As far as most American Jews are concerned, it’s probably the most Jewish thing any of the numerous organizations that represent them could do. UJA-Federation New York has announced the intended donation of $1 million to help Palestinian Arabs in the Gaza Strip. This humanitarian gesture was widely applauded by many of its donors and community members.

Eric Goldstein, the group’s CEO, was careful to note that blame for the suffering of Palestinian Arabs in Gaza belongs to the Hamas terrorists who led the attacks on southern Israeli communities on Oct. 7, 2023, which many Palestinian civilians joined. And he echoed the frustration that friends of Israel feel about the way mainstream media coverage of the conflict generally omits that fact while instead seeking to put the onus on the Jewish state for the suffering caused by the ensuing war. He also refuted the false claim that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

A moral compass

Still, Goldstein acknowledged that although much of the world has “lost its moral compass” when it comes to Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, Jews shouldn’t also lose theirs.

That’s why the umbrella organization of Jewish philanthropies in greater New York—home to the largest Jewish community in the world outside of Israel—felt itself obliged to come to the aid of the people of Gaza who have been caught in the crossfire. The money will go to IsraAID—Israel’s largest nongovernmental humanitarian aid organization—to provide food, medicine and the installation of filtration systems to enable safe drinking water for displaced families in Gaza.

Helping people in need is in keeping with Jewish traditions that treat tzedakah—acts of justice and charity—as among the most important obligations and virtues to which Jews should aspire. According to Goldstein, the imperative is: “We must hold tight to what has always anchored the Jewish people: the belief that all human life is sacred.”

He’s right about that.

However, the decision to allocate Jewish philanthropic funds to aid hostile neighboring Arabs is a bad one. It may be laudable, but it is wrong.

Why?

Part of the problem is the virtue-signaling aspect of this allocation. UJA wants to do this to be seen as caring for Palestinians as well as Israelis. Still, it is more about making its donors and activists feel good about themselves than actually ameliorating any suffering in the Strip.

Billions for Gaza

A $1 million donation is a token—a drop in the bucket compared to the $186 million it has donated since Oct. 7 as part of the Jewish federation’s Israel emergency fund. It’s also insignificant compared to the global billions upon billions that have been poured into Gaza, both before and after Oct. 7.

There is no shortage of support for aid there. The United States, which, along with Israel, co-sponsored the creation of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) to get food and staples to Palestinians without it being stolen by Hamas or held up by the United Nations, has spent more than $30 billion on aid to Gaza in the last 30 years. The European Union and its member states have given nearly 1.5 billion euros to Gaza in just the last two years since the Oct. 7 attacks initiated the current war. The United Nations has spent $2.8 billion on the coastal enclave via its Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), an agency devoted to perpetuating the conflict with Israel, as well as being compromised by its close association with and infiltration by Hamas.

If there is a food shortage problem in Gaza, it’s not for a lack of money donated for the purpose, requiring American Jews to kick in an extra million. Nor would it be improved by another $100 million.

The problem in Gaza is Hamas and its allies in the international community, not because foreign donors aren’t generous.

As is well-documented (although seldom reported in the mainstream media), Hamas steals much, if not most, of the aid that has come into the Strip via UNRWA and other international agencies. It hoards most of it and sells a portion to the population at exorbitant prices. It is the high price of food—not unusual in a war-torn area—that is causing the shortage. Hamas has also made it a priority to disrupt the efforts of the GHF to distribute food, attacking Israeli soldiers guarding the sites where supplies are handed out, and attacking and killing those Palestinians who are availing themselves of a non-Hamas food source.

Moreover, claims of widespread starvation are as lacking in credibility as the exaggerated civilian casualty statistics that Hamas published and that are reported in the media as fact. There are no signs of widespread malnutrition in Gaza. Considering the massive amounts of food that have been poured into the Strip since the war began, that’s hardly surprising, even though the United Nations has obstructed the distribution of much of it.

The UJA donation, as well as other gestures, such as the American Jewish Committee’s donation toward the rebuilding of a Gaza church destroyed in the fighting, stand for a belief that Jews should be seen as demonstrating compassion—in this case, toward Palestinian Arabs and Christians.

In doing so, these liberal Jewish groups seem to want to show that they are not parochial in their concerns and can rise above loyalty to their own people to showcase that empathy.

A conflict between people

The real problem here is twofold. One is that it seems to be based on a mistaken notion that the conflict is only between Israel and Hamas, and not the Palestinian people. That is patently mistaken.

