In The Hamilton Spectator on July 24, “political commentator” Alan Joseph published an opinion column entitled: “Gaza crisis is a test of our basic humanity,” invoking the haunting memories of Roméo Dallaire and the Rwandan genocide to frame his condemnation of Israel’s actions against Hamas in Gaza. But the analogy is not only misleading, it’s morally disingenuous. Dallaire bore witness to the cold-blooded slaughter of Tutsi civilians by Hutu militias, a campaign of mass rape and murder committed without warning or restraint. 800,000 Tutsis were murdered in 90 days.
But Israel, unlike the genocidaires of Rwanda, has not embraced senseless killing, it has gone to great lengths to prevent it, even as it faces an implacable enemy in Hamas.
Joseph’s entire case is constructed on the assumption that Israel’s conduct in Gaza is uniquely criminal. But he never asked the most basic question: who started this war? Who continues to fire rockets into Israeli towns, who built hundreds of kilometers of terror tunnels under hospitals and schools, who has publicly declared its goal to annihilate the Jewish state? The answer, inconvenient as it may be for Joseph’s narrative, is Hamas.
Israel has been engaged over the past 21 months in a defensive war against an enemy sworn to its destruction. That enemy is not the civilians of Gaza, but Hamas, the very group that has embedded itself among them and routinely turns them into human shields.
Israel has gone above and beyond the requirements of international law to protect Gaza’s civilians, and in exchange, Jerusalem gets accused of genocide.
Still, Joseph insists that this is not “an issue of politics,” but rather “a matter of basic humanity.” He failed to recognize that there is no path to basic humanity while Hamas continues to hold power in Gaza, using civilian suffering as a weapon and international sympathy as political capital. In his haste to condemn Israel, he glossed over the terror group’s role in obstructing aid, targeting Israeli civilians, and rejecting ceasefire terms. He didn’t mention that Hamas has rejected every offer of peace, and thrives in chaos, not in governance or care for its people.
Joseph also ignored the very real efforts Israel has made to get aid into Gaza, despite Hamas’ repeated interference. Humanitarian corridors, pauses in fighting, coordination with international agencies all have been met with the same outcome: Hamas confiscates aid and hoards it for fighters or sells it on the black market. Yet Joseph would have us believe that Israel “controls the flow of aid into Gaza” and therefore bears sole responsibility for the starvation of civilians. Apparently, the armed group seizing UN aid convoys doesn’t factor into his moral arithmetic.
This is a crucial omission. “Many have already died from acute malnutrition,” Joseph stated, citing the UN. Why is there no acknowledgment that Israel has, at multiple points, provided thousands of tons of aid daily, even while being shelled? Why is the standard applied to Israel one of absolute moral perfection, while Hamas is not even expected to meet the minimal threshold of human decency? Joseph asks the reader to imagine “if the shoe were on the other foot.”
His argument is not strengthened by rhetorical repetition. “This is not about politics. It’s a matter of basic humanity.” He repeated this refrain with the insistence of someone hoping to substitute feeling for thought. But war is, by definition, political. When one side in a conflict operates under the Geneva Conventions – broadcasting evacuations, distributing maps of combat zones, delaying operations to allow civilians to flee – and the other side, Palestinian terrorists, fire rockets from schoolyards and store weapons in mosques, the moral lines are not blurred. They are as clear as they were in Rwanda.
And yet, Joseph held Israel to account for “collectively punish[ing]” civilians, while Hamas gets a pass. He never explained how Hamas’ complete control of Gaza factors into the crisis. He did not reckon with the brutal reality that Israel faces: a genocidal foe that hides behind children and then points to their suffering as proof of Israeli cruelty. This is Hamas’s entire strategy. It is not cynical to say so – it is the only explanation that aligns with the facts on the ground.
Even Joseph’s glimmer of hope was misplaced. “Belgian authorities recently detained and questioned two Israeli citizens in what many view as a legal breakthrough.” No charges, no verdict, no established wrongdoing—just the political theater of “detention” as a stand-in for justice. It’s the optics that count. But optics won’t feed starving civilians, and they certainly won’t defeat Hamas.
Joseph warned that “if we fail to stop what’s happening in Gaza,” it will be “a damning indictment that we’ve learned nothing from the past.” On this point, ironically, he is right, given that his column is evidence of a truth widely ignored: that peace is impossible when terror is rewarded and morality is judged by optics rather than action.
The international community has repeatedly rushed to condemn Israel while holding the actual perpetrators of Gaza’s misery, Hamas, entirely unaccountable, and with his scandalously ignorant commentary, Joseph embraced this approach whole-heartedly.
