Did Israel Go Too Far in Gaza? Elliot Kaufman on What Really Happened Inside Israel's War Room

"If you are Hamas, you have to be laughing at how easily you can play the international and American news media." For Elliot Kaufman, the coverage turned ten days in, when the blast at al-Ahli hospital was reported around the world as an Israeli strike that had killed hundreds. He points out that it was a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket that landed in the hospital's parking lot. From there, he argues, the war was told as if Hamas didn't exist: not in the footage, not in the casualty counts, not in the story of the aid. Kaufman is a member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board, and he writes about Israel and Iran. With Yonah Jeremy Bob of The Jerusalem Post, they wrote "In the War Room: The Inside Story of Israel's Fight Against Hamas and the Iranian Axis." The two reported it while the war was still going on. They interviewed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Benny Gantz, who made up the original war cabinet, along with Jake Sullivan, Steve Witkoff and more than a hundred Israeli military officials. The Netanyahu in the book is not the one most coverage describes. Kaufman argues that in the opening weeks he was the one putting his foot on the brake. He held back Gallant's plan to hit Hezbollah first. On October 11, 2023. Kaufman says the IDF had no plan on the shelf for a full invasion of Gaza at all. His verdict on the war that followed is that Israel didn't go too far in Gaza. "I think it fought for too long," he says, because under a raid-and-leave strategy troops had to fight for the same neighborhoods again and again. Then the conversation comes home to Brooklyn, and the 1991 Crown Heights riot. For three nights, Jews in the neighborhood hid in their homes while rioters threw bricks through their windows, and Yankel Rosenbaum was stabbed and killed. Kaufman revisited the episode for the WSJ, and his argument is that the police stood back and the press filed the violence as a racial clash, when the actual story was antisemitism. He's worried about the right as well as the left: "The subtext of, say, the Tucker Carlson Show isn't that all Jews are evil. It's that all evil is Jewish." But he argues that the practical, interest-based case for Israel as an ally has never been stronger, and that is what gives him hope. 📖 Elliot Kaufman at Simon & Schuster: https://www.simonandschuster.com/auth... 📰 Elliot Kaufman at The Wall Street Journal: https://www.wsj.com/news/author/ellio... 📰 "Could the Crown Heights Riots Recur?" (The Wall Street Journal, Aug. 20, 2021): https://www.wsj.com/opinion/crown-hei... 🎬 "Get the Jew": The Crown Heights Riot Revisited (WSJ Opinion documentary): "Get the Jew": The Crown Heights Riot Revi... ▶️ Related episode: Matti Friedman, "The Most Important Story on Earth? Matti Friedman on the Media's Israel Obsession." Ben puts Friedman's argument about foreign press access to Gaza to Kaufman in this episode: The Most Important Story on Earth? Matti F... 🎧 Listen: https://podcast.honestreporting.com ▶️ Full playlist: The Honest Take: Media, Israel, and the St... Subscribe for new episodes every week. Follow HonestReporting on Instagram, X, TikTok, and Facebook. Chapters 00:00 Cold Open & Introducing Elliot Kaufman 05:58 The cautious Netanyahu the coverage missed 15:53 Gallant's plan to strike Hezbollah first 19:47 The geese that almost started a war in Lebanon 23:55 A near-monopoly for Hamas on reporting from Gaza 29:12 Al-Ahli hospital: the day the coverage turned 32:00 The aid failure: "Israel messed up. Period." 35:46 No plan on the shelf for invading Gaza 42:05 Too long, not too far: the raid-and-leave strategy 50:45 The war as seen from Tehran 55:30 From a protest at 770 to Crown Heights, 1991 1:01:27 What gives him hope, and what worries him 1:06:31 Closing thoughts