A recent Netflix documentary recovered and re-colored video footage of the Blitz in London during the war. I’d been brought up only a couple of decades later and the Blitz was still embedded deep in the national psyche. My own great-grandmother had been killed by a bomb hitting her home, and my mother often recounted being thrown to the ground by the whoosh of a nearby V2 bomber in the last phase of the war.
But I didn’t appreciate the full fiery, deafening vortex of human incineration until I saw the documentary. Searing in every sense of the word. But even in that circle of hell, one moment stood out. On January 20, 1943, in the middle of lunch-hour, a Nazi bomber dropped a 1,000-lb bomb on a school in southeast London. Air raid sirens had not sounded. Thirty-two children were killed instantly, and six died later. And the country all but stopped for a moment and took its breath. Even after three years of horror, the mass murder of children took the Brits to the edge of unendurable grief. Seven thousand people turned out for the mass burial. A memorial is there till this day.
All war is hell; but war against children is a special kind of hell. And if we ever forget that, or reduce it to a “to be sure” throat-clearing, our souls have been irreparably broken. Yes, the Allies also killed countless more children in the devastating raids on German cities in response, prompting even Churchill to ask himself: “Are we beasts?" Are we taking this too far?” But both Brits and Germans did what they could to evacuate as many children as they could out of the main city targets to towns and villages in the countryside — a policy the Germans called Kinderlandverschickung. My mum also told those stories — of saying goodbye to her parents, having a ticket with a number pinned to her coat, put on a train, and then taken in by kindly rural strangers.
I mention this because, of course, what we have been witnessing in Gaza these past 608 grisly days is this very atrocity: the mass killing of defenseless children. A video this week of an IDF bombing of, yes, a former school, shows the silhouette of a toddler lost in a fireball, trying to find her way out of the burning building. She had just seen her parents and older sister burned and buried alive — although when the NYT found her later, she was still calling for her mom and dad in the hospital where she lay.
The responsibility for this is shared. There are countless miles of deep tunnels where civilians could have been protected from the IDF onslaught from the skies — but Hamas chose to sacrifice its women and children as a horrifying weapon in their asymmetrical warfare. It takes an extreme sociopathology to do that kind of evil — and we saw how sick they are on October 7. But as Hamas put its children at intolerable risk, the IDF also went ahead and killed them anyway. We simply don’t know how many actual civilian children have died. (Independent journalists are still barred from Gaza by the IDF.) But they are almost certainly greater in number than the 7,000 or so children murdered by Hitler in the four years he assailed Britain.
It will be said that Hamas started this war, could still end it by disarming and surrendering the hostages, and cannot now complain that Israel is intent on finishing it off. All true. All points important to make. But if the gap between Hamas’ military capacities and Israel’s was huge but not impregnable on October 7, 2023, it is now overwhelming. The ability of Hamas, or any of its guerrilla allies, to threaten Israel’s security right now is close to non-existent.And in a battle already largely won, against an enemy on its last legs, the moral justification for continuing relentless infanticide on this scale becomes harder and harder to discern.
What, after all, is Israel attempting to accomplish by escalating the war in Gaza now? Defeating the remnants of Hamas? When, one wonders, would the last remnants actually cease to exist, and how would we know? (One place we know it surely does still exist is in the psyche of that five-year-old girl burned all over.) Or is the new bombardment meant to break the psychological resistance of Gazans to Israel’s legitimacy? Because we all recall how the Blitz turned the Brits against Churchill and in favor of the Nazis, don’t we?
The attempt by the IDF to leverage collective civilian hunger to put pressure on what’s left of Hamas is another war crime — and Ehud Olmert, the former Israeli PM, agrees. The deadly and chaotic new attempt to provide food by US and Israeli entities shows how hard it will be for Israel to govern Gaza going forward. Yes, we can question whether this is or is not a “famine” strictly speaking; or blame Hamas for stealing food. In fact, we should. But what we cannot deny is that Israel is using the malnutrition of children as a weapon of war. Because after 608 days, despite a massive firepower advantage over Hamas, in an area of a mere 141 square miles, Israel still insists it isn’t in control and still hasn’t won.
Really? Look at how Israel’s security has grown in these 608 days. Over to you, John Spencer:
Hamas had 5 brigades, 24 battalions, 30-40k trained fighters, 20,000 rockets, held terrain, could conduct coordinated attacks and defenses. Today, it has none of that. Hamas does not have a military capable of organized operations, it has a guerrilla force made up of untrained, inexperienced, radicalized mostly youths (average age of a Hamas replacement soldier is in the teens) with limited military equipment continuing to use civilians as human shields and human sacrifice. Hamas is losing political control.
