears responsibility for these tragic deaths?

Consider this analogous scenario: A terrorist approaches you with his infant strapped to his chest, brandishing a knife while screaming, “I’m going to kill you, you dirty Jew.” You are armed. You face only two choices: allow him to murder you, effectively committing suicide through inaction, or shoot him in the chest (the only way to stop his attack). If you choose the latter, you will tragically kill his innocent child.

Assuming you are not suicidal, you fire in self-defense. Your bullet ends the child’s life. But who bears moral responsibility for that death? You? The terrorist? Both? Any fair-minded person would recognize that the terrorist bears complete responsibility for this horrific outcome. This analogy perfectly parallels the Gaza situation. Yes, Palestinian children have died from Israeli fire. But these innocents were cynically used as human shields by their own people. Hamas deliberately places rocket launchers in hospitals, schools, and residential areas. Are you a fair-minded person? Clearly not. If you were, you would never blame Israel for these tragic but unavoidable deaths. You would place responsibility precisely where it belongs: with the monsters of Hamas.

Professor Sachs would benefit from contemplating this statement by former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir: “When peace comes we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons. Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.”

Logical Contradictions in Your Argument

Professor Sachs, you charge “Israeli forces [with] killing starving civilians in cold blood as they approach food distribution points.” Simultaneously, Israel has been accused by critics like yourself of starving Gazans. Do you not perceive the logical contradiction here? How can “food distribution points” coexist with systematic “starvation”? Does Columbia University’s philosophy department not teach elementary logic?

Deaths do occur at these distribution sites, but they result from mob violence by crowds containing terrorists who attack the food distributors themselves. These deaths stem from legitimate self-defense by those attempting to provide humanitarian aid. This represents the literal definition of biting the hand that feeds you.

You reference “Israel’s starvation of 2 million Palestinians.” Yet Hamas has been making these claims for an entire year. Can you not see through these transparent lies? Examine news footage of supposedly starving Gazans. Do they appear malnourished to you? If so, we suggest you require better eyewear.

Questions of Citizenship and Allegiance

You take umbrage with Minister Sa’ar’s description of Israel as “The sovereign state of the Jewish people.” Cannot Sa’ar be granted even minimal poetic license? You correctly note that you are “a citizen of the United States” and declare that “Israel is not my state and never will be.”

Indeed? You have personally witnessed the antisemitism that erupted at Columbia University and the administration’s inadequate response to these outrages. Were it not for President Trump’s decisive intervention, such incidents would have continued unabated. Should the next president prove less resolute, is it inconceivable that such hatred might spread further? Jews flocked to Germany in the early 20th century, where they were initially welcomed. While we believe the American people would never tolerate such developments, suppose they did occur. This is not logically impossible, unlike a square circle. In such circumstances, you might very much welcome Sa’ar’s statement, which constitutes an open invitation to all Jews.

In fairness, you are correct in rejecting Sa’ar’s characterization of Judaism as a nationality. It is, properly speaking, a religion.

Religious Texts and Practical Considerations

You then launch an attack on Zionism, citing “The great Rabbinic sages of the Babylonian Talmud [who] in fact explicitly proscribed a mass return of the Jewish people to Jerusalem, telling the Jewish people to live in their own homelands (Ketubot 111a).”

This represents purely pragmatic, not moral, guidance. Which strategy proves superior: placing all eggs in one strong basket, or scattering them across the globe where they remain relatively weak in isolation? This is not a question of justice but of practical effectiveness. Hamas would indeed welcome all Jews gathering in Israel, where they could be eliminated more easily without requiring a global hunt. This presents a valid tactical argument against Zionism. Conversely, there are significant economies of scale; when concentrated in Israel, the IDF has become the fourth most powerful military globally. This creates a formidable defensive capability. Which strategy ultimately proves superior only time will determine. However, there is nothing inherently anti-Jewish about the Zionist approach, as you suggest.

The Balfour Declaration and Arab Treatment

Regarding your claim: “In this context, it’s also worth recalling that the Balfour Declaration states clearly and unequivocally that ‘nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.’ Zionism has failed that test.”

