Israel’s 2014 conflict in Gaza left many with the media-generated impression that the IDF ignored international law and conducted itself with unusual brutality. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Noting the skewed reports, based on fundamental misunderstandings both of the facts and of the laws of war, Jamie Palmer looks at the role played by non-governmental organizations (NGOs):

Relative to their size, human-rights NGOs make a disproportionate contribution to public perceptions of international conflicts. These charities’ ostensible purpose is the dispassionate defense of universal human rights, and this lends moral authority to their claims and value judgments. Consequently, they enjoy a reputation for impartiality upon which news organizations rely to enhance the credibility of their reporting. . . . But reputations for impartiality should be earned, not presumed. . . .

Since [many of these] organizations consider [ending the Israeli presence in the West Bank] a moral imperative, they are incentivized to promote a strict narrative of Israeli criminality and Palestinian suffering in which Palestinian corruption and violence can play no useful role (unless they can be blamed on Israel). In 2015, the Israeli organization NGO Monitor reported that [the prominent Israeli anti-IDF group] Breaking the Silence’s donors were making funding dependent on publication of a minimum quota of negative testimonies from serving and former IDF soldiers. . . .

Larger international NGOs like Amnesty International, Oxfam, and Human Rights Watch have also increasingly taken political positions on contentious matters of international law. They too believe that [the situation in the West Bank and Gaza] is a human-rights emergency for which Israel bears full responsibility. So when Israel goes to war in Gaza, the legality of this or that airstrike is seen in the context of a worldview that holds Israel ultimately responsible for the fact that there’s a war being fought at all. If these three organizations believe there are any legitimate means by which Israel can successfully fight and win wars against terrorist groups like Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Hizballah, we have yet to hear from them. . . .

Similar reporting on American military efforts in Iraq—likewise skewed by a presumption that the U.S. presence there was de-facto illegitimate—have encouraged apologists for Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin to argue that the brutal tactics used by these dictators are no worse than those used by Western democracies, as Palmer concludes:

Liberal democracies are not just valuable for the freedoms they afford their own citizens, but for the way in which they behave. The reckless practice of holding them to higher standards than those demanded of totalitarian actors, and the misrepresentations of international law this requires, has produced a morally disfigured view of the world and of the ethics of military conflict. It has made it harder for democracies to defend themselves or sell potentially costly humanitarian interventions to their own war-weary publics. It has helped to undermine the post-cold-war liberal order and empowered its most brutal and cynical enemies. Arresting this slide requires us to recover moral clarity and self-confidence. . . . The costs of continued confusion are already steep, and they are still rising.

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.