Bob Sanders is a retired reporter who lives in Concord.

The stereotype is that Jews are smart, but what is happening in Gaza proves that Jews can be as stupid as anyone else.

Now don’t call me antisemitic as I prepare latkes for the first night of Hanukkah. Don’t even call me a self-hating Jew for trying to speak out against actions that are endangering Jews.

Why are Jews, or more specifically the right-wing religious zealot Jews now in charge in Israel, so stupid? Because they are doing just what Hamas wants them to do.

Hamas committed terrorist atrocities against civilians on Oct. 7 hoping to provoke Israel into an overreaction, and Israel played right into their hands. Hamas kills 1,200, Israel kills 16,000 and counting. They terrorize, we obliterate. What have we learned from the Nazis? Not that never again should a country try to wipe out a people. No. It is collective punishment: one of us is worth tens if not hundreds of them.

This is an attempt to destroy Hamas? Israel has become Hamas’ greatest recruiter. Do you know how much hatred they are planting among millions by killing tens of thousands, against not only Israel, but against Jews all over the world? Does anyone honestly believe that Hamas, or a similar terrorist organization, won’t create even more havoc in the future? Without Israel’s retribution, Hamas would have been condemned worldwide. Now those terrorists are bloody heroes in Palestine and engender sympathy worldwide among those who should know better.

It’s just like after 9/11. Rather than targeting the terrorists that caused that horror, the U.S. killed thousands that had nothing to do with it. We turned worldwide sympathy into resentment. Israel is following in our footsteps.

True, the situation is different here. Hamas is the governing party in Gaza, not independent terrorists, but that doesn’t mean everyone there is behind them. The last time when there was an election in Gaza was 2006 and they just barely won among those who voted. The kids getting killed now weren’t even born then, and we have no idea how much support now Hamas in general, and for its October attacks, in particular. Even if some Palestinians sympathize with these terrorists, does that mean they deserve the death penalty for their misguided beliefs?

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Then the argument is that Israel is morally superior to Hamas even though they killed more than ten times the number of civilians because they weren’t targeting them. The people, 70% of them women and children were simply in the way. Israel even warned them to get out of the way, but then bombed where they were fleeing. You don’t get to bomb cities, attack hospitals, destroy infrastructure necessary for survival, withhold fuel, cut off communications, kill aid workers and reporters by the dozens, and say that you weren’t targeting civilians. That argument would be laughable if it wasn’t so tragic.

What was needed here was not carpet bombing, and a massive invasion but courts, police, and if necessary, commandos and assassins. Use your intelligence in both senses of the word. What Hamas did was criminal, and the individuals that planned and carried out the attacks should be prosecuted. If Hamas leaders tried to escape, they should be hunted down just like Osama Bin Laden. Better kill some leaders than thousands of innocent people who may not even be following them.

Hamas has committed mass murder, but Israel has topped that by causing a humanitarian catastrophe.

War hasn’t freed the hostages. It was only the pause in the war when 105 of the 240 hostages were released via prisoner trade.

The world had been ready to condemn Hamas, but now they are increasingly condemning Israel, and worst yet, Jews in general. The right-wing has done Jews no favor by conflating anti-Zionism with antisemitism.

Historically, Jews have been the victims of states that persecuted minorities, from the Spanish Inquisition to Nazi Germany. That’s why many of us have been so supportive of the separation of church and state, and why we are aghast at those who try to make the U.S. into a Christian nation, and at the Muslim theocracies that rule Iran and other Mid-east countries. How then can we defend a Jewish state, particularly when it oppressing another minority?

Support for Israel is often a litmus test for our Judaism, but there are many ordinary Jews that really aren’t that crazy about Israel these days. We just want to celebrate our traditions, light our Hannukah candles, do our mitzvahs and worship (or not) as we please. But now we have become even more of a target because of Israel.

Israel, by its actions, has not made the world safer for Jews. It has made it riskier. It has not made Israel more secure. It has made things worse. And so has its supporters by defending its indefensible actions.