Casualties And Karma

By Rabbi Leo Dee

One of the many odd things that happen to you when you lose three members of your family in a terror attack in Israel is that people ask your opinion about the ethics of the Israeli army’s response to such attacks. I’m not sure why they’re asking—I’m not an expert on military tactics or ethics—I’m a rabbi and an educator. But I’m always willing to offer an opinion—or two!

 Soon after the elimination of the terrorists who killed my wife and daughters, the IDF entered Jenin and eliminated four other terrorists, allegedly killing some of their wives and children as well. I was interviewed by a British journalist who, after asking about my feelings about the IDF’s elimination of the terrorists, said, “I presume you would condemn the IDF’s killing of the women and children?” I paused and then answered, “Maybe G-d has put karma in the Universe. Maybe the terrorist who killed someone else’s wife and kids in cold blood is receiving Divine retribution when his own wife and children are accidentally killed during the reprisal?”

Hamas recently acknowledged that Israel has successfully eliminated 6,000 terrorists, approximately half the number that Israel is claiming. It is worth bearing in mind that Hamas has been training children as young as eight to attack Jews, so many of these “civilian” statistics are highly questionable. But there’s another issue at play. Most of the Israeli attacks on Gaza have targeted terrorists in their homes. Military experts such as Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, official spokesman for the IDF, have given testimony that the IDF is very careful to coordinate precision attacks on Hamas fighters, and to warn innocent civilians to vacate the area before they bomb known Hamas targets. This suggests that most of the “civilian” casualties are close family members of the terrorists themselves (the 6,000 operatives acknowledged by Hamas).

Perhaps karma (which means fate or luck in Sanskrit) really is at work here, and the vast majority of casualties in Gaza are either terrorists or their wives and children. While they may be non-combatants, perhaps their suffering will make the Palestinian people more aware of the suffering that they have caused us, the survivors of their terror, before, during, and in the wake of October 7. Perhaps the suffering of their families will be an incentive for Palestinians to end the indiscriminate killing of Israeli civilians. Perhaps karma can explain most of these “non-combatant” casualties among the Palestinians in Gaza, and perhaps it will lead to a greater urgency among them to make peace with Israel after making violence and hatred a way of life for far too long.

Rabbi Leo Dee is British-born educator who lives in Efrat. His book, “Transforming the World: The Jewish Impact on Modernity,” has been published in both English and Hebrew and is dedicated to the memory of his wife Lucy and daughters Maia and Rina, who were murdered by terrorists in April 2023.