The Moral Idiocy of Dave Smith's Israel Takes

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Dave Smith is a comedian making very serious claims about Israel and their war in Gaza: they’re intentionally killing civilians and committing murder. “It’s not an appeal to emotion.” Smith says he’s basing his argument on “morality and an appeal to logic.”

Smith recently debated British journalist Douglas Murray on Joe Rogan’s podcast. After the debate, the discourse continued with John Spencer, Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the War Institute.

Smith, like most human beings, doesn’t like war. Men like Murray and Spencer believe war is tragic and hell, but they see Smith’s views on war as naïve and ignorant of international law and the laws of warfare. Smith doesn’t want to appeal to the laws of war. Smith says the laws of logic and morality do not change based on “social constructs,” but Smith makes the mistake of asserting his argument is moral and logical.

Smith’s “logic” is this: If Israel were to decide it was necessary and permissible within the laws of war to kill two enemy combatants, even though two civilians would also be killed, it’s “intentional murder,” and that’s what we would call it if a civilian did something similar domestically.

Here’s another analogy from Smith: “Let's say somebody broke into your property and killed some of your family members, and you want to go kill this guy. If he goes back to his apartment building, and you know that there's women and children in that apartment building, so your move is to blow up the building. What you would be charged with is murder in the first degree, cold-blooded, premeditated, intentional murder...”

Smith has also said, “Let’s just call ‘collateral damage’ what it is: the international killing of innocent people: murder. Then we can have an honest conversation about supporting a war, with the obvious burden being on the person advocating for it to demonstrate this is absolutely necessary with no conceivable alternatives.”

Smith claims his critics are sidestepping his points “by invoking legalities and doctrine,” while he claims to be “making a simple philosophical point.” He asked, “How does the foundational concept of intent change because a politician or a group of politicians declare a word and it takes place on foreign soil?”

Smith’s problem isn’t that his points are philosophically “simple.” They’re downright childish. Smith is quick to call out logical fallacies, such as appeals to authority, but Smith himself is question begging. He speaks as though it’s already accepted that his positions are logical and moral.

Murder is a legal term, and to qualify, you have to hit certain parameters to be appropriately charged. Intent certainly matters, and so does the context. The details change what prosecutors can charge and whether a jury would acquit. If you’re using legal terms such as “murder in the first degree,” don’t be surprised when people appeal to the law. The law doesn’t automatically make something moral, but laws are largely put in place to reflect our morals. It’s wrong to unjustly and purposely deprive innocents of life, therefore, we have murder laws. International laws and rules of engagement in war have also been put in place because people have considered and debated how we should morally act in warfare. Smith is free to question those philosophical conclusions, but he shouldn’t act as though Spencer and Murray also don’t follow a moral framework.

If you accept that morality is objective and not a subjective agreement by society, the details still determine whether or not an action is moral. Smith referenced religion, and he identifies as a Christian. To murder is a violation of God’s commandments because we are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). But not all killing is wrong. Warfare is allowed and even commanded by God in the Bible, and so is capital punishment (Genesis 9:6). The Bible also justifies self-defense. The details surrounding the killing determine whether or not it is unjustified, so when Smith’s critics point out the differences between domestic vigilantes and warfare, they’re not being hypocrites or special pleading; they’re being mindful of important determining factors.

Smith is arguing that if Israel possesses the knowledge that their strikes will kill civilians, then they’re intentionally killing them and committing murder. Let’s apply that same logic elsewhere. On September 11, 2001, it became very possible that the US military was going to shoot down Flight 93, so the hijackers couldn’t use it to potentially kill thousands. If the US shot down the plane to avoid another crash like the World Trade Center in New York City, did they “intentionally” murder Americans in cold blood?

To answer Smith’s question, it may not have been the vigilante’s intention to kill civilians, but his extreme indifference would likely land him with felony murder charges. But if the details in the analogy change, the charges would differ. Instead of hiding in his apartment from justice, what if the murderer was going to set off a bomb or a chemical agent that would destroy the whole city? What if it’s SWAT or the FBI making the life and death decisions while seeking justice instead of a parent looking for revenge at any cost? The details (premeditation, intent, authority, etc.) change the culpability in a domestic case, so why wouldn’t we consider the details of warfare?

Is the IDF strike an attempt to kill two people, or is it a weapons depot where they’re firing rockets that land on Palestinian and Israeli people? Are there more lives at stake? Are the civilians watching over Israeli hostages? Hamas is also blending into civilian populations, so it’s difficult to know who is safe, especially when even the children have been indoctrinated.

