(JNS) Let’s be honest: Benjamin Netanyahu is not everyone’s favorite politician. That’s fair. Debate over policy, leadership and politics is healthy in any democracy, including Israel’s. But there comes a point in times of war when internal disagreements must be set aside.

Because this war is not about Bibi. It is about Israel’s survival. And the Jewish people, especially American Jews, must not let personality distract from principle.

Since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, Israel has faced a military, moral and psychological assault of unprecedented complexity. Hamas’s slaughter of 1,200 people and the kidnapping of 250, including children, the elderly and entire families, was not just a “battle.” It was a pogrom, fueled by genocidal ideology and celebrated openly by its perpetrators. Yet today, Israel is the one on trial in the court of public opinion, not the murderers who triggered the war.

What Israel faces in Gaza is not a conventional war or even a typical counterterrorism campaign. It is asymmetric warfare against a terrorist organization that intentionally uses its own civilians as tools of war. Hamas stores weapons in schools, digs tunnels under hospitals and launches rockets from densely populated neighborhoods. It steals food aid from the population. This is not incidental; it is strategy.

Hamas leaders have made this explicit. In 2008, Fathi Hammad, then Hamas’s interior minister, declared:  “For the Palestinian people, death has become an industry. … This is why they have formed human shields of the women, the children, the elderly and the mujahideen.”

He added proudly: “We desire death like you desire life.”

What sane person would say that?

That’s not rhetoric; it’s policy. Hamas relies on images of dead civilians, especially children, to inflame world opinion and pressure Israel into submission. Tragically, too many in the West, including some Jewish voices, fall for this manipulative theater. They call for ceasefires, condemn Israeli “disproportionality” and wring their hands at the humanitarian crisis, while ignoring how Hamas engineers that crisis.

But put this in perspective. During the US-led assault on ISIS in Mosul from 2016 to 2017, between 9,000 and 11,000 civilians were estimated to have died, according to The New York Times. That battle, fought by Western militaries with advanced precision weaponry, still resulted in tens of thousands of casualties. No one accused the United States of genocide. No one proposed sanctions.

Yet Israel, which goes to unprecedented lengths to warn civilians, including dropping leaflets, making phone calls and pausing operations to allow evacuations, is treated like a rogue state.

The moral asymmetry here is staggering. Hamas celebrates death. Israel mourns it, even when forced to cause it to protect its own people.

And yet, Western diplomats—many from countries that have never faced a single rocket attack—dare to lecture Israel on restraint. The European Union, Canada and even the United States have called for a “ceasefire,” as if peace can be restored by papering over mass murder.

Some American Jews have joined that chorus, distancing themselves from Israel out of discomfort with its current government. That’s not just misguided. It’s dangerous.

Hamas doesn’t hate Israel because of the policies of Netanyahu and his government. It hates Israel because it exists. Article 13 of the Hamas Charter states: “There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through jihad.”

Diplomacy, negotiation, peace-building? “All are a waste of time,” the document says.

This is the enemy Israel is fighting. An enemy backed by Iran and Qatar, supplied by global jihad networks and committed—openly, unapologetically—to the eradication of the Jewish state.

To our fellow Jews in the Diaspora, especially in America: This war is about you, too. Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran don’t care whether you vote Likud or Labor, whether you’re Orthodox, Conservative, Reform or unsure. On Oct. 7, Hamas murdered Thai farm workers and Israeli Bedouin alongside Jews. Their hatred is not nuanced. It is total.

And as antisemitism, let’s call it what it is—Jew-hatred—surges on campuses, in public squares, and online, it’s clear that Hamas’s war against Israel is fueling a broader war against Jews everywhere. This is not just a political crisis but a civilizational one.

So, what is the role of American Jews?

It is to stand with Israel—not conditionally, not reluctantly and not just when it’s easy. It is to reject the moral fog that equates a democratic state defending its citizens with a terrorist group that hides behind children. It is to recognize that you can critique Israeli policy at another time, but right now, we must remain united.

To those who are hesitant, ask yourself this: Would you demand moral perfection from any other country under siege? Would you have told Britain in 1940 to cease fire until Winston Churchill stepped down?

Israel’s democracy will sort out its leadership in due time. However, today, it needs our solidarity. Our advocacy. Our unapologetic defense in the face of global slander.

As the Psalmist wrote: “He who watches over Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps.” But Israel still needs us to stay awake—and to stand up.

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