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Jewish Professor’s Book Explaining the Truth About the Gaza War Is Much Needed
November 2023: An Israeli soldier helps to provide incubators to Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza. Photo: Screenshot
Thane Rosenbaum’s new book is a breath of fresh air amid the stench of antisemitic slander perpetrated by Jew-hating mobs.
Rosenbaum is a professor at Touro College, a noted interviewer and lecturer, columnist for The Jewish Journal, and author of many books, including the newly-released, Beyond Proportionality: Israel’s Just War in Gaza.
Rosenbaum goes through both the logic and the legalese to demonstrate that Israel is not committing a genocide, and that those who make such erroneous claims are divided into people who do so simply to harm Israel, those who don’t know what the term means, or those creating an alternative definition of the word to try to attack Israel.
Rosenbaum also makes clear that it is a tragedy that Palestinian noncombatants are killed, but that it is difficult to avoid this when Hamas is fighting in civilian areas and using human shields. He also notes there is a possibility that in individual instances, Israel or any country in any war may commit individual war crimes that should be investigated to determine what took place. But Israel never purposefully attacks civilians, as opposed to Hamas, whose primary policy is to target innocent women, children, and men.
Rosenbaum also notes that Hamas has given no figure of how many of its “fighters” or terrorists have been killed, but the ratio of combatant to non-combatant deaths indicates anything but a genocide. He also talks of a friendship with the late Jewish CBS reporter Bob Simon. Rosenbaum recounts that Simon could not tolerate the killing of Palestinian children, which no person of good conscience wants to occur. Asked how to avoid casualties when children are deliberately placed in harm’s way by terrorists, Simon told Rosenbaum he didn’t know how that could be done.
The same is true if you watched as many debates as I have since October 7. When some people say Israel had a right to respond to October 7 but has gone too far, they are often asked what combatant to non-combatant ratio would have been acceptable. Usually, they have no answer. The alternative, as Rosenbaum notes, is that by not seeking to defeat Hamas, Israel would be saying that the Hamas blueprint of murdering and raping civilians, and also taking hostages, should be repeated all over the world — because it worked.
In order to win a war, quite often you kill more people than the other side has killed. This has been true since the beginning of war, and does not mean a war is genocide. Rosenbaum correctly points out that rather than playing with “house” money, Hamas is playing with Qatari and Iranian money, and while Israel makes sure nearly every Israeli home has a bomb shelter, Hamas does not allow its citizens to seek protection in tunnels, claiming most absurdly that it is the UN’s responsibility to provide protection.
He also correctly notes that virtually nothing has been done to stop the spread of antisemitic vitriol on college campuses, which has been fueled by professors who talk about intersectionality and the oppressor vs. oppressed mentality.
One of the important points Rosenbaum makes (which you will never see on Joe Rogan or Piers Morgan’s shows) is that Professor Salman al Dayah, the former dean of the faculty of Sharia law at the Islamic University of Gaza, issued a fatwa, or religious edict, against Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack for “violating Islamic principles governing jihad.” Why his voice has not been amplified, or there have not been many others like him is tragic.
But the anti-Israel movement seeks to take away all agency from Hamas and Palestinians, and blame Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu for everything negative that has occurred. In his most sober moment, Rosenbaum writes: “I think it is high time for Israel to stop apologizing for fighting a war in self-defense. It has to stop listening to people who have never been to war, like Joe Biden, Antony Blinken and Barack Obama, who have no understanding about the Middle East where Jews have always faced murderous enemies.”
Rosenbaum’s book is a crucial read at this time, and while many who need to read it may not, if at least some can, it will be extremely worthwhile in the asymmetrical battle Israel and Jews face against blood libels and lies geared to turning the world into Jew haters.
The author is a writer based in New York.
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UN Security Council Meets on Iran as Russia, China Push for a Ceasefire
Members of the Security Council cast a vote during a United Nations Security Council meeting on the 3rd anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at UN headquarters in New York, US, Feb. 24, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/David Dee Delgado
The U.N. Security Council met on Sunday to discuss US strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites as Russia, China and Pakistan proposed the 15-member body adopt a resolution calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in the Middle East.
