September 11, October 7, and Our Changing Responses to Terrorism
Newsletter 283 - October 7, 2024
A Grim Anniversary
This, as anyone who has been paying any attention to world events knows, is the one year anniversary of Hamas's attack on Israel. That attack has precipitated an extremely deadly and costly war, which is currently expanding with no end in sight. The suffering on all sides is immense. We are as distraught about the human costs of this war as anyone, but we (as most of our regular readers know) have a very different take on who is responsible for this human tragedy, who has the power to fix it, and how such tragedies might best be avoided over the longer-term.
I asked Guy why he thought he and I had such a different image of the situation from many of our friends and colleagues. He pointed out that many of friends and colleagues get almost all their information from the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other similarly left-leaning sources. Those news sources long ago succumbed to the business pressures that forced them to focus on keeping their subscribers happy by selecting and spinning stories in ways that are consistent with their audience's preferred narratives. The same is, of course, true for right-leaning information sources. Recognizing the seriousness of this source of bias, we have been trying to follow our own advice and reach outside of these mainstream information sources and look at thoughtful challenges to their reporting. The best of the things that we have been looking at are posted each week in our "Massively Parallel Peace and Democracy Building Links" newsletters.
With respect to October 7, this has involved looking at both the Palestinian and the Israeli sides of the story. As has doubtless been evident to frequent readers of this newsletter, we have found ourselves more persuaded by the arguments that Israelis and their supporters are making. This newsletter is part of our continuing effort to explain our thinking and, hopefully, contribute to a robust debate on this critically important issue.
Comparing September 11 and October 7
I actually began thinking of writing this post on September 11. We were traveling at the time, so we weren't able to write anything to mark that day, Still, I was astounded to note that in the several hundred emails we got that Wednesday, (we subscribe to a lot of stuff!) only ONE noted that that was the anniversary of September 11. And the one that did come was from Daniel Gordis — an Israeli Jew, who, himself was comparing 9-11 with Israel's 10-7. There were front page stories in the New York Times and the Washington Post, but those weren't the Times and Post stories that got pushed to my inbox that day. Instead, the Times sent several articles discussing who won the Trump-Harris debate, a story about the top 1999 movies, and a pasta recipe. All we got from the Post was an urge to subscribe, even though we were already subscribed.
After reading Daniel Gordis's post, which mainly reflected back to when he visited the site of the Twin Towers two months after they were brought down, and compared that to his visit to the site of the Nova Music Festival a few weeks ago, I began thinking about writing about a post of our own comparing September 11 with October 7 and the astoundingly different ways in which the world has responded to the two events.
What is so striking to us is that 9-11 killed 2977 Americans. That was shocking — we in America (erroneously) thought we were immune from such attacks (although there had been an earlier attempt to bring down the World Trade center which failed). As shocking as it was, it was in no way a threat to the survival of the United States.
Yet the response was very strong, and supported by both Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. When Afghanistan refused to turn over Osama Bin Laden, we invaded the country. Not only was the war supported on both sides of the aisle, America was joined by allies from around the world, who sent troops along with us to topple the Taliban and destroy Al Qaeda. (Troops were sent from the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Poland, Russia and Turkey, as well as from the U.S.) Few questioned our "right" to do this, or even whether it was smart. (Looking back on the United States' "long war" in Afghanistan and the Taliban's return to power, there are serious questions about how smarter strategy really was. But that is not our focus here.) Even though that invasion lasted twenty years and killed at least 46,000 Afghan civilians (the number is probably much higher due to indirect deaths caused by disease, lack of access to food, water, etc.), no one ever accused the U.S. of genocide.
