Like prosecutors run amok, Israel’s assailants, including prominent human rights organizations, are misrepresenting facts and law alike to convict Israel of crimes it has not committed. In their misrepresentation of applicable standards, these organizations not only invite unwarranted opprobrium of Israel, but undermine both their own ability to advocate effectively against actual abuses and international law itself.
The casualty figures from Gaza’s Great Return March of April-May, 2018, are stark – 100-plus Palestinians dead and zero Israelis. Media, NGO and foreign government response were duly condemnatory. Once Hamas admitted that at least half of the dead were Hamas members, and some additional number were members of other terrorist organizations, many critics tempered their criticism or recanted outright.
Yet major human rights organizations and their UN adjuncts have not moderated their tones. They contend that Israel’s killing of Hamas terrorists was a violation of international law. Their rationale is the worst kind of manipulation – misrepresenting and manipulating facts and the law to obtain a political conviction.