Anon, you’re clearly in pain. While I want to acknowledge and respect your pain, your Ask makes multiple claims about me, my writing, and this war that are false, unfounded, or morally unserious. The only way I know how to respond is directly and point-by-point.
Before engaging the moral arguments in your comment, it is necessary to correct several factual distortions on which those arguments are based. Strong moral claims require strong factual foundations…which you lack.
You cite “60,000 dead from weapons alone.” That figure comes from the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, and whose credibility is compromised by a long record of propaganda. While the scale of death and suffering in Gaza is real, the numbers you present as definitive are neither verified nor neutral.
You state that Israel “killed 200 Palestinians to rescue two hostages, including 50 children.” That number is unconfirmed and likely exaggerated. The identities and affiliations of those killed in that raid have not been independently verified, and Hamas fighters routinely operate from within densely populated areas, including the precise location where those hostages were held. Civilian casualties in such operations are tragic, but the claim that 50 children were killed has no verified basis.
You assert that “they want them dead,” implying that Israel is deliberately starving civilians as a matter of policy. That is not supported by any credible evidence. Aid has been delayed, obstructed, insufficient and Israel deserves serious scrutiny for its part in that. But accusing a country of genocide requires proof of genocidal intent. You do not have it. You have numbers without attribution, rage without verification, and a moral conclusion built into your framing.
You claim “the government has said they don’t care about the hostages.” That’s false. Israel’s leadership has made controversial and contested decisions around how to prioritize hostage rescue versus military objectives, but there is no public statement expressing indifference to the hostages. In fact, several high-risk rescue operations have taken place, and the hostage issue has triggered ongoing protests and political fractures inside Israel itself.
Finally, you write that “they have killed probably hundreds of thousands.” on top of being false thats inflammatory nonsense. Even Hamas’s own inflated numbers do not support this claim. I don’t personally know any Jews or autistics who play so fast and loose with provable falsehoods.
These are not small errors, they’re the basis of your entire argument. You are using unverified/invented figures and speculative motives to accuse an entire country of mass murder. That’s reckless distortion.
Now we’ll get to your arguments.
“You don’t see the unfairness in how much an Israeli life is worth vs. a Palestinian’s.”
Your accusation gets it back asswards. I believe all lives have equal value, which is why I take moral distinctions seriously.
Equal value does not mean identical circumstances, and it does not mean that whoever suffers more deaths holds the moral high ground.
A lopsided body count does not prove that one side is righteous and the other is evil. It might demonstrate that one side is winning, or that the battlefield is asymmetric, or that one side has embedded itself in civilian areas and made those civilians unshielded pawns.
The number alone tells you nothing about who caused what, or why.
If you want to talk about justice, you have to talk about intent, methods, and responsibility. You cannot do that if you replace consistent moral principles with a scoreboard of corpses.
“You justify war crimes with other war crimes.”
No, I don’t. I condemn war crimes from anyone. If you believe I have ever defended an act that violates the laws of war, quote it.
You can’t because I haven’t. This is deeply insulting and in your shoes I’d be ashamed to assert something so provably false.
(This leads me to believe you haven’t actually read my blog, and it’s more likely you just stumbled across it and figured I’d be a good target for your emotional dumping.)
What I reject is the lazy equivalence that says all violence is the same…because it isn’t.
It matters who started the war, how they fight, and what they are fighting for.
You are failing in basic moral reasoning if you ignore the difference between a civilian used as a shield and a civilian being targeted.
“60,000 Palestinians dead vs. 1,200 Israelis. That math doesn’t math.”
This is not a math class, kid. It’s an ethics classroom…and you’re getting a failing grade from a disappointed teacher who expected better effort from you.
- Casualty numbers do not determine justice.
- The side with fewer deaths is not automatically the aggressor.
- The side with more is not automatically innocent.
Numbers show scale, but they don’t show motive, legitimacy, or moral standing.
If you count bodies without asking who killed whom, how, and why, you’re not actually interested in justice, you’re just lazily channeling outrage instead of grappling with a morally complex reality.
“Starvation is policy. Israel wants Palestinians dead. That’s genocide.”
This is false, reckless, and morally grotesque.
Israel has, in my view, failed to ensure consistent aid access. That failure has caused immense suffering. But the claim that Israel’s policy is to starve civilians to death is unproven, repugnant, and contradicted by facts on the ground.
Israel has coordinated with the UN and Egypt to get food and fuel into Gaza. It has used air drops and opened land crossings. These efforts are imperfect and inadequate, but they exist. I think the IDF botched the GHF plan, but if the intent was to starve Gazans, Gazans would be dying of hunger on large numbers.
