Israel has no more reason to feel guilty about its attack on Qibya, a village near Ramallah that was then occupied by Jordan, than the Allies do for bombing Dresden, Hiroshima, or Nagasaki.

By Moshe Phillips

This month’s anniversary of the 1953 battle of Qibya has triggered yet another outpouring of Jewish guilt feelings. But Israel has no more reason to feel guilty about Qibya than the Allies do for bombing Dresden, Hiroshima, or Nagasaki.

In the early 1950s, Palestinian Arab terrorists based in Jordan frequently crossed into Israel and perpetrated savage attacks against Israeli civilians. Instead of hitting back, Israel’s leaders first tried diplomacy. On June 8, 1953, they signed an agreement with Jordan that was supposed to prevent the cross-border attacks. How did that work out? Each evening for the next three days, Palestinian Arab terrorists coming from Jordan murdered Israeli civilians, including children, in Jerusalem, Lod, Mishmar Avalon, and Kfar Hess.

The Israeli cabinet met in emergency session. Jordan denied responsibility, claiming the terrorists were actually just burglars. That was, of course, a blatant lie: throwing grenades through the windows of homes, and not stealing anything, is not the way burglars operate.

The final straw came when terrorists from Jordan slaughtered an Israeli mother and her two young children in the town of Yehud. Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion decided to stop waiting for international sympathy and to undertake a military response. So he sent an Israeli army unit headed by Ariel Sharon to hit the nearby Jordanian town of Qibya on the night of October 13, 1953.

Historian and pundit Daniel Gordis, writing this week on his “Israel from the Inside with Daniel Gordis” blog about the events in Qibya, claimed that Israel committed a “massacre.” He called it a “painful mistake” that resulted from Israel “seeking retribution to make a point.” (Source: https://danielgordis.substack.com/p/on-the-anniversary-of-the-qibya-calamity)

Nonsense. It wasn’t a massacre, it wasn’t a mistake, and it wasn’t “retribution,” a term that implies mindless vengeance. It was a legitimate military operation conducted as part of Israel’s ongoing war of self-defense. It was no less legitimate—but far less lethal—than the conduct of the Allies in World War Two.

Qibya was not some peaceful, unarmed village. A detachment of Jordanian soldiers was stationed there—as proven by the fact that ten of them were killed in the gun battle that erupted when the Israeli forces approached.

The Arab residents had time to flee. Some chose not to. As a result, some were inadvertently killed in the demolition of homes that the Israelis believed were empty. Most accounts claim there were 69 civilian fatalities.

It’s sad that civilians get killed in wars. It’s sad that wars are fought at all. But that’s reality. Israel’s behavior in wartime should be judged exactly as we judge the behavior of any other country in wartime—including the United States and its allies in World War Two.

And that should be the ultimate measuring stick when looking at Qibya, or Gaza, or Dresden, or Hiroshima and Nagasaki. All wars are “brutal and bloody.” All wars are sad. But whatever works to defeat an evil aggressor is the very definition of what is moral in the real world.

Moshe Phillips is a commentator on Jewish affairs whose writings appear regularly in the American and Israeli press. He was a U.S. delegate to the 38th World Zionist Congress in 2020. His views are his own.