Maj. John W. Spencer, U.S. Army (Ret.), one of the world’s foremost experts on urban warfare, was the featured speaker on December 5 at a special Federation program, Israel in Focus: Modern Conflict and the Israel-Hamas War.

This was an engaging and insightful program attended by more than 125 community members at Congregation Beth Ahabah, where JCRC Chair Maya Eckstein offered a series of prepared questions to the speaker.

During the discussion, Spencer refuted the many inaccurate reports and media distortions that condemned Israel during the War. He said the accusations were not “backed by the reality of the situation.”  

Most importantly, he strongly argued that Israel had not committed genocide in any aspect during the War. On the contrary, he noted, Hamas Terrorists used “Human Sacrifice” as a primary military tactic by shooting missiles, rockets and other ordinance near hospitals, apartment buildings, schools and other areas where there were civilians nearby.  He noted that no country in any war had ever allowed its people to be used as “human shields.”

Spencer explained that with an estimated 600 miles of tunnels in Gaza, Hamas could have allowed Gazans to move to the tunnels to be safe during the War. Hamas always fled to the tunnels and lived there for most of the war.

Based on his firsthand research on the ground with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Spencer stated the IDF took "extraordinary efforts" to separate civilians from combatants, including issuing warnings, facilitating humanitarian aid, and creating safe zones. He said Israel has implemented more civilian protection measures than any other military in history.

Again, no country had stopped conflict for these developments during World War II, the Vietnam War, and other wars, Spencer said.  

He also raised questions about the casualty numbers provided by Hamas. Spencer argued that the high death toll in Gaza, while tragic, did not automatically constitute genocide. The legal definition of genocide is not based solely on casualty numbers, but on intent. He also pointed out that casualty figures provided by Hamas could not be substantiated and most often did not differentiate between combatants and civilians.

The media has used Hamas figures without any fact-checking, he added.

Spencer did observe that Hamas used Social Media much more effectively than Israel during the War. With so many posts and distortions flooding the Social Media world, Israel never quickly countered and did not use Social Media regularly like Hamas. This put Israel on the defensive for most of the two years.

Spencer noted that Israel is much safer since Oct. 6, but that Hamas must be fully disarmed before the ceasefire can move to a Peace Agreement. He raised serious concerns about whether Hamas would ever disarm.

In a question about destroying the tunnels, he noted it would take a long period to fully destroy them and that the IDF had discovered and entered only a small portion of them. Some were destroyed where possible. 

He credited Egypt for destroying tunnels adjacent to Gaza and building concrete barriers to prevent future tunnels from reaching into Egypt. 

And responding to a question about being able to restore Gaza to pre-war conditions, he said it would not take many years for Israel to complete this task. He said the best method would be to restore small areas or pockets at a time. This has occurred to some degree already in small sections only.

Before the formal program, Spencer met with a number of community leaders and spoke at a reception.