There was more push back when we invaded Iraq in 2003, on what turned out to be the erroneous belief that they had weapons of mass destruction and/or were somehow tied to 9-11. But still, the U.S. effort was joined by the UK, Australia, and Poland. No one knows how many civilians were killed in that war, However, according to the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University, between 186,000-210,000 Iraqi civilians died from direct war-related violence caused by the U.S. 2003 invasion. While many in the U.S. and around the world did oppose that war, we never heard anyone call it a "genocide;" and the concept of "genocide" was never a big part of the debate.. And many supported the invasion, still fearing Saddam Hussein was preparing for a massive WMD attack, as he had already caused two major wars by attacking Iran and then Kuwait, and he was widely known to be a brutal tyrant.
Compare this to the response to October 7 in Israel. In that attack, more than 1,200 Israelis were killed, many of whom were tortured first. Two hundred fifty one people were taken hostage, of whom 97 remain in captivity a year later. Proportional to population size, this attack would be equivalent to 40,000 people dying in the September 11 attack (not the 2977 that actually died that day). The perpetrator of the October 7 attack, Hamas, has as its avowed goal the complete destruction of Israel. They are joined in that effort by Iran and its proxies: Hezbollah, the Yemeni Houthis, the Islamic Jihad, and others. All seek the complete elimination of Israel and the death of as many Jews as they can cause in the meantime, because they see Jews as "vermin." Isn’t that what is meant by the term “genocide”?
When Israel attacked Gaza in response, they were trying to destroy the terror organization that was directly responsible for the October 7 attack. And they were fighting for their very survival. It is hard to see how an Israel unable to protect itself against attacks like the one launched on October 7 could long survive, especially in the face of Iran's Axis of Resistance and its imminent acquisition of nuclear weapons.
Nevertheless, according to Michael Oren, Israel has “reduced the civilian-to-combatant fatality ratio to a quarter of what it was in Iraq and Afghanistan,” This is despite the fact that Hamas uses Palestinians as human shields, or as Eitan Chitayat and Eli Ezra explain, they use them for "tactical civilian sacrifice." This makes Israel’s relatively low civilian casualty rate all the more astounding and impressive — hardly indicative of “genocide.” This isn't just the view offered by an Israeli; independent outside observers agree. See this from a British former NATO commander who was originally quite skeptical of Israel's approach, and this article written by an urban warfare specialist at the Modern War Institute (MWI) at West Point (the U.S. Army 's Military Academy).
Despite this astonishing care to avoid civilian casualties whenever possible, even when missions were compromised as a result, the White House asserted that Israel’s response was “over the top,” and was “killing far too many Palestinians." And of course, the rest of the world seems to agree, This leaves Israel believing (probably quite rightly), that they are on their own. Nobody is going to come to their aid (except the United States, and their the level of support is highly uncertain). If you were in that situation, would you agree to a ceasefire before the terrorists who perpetrated October 7 were sufficiently decimated as to be unable to wage an attack like that again? We wouldn't.
Michael Oren also pointed out that
In the aftermath of 9/11, the United States never once considered negotiating with al-Qaeda. Instead, the U.S. hunted down and eventually killed al-Qaeda’s leader, Osama Bin Laden. By contrast, the U.S. has engaged in prolonged and detailed talks with Hamas, often treating it as a legitimate and honest negotiator. It has expected Israel to do the same.
This is even though Israel unilaterally returned Gaza to the Palestinians in 2005, hoping to exchange "land for peace." What they got instead, was lost land and war. Instead of using the land (and all the intact infrastructure which Israel left behind) to build a successful society in Gaza, Hamas started shooting missiles into Israel as soon as they were able. Hamas stole as much of the aid as they could to use for military purposes, for example, for building the vast, tunnel-based, military infrastructure needed to launch attacks on Israel from positions deeply entrenched in civilian areas (a prerequisite for its civilian sacrifice/global sympathy strategy). Given that experience, why would Israel be willing to give up the West Bank, the border of which is much closer to Israel's population centers and harder to defend than is the Gazan border? If Mexico were sending missiles into Arizona almost daily, would the U.S. be okay with that?
