Washington Post: Opinion | It would be a moral and strategic mistake to ignore Gaza’s plight
Washington Post, by the Editorial Board
October 17, 2023
As President Biden heads to the Middle East on Wednesday, a monumental humanitarian crisis facing Gaza’s people joins support for Israel at the top of his agenda. In a situation fraught with dilemmas, Mr. Biden can take cold comfort in the fact that urgently addressing Gaza’s plight is the right thing to do morally and is in the strategic interest of the United States. One goal of his trip can be to help Israel see its moral and strategic interests clearly, too.
Already, the number of Palestinians killed and displaced has exceeded that of any of the five Israel-Hamas conflicts since 2008. More than 3,000 Palestinians have reportedly died, and about 12,500 have been wounded, figures that no doubt include Hamas personnel but also, tragically, hundreds of children. As this editorial was being written on Tuesday, a Gaza hospital where Palestinians were sheltering was struck. Palestinian officials blamed an Israeli airstrike; Israeli authorities said a wayward rocket fired by Palestinian militants was to blame. Meanwhile, roughly half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have fled their homes.
The Department of Health and Human Services announced more than $103 million in funding to address the maternal health crisis. The money will boost access to mental health services, help states train more maternal health providers and bolster nurse midwifery programs. These initiatives are an encouraging step toward tackling major gaps in maternal health and well-being. In August, the Editorial Board wrote about how the United States can address its maternal mortality crisis.
Wisconsin state Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R) announced Tuesday that Republicans would allow the nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau to draw legislative maps, a dramatic reversal after years of opposing such an approach to redistricting. A new liberal majority on the state Supreme Court is expected to throw out the current maps, which make Wisconsin the most gerrymandered state in America. Mr. Vos has been threatening to impeach Justice Janet Protasiewicz, whose election this spring flipped control of the court, in a bid to keep those maps. This led to understandable outcry. Now it seems Mr. Vos is backing off his impeachment threat and his efforts to keep the state gerrymandered. Read our editorial on the Protasiewicz election here.
Prisoners are eating again in Bahrain after the government agreed to let them spend more hours outside and expanded their access to visitors, a welcome development ahead of the crown prince’s visit to Washington this week. Activists say the monthlong hunger strike will resume on Sept. 30 if these promises aren’t kept. Read our editorial calling for the compassionate release of Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, a political prisoner since 2011 who participated in the strike.
A retired teacher in Saudi Arabia, Muhammad al-Ghamdi, has been sentenced to death by the country’s Specialized Criminal Court solely based on his tweets, retweets and YouTube activity, according to Human Rights Watch. The court’s verdict, July 10, was based on two accounts on X, formerly Twitter, which had only a handful of followers. The posts criticized the royal family. The sentence is the latest example of dictatorships imposing harsh sentences on people who use social media for free expression, highlighted in our February editorial.
During a Monday hearing, Judge Tanya S. Chutkan rejected as “far beyond what is necessary” Donald Trump’s demand to postpone until mid-2026 his trial for allegedly obstructing the results of the 2020 election. Instead, she plans to begin the trial on March 4 — the day before Super Tuesday. Six months is more than enough time for defense counsel to prepare. GOP primary voters deserve to know the outcome when choosing their standard-bearer. Read our recent editorial on why these charges against Trump are warranted.
More loss of life will occur if, as expected, Israel launches a ground invasion. After the slaughter of its civilians, Israel — like any other state — has every right to respond militarily. How it conducts military operations against Hamas will be critical to the legitimacy of those actions and to preserving hope for postwar economic and political reconstruction.
This battle will challenge the Israeli military’s professionalism, perhaps as never before. Hamas stages military operations and launches rockets from densely populated civilian areas — clear violations of international law. And Hamas and other Gaza-based groups have taken a number of hostages: 199 in total, according to Israel.
In that context, comments from certain current and former Israeli officials have illustrated the risk of allowing raw emotions to rule the moment. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, for example, asserted that “we are fighting human animals, and we act accordingly.” This cannot be squared with proportionality and precision, which the laws of war require Israel to practice.
More recent statements from Israeli officials have cast the war more discriminately, as a fight to “demolish Hamas,” as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put it. Israel’s agreement with the Biden administration to plan for delivery of humanitarian aid via Egypt is a positive development.
Even before the current crisis, Gaza was under a land, sea and air blockade. The results were dire: 81.5 percent of the population living in poverty and 63 percent being dependent on humanitarian aid. Most of the drinking water from Gaza’s sole aquifer is unfit for human consumption. Hamas didn’t help, diverting resources to building tunnels in its conflict with Israel. Hamas no doubt knew its brutal attacks would provoke an overwhelming military response that would first and foremost devastate Gazan civilians.