Genocide is not another term for “mass death.” It requires a specific intent to exterminate a people. You do not have that evidence. You have slogans, numbers, and rage to fuel defamation.
“Israel made Jews less safe by conflating Zionism, Judaism, and its actions.”
First, people who say shit like this prove they know nothing about Judaism or Zionism…but we’ll set that aside for now with stating that the vast majority of Jews are Zionists and that Zionism has been a part of Judaism since the Babylonian captivity…but you don’t know what that is, so we’ll move on.
Antisemitism does not emerge from Israeli press conferences. It emerges from people who already hate Jews and are looking for permission.
Yes, Netanyahu and others have made damaging, disgusting rhetorical choices. I have criticized, condemned, and cursed them.
But if mobs are tearing mezuzahs off doorways and harassing Jewish college students, that is because antisemitism adapts to the moment. It always has. Blaming Israel for antisemitism only proves you know absolutely bupkis about Jewish history.
Criticize Israel’s leaders. That’s legitimate, and I do it often - but do not pretend they created the antisemitism now being unleashed around the world. They did not invent it, they do not control it, and blaming them for it only serves the people who are eager to justify it.
“The government doesn’t care about hostages. They just want war.”
This is a baseless, unsupported claim. Hostage rescues have taken place. Soldiers have died trying. Israeli society is tearing itself apart over the question of how to prioritize hostages versus military goals. But you don’t know that because you don’t know any of the Israelis you portray as monsters.
If you are angry about the conduct of the war, say that, but don’t make things up about what an entire country supposedly wants. You don’t know them, and you sure as shit don’t speak for them.
“Criticizing Israel gets called antisemitic.”
Not by me or any intellectually honest person. I criticize Israeli policy often. If you’d actually read my blog, you’d know that.
Know who else criticizes the government of Israel? Literally every Jew I know.
(I think, Anon, you don’t actually know any Jews.)
There is a line between criticism and demonization. Denying Israel’s right to exist is not criticism. Calling Israel a Nazi state is not criticism. Treating Jewish students as stand-ins for a foreign government is not criticism. Pretending Israel is responsible for antisemtism is not criticism. Inventing ‘facts’ to support your pre-set conclusion is not criticism.
These are all just scapegoating. If you knew literally anything about Jewish history, you’d know that.
If you cannot tell the difference, the problem is not censorship, chuckles. The problem is you.
“You don’t mourn Palestinians. That’s dehumanizing.”
I do mourn them. I have written about that mourning more than once. What I don’t do is flatten all deaths into one moral category of a false binary.
A baby killed by Hamas and a child killed by a strike targeting Hamas are both tragedies, but they are not the same. Their deaths must be mourned, but not confused.
“If October 7 justifies this, then we don’t value life equally.”
October 7 does not justify everything. But it explains why this war is happening. If your view is that Hamas should survive this war, say so. If your view is that Israel must absorb future massacres to avoid harming civilians, say that too. But do not pretend the war began in a vacuum.
October 7 was not a provocation. It was a crime against humanity and any country that fails to respond to that is not committed to peace. It is committed to surrender.
Final thought:
You seem to be writing from anguish, and I recognize that…but anguish does not justify distortion. Your Ask accuses without evidence, flattens every distinction that matters, and pretends to speak from moral authority while ignoring moral responsibility.
I want a world where all lives are valued equally, but that world can’t be built on moral shortcuts, bad math, or righteous fury detached from truth.
You want clarity? Here it is: Start from facts. Start from intent.
Start from principles that can survive contact with complexity.
If you can’t do that, then you’re not asking for justice, you’re demanding unthinking obedience.
You know who is shitty at unthinking obedience? Jews. And autistics.
And that’s notable because you opened your Ask by identifying as a fellow autistic Jew.
That’s a rhetorical tactic designed to assert moral authority before making an argument. You’re not just saying “here’s what I believe,” but “I’m one of you, so you should believe it too.”
That’s not reasoning. That’s identity leverage and it’s bullshit.
The implication is that our shared Jewishness should grant your moral framing special weight, or that your being autistic gives you some uniquely unfiltered access to truth don’t hold up.
Jewish identity is not a litmus test for moral clarity on Israel, and autism is not a shortcut to sound judgment. Invoking both as credentials does not make your arguments better. It makes them harder to challenge without appearing cruel or disloyal, which is the real point. You are trying to shield your ideas from critique by attaching them to identity categories you expect me to tread carefully around, but arguments don’t get stronger by becoming harder to disagree with.
They get stronger by being able to withstand disagreement.
This one can’t withstand even the most casual, gentle scrutiny.
You get a D in ethics, a C- in rhetoric, and an F in Jewish history, Anon.
Class dismissed.
