When UN secretary general António Guterres on Monday told the UN Security Council that the “appalling” massacres of Israelis by Hamas did not justify the “collective punishment” of the Palestinian people and condemned “clear violations of international law”, he unleashed a storm of protest from Israel and its supporters. The Israeli ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, denounced his remarks as “shocking” and “justifying terrorism” and called for his resignation, while Israel announced a ban on UN representatives from visiting the country “to teach them a lesson”.
Guterres prefaced his remarks by making clear his abhorrence at Hamas murders and its use of human shields. And it is not the first time that the UN has condemned actions ranging from the blockade of food, medicines, fuel and water to the 2.2 million inhabitants of Gaza, to the bombing of civilians. But his rider that it was “important to also recognise the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum”, and that Palestinians “have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation” struck a particularly raw nerve, notably in questioning the idea that the genesis of the latest iteration of this conflict started on October 7th with the bloody Hamas invasion.
The attack on Guterres reprises a familiar theme of Israeli diplomacy – the suggestion that all criticism of Israel and all arguments for retaliatory restraint represent arguments for a false moral equivalence of Israeli and Hamas actions and a denial of Israel’s right to defend itself. There is no equivalence, and arguments about it are merely semantic distractions from the central questions in the debate. There is no question about Israel’s right to defend itself – but not without rules.
In deliberately branding all criticism as Hamas-supporting, Israel is turning a deaf ear not only to neighbours in the region, and peace supporters at home, but to its closest friends and allies like the US and the EU, which is warning that an attack on Gaza, however understandable, may be deeply counterproductive.
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Whatever about the rules of war, is the complete eradication of Hamas even possible? And certainly not without a huge unacceptable civilian toll. At a minimum, France reportedly believes a ground invasion would be “difficult to carry out” while respecting the rules of war. Is this the best way to guarantee the lives of the hostages? Could Israel trigger a regional war?
Within the EU, the fear of being tainted by accusations of anti-Semitism or being soft on terrorism is also in danger of stymying a collective response. Foreign ministers, unable to agree a common position on the call for a “humanitarian ceasefire” or the less ambitious “humanitarian pause” to allow relief supplies in to Gaza, have left the decision to leaders at their summit today.