By Lance Allen Wang

Jewish World subscriber Lance Allen Wang is a columnist for the Greenwich Journal and Salem Press in Washington County.  He is an Iraq Veteran and retired Army infantry officer who lives in Eagle Bridge, NY, with his wife, Hatti.

 

This past weekend, I met with friends from my Jewish War Veterans of the US post. It was a social visit primarily, just a chance to get together for lunch and catch up. A couple had brought their wives. After lunch we sat for a couple of minutes, and then the conversation started. It bitterly turned to the murder of a young Jewish couple in Washington DC earlier in the week. And then it turned to the hostages, both alive and dead, still being held in dark Gaza tunnels by Hamas.

At one point, I pointed out – “Do you realize that we’ve been talking about Gaza for five minutes, and no one has mentioned the word Hamas?” It is an extremely important distinction. I try to never conflate the term “Hamas” with “Palestinian.” But among anti-Israel protesters, Hamas, October 7th, and the hostages are only acknowledged reluctantly and under pressure. 

So often, when I talk about those who engage in anti-Semitic behavior, I talk about the right-wing. You know, the “Unite the Right” tiki-torch Nazi types. The ones that deal in antisemitic tropes about money and power. The kind that lead a presidential candidate to say, “If I don’t win this election – and the Jewish people would really have a lot to do with that if that happens…” Really? Jews make up 2.4% of the United States population. 

Sadly, some from the extreme left-wing side of the dial take rampant disinformation about the Israel-Hamas war out there seriously, leading an impressionable lunatic to assassinate a young couple outside a Jewish museum in Washington. Among the self-radicalized, semantic gymnastics to make the distinction between “Jew” and “Zionist” fall upon deaf ears. Rather, they see it quite sensible to attack a public vigil for Gaza hostages with an improvised flame weapon, injuring, among others, a Holocaust survivor in her 80s. 

Words mean something. Even within the Jewish community there are questions about the meaning of Zionism in 2025. There are also many different types of Zionists, just as there are different types of libertarians and different types of socialists. To talk about them as if they are homogenous is simply not accurate. Zionism in its largest sense is belief in the idea of a Jewish homeland. Discussions on the topic start at that point. 

Among my veteran comrades, the discussion turned to the treatment of Israel by the world community following its response to the October 7th attacks. When someone pointed out that a lot of Palestinian civilians have been killed since then, my friend replied, “We killed a lot of civilians in Iraq, too.” I nodded. It was true. “As we did in Berlin, Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki,” I added. 

In Gaza, Hamas still operates like an insurgent force, even though it is not. In many ways, they have operated much like Hezbollah did in Lebanon – a proxy guerilla army for Iran, which like Hamas, has sworn to Israel’s destruction. Like a guerrilla army, Hamas’ fighters still move among the population and use those people for cover and concealment. This may be one reason that Hamas will not distinguish between military and civilian casualties. Also, like a guerilla army, they see terrorism and hostage-taking as perfectly acceptable instruments of policy as demonstrated on October 7, 2023. The primary difference between Hezbollah and Hamas? Hamas has quasi-statehood in Gaza – they are the reigning civil authority. 

Sadly, one bit of news which never seems to gain more than momentary traction is the courageous stand of some Palestinians against Hamas. While it has been reported in several world news outlets, it has been downplayed by pro-Palestinian activists here. I would not be surprised to find that some of these protesters have already been imprisoned or killed. As information out of Gaza is tightly controlled by Hamas, I would expect that there will be little follow-up to determine if my suspicion is true. Common ground for those truly seeking peace would revolve around a post-Hamas future.

CHALLENGES AHEAD

The recusal of the United States from the peace process since 2016 has been a major blow to prospects for de-escalation. The recent bizarre suggestion to turn Gaza into some sort of Mediterranean resort by the American president was not only ham-fisted and tone deaf, it also contributed nothing tangible to the resolution of the issue. This is not President Carter in 1977 negotiating peace between Israel and Egypt. It is not President Clinton bringing Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat to the table in 1994.

Without a credible leader of the free world, and no world leader willing to realistically and credibly engage with the situation, I can see no end. Yes, there’s fantastical thinking about a big casino on the beach, but I don’t see much discussion on how to deal with the complexities and historical baggage that have led to a cycle of violence. That cycle only further empowers the far-right in Israel’s government, one which seems to have no interest in de-escalation.

THE AMERICAN FRONT

There is an American front in the Israel-Hamas War. There’s always an American front. It’s part of the information age, and it has only accelerated in the digital age. Mass information technology’s flip side is mass disinformation. The goal is to erode support, political, economic, and materiel, for Israel. It’s a logical decision on Hamas’ part. We’ve seen it before.

On a strategic level, we failed in Vietnam. Besides many of our foolhardy policy decisions which led to the war’s inevitable ending, the North Vietnamese were also able to win the information war. Did they see America’s free press as an exploitable opportunity? Absolutely. And because North Vietnam was a closed information society, any attempts of ours to counter their propaganda were small-scale and generally unsuccessful. It is important to note, however, that Gaza is not quite Israel’s Vietnam. This is not a simplistic “domino theory” on the other side of the world – this is Hamas, sworn to Israel’s destruction since 1988, quite literally in Israel’s own backyard.

Hamas will distance itself completely from the terrorist attacks in Colorado, and the murders in Washington DC. It is counter to Hamas’ attempts to show legitimacy as a governing body. Of course, there is no legitimacy where Hamas is an international terrorist organization. Hamas knows full well that their propaganda will assist in the process of self-radicalization among the violent and unstable and lead to the inevitable and tragic results we have seen. 

For those who claim that anti-Israel sentiment is not anti-Semitic – nice thought. I agree there are some fine lines, but understand nuance means precious little when you are a Jewish-American being set aflame for the actions of a sovereign state on the other side of the world.

The more common effect of Hamas’ information efforts in the United States is to redefine the terms of the discussion about the Israel-Hamas War. Which means to turn the discussion away from Hamas. To turn the discussion away from October 7th and the hostages Hamas has taken and still hold today. To turn the discussion away from Hamas’ use of their own civilian population as human shields. To turn the discussion away from discontent among Gazans who realize that Hamas has brought them nothing but violence and tragedy since the Gaza civil war in 2007, after which Hamas ejected the opposition and cancelled all further elections. This is not to deny the utter human tragedy for Palestinian civilians, who seem to constantly back the wrong leaders, as much out of desperation as anything else. 

Among the fringe right and religious revisionists, the idea of a “sin of empathy” gained purchase earlier this year after Washington DC’s bishop pleaded with the President on behalf of society’s marginalized.  I am not comfortable turning my back on the human tragedy taking place among Gaza’s civilians. 

But I also can’t participate in the discussion without the acknowledgement of truths which would just as soon not be spoken by protesters – primarily Hamas’ role in getting the situation to this point. Accepting this simple truth is admission that the dynamics are far more complex than simple tabloid headlines and picket signs would reveal.