At the peak of its rampage in 2014, the thought that ISIS could be pushed out of Iraq and Syria seemed unlikely. At the time, I was participating with a medical team as a physician working in the Kurdish region of Iraq, with ISIS less than 30 miles to the west. Having already expelled ISIS from central Iraq, the western-led coalition began the ultimately successful operation to liberate Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq, from the clutches of ISIS.
Now, in an operation not dissimilar from the one that freed Iraq from ISIS, Israel is attempting to eradicate Hamas from its doorstep. But the world’s response could not be more different.
When ISIS exploded out of eastern Syria into northern Iraq, a multinational coalition of 82 nations and five international organizations stood up to support the Kurdish and Iraqi ground forces fighting to liberate the city of Mosul. The operation took half a year, resulted in up to 11,000 civilian deaths and saw the destruction of 70-80% of the city’s structures. More than a million refugees were moved into the neighboring Kurdistan region to clear the way for the military operation, supported by a humanitarian effort comparable in scale to that of the military campaign.
There was little hand-wringing over the plight of the remaining civilians caught in the combat, no public second-guessing which building should or should not have been targeted. Even the medical school, one of the largest in the Middle East, became a target once commandeered by ISIS fighters. There was no unceasing drumbeat of calls for a ceasefire. Only the stark sentiment, aptly captured by journalist James Verini in the title of his account written while embedded with the courageous Iraqi counterterrorism forces fighting ISIS in the devastated streets of Mosul: “They Will Have to Die Now.”
In Israel’s fight with the similarly barbaric entity Hamas, where is the determined international coalition that was the wind at the back of those fighting block by block in Mosul?
Despite conducting a war in which urban warfare experts say more has been done to mitigate civilian injuries than any comparable operation in the annals of urban warfare, Israel is receiving condemnation and accusations of genocide as it attempts to destroy rocket launchers, weapons depots and command centers built in, around and under schools, mosques, homes, cemeteries, hospitals and even U.N. facilities. And Israel must do all this while attempting to rescue the hostages brutally kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7. The international coalition that was so critical to the successful elimination of ISIS is now condemning Israel’s attempts at self-defense.
Why has Israel been left alone to attempt to evacuate civilians from active combat zones in Gaza? Certainly, don’t look for any assistance from Hamas, which would be loath to disperse their human shields. But what of Egypt? With its population centers over 150 miles across the Sinai desert to the west, couldn’t Egypt readily replicate what I witnessed in Kurdistan?
At present, its eight-mile border with Gaza is locked tighter than Fort Knox with claims that Palestinians would destabilize their country; Egypt apparently doesn’t really believe the citizens of Gaza to be just innocent bystanders after all. Whatever the case, Egypt’s dereliction to directly aid neighboring noncombatants is morally repugnant.
Why was the eradication of ISIS a cause taken up by nations across the globe, while Israel is forced to take on Hamas essentially alone?
In 1941, the world stood by and did nothing as Jews were marched to the ovens at Auschwitz. The difference this time is that the diabolical Hamas playbook requires not the mass extermination of Jews, a task well beyond its reach. Hamas only needs to murder enough Israelis in a gruesome enough manner so that the inevitable Israeli response results in a sufficient number of Palestinian deaths; hiding out in their tunnels, Hamas can count on an antisemitic world to complete the political assassination of the state of Israel. The more dead Palestinians, the better for Hamas and its propaganda campaign to destabilize and delegitimize Israel.
Though it may be that Hamas has overplayed its hand, it is nonetheless painfully obvious — again — how little regard the world has for Jewish lives. But it is of no comfort to realize in its willful complicity with Hamas’ ploy that the world may have even less regard for the lives of Palestinians.
Dr. David Epstein is a radiologist practicing in Fort Lauderdale, as well as a board member and volunteer physician with Global Surgical and Medical Support Group, an international nonprofit providing medical care and training in austere and hostile environments. He made numerous trips to Iraq between the years 2015 and 2019.
