Thomas Friedman of the New York Times errs on Gaza

By Walter E. Block

Michael Geissinger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

In the view of Thomas Friedman of the New York Times: “I am not a judge. I don’t know what the ‘just’ proportion of Palestinian civilian lives and houses that the laws of war might say [it is] OK for Israel to destroy in response to October 7 for every Israeli Jew and house ravaged that day. But I am sure that whatever the number is, Israel has now exceeded it.”

This statement is incoherent; what part of it is not utterly and totally meaningless is false and self-contradictory.

First of all, if he is not a judge, what is he doing, judging? And judging he most certainly is doing, namely, that Israel is seriously in the wrong. Secondly, he is a poor jurist. He offers no reasons, none whatsoever, as to why the numbers of collateral deaths imposed upon the Gazans by Israel “exceeds” what is proper. Third, proportionality undergirds everything he says, and no justification for this basic premise appears anywhere in his essay. He does not so much as even realize that it is incumbent upon him to justify this foundational principle of his, let alone attempt to provide one.

Let us, however, take him at his word. Proportionality is now the be all and end all of the proper analysis. On October 7, 2023, Hamas purposefully raped and murdered civilians, women and children. At the present date, more than a year afterward, how many Gazan civilians, women and children, has the IDF purposefully raped and murdered? Zero. Nada. Ningun. Not a one. Not a single one.

Yes, there has been collateral damage, but this is entirely a different matter. Thousands of Arabs in Gaza have been indeed killed (none of raped, at least not by Israeli forces), but this is due to the fact that Hamas embeds itself into this population, uses them as shields, places rocket, drone and missile launching equipment in Mosques, hospitals, schools, residential areas. All of these deaths, with not a single solitary exception, are the fault of Hamas, not Israel. If the former were cease and desist from this heinous practice; if it were to surrender, and release all the remaining hostages it took on that day of infamy, no further deaths would occur in Gaza.

So, if proportionality is the desiderata, the IDF had better get busy changing its modus operando, and start purposefully raping and murdering Gazan women, children and civilians. This of course will never happen. The Zionist entity is civilized, unlike its barbaric enemies.

However, proportionality is by no means a synonym for justice. Yes, with regard to punishment, we should have both vertical and horizontal proportionality. In the former case, the more serious is the crime, the greater should be the punishment. Murderers deserve greater chastisement than rapists. In the latter, molesters convicted of the same crime should garner the same penalty.

But what is going on now between Israel and Iranian proxies such as Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthies, is not punishment. They have not yet been caught. They are still at loose. They to this day hold hostages, and rain down death on Israelis. Rather, what is now taking place in the Middle East is the self-defense of the only civilized country in that unhappy corner of the globe.

There is simply no role for proportionality to play in such a case. When someone is running at you threatening to punch you in the nose, you are not limited to fisticuffs to defend yourself. You may use a knife. That is totally permissible. If your assailant is in the process of threatening you with that implement, you may employ a more powerful weapon, a gun. These life and death matters are not a sporting event, where you must have a level playing field, and change sides every once in a while so as to be fair and “proportional.” One can only wonder where and how an otherwise intelligent man such as this New York Times columnist came up with such a stupendously wrong idea.

Then there is the issue of wild disproportionality. For every single enemy soldier the average army kills, it rains death upon some nine defenseless and innocent civilians. What is the ratio of the IDF in this regard? An astoundingly low 1:1.5. That is for every two Arab fighter who attack Israel, the collateral damage imposed upon Gazans and south Lebanese is only three. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Mr. Thomas – whatever the number is, Israel has now exceeded it – know nothing Friedman.

This world famous New York Times journalist and editorialist is Jewish. Yet, through a series of articles on Israel, including this one, he has taken a very critical position of the only civilized country in the Middle East. How should one account for this seeming contradiction. The usual explanation is that he is a “self-hating” Jew. I am no psychologist nor yet psychiatrist, so I cannot offer an opinion as to the veracity of this claim. But readers should keep this in mind. However, we must not dismiss his views on this ground. To do so would be to commit the logical fallacy of ad hominem. His perspective might be correct despite this possible characteristic.