This assertion proves difficult to sustain. Insofar as Arabs have lived peacefully, they have been treated exceptionally well by Israel. They serve as doctors, lawyers, professors, and engineers. They possess voting rights and maintain political parties with representation in the Knesset.  Furthermore, in addition to the political rights and representation in the Knesset, Arabs have also been included in the Israeli governing coalition, served as ministers in the government, and have been appointed to the Israeli Supreme Court. These positions are among the highest levels of political power in the country.  Importantly, the only “rights” that have been curtailed are the “rights” of Palestinian terrorists to murder Jews. Gay Palestinians receive civilized treatment in Israel, which they would not receive in many Arab nations.

Land Ownership and Historical Claims

You charge Minister Sa’ar that “Your government is committed to the permanent occupation of all of Palestine.”

This characterization is both accurate and entirely justified. However, the fundamental premise underlying your accusation requires examination. This is not occupation by any functional or coherent definition of the term. International law defines occupation as the effective control of foreign territory by a hostile army. Israel cannot occupy territory that is legitimately its own under both historical and legal principles. At best, certain areas represent disputed territories where competing claims exist, but even this characterization fails to acknowledge the overwhelming weight of Jewish historical precedence and legal title.

The concept of occupation presupposes that the controlling power lacks legitimate claim to the territory in question. This assumption collapses entirely when applied to Israel. The Lockean homesteading principle for legitimate land ownership specifies that the first people to “mix their labor” with the land become its rightful owners. Jews occupied “all of Palestine” approximately 3,000 years ago; Muslims arrived only about 1,000 years previously. While the Romans and Ottomans subsequently conquered the Jews and seized their land through force, this does not extinguish legitimate title any more than theft eliminates the rightful owner’s claim to stolen property. One cannot occupy one’s own ancestral homeland, particularly when that homeland was taken through conquest and is now being reclaimed through legitimate means. The characterization of Israeli presence as occupation thus represents a fundamental misunderstanding of both legal principles and historical reality.

The Two-State Solution: A Matter of Geography

You falsely claim that Israel “stands in violent, unrelenting opposition to a sovereign State of Palestine.” Professor Sachs should have conducted more thorough research. The devil lies in the details. Recently, the governments of Canada, France, and Norway have recognized a sovereign Palestinian state. Australia and England are considering similar recognition. Israel would have absolutely no “opposition to a sovereign State of Palestine” within the territory of any of these five countries, not even the slightest objection. Canada and Australia possess ample empty space to implement such a proposal. The only Jewish state on the planet has faced invasion by Arab armies on multiple occasions since 1948, and Jews there have endured pogroms long before that date. Israelis simply do not wish to experience more of the same, your protestations notwithstanding.

Addressing Claims of Brutality

You argue that “Israel demonizes the Palestinian people and crushes them physically, through mass starvation, murder, ethnic cleansing, administrative detention, torture, land seizures, and other forms of brutal repression.” Israel desires peace above all. Had Hamas chosen differently, Gaza could have become the Hong Kong of the Middle East with Israeli cooperation. The IDF has acted against its enemies solely in legitimate self-defense.

Consider this excerpt from the Hamas covenant: “The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.” Note that this constitutes a threat not merely against Jews in Israel, but against Jews everywhere. Professor Sachs, you and your family are explicitly included in this genocidal vision.

Palestinian Factions and Terrorism

You quote Minister Sa’ar’s statement that “all Palestinian factions support terrorism” and label it shameful. This accusation of shamelessness reveals more about your perspective than about Sa’ar’s accuracy. Interestingly, you fail to identify any Palestinian faction that does not support terrorism. The masses of Gazans celebrating in the streets on October 8, 2023, following the previous day’s atrocities, provide compelling evidence supporting Sa’ar’s assertion. These were not isolated incidents of extremist celebration, but widespread public displays of joy at the murder, rape, and kidnapping of innocent civilians, including children and the elderly.

