DAVID BENATAR: Free Gaza from Hamas

It did not take long after Hamas’ barbarous attack on southern Israel on October 7 for pro-Palestinian demonstrations to begin around the world. Many of these have called for an end to the Israeli onslaught that began swiftly in response to Hamas’ attack, glossing over the heinous Hamas attack that started it all, as well as its threats to repeat such assaults. However, this silence is not the only revealing insight into the minds of these protesters. There is an even greater unmasking.

As expected, the civilian death toll in Gaza has continued to escalate rapidly. The deaths of non-combatants, and especially those who may not support Hamas’ murderous agenda, is deeply distressing. Thousands of children and other non-combatants have died in explosions or been buried alive in their immediate aftermath. It is thus easy to think that the protests against continued Israeli military action in Gaza are motivated by concern for these victims, and for those people who will be future victims if the Israeli operation ends later rather than sooner.

However, there are two reasons why the civilian death toll is so high. One is that Israel is firing its weapons at Hamas. The other is that Hamas is purposefully operating from behind human shields. It has built its military infrastructure and is doing its fighting from under, within and adjacent to schools, hospitals, mosques, homes and other civilian structures. It is also willing to use ambulances for military purposes.

Those genuinely motivated by concern for innocent Gazan civilians would thus be calling at least as often for an end to the use of human shields as they are for the ending of Israeli fire. That is clearly not what is happening. The only demand being made by most purportedly “pro-Palestinian” protesters is for Israel to stop its military campaign against Hamas.

That is bad enough. What is worse is that there is a radical moral asymmetry between the respective causes of civilian deaths. There is no moral justification whatsoever for Hamas’ use of Gazans as human shields. This is categorically, straightforwardly and unequivocally a war crime. By contrast, while there is an absolute bar on Israel (and Hamas, if it cared) targeting civilians, the rules of war do not rule out all killing of civilians. So-called “collateral” deaths of civilians are permissible if these are the unintended (but foreseen) effects of legitimate military strikes.

Even high numbers of civilian deaths do not automatically demonstrate the wrongfulness of Israeli strikes. In an area as densely populated as Gaza, and where civilians are being used as human shields, it is simply not possible to wage an effective war without significant collateral damage. That does not make the Israeli side of the war impermissible, even though there are tragic effects.

This is not to say Israel has a free pass to bomb and fire as it pleases. However, the evidence suggests that far from doing that it has been going to great lengths to attempt to minimise civilian casualties. If it had been firing entirely indiscriminately the civilian death toll would have been many orders of magnitude higher by now.

A disproportionate response is not one in which one side kills more civilians than the opponent kills. It is one in which the collateral damage is not proportionate to the value of the (just) military goal. Thus, claims of disproportionality require detailed knowledge of the military aims of particular strikes, the value of those strikes, and the expected collateral damage. These are highly complex evaluations, with significant scope for reasonable disagreement.

Moral nuance is thus required here to discern the permissible from the impermissible. However, no such nuance is required to condemn Hamas’ use of human shields (or, for that matter, its attacks of October 7, which intentionally targeted civilians, and in the most horrendous ways). These are obviously war crimes by any plausible measure – even if one were to think that Hamas has a just cause. The failure to recognise and acknowledge these differences is a moral perversion that has now taken root even in western countries.

Perhaps the claim will be that western governments are supporting Israel and that this is the reason pro-Palestinian protests in the West are calling for Israel to cease its military action. That claim would be either disingenuous or naive, because Hamas’ actions too are influenced by the support it obtains abroad.

Peoples’ actions (including their unreflective words) reveal much about what they are thinking. Because those calling for an end to Israel’s military action are typically silent (rather than even more vociferous) about Hamas’ use of human shields, we can tell what their real agenda is. They care far less about the Gazan civilians than they claim to, and far more about denying Israel the opportunity to defend itself against Hamas. There is little reason to take seriously the moral posturing of such people.

•  Benatar is emeritus professor in the philosophy department at the University of Cape Town.