If that’s true, and it is, then what actual threat from a ragtag group of “untrained, inexperienced, radicalized” teenagers can justify the continuing mass civilian carnage? The Allies pointed to the similarly acute bombing of their cities to justify the bombing of the Germans’. But there is nothing even close to parity on that score between Israel and Hamas, and, in most observers’ eyes, there comes a point at which Goliath’s continuing pulverization of David becomes an abuse of power. No, it is not genocide, and it is ugly and hideously insensitive to call it that; but it is a military campaign inflicting civilian casualties far beyond the exigencies of Israeli security. At this point, I don’t even think that’s debatable (but I’m sure plenty of Dish readers will differ).
The only truly dangerous threat to Israel is Iran’s nuclear program; and the Gaza carnage has isolated Israel from the allies and powers, including the US, it needs on its side. Netanyahu has finally lost the support of the British, French, German, Italian, and Canadian governments over the Gaza “surge”. Global opinion of Israel is at historic lows, with a European favorable rate of just 29 percent, compared with 62 percent unfavorable. The younger generations in the wealthy West — less attuned to the history of the Jewish people — are anti-Israel by huge margins.
The Germans — long the staunchest defenders of the Jewish state — are in agony. Here’s Merz last week: “What the Israeli Army is doing in the Gaza Strip right now — I honestly don’t understand what the goal is in causing such suffering to the civilian population.” The US president, no neocon, went on a tour of the Middle East and smartly skipped Israel. The UAE, critical to the Abraham Accords, can’t stomach the ever-more provocative government anymore. Of the 15 members of the UN Security Council, 14 just called for an immediate ceasefire.
And what does “total victory” actually mean? A while back, I supported Israel’s attempt to enter Rafah as the last redoubt of Hamas. But today we’re told everywhere in Gaza is now the last redoubt of Hamas, and so the end of the war has become like an Irish goodbye, or one of those symphonies that seems to end — and then doesn’t, and doesn’t, and doesn’t. There is something manic and desperate about the IDF’s actions in Gaza right now. They know they’ve lost their way but have no idea how to extricate themselves. And the thing about knowing you have killed so many children is that it will require you to suppress a sense of their humanity in order to maintain sanity and carry on. The cost of that moral coarsening — the acclimation to infanticide as routine and unremarkable — is huge.
And the day after, if there ever is one? That essential question remains unanswered. The Netanyahu government doesn’t want an Arab/European military or administrative presence to stabilize the place, which is the only viable way forward. So a permanent Israeli police and military force on every block? Or settlements in a wasteland inhabited by people who now hate Israel with ever deeper passion? Seriously?
Parts of the Netanyahu government, of course, have already told us their preferred end-game. The finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, has described it as “no retreat from the territories we have conquered, not even in exchange for hostages... Once we stay in Gaza, we can talk about [declaring] sovereignty.” When you observe the parallel settler activities on the West Bank, and their murderous eliminationism, the logic is unavoidable.
The Israeli public is telling us what they want as well. In a poll last week, 82 percent supported the expulsion of Gaza’s residents, and 56 percent even favored expelling all Palestinian citizens of Israel (those numbers were 43 and 31 percent in 2003). That’s a country that, barring a major shift, is well on its way to ethnic cleansing. Forty-seven percent agreed that “when conquering an enemy city, the Israel Defense Forces should act as the Israelites did in Jericho under Joshua’s command — killing all its inhabitants.” Amalek lives!
Now that revenge has been slaked, and Gaza turned into smoking ruins, and the smoking ruins have been bombed again, the only conceivable rationale for this further intensification is eventual Israeli sovereignty over all the land in Israel/Palestine, along with a possible population transfer that would make 1948 seem mild.
That, it appears, is where we’re headed if something or someone doesn’t intervene to drag Israel back to normalcy and perspective. But how many more children must die, I wonder, before we get there?
(Note to readers: This is an excerpt of The Weekly Dish. If you’re already a paid subscriber, click here to read the full version. This week’s issue also includes: a historical chat with Robert Merry on President McKinley; reader dissents on several topics, including pardons; 10 notable quotes from the week in news, including an Yglesias Award for a Newsmax host; 20 pieces on Substack we recommend on a variety of topics; a Mental Health Break for the Musk-Trump smackdown; a desert window from Arizona; and, of course, the results of the View From Your Window contest — with a new challenge. Subscribe for the full Dish experience!)
A new subscriber writes, “I miss Christopher Hitchens and wanted to listen to your interview with Jake Tapper.” On a much less recent episode:
I’ve always admired your bravery and loved your writing for a long time. I had assumed I was already a paid subscriber, but when your episode with Michael Moynihan ended abruptly, I realized I was mistaken. I’ve corrected that misapprehension now. Thanks for all you do.
New On The Dishcast: Robert Merry
Robert is a journalist and historian. He served as president and editor-in-chief of Congressional Quarterly, the editor of The National Interest, and the editor of The American Conservative, and he covered Washington as a reporter for the WSJ for more than a decade. He has written many history books, including the one we’re discussing this week: President McKinley: Architect of the American Century. It’s a lively read, a fascinating glimpse of fin-de-siècle American politics, and of a GOP firmer on tariffs but a hell of a lot more virtuous than it is under Trump today.
