We Need to Hold Israel to a Higher Standard

 

According to the organization Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, Israel has dropped more than 25,000 tons of explosives on the Gaza Strip since the start of its large-scale war on 7 October, equivalent to two nuclear bombs.

The actions of Hamas militants on October 7th were horrific war crimes as is the Israeli Defense Force's (IDF) massive bombing campaign, which is killing and maiming huge numbers of non-combatants, including over 4,000 children according to the Hamas Health Ministry, numbers that have been independently corroborated by UN observers. Numbers that will inevitably rise as the bodies of victims trapped under the rubble of their homes are counted.

However, Hamas is a terrorist organization with no political legitimacy (there hasn't been an election in Gaza in over a decade) led by fanatics sworn to violence, while Israel is a liberal democracy that ratified the Geneva Convention. Western Democracies have every right, and indeed an obligation, to hold Israel to a high standard in terms of their respect of human rights and in their protection of non-combatants in the war zone.

Quite clearly, Israel has not taken into adequate consideration the risks to women and children of their bombing campaign in which they are ostensibly targeting Hamas militants and their network of subterranean tunnels.

However, as former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak (who led Israel on a previous expedition into Gaza) recently pointed out, it is impossible to reach Hamas from the air. Hamas is sheltering in a deep and extensive network of subterranean tunnels that bombs cannot easily reach, so the bombs only serve to destroy the buildings and kill the people living above the tunnels. The IDF, knowing this fact, have persisted in their bombing campaign with a seeming capricious and arbitrary plan whose tenor very early on seemed more rooted in rage and vengeance than in any legitimate military objective. The selection of targets has been hard to understand for outside observers. For example, the IDF recently demolished three blocks of luxury high-rise towers in a middle-class section of Gaza City. It seems as if the IDF is identifying assets linked to the Hamas leadership and targeting those for destruction.

All of this is regrettable. The Palestinians have long accused the Israeli Government of a disregard for human rights and Israeli prosecution of this war is causing countries all over the world, including countries like Spain who are allies of Israel, to call for a break with Israel. I fear that the damage to Israel's reputation and prestige in the world will last for decades after this struggle is over.

Apart from having responded faster to the Hamas incursion on October 7th, what could Israel have done differently? I have formulated an action list that I would have advised Israel to undertake:

• On Day One, secure the Egyptian border by entering Gaza in the South at Kerem Shalom and by sea near the Gaza/Egypt border, creating a secure zone along the border under Israeli control (to include the city of Rafah, population 160,000) in order to control who and what gets in, and more importantly who gets out, with the objective of preventing the escape of Hamas leadership and preventing them from rearming.
• Continue to supply Gaza with water, electricity, food and medical supplies, making it clear to the Gazans that they are not the enemy.
• Take time to mourn and bury the dead, time in which Israel can consolidate global public opinion in their favor and prepare the global consciousness for the coming conflict.
• Construct large refugee camps in the zone in Southern Gaza annexed at the outset of the conflict.
• Open up the camps to women, children and the elderly, focusing first on refugees from Gaza City.
• Enter the Gaza Strip in two locations: from the east between Khan Younis and Gaza City and from the north near the Erez Crossing. (This is how the IDF have initiated the land invasion of Gaza).
• Moving from north to south, and using artillery and air support as needed, root out the entire Hamas tunnel infrastructure with the goal being the complete demilitarization of the Gaza Strip (this operation is currently underway).
• Remain in Gaza until a pan-Arab security force, led by Egypt, can be readied to take over security responsibilities.

It is regrettable that there has been so much destruction and death in Gaza. Revenge cannot and must not be a public policy, even if biblical. cultural and historical mores call for it (Exodus 21:23-27). The United States failed Israel, failed the Palestinians and failed the World by not talking down Israel from the edge when the rage and anger was at a crescendo. The Gazans (and Hamas alongside them) are trapped like fish in a barrel. There was no reason to move hastily. The operation could have been executed in a way that had the least effect on the Gazans, the greatest effect on Hamas, and the best reputational outcome for Israel in the eyes of the World.