While much of the St. Louis Jewish community has been focused on passing legislation designed to safeguard Jewish children from antisemitic attacks in Missouri public schools, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pursued a course focused on defending the country and safeguarding Israeli citizens from future terrorist attacks.

Spencer Toder has accused Israel of killing Palestinian and Lebanese civilians on an unprecedented scale. In actuality, Hamas’ own casualty data and updated fatality lists show that 72 percent of the deaths in Gaza are males between the ages of 13-55. This suggests that the vast majority of casualties have been combatants, as confirmed by a number of well-respected independent organizations, including the Institute for Near-East Policy, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, the Henry Jackson Society, and Honest Reporting.

Toder suggests that the only reason Israel is safe for Jews is because of its bond with the United States and the support of its allies. Such a claim is absurd. The only reason Israel is safe is because of the actions of the Israeli military – a military that failed to protect its citizens on October 7, 2023, but that has done everything since then to ensure that terrorist infrastructure in Gaza and Lebanon has been destroyed, so that terrorists will never again be able to enter into sovereign Israeli territory to kidnap, rape, and murder Israeli citizens.

It has been extensively documented that the high death toll in Gaza is primarily due to Hamas’ strategy of embedding its operations within a civilian population, a strategy that was originally developed by Hezbollah in Lebanon.

In December 2025, a Palestinian man filed a claim in the International Criminal Court (ICC) demanding that 14 senior Hamas leaders be investigated for war crimes against the Palestinian people. The accusations included: using civilians as human shields, locating military operations in densely populated civilian areas, attacking civilians, illegally involving children in military activities, and carrying out unauthorized executions.

Israel takes significant actions to minimize civilian casualties. However, just who is a civilian and who is a combatant is often difficult to ascertain, since many former hostages, such as Noa Argamani, reported that they were held by Gazan families, not Hamas fighters. Hostages were held in the family home of Abdallah Aljamal, a Hamas-affiliated journalist, and in at least four different hospitals in Khan Younis and Gaza City. Moreover, a recent investigation by the U.S. Agency for International Development Inspector General’s Office has identified over 100 UNRWA employees who took part in Hamas’ October 7th massacre, including teachers, school principals, and other education staff.

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Toder believes that antisemitism has erupted as a consequence of Israel’s actions in Gaza; however, worldwide protests against Israel started on October 8th, 2023, while many Hamas terrorists were still engaged in killing sprees and before Israel had begun its offensive campaign. To the great dismay of many Jews who had spent years building bridges with other communities, most of those allies failed to acknowledge the barbarism and sexual violence of October 7th and instead joined protests to express condemnation of Israel and of anyone who acknowledged Israel’s right to exist.

In the Aug 8th, 2024 interview with TIME Magazine, Netanyahu explicitly rejected the criticism that he had bolstered Hamas by letting Qatari cash flow into Gaza. The full transcript of the interview is available online at: https://time.com/7008852/benjamin-netanyahu-interview-transcript/  The TIME Magazine reporter read the statement quoted by Toder, attributing it to a 2019 Likud Party meeting, and Netanyahu responded by saying: “That is a false statement. I never said that.”

Toder alleges that Netanyahu is “a corrupt leader at the head of a broken governmental system.” Israel’s democratic system is not broken by any means, although there are many who question the degree of authority held by the judicial branch. Additionally, it is correct that Netanyahu is currently on trial for corruption in several ongoing court cases; however, as far as I am aware, an individual is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

When I was ten years old, Holocaust survivor Gerda Weissman Klein, author of “All But My Life,” spoke to my Sunday school class. None of the children could comprehend how the entire world stood by and did nothing as Gerda’s family and 6 million other Jews were brutally murdered. Israel was established with the promise that the Jewish people will “never again” be at the mercy of the rest of the world.

In the Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 72a, there is a legal principle called “Ha-ba le-horgekha, hashkem le-horgo,” which translates to: “If someone comes to kill you, rise up to kill him first.” This establishes that protecting an innocent life justifies – and even necessitates – lethal force against an aggressor, framing self-defense as a protective act rather than an act of aggression.

Sadly, war entails great suffering, and it is often innocent people who pay the price. The war that began on October 7th, 2023 was initiated by Hamas, and it is Hamas who is responsible for the high casualty count. Israel’s goal is simply to protect its citizens. Moral clarity requires us to recognize a defensive war in which civilians are unintentionally killed.

One day, my grandchildren will ask me why the world condemned Israel for fighting back to defend its citizens against jihadists sworn to its destruction. I hope I will have an answer for them.

Am Yisrael Chai.

Galit Lev-Harir of Wildwood is co-president of St. Louis Friends of Israel.