Why Gaza Became the Battlefield for America’s Soul and Israel’s Future
✍️ By Malik Mukhtar
📍 www.ainnbeen.blogspot.com
📅 July 10, 2025
“You can bid for the world’s love, or you can bid for its respect. Israel chose the latter — and buried Gaza to claim it.”
In their deeply revealing New York Times podcast, Ross Douthat and Bret Stephens confront the complex moral, political, and psychological terrain of the Gaza war, the Jewish diaspora, and America’s shifting allegiance to Israel. Across three intense parts, they weigh Israel’s choices, America's reaction, and the rising tide of anti-Zionism, antisemitism, and moral numbness.
This post unpacks that conversation — not to echo it, but to interrogate it. Because behind every “moral beam” balanced in Tel Aviv, there’s a mountain of rubble in Gaza, and behind every debate in D.C., there’s a child screaming under the ruins.
⚖️ Israel’s "Moral" Calculus — And the Cost of Just War
Stephens opens with a thesis both provocative and disturbing: “Israel has conducted this war more morally than any other nation in a similar scenario.”
He praises Israel’s methods of warning civilians before airstrikes, its restraint, its adherence to international law. He contrasts it with how the U.S. bombed Germany or Japan, as if to imply that brutality is relative, and by comparison, Israel is merciful.
But let us be honest:
- Over 62,000 Palestinians have been killed, including over 70% women and children (UN OCHA).
- Hospitals, refugee camps, bakeries, even UN shelters were struck.
- Aid workers — from WCK to UNICEF — were bombed and buried.
And still Stephens speaks of morality.
“The Israelis have been targeted with a genocidal enemy. Hamas's charter... says ‘Kill the Jews.’”
Yes, Hamas is guilty of terror. Yes, the October 7 attacks were horrific. But does the horror justify the obliteration of entire neighborhoods?
Douthat presses the issue: “You must know your endgame before you start a war if you wish to claim moral authority.”
And here lies Israel’s failure — and America's complicity. There was no endgame but punishment. No vision but vengeance. No strategy but siege.
🧭 The Shifting Sands of American Politics
Douthat then steers the conversation to America — where the Gaza war has caused a tectonic shift.
“The Democratic Party is less Zionist than ever. The GOP still supports Israel — but even there, the ground is cracking.”
Bret Stephens admits it: the anti-Israel wing of the Democratic Party is growing. But he dismisses its influence, calling it “a progressive insurgency.” He labels the phrase “Globalize the Intifada” as hateful, a call for terrorism, and mocks rising politicians like Zohran Mamdani as unserious and dangerous.
But let us pause here.
Mamdani’s victory — defeating Andrew Cuomo in New York’s mayoral primary — wasn’t a fringe outburst. It was a referendum on conscience. On rent, racism, police brutality — and Gaza. Voters didn’t elect “terror sympathizers.” They elected someone who refused to normalize genocide with silence.
“That his stance on Gaza wasn’t a dealbreaker is what worries me,” says Stephens.
But isn’t that the point? That mass slaughter should be a dealbreaker for all morally sane people — and that its defenders, not its critics, should be disqualified?
Stephens wants Israel to become militarily independent by 2030 — no more U.S. aid, no more dependency. A fair point. But what he won’t admit is that what sustains Israel is not money — it’s moral cover. The $3.8 billion is a symbol. The real gift is impunity.
🔥 Antisemitism, Anti-Zionism, and the Explosive Debate
This final portion dives into the most explosive claim: Is anti-Zionism antisemitism?
“Anti-Zionism is the entry drug into antisemitism,” claims Stephens.
“Why do people obsess over Israel but not over Japan, Iceland, or Denmark?”
Douthat agrees — partly. He observes a disturbing trend: left-wing movements can’t seem to criticize Israel without sliding into dehumanization of Jews. There is antisemitism masquerading as justice.
But here’s the deeper truth: Palestinians are not protesting Jewish identity — they are resisting Jewish supremacy enshrined in state law. There is a difference.
Stephens weaponizes history — pogroms, Holocaust, exile — to defend Israel’s right to exist. But he ignores the irony that Israel now plays the role of ancient oppressor: razing homes, colonizing land, killing children.
He calls Israel the “most successful post-colonial state.” But post-colonial for whom?
- Not for Gaza, where every new UN building becomes a graveyard.
- Not for the West Bank, where settlers burn olive groves under IDF protection.
- Not for East Jerusalem, where families are evicted and neighborhoods gentrified with theology.
Douthat hits a painful truth:
“America can’t undo its own settler colonialism — so it projects that guilt onto Israel.”
Israel becomes a surrogate battlefield for American identity politics. For some, it is the last remnant of heroic “civilizational values.” For others, a glaring symbol of hypocrisy, apartheid, and ethnic privilege.
🕍 Israel and the Jewish Diaspora: Refuge or Risk?
In the most haunting section, Stephens warns:
“Jews must always remember that even the safest societies will eventually turn on us.”
So Israel must exist as refuge — even if it isolates the diaspora. Even if it fuels global anger.
But again: what kind of refuge is built by burning others?
What kind of safety demands the erasure of a people?
What kind of security turns the Jewish dream of return into the Palestinian nightmare of exile?
Stephens says: “Israel won the world’s respect, even if it cost popularity.”
But Gaza doesn’t burn for respect. Gaza burns for power.
And respect built on bones is not respect — it’s fear.
⚠️ Final Reflection: A World Split Between Memory and Justice
This podcast was titled “Israel’s Moral Balance Beam.”
But make no mistake: the beam is not balanced.
- On one side lies memory — Auschwitz, pogroms, genocide.
- On the other side lies Gaza — bleeding, blockaded, bombed.
And instead of balancing the two, Israel has used one to justify the other.
America, for its part, is split as well. The right wants to love Israel without guilt. The left wants to hate Israel without nuance. But both miss the moral imperative:
Not to protect Israel at any cost. Not to abandon it out of rage.
But to tell the truth — even if the truth hurts.
🩸 In Memory and Resistance
To the children of Gaza:
Your bodies may not be seen on these podcasts.
But your cries echo louder than any pundit’s defense.
To the Jews who oppose this war:
You carry the real torch of your ancestors — not in the tanks, but in your refusal to remain silent.
To America:
This war is not just Israel’s moral test. It is yours too.
📌 Read More Essays: www.ainnbeen.blogspot.com
📚 Sources:
- NYT Podcast: “Israel’s Moral Balance Beam” (July 2025)
- UN OCHA Gaza Situation Reports
- Human Rights Watch: “Israel’s War Crimes in Gaza”
- Jewish Voice for Peace: “Anti-Zionism ≠ Antisemitism”
- B’Tselem Reports on Occupation and Civilian Deaths
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