Oren also pointed out that on October 7, Hamas took 251 hostages — the proportional equivalent of 8,000 Americans. Many of those who have been freed were "traded" for Palestinians held in Israeli jails, including many who had perpetrated earlier terror attacks on Israel. Can you imagine the agonizing trade-off involved in having to free hundreds of terrorists in order to liberate a single hostage?
Oren concludes:
Clearly, the differences between 9/11 and October 7 outweigh their similarities. In one fundamental way, though, the two events are fatefully linked.
By no longer insisting, as they did last October, that Hamas must be destroyed—by now seeking a prolonged ceasefire that may enable Hamas to declare victory—the United States risks emboldening jihadists worldwide. The result could be an acute spike in terrorist attacks across the Middle East, Africa, and Europe. The path to the next 9/11, perhaps even more catastrophic, could open.
This path is made even more likely, we would argue, by all the officials and private citizens who are accusing the wrong side of "genocide" and who are calling for the victory of terrorists over their victims. If that is what the world stands up for, that is likely what the world will get — in many more places than Israel.
This is not a fanciful possibility. The world is awash with conflicts that arise when groups of people feel that they have no alternative but to flee the places in which they are living and move to somewhere else — a process that usually offers migrants few realistic options for returning to their places of origin, yet sets up potentially serious conflicts in the places they move to. Obviously, the refugee experience is a big part of the history of both Palestine and Israel. It is also a big part of the history of the United States and many other developed western democracies.
Today, immigration conflicts are a major driver of the hyper-polarization that has been the focus of this newsletter. How they are handled will do much to determine whether people live in peaceful societies, or societies torn apart by hatred, civil unrest, and quite possibly war.
The Iranian/Hamas/Hezbollah approach to the challenge, with its decades-long effort to expel the Jews is pretty much the opposite of the model we need use for addressing such conflicts.
While imperfect, the way in which Israel has incorporated Palestinians and other Arabs, (such as Bedouins and the Druze) into their society demonstrates that a vastly better approach is possible — an approach that tracks closely with the diverse pluralism of Western democracies. Handling these conflicts in ways which preserve the peace, while also limiting suffering, requires accommodating new migrants in ways that enable people with very different cultures to live together in a spirit of mutual support.
If Iran, its proxies, and its supporters were to change their approach and embrace some version of the pluralistic coexistence model, then the chemistry of the entire conflict could change dramatically. It would open the door toward a two-state solution that would really work. Or, better yet, it might permit some kind of solution in which the boundaries between Palestinians and Israelis would disappear, much as they have within Israel.
Obviously, getting from where we are now to such a place will be extraordinarily difficult — vastly more difficult than it would have been a year ago. Still, we are approaching a "never again" moment in which many people are likely to want to prevent a repeat the current tragedy and are likely to be willing to consider more promising alternatives. Taking advantage of this opportunity will, however, require all the creativity and courage we can possibly muster. We hope the peacebuilding field can help in this effort. However, peacebuilders need to take a hard look at their past efforts to understand how they failed to prevent the current tragedy and what they might do differently this time around.
A Comment by reader Gordon Yanchyshy —
We want to continue this post with a comment from one of our readers, and our response to it, because it relates to what we wrote above. Responding to our Newsletter 268, Updating our Impartiality Discussions, Gordon Yanchyshyn wrote:
I appreciate the thoroughness and thoughtfulness of your newsletter, but you have one major blind spot that is remarkably common in these sorts of discussions. Your outrage at Hamas’ barbaric attack on October 7 and your support for Israel’s right to retaliate and defend itself is completely appropriate. However, you render the Palestinian people invisible —incredibly, you don’t even use “Palestinian” or “Palestine” once in your article! To state the obvious: the Palestinian people and Hamas are not synonymous. To simply refer to “civilian deaths” in the context of calling out Hamas’ use of “human shields” glosses over the continued disproportionate IDF killing of tens of thousands (!) of women, children and civilian men. Surely you don’t maintain that these deaths are fictitious &/or justified. This dehumanizes an entire population, akin to the phrase “collateral damage.” The escalation of bombings and invasion of Gaza and now the West Bank are a grotesque ‘blunt instrument’ to try to eradicate an admittedly vicious and inhumane enemy. Is this an example of a failed “Dahiya doctrine”? Netanyahu and his extremist government demonstrate an extreme callousness in their disregard of the Palestinian right to exist. The U.N.-recognized Palestinian Territories have now become the Occupied Territories, and the IDF and illegal settlers invade Palestinian communities with an arrogant impunity.
