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Dear editor:
I believe Bruce Ticker is sincere in wishing to educate the ‘Useful Idiots’ being exploited by Hamas (Column: To Alter Public Opinion, We Must Address Critics of Israel Whom We Dub ‘Useful Idiots’, BJN November 20, 2025) but his arguments are woefully inadequate. In comparing the 70,000 deaths claimed by the Hamas-run “Ministry of Health” to 1,200 Israelis, people working with Israelis, and foreign visitors to Israel who were killed on October 7, 2023, he reinforces the false claim that Israel’s actions were excessive and vindictive in nature. He fails to mention that the Ministry’s figures have been called into question by statisticians, military experts, and the UN. Nor does he mention the fact that Hamas vowed to inflict 1,000 October 7’s on Israel, a vow that was cheered by the Gazans.
https://henryjacksonsociety.org/publications/questionable-counting/
Nor does Ticker quote Maj. (ret) John Spencer, head of Urban Warfare Studies at West Point’s Modern Warfare Institute, who marvelled at the IDF’s efforts (and success) in minimizing civilian casualties while fighting in densely-populated Gaza, where Hamas had deliberately linked its extensive network of terror tunnels to homes, mosques, hospitals, and schools in a deliberate effort to guarantee that Hamas would be able to get valuable anti-Israel propaganda by reporting on the deaths of Gazan non-combatants (while omitting the fact that Hamas had worked to guarantee that Israel’s efforts to minimize civilian casualties would be less than 100% effective).
And, as is standard for Ticker, he points to Palestinian rejection of an American peace proposal as if it was the only proposal ever offered for ending the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. I wonder whether Ticker makes this choice because Bill Clinton was involved with the meetings at Camp David (thus implying that only left-leaning politicians act as peacemakers). But that is a gross distortion of the truth.
As far back as 1947, Palestinians could have gotten a state (alongside a Jewish State) if Arab leaders hadn’t rejected the UN Partition Plan for Palestine. The Palestinians missed another opportunity in 1967 when, shortly after the Six Day War, the Arab League rejected an Israeli offer to withdraw from lands it had liberated from Egyptian and Jordanian occupation in exchange for recognition and peace.
https://www.sixdaywar.org/immediate-aftermath/the-3-nos-of-khartoum
It’s also noteworthy that rightwinger Ariel Sharon was responsible for the evacuation of all Israeli civilians and security personnel from Gaza well before Hamas was elected by the Palestinians to administer the enclave. And that, by choosing to spend $1,000,000,000 to construct its fortifications rather than using the funds to develop Gaza’s economy, it is Hamas that has convinced the majority of Israelis that a Palestinian state would be nothing more than a base for directing attacks at Israel in an effort to destroy the nation-state of the Jews.
Toby F. Block
Atlanta, GA