It was not immediately clear when it could be put to a vote. The three countries circulated the draft text, said diplomats, and asked members to share their comments by Monday evening. A resolution needs at least nine votes in favor and no vetoes by the United States, France, Britain, Russia or China to pass.
The US is likely to oppose the draft resolution, seen by Reuters, which also condemns attacks on Iran’s nuclear sites and facilities. The text does not name the United States or Israel.
“The bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities by the United States marks a perilous turn in a region that is already reeling,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council on Sunday. “We now risk descending into a rathole of retaliation after retaliation.”
“We must act – immediately and decisively – to halt the fighting and return to serious, sustained negotiations on the Iran nuclear program,” Guterres said.
The world awaited Iran’s response on Sunday after President Donald Trump said the US had “obliterated” Tehran’s key nuclear sites, joining Israel in the biggest Western military action against the Islamic Republic since its 1979 revolution.
U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi told the Security Council that while craters were visible at Iran’s enrichment site buried into a mountain at Fordow, “no one – including the IAEA – is in a position to assess the underground damage.”
Grossi said entrances to tunnels used for the storage of enriched material appear to have been hit at Iran’s sprawling Isfahan nuclear complex, while the fuel enrichment plant at Natanz has been struck again.
“Iran has informed the IAEA there has been no increase in off-site radiation levels at all three sites,” said Grossi, who heads the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Iran requested the U.N. Security Council meeting, calling on the 15-member body “to address this blatant and unlawful act of aggression, to condemn it in the strongest possible terms.”
Israel‘s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon said in a statement on Sunday that the U.S. and Israel “do not deserve any condemnation, but rather an expression of appreciation and gratitude for making the world a safer place.”
Danon told reporters before the council meeting that it was still early when it came to assessing the impact of the U.S. strikes. When asked if Israel was pursuing regime change in Iran, Danon said: “That’s for the Iranian people to decide, not for us.”
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Israel Rejects Critical EU Report Ahead of Ministers’ Meeting
FILE PHOTO: Smoke rises from Gaza after an explosion, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, June 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen/File Photo
Israel has rejected a European Union report saying it may be breaching human rights obligations in Gaza and the West Bank as a “moral and methodological failure,” according to a document seen by Reuters on Sunday.
The note, sent to EU officials ahead of a foreign ministers’ meeting on Monday, said the report by the bloc’s diplomatic service failed to consider Israel’s challenges and was based on inaccurate information.
“The Foreign Ministry of the State of Israel rejects the document … and finds it to be a complete moral and methodological failure,” the note said, adding that it should be dismissed entirely.
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Pope Leo Urges International Diplomacy to Prevent ‘Irreparable Abyss’
FILE PHOTO: Pope Leo XIV holds a Jubilee audience on the occasion of the Jubilee of Sport, at St. Peter’s Basilica, at the Vatican June 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Yara Nardi/File Photo
Pope Leo on Sunday said the international community must strive to avoid war that risks opening an “irreparable abyss,” and that diplomacy should take the place of conflict.
US forces struck Iran’s three main nuclear sites overnight, joining an Israeli assault in a major new escalation of conflict in the Middle East as Tehran vowed to defend itself.
“Every member of the international community has a moral responsibility: to stop the tragedy of war before it becomes an irreparable abyss,” Pope Leo said during his weekly prayer with pilgrims.
“No armed victory can compensate for the pain of mothers, the fear of children, the stolen future. Let diplomacy silence the weapons, let nations chart their future with peace efforts, not with violence and bloody conflicts,” he added.
“In this dramatic scenario, which includes Israel and Palestine, the daily suffering of the population, especially in Gaza and other territories, risks being forgotten, where the need for adequate humanitarian support is becoming increasingly urgent,” Pope Leo said.
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