A Question for Gordon (and all of our readers)
Our question to Gordon is this. If you agree that Hamas' attack was barbaric, and they are "admittedly vicious and inhumane," and that Israel has a right to defend itself against such, how would you suggest they do that?
It is hard for us to imagine how Israel could possibly agree to a ceasefire that would allow Hamas to re-arm, rebuild its tunnels, and stage another attack in a few years. And, Israel has almost no reason to believe that the international community would prevent that from happening. After all, the ferocity of this war is, in large part, attributable to the fact that Hamas took aid, intended to build the Gazan side of the two-state solution and, instead, used it to create the massive war machine that attacked Israel on October 7. This is the also war machine that Hamas used to prosecute its "civilian sacrifice" strategy by fighting from hardened positions deeply embedded in Gaza's civilian population.
The ongoing war in Lebanon represents another failure on the part of the international community to fulfill its responsibilities under an earlier peace agreement. In this case, the United Nations failed to prevent Hezbollah from violating the terms of Resolution 1701 (which was supposed to have demilitarized Lebanon's border with Israel). Instead, the UN allowed Hezbollah to assemble a massive arsenal of missiles, capable of devastating Israel's population centers. The tragedy of the ongoing war in Lebanon is a direct result of this failure. As a result, Israel feels it has no choice but to neutralize Hezbollah's missiles (which have been continuously fired at Israel over the last year) before those missiles inflict catastrophic damage.
Because so much of the international community is effectively supporting Iran and its proxies, Israel feels that it has no choice but to act forcefully. That is why our comparison of September 11 and October 7 included the sentence, "If that is what the world stands up for, that is likely what the world will get. In many more places than Israel."
We also think Gordon is misidentifying who is dehumanizing whom. The staggering barbarity of the October 7 attack was not only to dehumanize Jews, but also an act designed to dehumanize Palestinians in the eyes of Israelis and provoke an all-out war. Hamas' refusal to build bomb shelters for its civilians and its refusal to allow them to take shelter in its tunnels to supports its human sacrifice strategy also reveals the degree to which Hamas has dehumanized its own citizens. Hamas wanted them to die, so it could use their deaths to inspire global sympathy. It is Hamas that is stealing Palestinians' food and water. Is this humane?
It is the Israelis who are greatly crippling their war effort in an attempt to protect those Palestinian civilians that Hamas is trying to sacrifice. Dropping leaflets and calling people in places it is going to bomb. This warning also, of course, gives Hamas' fighters plenty of time to leave. Sending aid to civilians is also treating the Palestinian civilians humanly. Hamas' theft of that aid, allowing its own citizens to suffer is not.
Hezbollah is attempting to employ a similar strategy with rockets and other munitions under every third house in Southern Lebanon (though most of those victims are not Palestinians; rather, they are Lebanese.) All of this is, of course, being driven by the Iranians who are, to quote a snarky but still insightful line, "willing to fight Israel to the last Arab," (Iranians are not Arabs, they are Persians).
So can we perhaps agree that if we want to humanize Palestinians, we need to decry Hamas's dehumanizing tactics and start helping Israel to resoundingly defeat those tactics, so that they are no longer considered useful to Hamas or other terrorists and would-be terrorists around the world? After all, if a Hamas terrorist strategy was widely condemned, perhaps they might start pursuing a more effective and less barbaric strategy for advancing the legitimate interests of the Palestinian people.
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