In December, the left-wing Israeli newspaper Haaretz published an in-depth report accusing IDF units operating in northern Gaza of rampant lawless behavior and commanders of removing restrains on firing at civilians. The report focuses on the Netzarim Corridor, the narrow zone held by the IDF that separates Gaza City and the area to its north from the rest of the Strip. Andrew Fox, a British veteran of the war in Afghanistan, found that the report did not at all comport with what he witnessed during his own visit to Netzarim in November:

The soldiers we spoke to [in Netzarim] were all reservists from the 252nd Division, the reserve formation that was the focus of Haaretz’s hit piece. The atmosphere I observed was more relaxed than a British or American base would have been, but it was well maintained and free of litter and detritus. We met one of their commanders, who was intense and focused, but who spoke eloquently about their mission and the need to dismantle Hamas after October 7.

As with all IDF commanders I have met, he was the opposite of vengeful against Palestinians. The IDF’s ethos and rules of engagement are always referenced early and often in every conversation with IDF frontline officers. Many times now, I have observed the cold determination for the job in hand these men project.

The soldiers themselves . . . were eloquent, compassionate and thoughtful. Again, not a word of hatred was expressed for anyone but Hamas.

After reading the article, Fox spoke to some contacts in the IDF, and discovered some details about the story’s questionable reporting. He also learned that the rules of engagement for suspected combatants were stricter than those employed in Afghanistan. He concludes that the “unbalanced portrayal of the IDF in Gaza make the article shameless manipulation masquerading as fair reporting, in pursuit of Haaretz’s well-established political position.”

In a recent episode of 60 Minutes, a former State Department official tells the interviewer that U.S. support for Israel following October 7 has “put a target on America’s back” in the Arab world “and beyond the Arab world.” The complaint is a familiar one: Middle Easterners hate the United States because of its closeness to the Jewish state. But this gets things exactly backward. Just look at the rhetoric of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its various Arab proxies: America is the “Great Satan” and Israel is but the “Little Satan.”

Why, then, does Iran see the U.S. as the world’s primary source of evil? The usual answer invokes the shah’s 1953 ouster of his prime minister, but the truth is that this wasn’t the subversion of democracy it’s usually made out to be, and the CIA’s role has been greatly exaggerated. Moreover, Ladan Boroumand points out,

the 1953 coup was welcomed by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, [the architect of the 1979 Islamic Revolution], and would not have succeeded without the active complicity of proponents of political Islam. And . . . the United States not only refrained from opposing the Islamic Revolution but inadvertently supported its emergence and empowered its agents. How then could . . . Ayatollah Khomeini’s virulent enmity toward the United States be explained or excused?

Khomeini’s animosity toward the shah and the United States traces back to 1963–64, when the shah initiated sweeping social reforms that included granting women the right to vote and to run for office and extending religious minorities’ political rights. These reforms prompted the pro-shah cleric of 1953 to become his vocal critic. It wasn’t the shah’s autocratic rule that incited Khomeini’s opposition, but rather the liberal nature of his autocratically implemented social reforms.

There is no need for particular interpretive skill to comprehend the substance of Khomeini’s message: as Satan, America embodies the temptation that seduces Iranian citizens into sin and falsehood. “Human rights” and “democracy” are America’s tools for luring sinful and deviant citizens into conspiring against the government of God established by the ayatollah.

Or, as George W. Bush put it, jihadists hate America because “they hate our freedoms.”