The cynicism of the rhetoric from the defenders of Netanyahu’s war is both stunning and unsurprising. But the length of Israel’s current war compared to those of the last 20 years is working against them. Empty excuses and fatuous justifications for Israeli brutality and their contempt for the laws of war wear thin after a while. Especially with a war that includes such wider risks as this one does.
Claire Finkelstein of the University of Pennsylvania gives her version of some of the standard talking points in Haaretz, which runs a wide range of opinion pieces. In a two- or four-week war, such standard arguments can be persuasive to people who don’t follow the news from Israel-Palestine regularly. Or at least confusing enough to blunt criticism.
In an open-ended war now in its fifth month, with statements from Netanyahu indicating it is likely to go on for months more, the stock talking points tend to get stale.
Finkelstein begins with a few neutral-sounding paragraphs, including:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said an all-out operation in Rafah is essential to disable Hamas' remaining military capacity, yet he has also committed to ensuring safe humanitarian exit for civilians from the city prior to any such offensive. (2)This is a bad joke. What Netanyahu is implementing is ethnic cleansing. Liquidating the ghetto (Gaza), as Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich recently put it. (3)
She frames her justification of Netanyahu’s atrocities as a commentary on international law. But mainly she’s citing stale talking points repackaged for the column:
This is a moment, then, of hard moral and legal choices – a moment in which not only the military future of the war hangs in the balance, but in which the moral and legal character of Israel's choices and those of its allies stand in equipoise as well.Yet she basically blows off any serious consideration of either morality in war or international law in her column.
She gives us a version of the endlessly repeated mantra: Israel has the right to defend itself.
This right of national self-defense is not really in dispute. I wouldn’t be surprised if some polemicists somewhere are saying, no, it doesn’t. But I don’t recall ever actually seeing a report of one. But self-defense does not justify anything and everything done nominally for “defense.” Yet her column attempts to do exactly that.
Hamas militants typically hide in the extensive network of underground tunnels constructed to ride out just such a conflict. The tunnels interpose a physical layer of human shielding between Hamas underground and Israeli jets overhead. [my emphasis]If there are tunnels everywhere in Gaza, the Israeli government treats that as an excuse to bomb anything and kill anyone who might be above, near, or anywhere in the vicinity of these legendary tunnels. The tunnels themselves are real. But Israel’s claims about where the tunnels run and what was being done in them are far more dubious. (4)
Israeli propaganda claims that all Gaza civilians are being used as “human shields” because Hamas fighters are hiding somewhere in the Gaza Strip. So the deaths any civilians who are killed by the IDF in Gaza are also Hamas’ fault. Finkelstein expands the metaphor to underground by arguing that because the tunnels are allegedly everywhere, any civilians killed anywhere are any civilian facilities including hospitals and cemeteries and UN facilities, were also human shields and are legitimate targets for destruction. And the related death and destruction are also Hamas’ fault, of course.
Finkelstein offers a specious legal argument to suggest that international law only applies if The Enemy is scrupulously observing it. Which, of course, The Enemy never does.
This dilemma is not unknown to Hamas. Terrorists do not abide by IHL [international humanitarian law], but they are aware of its strictures when the other side feels bound by it.
And like other terrorists before them, Hamas knows that exploiting Israel's adherence to law is a valuable weapon in the ongoing conflict.The legal argument is ridiculous. But it’s only nominally a legal argument. It’s really just a propaganda justification for illegal actions on Israel’s part.
When the self-defender is forced to pull back from a military offensive to avoid killing civilians, this is a win for their enemy, who makes progress towards its goals through manipulating its foes' adherence to law. [my emphasis]In the present world, Israel’s partisans basically have to offer some kind of excuse for deliberately-committed atrocities. Just blaming the conduct on the Other Side may seem painfully obvious. But in this situation, they have to make some form of this argument, because the civilian casualties among Gazans are staggering. That certainly doesn’t mean everyone else has any obligation to take it seriously as anything but propaganda.
Her solution? For other countries to actively help Netanyahu’s government with its war crimes and ethnic cleansing:
Pressure must also be exerted on other nations, such as Qatar, who refuses to call out Hamas' indifference to its own population, despite its supposed concern for the lives of Palestinians, and against Egypt, who could easily help dissolve this Catch-22 by assisting with the evacuation of civilians though the Rafah Gate to give them safe harbor.And Israel’s most important ally, the United States? From Politico (5):
Notes:
(1) Bertrand, Arnaud (2024): X [Twitter] 02/15/2024.
(2) Finkelstein, Claire (2024): Self-defense and Human Shields: How Should Israel Wage War in Gaza? Haaretz 02/14/2024.
(3) Karanth, Sanjan (2023): Senior Far-Right Israeli Official Admits Gaza Is A ‘Ghetto’ For Palestinians. Huffpost 12/31/2024.
(4) Diamond, Jeremy (2024): Israel claims a tunnel ran through this Gaza cemetery it destroyed. A visit to the site raised more questions than answers. CNN 01/29/2024.
(5) Ward, Alexander & Berg, Matt (2024): US won’t punish Israel for Rafah op that doesn’t protect civilians. Politico 02/13/2024.
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