Yesterday, Haaretz, a leading Israeli newspaper, reported that two Israeli soldiers were killed in Gaza. That makes eight soldiers killed in the last two months. Does that sound like a “war” to you? Overall, Israel has lost 415 soldiers in a year and a half of “war” in Gaza. For fatalities in Gaza, see IDF names two soldiers killed in southern Gaza as fighting intensifies . Israel deploys all the planes, all the tanks, all the heavy artillery in this war. It controls all the water, the food, the medicines, the electronics, the wi-fi, and anything else you can think of that a person might need to fight a war. Yet, Israel keeps bombing, shelling, launching missiles, shooting, destroying, and killing. Who are they killing, at a rate of about 25 to 50 people a day? It can’t be Hamas since Israel has known the individual Hamas members, where they live, what their phone numbers are, where they are located for a long time. It has reduced its numbers to the point where in two months, its members have been able to kill eight Israeli soldiers. Israel has long run out of Hamas members to kill. There is no war. There is only a Gaza killing field, a massive murdering of people, interrupted every now and then by an isolated event like the collapsed building yesterday that killed the two Israeli soldiers in Rafah where 80% of the homes in this former 300,000 city have been bombed or bulldozed. See before and after satellite images of Rafah at Satellite Imagery Shows Vast Destruction in Rafah – bellingcat .
Why, then, do we call it a “war”? I think the answer might be very simple: we call it a war because Israel calls it a war, the Iron Sword War or the Joy of the Torah War. “War” justifies the killing, pretends that the massacre is an armed conflict between nations. Its official formulation contains the hope that those who follow the practice unwittingly, as we do, spreads the official Israeli propaganda: it is a just vengeance and follows God’s law. For my take on vengeance and God’s law, see my articles New Year’s Sermon from a Pagan: New Year sermon from a pagan – Sierra County Citizen ; New Year sermon from a pagan, Part II – Sierra County Citizen ; and New Year sermon from a pagan, Part III – Sierra County Citizen .
Another reason we call this ethnic massacre a “war,” is that our culture has taken the hard edge off the term. War, we think in America, is not destruction and suffering and death but something valorous and commendable by its use in sayings like “War on cancer,” “War on Poverty,” “War on Crime,” “War on Drugs.” So, we have sanitize war, and it takes some thinking to conjure up in our minds the horrors of the mass killings and starvation that is going on hour after hour, day by day, in Gaza, carried out by only one side of this “war” (because, in reality, there is only one side).
Our President has not ignored the fact that many people in this country are upset by the deliberate killing and hunger. But as a businessman, he thinks business has the answer. So, he is setting up a private foundation, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, to handle the task. Link: US confirms plan for private firms to deliver Gaza aid despite UN alarm . There is a lot of money in non-profit organizations (though the Citizen hasn’t seen any of it). Our president would know, having been involved in skimming money from donations with the Donald J. Trump Foundation (disbanded by a court for misuse of funds and 18 other charges). He would also know about his advisor Steve Bannon’s conviction for fraud, money-laundering, and conspiracy in skimming a million dollars from donors to the non-profit We Build the Wall. Scamming through the government is much more difficult because government agencies, such as the USAid (which is no longer) have to keep their dealings somewhat visible to the public.
Thank you for this article. The Israelí government has turned into the new nazis. It’s troubling to see todays worldwide hatred.
Thank you.
It is truly tragic that our corporate media have utterly failed to cover this genocide. I recommend watching Amy Goodman’s daily news broadcast, Democracy Now (democracynow.org) for its relentless coverage of this and many other under-reported topics.
American media’s avoidance of the Gaza crisis is deliberate. At the request of the UN General Assembly, the International Court of Justice is hearing arguments about Israel’s total blockade of civilian aid since the beginning of March causing an end to available medical help, food and water in Gaza. As far as I can tell, only the Washington Post carried news in April that the ICJ was going to do this, and no major media has covered what has been going on in those discussions. Here is a link to a report by a retired attorney, legal scholar, advisor to national jurist associations: https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/05/__trashed-18/. This report was first published by Truthout and Consortium News and is here linked to an Australian republication. We can tell how the American media is avoiding the Gaza issue when we see the Guardian’s headline on Pope Leo’s first Sunday sermon refers to his call for peace in Ukraine and postpones mention of his call for a cease-fire in Gaza, even though of the two crisis, both of which our government helped create, the Gaza situation is more dire, more immediate, and more easily addressed.
Thank you, Max.
Another insightful article, Mr. Yeh. Bravo.
My heart goes out to the people of Gaza that are left alive. This ‘war’ is a travesty and NEVER should have been allowed to continue. I realize Hamas started it but it turned into a ‘war’ by the Israelis and you perfectly described as ‘the Gaza killing fields.’ Yes, thank you for this article. I get so involved with our current administration and all the Constitutional laws being broken, I haven’t paid enough attention to Gaza’s remains of late.