GAZA - Who is guilty?

I went to hear Jonathan Sumption (Lord Sumption) on the subject of Democracy, on which he was masterly and insightful. But in the Q&A session he was asked for his views on the situation in Gaza, and his views surprised me greatly. It’s really the latter that I want to discuss.

Democracy under threat?

Two aspects of his talk on Democracy are perhaps relevant, or are at least interesting.

First, he attributed the current challenges that Democracy faces to the increasing polarisation of politics, causing each side of the divide to move towards its extreme - to the “Far-Left” and the “Far-Right”. He gave some reasons for this and tended to be more critical of the rightward moves, in the shape particularly of Donald Trump, than of the equivalents on the other extreme.

The second thing is that he was asked, at the end, whether he was optimistic or pessimistic about the survival of Democracy. He said that, frankly, he was pessimistic - but very much hoped he was wrong!

Gaza

The situation in Gaza only came up in the Q&A sessions at the end. He gave little detail - quite understandably as his talk wasn’t about it. But he did state two conclusions that surprised me, largely because they seemed to be based on facts that I believe to be wrong.

What I want to do is to set out the facts that he described, and then the facts as I understand them. As I say, he gave little detail and no information about his sources. I will try, by way of contrast, to set out the basis for mine. I would guess that neither he nor I have direct knowledge (I certainly don’t); we both rely on what we read or hear. My reason for doing this is to find out if and/or where I am wrong.

War crimes

We don’t need much detail to understand the facts that he referred to. They have also, to some extent, been the substance of so much of the reporting in the western press. He says that the Israel Defence Forces (the IDF) have not only killed civilians needlessly, they have deliberately targeted them. I think I understood him to say that he believes they intended to wipe them out, to kill all the Palestinian inhabitants of Gaza. His conclusion is that Israel is guilty of war crimes and possibly of genocide. Given the facts he referred to, this conclusion is I suppose understandable. But are these facts right?

The other side

I get my information from various sources and they totally contradict the facts referred to by Lord Sumption.

I first became aware of a picture much more sympathetic to the Israelis from articles by Andrew Roberts, the eminent British historian. Where conflicting views of fact are involved, as they surely are here, I always like to think about whether a reporter has a motive to dissemble or to lie. In the case of Andrew Roberts, his motive must be the absolute reverse; to preserve his immensely high reputation as a historian. If he gets his facts wrong, his reputation would suffer rather like Professor Hugh Trevor Roper’s did when he identified Hitler’s fake diaries as genuine. Andrew Roberts (he will, I am sure, be glad to hear) passes my test of being potentially reliable.

I remember him describing the considerable efforts made by the IDF to protect civilians, certainly not to kill them. He was and presumably is sympathetic to the right of Israel to protect itself, if necessary by war, albeit as permitted under international law.

Douglas Murray

But my other sources give more detail. They include the British writer Douglas Murray, who has spent much time in the war zone to find out the facts for himself. His reports are in his book On Democracies and Death Cults. He explains that one of the Israeli objectives is “to separate out the civilian population from the combatants” in the face of “Hamas’s well-documented and long-running practice of using civilian infrastructure for military purposes”. The Israelis set up a “humanitarian corridor” allowing civilians to escape the danger of the north towards the south. Douglas Murray was among the first outsiders to witness this, although he was able, and horrified, to see the bodies of Gazan civilians shot by Hamas for trying to escape via the humanitarian corridor. Is Douglas Murray lying?

Never Again?

Another writer is Jake Wallis Simons, a journalist and former editor of the Jewish Chronicle. In his book Never Again? How the West betrayed the Jews and itself he describes in some detail the steps taken by the Israelis to protect civilians. They made “up to a hundred thousand telephone calls and tens of millions of messages and voicemails instructing people to evacuate by designated routes to safe areas”.

Civilian casualties

How successful have these efforts been?

Wars tend to involve massive death tolls among civilians. The detail is surprising to me. The United Nations reports that in wars around the world an average of nine civilians perish for every combatant. However, in the case of the Gaza conflict, the number of civilian casualties per combatant is much lower - between one and two - even in the face of Hamas’s policy of using human shields.

Major John Spencer, the chairman of urban warfare studies at West Point’s Modern War Institute, concludes that the IDF has implemented more precautions to prevent civilian deaths than any military in history - far beyond what international law requires. He also sadly concludes that, as the various warnings have also helped Hamas to survive, the precautions may have ultimately prolonged the war and its devastation.

Genocide

Frankly, I find it hard to take the accusations of genocide seriously. Palestinian Arabs comprise 20% of the population of Israel itself, with full access to the health care available to Israeli citizens. Israel has allowed millions of tons of food to get into Gaza (much of it, we understand, intercepted by Hamas). None of this is compatible with genocide, however defined.

Facts

But it does all depend on the facts. That is why my request is genuine: tell me where I’m wrong.

Here I come back to the issue of polarisation. On those rare occasions when I get drawn into discussions on Gaza, I am surprised to find that people are unaware of some of the facts I’ve described. It’s not that they disbelieve them; they are unaware of them.

I agree with Jonathan Sumption that this polarisation is a threat to Democracy. But I wonder which of us, on this subject, is suffering from the effects of it.

25 January 2026

Tony Herbert