Concerning Charles Marsden’s response (Aug. 8 Timberjay) to Valerie Myntti’s letter (Aug. 1 Timberjay), distraction and deflection are not an answer to the “uncomfortable moral quandary” that she presents: how a country born as a Jewish homeland out of the suffering inflicted by genocidal violence against European Jews can knowingly impose genocidal conditions on the civilian population in Gaza well past the point of military necessity or proportionality. While the Israel-Palestine conflict will certainly not be resolved on the pages of the Timberjay, and no one contests that Hamas has been and is an obstacle to peace in Gaza, Mr. Marsden’s response fails to address the morality of the Israeli actions outlined by Ms. Myntti that have resulted in the current unquestionable humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Rather than displaying his self-proclaimed objectivity about what is happening in Gaza, Mr. Marsden attempts, in several ways, to distract and deflect from addressing the facts. First, he attempts to discredit Ms. Myntti as the messenger based on her membership in the Jewish Voice for Peace organization, by alleging that she uses the term genocide indiscriminately and by suggesting that he apparently has a greater understanding than her of how Israel needs to fight this war. Second, he suggests that the widespread international criticism of Israel’s current actions in Gaza is the fruit of media reports molded by Hamas. Finally, he attempts to deflect criticism of Israel by comparing the actions of the U.S. and its allies in World War II that caused horrendous civilian casualties.
Jewish Voice for Peace is hardly a “fringe” organization when it has over 750,000 members and supporters and is one of many organizations calling for a ceasefire. Moreover, “Left wing Jews,” a group Ms. Myntti and I would unhesitatingly claim membership in, do not blame Israel solely for the failure to achieve peace in Gaza or make “accusations that demonize Israel” with no understanding of the situation, as Mr. Marsden contends. Mr. Marsden’s implication that Ms. Myntti is a “self-hating Jew,” an effort to delegitimize her views and shield the Israeli government from criticism, is belied by her letter and her pride in the principle of Jewish law that the preservation of human life overrides virtually any other religious rule of Judaism. Her arguments about Gaza are echoed by columnist David French, a self-described “Christian Zionist” and “friend of Israel,” who argues that the Israeli government “has engineered a staggering humanitarian crisis, and that crisis is both a moral atrocity and a long-term threat to Israel itself.” David French, Israel Must Open Its Eyes, New York Times (Aug. 3, 2025).
French continues:
The dominant power in Gaza is Israel, not Hamas, and Israel, not Hamas, is the only entity with both the power to control aid distribution and the ability to obtain and distribute aid in the Gaza Strip. There is no way for Gazans to feed themselves. They are utterly dependent on Israel, and Israel removed the United Nations from the aid distribution network without replacing it with an effective alternative.
Mr. Marsden would do well to acknowledge the facts to inform his understanding that anyone but a Netanyahu loyalist can see: The IDF already controls 75 percent of Gaza. Hamas is no longer an existential military threat to Israel. Israeli airstrikes have destroyed Gaza’s food infrastructure. In March of 2025, Israel cut off all aid to Gaza. Since that blockade was partially lifted in May due to international pressure, the amount of aid getting into Gaza has been only a fraction of what it had been. The Netanyahu government’s denials that it is using starvation as a weapon of war ring hollow.
Far from throwing around loose language about genocide, Ms. Myntti forcefully argued that hiding behind legal definitions does not change the immorality and potential criminality of Israel’s actions in Gaza. Nor does Mr. Marsden’s citation of urban warfare expert John Spencer make him any more qualified than Ms. Myntti to “make armchair judgments” on the necessities of urban warfare or the legitimacy of Israel’s actions. In fact, John Spencer’s conclusions about Israeli civilian harm mitigation in Gaza have been called into question by an analyst who helped develop U.S. policies on civilian harm as a senior advisor to the State Department. See Larry Lewis, Israeli Civilian Harm Mitigation in Gaza: Gold Standard or Fool’s Gold?, justsecurity.org (March 12, 2024).
While Mr. Marsden concedes that Israel has made some undescribed “mistakes,” he claims that “to attribute Palestinian suffering to malicious intent by Israel is unjustified.” To be clear, while Mr. Marsden focuses on defending the Israeli Defense Forces who have to execute the orders they are given, he says nothing about the Netanyahu government that creates the policies the IDF must enforce. These policies are conscious decisions of the Israeli government that clearly impose collective punishment on Gazan civilians. To say that there is not malicious intent ignores the dehumanization campaign by the Israeli government against Palestinians since the beginning of the current war. On Oct. 9, 2023, the Israeli Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, stated: “We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.” Since June 2025, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir have been sanctioned by Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand, Norway, the Netherlands and Slovenia for inciting violence against Palestinians and advocating the forced displacement of Palestinians and the creation of new Israeli settlements both in the West Bank and Gaza. These are the extremists that Netanyahu relies on to maintain his extreme-right ruling coalition in office.
The humanitarian crisis in Gaza is not a Hamas narrative, but an Israeli-created reality recognized even by Donald Trump. This is not the time for complacency about an ongoing disaster based on arguments of moral equivalency with historical events like the Allies’ firebombing of Dresden and nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Ms. Myntti did not assume that Mr. Marsden was a Jew. She assumed his unquestioning loyalty to the State of Israel had caused him to turn a blind eye to the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza. His response confirmed her assumption.
Frank Sherman
Eagles Nest Township