It should be remembered that many of those who crossed the border between Gaza and Israel on Oct. 7 and took part in the orgy of mass murder, rape, torture, kidnapping and wanton destruction were ordinary Arab civilians. Armed Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad members turned out to be a minority of those who committed the unspeakable atrocities that took place in southern Israel that day.

Palestinian civilians not only supported Hamas but cheered on the terrible deeds done in their name. Even since then, they have not just been Hamas’s human shields, though they have been used in that manner. Almost all of the Israeli hostages who have been rescued or released as part of ceasefire deals that involved freeing imprisoned Palestinian terrorists report that their captors, who sexually abused, starved and tortured them, were ordinary people and not just armed cadres. It should also be noted that not a single Palestinian civilian helped an Israeli escape, not even to collect the $5 million reward—five times the amount of money now slated for charity—that Israel has offered for information as to their whereabouts.

As has long been apparent to those willing to see beyond their idealistic projection of good feelings onto those who hate Israel, the conflict is not just carried on by a few terrorists but by the Palestinian people as a whole. That this is so is a tragedy for them and the Israelis. Sadly, their national identity is inextricably tied to the century-old war on the Jewish presence in this tiny country amid actors with malign motives. That is why their leaders have rejected peace offers involving an independent Palestinian state, going back to the U.N. partition plan in 1947. The late Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban erred when he famously said that “the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” That’s because the Palestinians never considered the many chances for peace they rejected as an opportunity to do something positive.

In this context, yet another demonstration of Jewish generosity is seen by foes as weakness and a reason to keep fighting. It’s also interpreted as an indication that Jews everywhere, including Israelis, will become lax in their resolve to resist the Palestinian war on them.

Jewish donations for Gaza should also be seen as part of the same delusional mindset that led to Hamas achieving a complete surprise on Oct. 7. There was a consensus that stretched from left to right in Israel—backed up by the defense and intelligence establishments—that thought if enough cash and assistance were pouring into Gaza, peace or at least a ceasefire could be maintained. The world now knows that Hamas and the Palestinians cannot be bought off with money or food. Their cause is not the struggle for a better life but to destroy Israel. And, as they’ve demonstrated in the last 22 months, they are willing to sacrifice as many of their own people on the altar of that cause as necessary.

Validating blood libels

Even worse, it provides Jewish validation for the mendacious Hamas propaganda campaign that alleges that Israel is committing genocide and deliberately starving Palestinians.

Too many Jewish groups, including liberal religious denominations, have chimed in to support a false narrative that the Israeli government’s resolve to continue fighting until Hamas is eradicated is unjust or an act of aggression, as opposed to a defensive war that needs to be won. Influenced by biased liberal media coverage, they take it for granted that blood libels about starvation and genocide are at least partially true, and not just canards rooted in antisemitism.

Israel’s many efforts to trade land for peace in the past didn’t solve the conflict. In fact, it only convinced its foes of the validity of their false claim that the Jewish state’s presence in Judea and Samaria, as well as Jerusalem, was illegal and that the Israelis were behaving as if they were criminals holding onto stolen property.

Rather than a demonstration of Jewish morality, donations aimed at alleviating Palestinian suffering are more likely to convince the recipients and their foreign cheerleaders that they are a manifestation of Jewish guilt and an indication that these Americans feel that they are complicit in Israeli crimes against humanity. In this way, it will buttress the very same blood libel about genocide that UJA says it opposes and help encourage the surge of antisemitism that followed on the heels of the attacks on Israel.

While being charitable sounds like the right thing to do, it won’t do much to help people caught up in the war. But it will be held up as evidence that even Israel’s American Jewish supporters understand that they are part of an evil conflict.

Once the war is over and Hamas eradicated, there will be a time when aid to Gaza might do some good—provided, that is, that the Palestinians are ready to move on from their obsession with an endless, futile war to destroy the Jewish state. Until then, Jewish funds should be exclusively directed toward alleviating the very real suffering of Israeli victims of the war, the wounded and the families of those slain by Hamas, as well as the health of the hostages, and rebuilding the communities sacked by Palestinians who took part in the Oct. 7 invasion and assault.

Doing so isn’t selfish, especially when considering that foreign charities, countries and the United Nations spending so much on Gaza are indifferent to the war’s impact on Israelis.

Compassion, even for one’s enemies, may seem high-minded. And, of course, we deplore all the deaths and the suffering that this war has brought to both sides. However, when it is applied to those who wish you dead, it becomes an incentive for hate, not an act of kindness. Donating to Gaza now isn’t an indication of a healthy moral compass. It’s a particularly dysfunctional indication of having lost one.

Source: JNS