Truth and Lies about Gaza War Crimes

Okay, I get it: Joe Biden is upset because there is a war in Gaza, the Israelis are spearheading it (although Hamas instigated it), and the Palestinians are the victims of it (even though some people believe the Palestinians support Hamas). Plus, it’s an election year. Although Biden keeps wringing his hands and making threats in response to how the Israelis are conducting the war, he’s behaving as if Hamas had nothing to do with the war going on. Especially when it comes to accusations of war crimes, the spotlight is focused on Israel. Does Joe Biden even know what a war crime is? You can’t accuse an army of war crimes that do not exist. I thought it would be worthwhile to define war crimes and explain how they are overwhelmingly committed by Hamas, not by Israel.

But if we are going to blame groups for war crimes, we should have clear definitions for doing so:

A war crime is a violation of the laws of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility for actions by combatants in action, such as intentionally killing civilians or intentionally killing prisoners of war, torture, taking hostages, unnecessarily destroying civilian property, deception by perfidy, wartime sexual violence, pillaging, and for any individual that is part of the command structure who orders any attempt to committing mass killings including genocide or ethnic cleansing, the granting of no quarter despite surrender, the conscription of children in the military and flouting the legal distinctions of proportionality and military necessity.

If we study Israel’s actions, you would think that they must be committing war crimes, as Joe Biden repeatedly criticizes them. But those aren’t the facts.

He condemns them for not making “targeted attacks.” But the IDF is providing safe zones and has made targeted attacks.

He thinks they should be providing more aid or make it easier to provide aid to civilians. This is a ludicrous expectation, because additional aid will likely continue to go to Hamas. Besides, there are reasons to believe that the “civilians” are actively supporting Hamas.

He has claimed that too many of the reported 28,000 casualties have been civilians. But the Gazan agency that reports these figures is unreliable, and they don’t separate civilian counts from soldiers. So, there is no way to know just how many people have died or who they are.

He has described the attack on Gaza as “over the top,” and accused the IDF of indiscriminate bombing, which is not true. But Israel has made it clear that it plans to destroy Hamas and their tunnels. There is no easy way to proceed.

If you review every war crime in the list above, you will see that Israel has not committed any war crimes; a person could argue that “proportionality” is not being practiced, but this concept is complex and very difficult to determine, and nearly impossible to apply to the war in Gaza.

If we look at the actions of Hamas, however, we see multiple war crimes. They have committed torture (burning bodies and torturing Israelis as they raided their kibbutzim), taken hostages (from the kibbutzim and participants at a music concert), destroyed civilian property (including homes and buildings on the kibbutzim), deception by perfidy (when they promised to release hostages and reneged), wartime sexual violence (committed at the kibbutzim), and pillaging (as they ran through the homes and buildings at the kibbutzim). And I would claim that their intention on October 7 was genocide: they have made no secret of their intention to destroy Israel and its people.

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You might wonder why I have focused on war crimes. After all, no legal body will probably accuse Hamas of war crimes, and Israel will disregard these types of allegations if they are issued.

First, the anti-Semites have come out in droves, crying that they are pro-Palestinian and pro-Hamas. They insist that the accusations against Hamas are lies; at some point, we can hope that the truth reaches them and sanity will reign. I also think these distinctions between Hamas and Israel are very important because for now, the world is mostly supporting Israel. But if Israel is condemned with lies, especially for war crimes they have not committed, it will make Israel’s efforts all the more difficult. Over the years they have been the victims of a mythical history, accusations of unwarranted land grabs, and anti-Semitic tropes.

Let’s keep the record straight when it comes to war crimes.