Listen to the episode here. There you can find two clips of our convo — on McKinley’s heroism during the Civil War, and the reasons he differs so much from Trump. That link also takes you to a bunch of commentary on last week’s pod on the Biden cover-up, as well as the pod on Bill Buckley and American conservatism. Plus, readers continue to debate the role of foreign students at US colleges, and I respond at length to a dissent from a closeted trans reader.
I am belatedly cheering for your episode with her. (I had fallen a couple of Dishcasts behind, and your playlist of thoughtful and varied guests is unsurpassed.) I had never heard of her, and she is simply wonderful: so sensible, so modest, so smart. She is the model of the virtues of moderation — her small c-conservatism. By my count, she seems to be right about everything; and if she is wrong, she changes her mind with grace (as you did with Iraq).
I have sampled Quillette, and calling Claire modest is an understatement — what a comprehensive and excellent journal! She has gained me as a subscriber.
Coming up: Chris Matthews — who just revived “Hardball” on Substack, Tara Zahra on the revolt against globalization after WWI, Walter Isaacson on Ben Franklin, Arthur C. Brooks on the science of happiness, Paul Elie on crypto-religion in ‘80s pop culture, and Johann Hari coming back to turn the tables and interview me for the pod. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.
I loathe Biden’s pardon of his own son, who is clearly guilty. But I am also empathetic, since it’s a unique situation; I’m not convinced any president could resist pardoning their own children if it came to it. Biden’s pardons are also in a unique category because his successor openly discussed weaponizing the Justice Department against his family, and does anyone doubt Trump would have done it? I say this not to defend what Biden did, but to place it in context.
I also think pardoning a family member is a very different kind of issue than pardoning political benefactors. It was an abuse of power, and wrong, but Biden’s pardons were not for personal gain (at least not personal monetary or political gain) — which again differentiates them from the other pardons you mentioned.
Another has a “minor correction”:
A “majority” of the American electorate did not “endorse this lawlessness last November.” Trump won 77,284,118 votes, or 49.8 percent of the votes cast for president.
And another:
You mentioned that “a former Detroit mayor convicted of fraud and racketeering” was one of the folks who received a pardon from Trump. I assume you are thinking of Kwame Kilpatrick, but he only had his sentence commuted and was not pardoned. He’s still considered a convicted felon and he still can’t run for office here in Michigan. He also still has to pay his (considerable) restitution.
As always, please keep the dissents coming: dish@andrewsullivan.com. And follow more Dish discussion in my Notes feed.
This is a feature in the paid version of the Dish spotlighting about 20 of our favorite pieces from other Substackers every week. This week’s selection covers topics such as the abundance debate, the wokeness debate, and the AI debate. Below is one example, followed by a brand new substack:
A must-read from a gynecologist who specialized in “gender-affirming” hysterectomies for minors; the scales have fallen from her eyes.
Here’s a list of the substacks we recommend in general — call it a blogroll. If you have any suggestions for “In the ‘Stacks,” especially ones from emerging writers, please let us know: dish@andrewsullivan.com.
The View From Your Window Contest
Where do you think it’s located? Email your guess to contest@andrewsullivan.com. Please put the location — city and/or state first, then country — in the subject line. Proximity counts if no one gets the exact spot. Bonus points for fun facts and stories. The deadline for entries is Wednesday at 11.59 pm (PST). The winner gets the choice of a VFYW book or two annual Dish subscriptions. If you are not a subscriber, please indicate that status in your entry and we will give you a free month sub if we select your entry for the contest results (example here if you’re new to the VFYW). Contest archive is here. Happy sleuthing!
The results for this week’s window are coming in a separate email to paid subscribers later today. From last week’s contest, our biographical sleuth picked a man that happened to be the close mentor of this week’s pod subject, McKinley:
Prior to this week, I knew virtually nothing about Paraguay, other than the name of its capital city and the fact that it is landlocked. Thanks to this contest, I’m a little more educated about the country than I was a few days ago. Here’s a fun fact: Rutherford B. Hayes, the 19th President of the United States, is a national hero in Paraguay:
Ironically, Hayes is far better known and certainly more revered in Paraguay than he is in the US. Why? In the 1870s, there was a border dispute between Paraguay and Argentina over a region known as the Chaco, which lies west of the Paraguay River. The two countries eventually agreed to submit the territorial dispute to President Hayes for arbitration. On November 12, 1878, he issued his decision awarding the territory to Paraguay. This was a really big deal for Paraguay, because the region in question makes up about 60% of the country’s land.
To express its gratitude, Paraguay renamed one of its major regions “Departmento Presidente Hayes” — one of 17 departments, plus the national capital district. That department (whose capital Villa Hayes was also named for Hayes) lies directly across the Paraguay River from the capital Asunción. To commemorate the 1878 arbitration ruling, Departamento Presidente Hayes has established November 12th as a holiday. And on that date last year, Paraguay dedicated a statue of Hayes in Villa Hayes’ main plaza.
