We are veterans who served in just and unjust wars. U.S. military operations in Afghanistan were in self-defense and a necessary response to the 9/11 attacks. The Iraq War was an unnecessary war of choice, by definition unjust, that directly contributed to the deaths of approximately 200,000 Iraqi civilians. The just war principles that govern when and how we fight, serve as the bedrock for international law, peace, and security.
As former military officers and Jews who live by the values of tikkun olam—to repair the world—these principles were our own guardrails while in combat fighting enemies as ruthless as Hamas.
We spoke up when President Donald Trump pardoned U.S. service members convicted of war crimes who violated these principles.
As practitioners of warfare, we understand that commanders are only accountable for the information available to them at the time of the decision to attack a target. All the commander requires is reasonable certainty that her assessment of the intended target and collateral damage estimate are correct. This means that in many cases, operating in good faith, she will be wrong, and civilians will, unfortunately, be harmed.
However, such cases do not violate just war principles, as no war could ever possibly be just.
Students at Columbia and other top universities and prominent human rights groups, who have never spent time conducting targeting operations, have created new and implausible standards in the war that has followed Hamas' illegitimate attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 in which 1,200 people were killed and 250 were taken hostage to Gaza. For instance, these groups criticized Israel's pager attack on Hezbollah as being indiscriminate because a handful of civilians were unfortunately injured and killed out of the thousands of Hezbollah fighters who were effectively removed from the battlefield.
Progressive media, like The New York Times, have also lost touch with the realities of war. The Times recently critiqued Israel's conduct in Gaza as inconsistent with modern warfare standards.
For example, the Times' flawed analysis leads its readers to believe that Israel's loosening of its rules of engagement after Oct. 7 contravenes the norms of war. In fact, the opposite is true, rules of engagement are routinely adjusted to address the type and intensity of fighting.
The Times further criticizes that after Oct. 7, lower ranking Israeli officers were authorized to strike an expanded list of Hamas targets with the risk of killing up to 20 civilians per strike.
What the Times glosses over is that pre-Oct. 7 Israel was following a peacetime targeting standard that no civilians would be harmed during strikes against Hamas operatives—an impossible constraint to adhere to in a major conventional war in an urban setting.
The irony is that the Israel Defense Forces' threshold is still less than the 30 civilians killed per strike standard the U.S. enacted during the days of the "shock and awe" bombing campaign of Iraq. The Times writers might disagree with these American and Israeli standards, but without them, commanders would be paralyzed.
Additionally, the Times buries in the article that after the first 30 days of the Israel-Hamas war, the IDF tightened its rules of engagement requiring "special permission to endanger more than 10 civilians in strikes."
This is notable because U.S. military commanders conducting operations against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria could authorize strikes where up to 10 civilians may be killed, if it was deemed necessary to destroy a target.
The United States—like the IDF—delegated targeting decisions to mid-ranking soldiers who were best positioned to make the call. The Times erroneously assesses that higher rank equals better targeting outcomes and less civilian harm.
In fact, the 2018 Pentagon Civilian Casualty Review found that "delegation of target engagement authority did not directly cause any increase in civilian casualties."
What the Times ignores is that, on balance, Israel is performing well below its rules of engagement threshold. Israel's actual combatant-to-civilian death ratio is one of the lowest in modern warfare, approximately one Hamas fighter for two civilians killed.
Even our own military struggled to achieve this standard in Iraq against ISIS.
This is a testament to the IDF's efforts to mitigate harm against an adversary that deliberately puts civilians in harm's way.
Another topic of concern for the elites is Israel's use of AI in combat. Human rights groups and the Washington Posthave drawn the wrong conclusions that Israel has outsourced targeting to algorithms. This scaremongering is not based on truth. According to Israeli officials, the Gospel and Lavender AI systems help intelligence analysts review and analyze existing information and do not constitute the sole basis for determining targets eligible for attack, and they are certainly not autonomous.
In fact, with sufficient data, these systems can aid in target identification, weapons precision, reduce civilian harm, and enable a faster end to conflict. We should be applauding Israel's big-data effort to strive for a more comprehensive picture of the intended target and surrounding civilian population.
Just wars must end justly. There must be conditions for lasting peace. Otherwise, conflict, suffering, and despair will persist.
Israel's strategy of attrition shows signs of success, demonstrated by the destruction of Hamas' leadership and infrastructure in Gaza, as well as the implosion of both Hezbollah and its primary patron in the Near East—the Assad regime.
However, some elected officials on the progressive-left have worked to stop Israel from eliminating Hamas and Hezbollah and securing peace. The Senate recently voted on three resolutions to halt weapons transfers to Israel. One of the resolutions, supported by 17 Democrats, forbids the transfer of JDAMs, precision-guided munitions that can significantly reduce collateral harm. The alternative is the use of unguided bombs which take far more skill to achieve similar precision.
These Senate resolutions weren't about protecting Palestinian civilians. Rather, they were introduced to pander to the segment of the progressive base that despises Israel simply for existing.
No lasting peace, including one that might result in a Palestinian state, can come in the region until the war ends, beginning with a resounding Israeli victory. Israel is fighting well. Now it must be allowed to win.
Andrea N. Goldstein was an active-duty Navy officer from 2009-2016, and continues to serve in the Reserves. She deployed three times, twice on ships and once with Naval Special Warfare (SEALs). She was a senior congressional staffer and senior appointee in the Biden-Harris Administration at the Department of Defense. She is co-director of the Jewish War Veterans of America (JWV), Christopher Celiz Task Force to Combat Antisemitism.
Steven Katz was an active-duty Army officer from 2003-2009. He served two tours of duty to Iraq in ground combat leadership positions. He also served as defense and intelligence advisor to Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO). He is co-director of the Jewish War Veterans of America (JWV), Christopher Celiz Task Force to Combat Antisemitism.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. Government, members of Congress, JWV, or Newsweek. They are the authors' own.
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