This week marks the one-year anniversary of the horrific Hamas attack against Israel, which unfolded on Oct. 7, 2023. With the follow-on conflict now spreading beyond Israel-Palestine to Lebanon and perhaps Iran, worry about Middle East conflagration abounds. Given the occasion of this dark anniversary, I want to reflect on the events of Oct. 7 and developments since.
Whatever the historical context of Israel-Palestinian enmity, make no mistake — the assault by Hamas' Qassam Brigades and affiliated groups was a massive war crime. More than 800 of the nearly 1,200 Israelis killed were civilians. A total 251 people were taken to Gaza as hostages. In addition to privation of their freedom, many of the kidnapped faced unspeakably depraved treatment by their captors. Roughly 95 hostages remain unaccounted for, several dozen of whom are likely already dead.
As we mark Oct. 7 one year on, both Israel's dead and those still in captivity deserve remembrance, and that we speak the truth of what happened that day. I repeat — Oct.7 was a horrible war crime committed by Hamas. Don't take my word for it, but rather that of Human Rights Watch: "Hamas-led groups committed numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity against civilians during the Oct. 7 assault on southern Israel. Palestinian fighters committed summary killings, hostage-taking and other war crimes, and the crimes against humanity of murder and wrongful imprisonment." A United Nations Commission of Inquiry has found similarly, and an International Criminal Court prosecutor has applied for arrest warrants for Yahya Sinwar and other top Hamas leaders on the same basis.
Of course, Oct. 7 was also the beginning of spiraling violence in Gaza. It was perfectly predictable that Israel would retaliate against Hamas. Over the last year Israel has relentlessly prosecuted a war in Gaza, and, sadly — foremost for innocent Gazan civilians caught in the conflict — the spiraling violence has also included Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Again, don't take my word for it. Human Rights Watch has "observed or documented that the Israeli authorities have carried out indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks in violation of international humanitarian law." The aforementioned United Nations Commission of Inquiry has found that Israeli authorities and forces perpetrated the war crime of starvation as method of warfare, targeted civilians who were clearly unarmed and used overwhelming and disproportionate force against civilian areas and infrastructure. The International Criminal Court prosecutor has applied for arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for a litany of violations against the Rome Statute and the Geneva Conventions.
Accurate casualty figures are impossible to know, but estimates range from 20,000 to 50,000, of which a significant number are likely civilians.
The sheer human toll is terrible, indeed, but international law itself has also been a tragic victim of this conflict. As viscerally horrible as Israel's experience was on Oct. 7, there is no excuse for its apparent failure to uphold international law during its fight against Hamas. Some — especially in my home country, the U.S. — refuse to criticize Israel for its methods of executing this war, insisting that Israel has dispensation to "do whatever it thinks it has to do" to ease the path to restoring its security and deterring future attacks, even if that means violating international law. The logic: Hamas sowed the wind, and now it is reaping the whirlwind. This is mistaken. Simply put, Israel should fight in conformity with international law precisely BECAUSE it is hard. International humanitarian law — law governing armed conflict — is an important pillar supporting humanity's rejection of barbarism, and it must not be compromised under any circumstances, even when one's adversary violates it gleefully.
One is tempted to say ESPECIALLY when one's adversary violates it gleefully. This is the special burden that upholders — especially liberal democratic upholders — of international humanitarian law must carry, the burden of fighting according to right principle, the burden of fighting simultaneously FOR that principle while also fighting against an adversary. And it is here that Israel has — to judge by the evidence available through the fog of war and the morass of media — failed. It is not meeting its own, self-imposed standards as a liberal, democratic upholder of international law.
This logic is also why one is right to criticize Israel in this regard more than Hamas. Hamas' standard is different. It is not a liberal, democratic upholder of international law, but rather a terrorist organization ruthlessly controlling the levers of an impoverished quasi-state. A scorpion is not a frog, and so one does not judge it by the standards of a frog. Of course, one is also under no obligation to tolerate the scorpion. Indeed, Hamas should be defeated and its leaders held accountable for their crimes, but only through and in accordance with international law.
Israel is literally on the front lines of this effort, and it is tragic to witness the frog act like a scorpion. The international community has noticed. Israel's reputation is at stake, and it is losing sympathetic friends. Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.
Mason Richey is a professor of international politics at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, president of the Korea International Studies Association and editor-in-chief of the Journal of East Asian Affairs.