Smith believes it is on Israel to prove their strikes are “absolutely necessary with no conceivable alternatives,” but that’s an incredibly high standard that we do not apply in “domestic” circumstances. Surrender is a “conceivable alternative,” and so is abandoning their hostages or trading them for every terrorist prisoner in Israel’s possession, though they’d potentially release more Yahya Sinwars (he was swapped in a prisoner exchange in 2011 and became the October 7 mastermind). Israel could keep telling their people to live under rocket fire, accept that as their reality, and be ready for the next time Hamas comes to butcher civilians. Smith once said Israel should “Send special ops to Hamas locations rather than bombing to minimize civilian deaths and prove that you actually do respect innocent life on the other side.” Sending special ops can still result in civilian casualties, such as the rescue operation that retrieved Noa Argamani, Almog Meir, Andrey Kozlov, and Shlomi Ziv. And placing IDF soldiers in greater harm is also a “conceivable alternative.” But is that a reasonable alternative that gets Israel closer to achieving their military objectives?

The leaders of Hamas took billions in foreign aid and spent it on enriching themselves and building terror tunnels. They took pipes meant for water and turned them into rockets and stole donated food to sell back to the people of Gaza. They hide among schools, hospitals, mosques, and other areas with civilians to use them as human shields. They do these things and more to maximize civilian casualties, banking on men like Dave Smith to preach about the evils of Israel, so the international community will abandon them or at least put on enough pressure to cease fighting. Even though civilians are killed, Hamas creates propaganda and releases questionable numbers that the press is all too eager to parrot.

As Coleman Hughes pointed out on Joe Rogan’s podcast, the suffering of the Palestinian people is a result of the tactics Hamas engaged in. We can tell Israel that they have to disengage because they don’t have a clean shot, but we will be telling the world that Hamas has found the perfect winning strategy. If you embed yourself among civilians, you can get away with crossing the border and going house to house, killing your enemies. “Can we live in a world where we allow that to be an acceptable strategy? I don’t think so.”

Israel has gone to great lengths to minimize civilian casualties. They send leaflets, roof-knocks, text messages, phone calls, provided safe routes and military maps for evacuations, and more. Their civilian-to-combatant ratio is allegedly 1:1. John Spencer noted Israel’s death ratio is “historically low for high-intensity urban warfare." He cited comparisons such as the Battle of Mosul (10,000 civilians to kill 4,000 ISIS) and the Battle of Manila (100,000 civilians to destroy 17,000 Japanese defenders). If an equivalent of October 7 happened to the US, the country would not likely bother taking lectures from the rest of the world about destroying its enemies. As a matter of fact, Dave Smith said that if someone had killed his small children, there’d be “no level of evil that I wouldn’t stoop to.”

When it comes to just warfare, Israel ticks a lot of the boxes. They are fighting a defensive war after Hamas brutally murdered 1,200 Israelis and took 240 civilians hostage. They were so proud of their barbarism that they livestreamed the massacres, sent videos to the victims’ families, and gleefully called their parents to brag about killing Jews. Their enemy, in the words of Smith, is a “death cult,” and they “want to destroy Israel more than they even want something for their own people.” Hamas leadership repeatedly stated they would create another October 7 if given the chance. Israel has legitimate authority to go to war and has a good chance of success. Israel has an obligation to secure the safety and future of the Israeli people. Their objectives are to retrieve their hostages and destroy Hamas. Israel also doesn’t have another option because Hamas will not disarm willingly, and they are still holding hostages.

When it comes to proportionality, International Lawyer Natasha Hausdorff says that many get that idea wrong. It’s not about calculating each civilian life against a combatant’s and seeing if the numbers come out even. “The rule of proportionality requires that you balance the anticipated civilian or collateral damage as against the anticipated military advantage of any strike. And that is a very delicate balance. It is conducted on the basis of the intelligence that is known, so all of this is an intention-based analysis, not an effects-based analysis.”

Sadly, civilian casualties are a consequence of war. It may be that collateral damage is impossible to avoid, and it is certainly true that infallible humans commit human error that leads to fatal mistakes. The cost of war is steep, but what is the cost of allowing Hamas to win?  What is the cost of Israel’s surrounding enemies witnessing a defeat? If Israel decided to permanently lay down their arms, it wouldn’t be long before they were slaughtered. Hamas is ideologically opposed to their existence. Winning is about survival.

Lastly, the agency of the Palestinians should also be considered. The people of Gaza voted for Hamas in 2006. There are plenty of residents who had nothing to do with that election, but support for Hamas remained steady throughout the war. Last year, it was reported that two-thirds supported the October 7 attack. Do they not have a responsibility to stand up against their “death cult?” The Hamas fighters who participated in the October 7 massacre are murderers, and the Palestinians should carry out justice for the heinous actions committed against men, women, children, and the elderly. It’s not too late for Hamas to lay down their arms and give back the hostages. Israel even offered $5 million and safe passage out of Gaza for anyone who assisted in getting hostages out of Gaza. There have recently been protests popping up, but more people need to rise against Hamas.

If Israel were indiscriminately killing civilians or genuinely committing genocide, that would be immoral, but the evidence doesn’t point to that conclusion. Every civilian death is a result of Hamas’s actions, but the burden of every life taken should also weigh on Israel. Every life—even the lives of your enemies and their children—is made in the image of God. Israel should reverence the price of peace and cherish it for as long as it lasts. Israel should shudder at the thought of having to go to war, and so should their enemies. War is tragic, but it can be necessary and just.