The Palestinian Authority, often portrayed as moderate, continues to pay stipends to terrorists and their families through its “Pay for Slay” program, incentivizing violence against Israeli civilians. Fatah, the PA’s governing party, maintains the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades as its armed wing. Even supposedly moderate Palestinian intellectuals and academics routinely justify or celebrate terrorist attacks as “resistance.” The Palestinian educational system, funded by international donors, continues to teach children that martyrdom through killing Jews is glorious. When pressed to condemn specific terrorist attacks, Palestinian leaders consistently refuse or offer qualified condemnations that blame Israel for “provoking” the violence. If there exists a mainstream Palestinian political faction that unequivocally condemns terrorism against civilians and works actively to prevent it, you have failed to identify it.

The United Nations and Institutional Bias

You subsequently cite a speech by Palestinian Ambassador Riyad Mansour at a UN Security Council session as if it carries moral authority. This reliance on UN pronouncements exposes a stunning blind spot in your analysis. The United Nations has condemned Israel for human rights violations more than twice as frequently as all other countries combined. Let that sink in: according to the UN’s moral calculus, the only democracy in the Middle East, a country that provides more rights to its Arab citizens than most Arab countries provide to their own people, somehow commits more human rights violations than China with its Uyghur genocide, Iran with its systematic oppression of women and minorities, North Korea with its concentration                                           camps, and Syria with its barrel-bombing of civilians.

This absurd disproportion reveals not Israeli misconduct but UN institutional antisemitism. The UN Human Rights Council includes among its members some of the world’s worst human rights violators, who consistently vote in lockstep against Israel while ignoring far more egregious violations in their own territories and those of their allies. The General Assembly’s automatic majorities against Israel reflect not moral judgment but mathematical reality: there are 57 Muslim-majority countries and 22 Arab countries in the UN, while there is only one Jewish state. Only an inveterate critic of the Jewish state would positively cite anything emanating from that demonstrably antisemitic organization. Your reliance on UN sources thus undermines rather than supports your moral arguments.

The Irrelevance of Popular Opinion to Truth

You emphasize Israeli unpopularity as if public opinion polls determine moral truth. This represents a fundamental philosophical error that one would not expect from a Columbia University professor. Truth and justice cannot be determined by majority vote, no matter how overwhelming the margins. Must we remind you that majorities once believed in witches, that the sun revolved around the earth, and that our planet was flat? Majorities supported slavery in the antebellum South, cheered for the Nazis in 1930s Germany, and applauded Stalin’s purges in Soviet Russia. Popular opinion, particularly when shaped by decades of anti-Israel propaganda and antisemitic tropes, provides no guidance whatsoever for moral judgment.

Furthermore, the polling you cite reflects not informed judgment but successful propaganda campaigns and institutional bias. Western media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been demonstrably skewed for decades, with Israeli casualties receiving far less attention than Palestinian casualties. Israeli perspectives are systematically marginalized, and Palestinian claims rarely subjected to serious scrutiny. University campuses, including your own, Columbia, have become hotbeds of anti-Israel activism that conflates legitimate criticism with antisemitic conspiracy theories. When public opinion is formed in such an environment, its moral value approaches zero. Your citation that “disapproval of Israel’s actions now stands at 60%, with only 32% approving” among Americans proves nothing about the moral validity of Israeli policy and everything about the success of anti-Israel propaganda efforts.

Leadership and Moral Courage

You single out for condemnation Israeli leaders Benjamin Netanyahu, Bezalel Smotrich, and Itamar Ben-Gvir, apparently viewing their names as self-evidently damning. This ad hominem approach avoids engaging with the substance of Israeli policy while attempting to delegitimize it through guilt by association. These three individuals demonstrate more moral backbone than perhaps any other national leaders currently in office. They refuse to bow to international pressure when their nation’s security is at stake, they prioritize their citizens’ safety over global public opinion, and they maintain moral clarity about the distinction between democratic self-defense and terrorist aggression.

