When killing thousands of children becomes a matter of debate, not condemnation.
In this video, Professor John Spencer, executive director of the Urban Warfare Institute, debates anti-Zionist Jewish comedian Dave Smith. At one point Spencer claims that the statement “Israel is intentionally killing civilians, especially children” is factually inaccurate.
Crucially, Spencer does not deny that Israel is killing civilians, including children; he denies that Israel intends to kill them.
This reveals the distinction Spencer draws between what Israel does and what it intends. He accepts as fact that Israel kills Palestinian civilians, but asserts — without evidence — that these deaths are unintended.
Yet claims about intention require proof — especially when those intentions excuse mass child deaths. Spencer offers none, except for interviews with Israeli soldiers and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — sources that cannot be considered legitimate evidence, since both represent a state and military accused by the ICC and ICJ of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.
Citing the alleged perpetrators as proof of their own innocent intent is not serious argument; it is merely the repetition of a perpetrator’s denial.
What we do know is this:
Israel kills Palestinian civilians, especially children — and does so in vast numbers. That is indisputable.
Therefore, Israel is a state that kills children — whatever one believes about its motives.
The debate, then, is not whether Israel kills children, but whether such killing is criminal or justified — whether it is to be condemned as murder or excused as collateral damage.
This leaves us with a grim reflection:
The world tolerates two categories of child killing — criminal and righteous.
Whether one views Israel’s killing of Palestinian children as a crime or a necessity, the fact remains: Israel has killed thousands of children, and continues to kill them and many Palestinians each day. No appeal to intention can erase that.
If we wish to be quite stark about this, we might add that Israel is a notable killer of children — though, it must be said, it may be killing them righteously.
It is also notable that Professor Spencer spends a considerable part of his debate not denying that Israel kills children, but passionately defending its right to do so — righteously, in his view.
When the measure of morality becomes whether child killing is intentional or merely necessary, we have already abandoned the children.