Dear Piers,
I’ve followed your work for years. You’re sharp, unfiltered, and rarely afraid to challenge power. That’s why your recent coverage of the war in Gaza, especially your interviews and comments with Dave Smith, was so disappointing. Not because Israel should be above criticism. It shouldn’t. But because your framing has become increasingly one-sided, context-blind, and dangerously out of sync with the reality on the ground.
Let me address your main arguments, point by point:
No Journalistic Access to Gaza
You repeatedly imply that Israel is hiding war crimes by not allowing foreign journalists into Gaza. But no country allows reporters to roam freely in enemy territory during active warfare, especially when that territory is ruled by a terror group that murders, kidnaps, and manipulates the media. In most wars, when journalists do enter, it’s because they’ve taken significant personal risk and snuck in without coordination from the military. Israel, unlike most nations, is being pressured to open a battlefield to press coverage in real time. That’s not a standard applied elsewhere.
Starvation and Humanitarian Aid
The humanitarian situation in Gaza is heartbreaking. Images from the ground speak for themselves, and no decent person can ignore them. But there’s a deeper story behind the suffering. Israel has allowed in tens of thousands of aid trucks, coordinated with the U.N., and even permitted aid to enter from a floating pier constructed by the U.S. Still, the flow is disrupted, not because Israel wants people to starve, but because Hamas actively interferes, loots, fires on convoys, and prioritizes its power over the welfare of civilians. It’s a devastating situation, made worse by a regime that seems more focused on preserving its control than ensuring food reaches every family.
And still, a hard question remains: why is Israel expected to supply food and fuel to an entity that seeks its destruction? How many countries in history have been expected to supply their enemy during a war? Why is this not only expected of Israel, but demanded?
Civilian Deaths and Disproportionality
The suffering in Gaza is immense. Thousands of women and children have died. This is not in dispute, and it’s not something to downplay. But to understand why and how this is happening, we have to look beyond raw numbers. Hamas embeds itself in civilian infrastructure, schools, hospitals, and refugee camps, specifically to provoke a reaction. They know that if they hide behind children, the world will recoil when those children are harmed. It’s not a side effect of war. It’s a deliberate tactic.
When Hamas hides in schools and hospitals, uses ambulances for transport, stores rockets under playgrounds, and counts on the world’s empathy as its first line of defense, they’re not risking civilian lives; they’re leveraging them.
The most painful part is that when the world grows tired of hearing about "human shields," Hamas has already won. Because their most powerful weapon isn’t a rocket, it’s the assumption that Western armies will stop fighting when faced with civilians. And when they don’t, the outrage serves Hamas’s interests. We’re seeing a new kind of warfare, where terrorists exploit Western values: empathy, restraint, proportionality as a shield. It’s a warning for the future. The next group will learn: kill innocents, then hide among civilians. That’s the path to immunity.
Chillingly, Hamas has hacked the moral code of the West. They figured out how to win: not with tanks or drones, but with our own values. Use empathy as armor. Use civilians as camouflage. Use outrage as a smokescreen.
Aggressive Israeli Rhetoric
Yes, some Israeli officials have made awful, inexcusable statements. They should be condemned. But cherry-picking extreme rhetoric and using it to define an entire nation is unfair. Especially when very little attention is paid to Hamas’s language, where killing Jews is glorified in music videos, schools teach martyrdom, and hostages are paraded through cheering crowds. We’re told to judge Israelis by their most extreme voices, yet avoid doing the same with Gaza.
Israeli Voters and Netanyahu
You and Sam Harris asked: How can we defend Israel when Israelis keep electing Netanyahu? Here’s some crucial context. Netanyahu’s support has dropped dramatically. His coalition is sinking in polls, even after the successful war against Iran.
Israeli society is deeply divided, and there's a vibrant, public, often brutal debate about the war, the leadership, and the moral costs involved. That debate is visible in protests, media, and election polls.
Contrast that with Gaza, where Hamas hasn’t allowed elections in nearly two decades. The population voted for them once, and many still rally around their rule. But if we are to hold democratic societies morally responsible for their leaders, then shouldn’t we at least ask why the people of Gaza remain under a regime that has brought them nothing but destruction?
None of this makes Gaza’s suffering any less real. But suffering alone doesn't determine who’s right; It reveals who is willing to use it. And Hamas has shown, time and again, that it would rather keep control than ensure a single child gets bread.
A Final Thought
What’s surreal is the modern idea that democracies must fight wars with one hand tied behind their back against enemies who reject every value we cherish. Hamas doesn't believe in women's rights, LGBTQ rights, freedom of the press, or basic human dignity. And yet, when the fighting starts, they hide behind the very liberal values they trample to demand immunity from consequences.
It’s like inviting everyone to dinner: vegans, meat-lovers, raw foodies. But cannibals don’t get a seat.
You pride yourself on moral clarity. So apply it fairly. Israel is not above criticism. But the truth, like war itself, is messy. And justice demands that we examine not only what is happening, but why, who benefits from the pain, and what kind of world we’re creating when we reward those who hide behind suffering.
This isn’t about picking sides. It’s about keeping clarity in a fog of war where empathy, when misapplied, doesn’t save lives. It costs them.
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