Netanyahu has led Israel through multiple existential crises while maintaining its democratic institutions and building unprecedented diplomatic relationships with Arab nations through the Abraham Accords. Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, whatever their controversial statements, represent democratic voices within Israel’s coalition government, advocating for policies they believe necessary for Israeli security. Contrast this with the “moderate” Palestinian leadership you implicitly prefer: Abbas, now in the 19th year of his four-year term, who continues to pay terrorists while refusing to hold elections; Hamas leaders who live in luxury in Qatar while sending children to die in tunnels; and a Palestinian intellectual class that celebrates murder while demanding international sympathy. If these Israeli leaders represent extremism, then moral language has lost all meaning.

The Fallacy of the Two-State Solution

You conclude your critique with this assertion: “The two-state solution is the path and the only path to Israel’s survival.” This statement reveals both historical ignorance and logical inconsistency. The land in question rightfully belongs to the Jews, not the Arabs, based on both historical precedence and legal principle. The two-state solution has been repeatedly offered and rejected by Palestinian leadership, most notably at Camp David in 2000 and in subsequent negotiations. Each rejection has been followed by increased terrorism, demonstrating that Palestinian leadership views any negotiated settlement as merely a stepping-stone to Israel’s eventual destruction.

The fundamental flaw in the two-state paradigm is its assumption that Palestinian nationalism represents a legitimate competing claim rather than a relatively recent political invention designed to deny Jewish national rights. Palestinian national identity emerged primarily as a reaction to Jewish return to their ancestral homeland, not as an organic expression of a distinct people with deep historical roots in the region. If Palestinians genuinely seek statehood rather than the destruction of Israel, they are welcome to establish their state on land that properly belongs to them, or is provided to them by countries far removed from the Middle East, thereby preventing further bloody attacks on the only civilized nation in that region.

Places such as Canada or Australia possess ample uninhabited territory that could accommodate Palestinian national aspirations without threatening Israeli security. These countries have already recognized Palestinian statehood in principle; let them provide the territory to make it reality. Israel could have no serious objection to such an arrangement, except for the troubling fact that many Palestinian leaders are murderers who belong in prison rather than in positions of governmental authority. The two-state solution within historical Palestine represents not a path to peace but a prescription for Israel’s gradual strangulation, which explains why it remains the favored approach of Israel’s enemies worldwide.

Final Note

Professor Sachs, your letter reveals a profound misunderstanding of both moral responsibility and historical justice. Your position, whether motivated by misguided idealism or a calculated attempt at appeasement, serves only to encourage further terrorism and prolong the suffering of both Israelis and Palestinians. We urge you to reconsider your stance and recognize that lasting peace requires moral clarity, not moral equivalence between democratic nations defending themselves and terrorist organizations dedicated to genocide.

History will judge harshly those intellectuals who, in possession of all relevant facts, chose to side with terrorist movements over democratic nations defending their citizens. Your prestigious academic position carries with it the responsibility to seek truth rather than popular approval. We hope you will use that position to promote justice rather than perpetuate the very moral confusion that prolongs this conflict and costs innocent lives on all sides.

Respectfully submitted,

Oded J.K. Faran and Walter E. Block

Sources

Sachs, Jeffrey D. 2025. “Open Letter to Israel Foreign Minister Sa’ar.” August 11. https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/open-letter-to-sa-ar

Sa’ar, Gideon. 2025. “Speech at the special UN Security Council meeting on the issue of the hostages.” August 5. https://www.gov.il/en/pages/fm-sa-ar-addresses-the-special-un-security-council-meeting-on-the-issue-of-the-hostages-5-aug-2025

Hamas Covenant. 1988. The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp

Staff, Times of Israel. 2023. “Israel ranks among 10 most powerful countries in annual list; 4th strongest military.” January. https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-among-10-most-powerful-countries-in-the-world-in-annual-list/

Tress, Luke. 2023. “UN condemned Israel more than all other countries combined in 2022.” Times of Israel, January. https://www.timesofisrael.com/un-condemned-israel-more-than-all-other-countries-combined-in-2022-monitor/

UN Watch. 2024. “2024 UNGA Resolutions on Israel vs Rest of the World.” https://unwatch.org/2024-unga-resolutions-on-israel-vs-rest-of-the-world/

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