As the first anniversary nears of the worst crimes against Jews since the Holocaust, the inverse reality that underlines the Washington bureaucracy emerges in view. What were they up to as news started emerging of Hamas’s burning of homes, raping of women, beheading babies, and killing parents in front of their children? How did policymakers react to a shocked, dazed, allied country’s angst? They started warning of Israeli “war crimes.” 

That is the picture emerging from a trove of emails bouncing from the Department of State to the White House and back, as reported today by Reuters. Like the rest of the press, the news wire has a tendency to portray the perpetrators of the year-long Mideast war as victims, and vice versa. Proving the point: State and Pentagon officials were alarmed “that a rising death toll in Gaza could violate international law and jeopardize U.S. ties in the Arab world,” per Reuters.   

The three sets of email exchanges in the piece were made between October 11 and October 14, a week after the October 7 attack, and before Israeli troops entered the Gaza strip. Arabic-speakers might accuse America of “being complicit to potential war crimes by remaining silent on Israel’s actions against civilians,” wrote State’s top public diplomacy official, Bill Russo, but four days after what Reuters calls the “Hamas incursion” of last year.  

The department’s Mideast chief, Barbara Leif, then forwards Mr. Russo’s complaint to President Biden’s top Mideast adviser, Brett McGurk, with a note that “otherwise would-be stalwart” Arab allies might pounce. Mr. McGurk, to his credit, reminds the correspondents that what Israel was planning in Gaza is not unlike what America did in Iraq while fighting ISIS. Yet, he too stresses the need to add a humanitarian aspect to Israel’s military operations. 

The International Committee of the Red Cross privately says Israel “is close to committing war crimes,” one State official warns. Another worries about a pending “humanitarian catastrophe,” and yet another advises to instruct the government of the Jewish state — or “GOI,” in State’s parlance — to “pump the brakes.” The alleged “crime” in the emails is Israel asking civilians to move out of the combat zone before the tanks roll in.  

The panic reflected in these exchanges between top officials somehow misses the fact that Israelis were yet to account for all the dead, the injured, and the hostages that Hamas took as insurance against the Israel Defense Force coming assault. Reuters reckons that these wires reflect an “internal pressure in the Biden administration to shift its messaging from showing solidarity with Israel to including sympathy for Palestinians.” Did it work?

Sure enough, Mr. Biden’s full-throated support for Israel in the first bleeding days of the war was soon muddled. The president and his aides started stressing humanitarian aid to Gazans over winning the war against Hamas. Then came the endless micromanaging of the IDF war strategy, followed by delaying transfer of some arms to Israel, and a push for a cease-fire in exchange for a limited number of hostages. The deep state won. 

The idea that underlined the initial emails — or was it just an excuse to bash Israel — was a loss of credibility among Arabs. That is a complete misunderstanding of not only Mideasterners, but the world outside the beltway. Credibility is gained by defeating, rather than pitying, an enemy. When an ally, Israel in this case, appears to be on the losing side, America’s image suffers. Now that it’s finally advancing, we too look better — unless we turn on our ally again.