Too Many IDF Soldiers have been Killed in Battle with Hamas

by Walter E. Block (April 2024)

One IDF soldier killed in battle with Hamas is one IDF soldier killed in battle too many. The goal should have been, and still is, zero IDF soldiers killed in battle. This bleeding of precious Jewish blood must stop!

The problem with IDF fighting hand to hand with Hamas terrorists, from house to house, destroying booby-trapped tunnels, in effect up close and personal, is that the former are more effective than the latter to be sure, but only by a relatively small multiple. Call it one to four. That means one Israeli soldier dies for every four of those kidnappers, murderers, and rapist scum.

What is the analogous proportion in terms of bombing? This, too, can only be a wild-eyed guess as was the former estimate. But if we know anything, it is much higher. Way, way higher. My estimate? One hundred to one? One thousand to one? No one knows for sure, but that is a reasonable approximation. That is, for every member of the IDF who is untimely killed, this fate is shared by 100 to 1000 of the evil abominable enemy.

So, introducing Israeli solders to Gaza when this actually occurred was way too premature at least in retrospect. It took place on October 27, 2023, a scant 20 days after the depravity of October 7, 2023. Days more bombing, maybe weeks more, would have been far more reasonable. Each and every Jewish life is priceless. They are irreplaceable. It is monstrous that any Jewish soldier, not a single one, should perish in the war to eliminate Hamas, root and branch.

All IDF soldiers should be removed from Gaza forthwith. The bombing should intensify. No food, water, electricity should be allowed in. The bombing should only stop when there is virtually no danger to returning IDF personnel. Then and only then should precious Israeli soldiers be reintroduced, so as to mop up any marginal Hamas resistance.

Will this mean more deaths to the Palestinians stuck on Gaza? (If Egypt had any decency, it would immediately allow all Arab women and children into its country; they have no decency). Yes, and do not tell me there are no innocent Gazans. There are; there are. Every child under the age of 5, as far as I am concerned, is totally innocent. So, yes, innocents will perish as collateral damage if this suggestion is implemented. Presumably, even more so.

However, whose fault will this be? Who will be responsible for these needless additional deaths? Will it be the Israeli Air Force? Not a bit of it. The entire blame for this tragedy will rest with Hamas. All they need do is surrender. Right now. And release all of their hostages, not just a few of them. Then, and only then there will not be a single additional death or injury to any innocent person in Gaza. And, immediately, all the wounded will be taken to some of the best hospitals in the entire world. Where? In Israel, which specializes in life, not death; in defense, not offense.

What could have led to the premature invasion? One possibility is negative world opinion of the entirely justified bombing. There was widespread opposition to this effort. There were calls that this was “disproportionate.” That it obviates the importation of food, water, medicines into Gaza. That it is the act of a “colonial” power. None of this was worth the death of single IDF soldier.

In the song “Bad Man Blunder” by the Kingston Trio, the following line appears: “But this your killing of deputy sheriffs. Has just naturally got to stop.” Yes, good point. I’d like to extrapolate from that sentence: “This killing of IDF soldiers has also got to stop.”

Since October 7, 2023, I have written several dozen essays, op eds, articles, defending Israel, the IDF, Jews, against the charges made against them. Several of them have been published in very prestigious periodicals. Full disclosure: Truth be told, on numerous occasions my efforts have been rejected. When that occurs, unless I receive a specific criticism, I send a piece to a different editor. I do not revise anything, preferring to write something else in this vein, rather than looking to redo an essay I thought hit the mark just fine. The present essay is an exception in this regard. Each time it is rejected, I must revise it, to take into account the latest number of IDF soldiers who have perished in their fight to prevent another October 7 from recurring. Each time I revise this essay, the numbers creep upward, always all too rapidly. It is now 245. True confession: this sickens me; it brings tears to my eyes. A whole bunch of boychicks, who should, instead, in a just world, be studying Torah, or chemistry or computers, or math, have rather given up their precious lives fighting despicable monsters. And this is to say nothing of the kidnap victims still held by that terrorist organization, Hamas, especially the women and children. All I can say is Godspeed to the IDF, and Never Again.

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Walter E. Block is Harold E. Wirth Endowed Chair and Professor of Economics, College of Business, Loyola University New Orleans, and senior fellow at the Mises Institute. He earned his PhD in economics at Columbia University in 1972. He has taught at Rutgers, SUNY Stony Brook, Baruch CUNY, Holy Cross and the University of Central Arkansas. He is the author of more than 600 refereed articles in professional journals, three dozen books, and thousands of op eds (including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and numerous others). He lectures widely on college campuses, delivers seminars around the world and appears regularly on television and radio shows. He is the Schlarbaum Laureate, Mises Institute, 2011; and has won the Loyola University Research Award (2005, 2008) and the Mises Institute’s Rothbard Medal of Freedom, 2005; and the Dux Academicus award, Loyola University, 2007. Prof. Block counts among his friends Ron Paul and Murray Rothbard. He was converted to libertarianism by Ayn Rand. Block is old enough to have played chess with Friedrich Hayek and once met Ludwig von Mises, and shook his hand. Block has never washed that hand since. So, if you shake his hand (it’s pretty dirty, but what the heck) you channel Mises.

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