When democracy chooses ethnic cleansing

On May 14, 1948, in its Declaration of Independence, Israel embraced universal human rights “without distinction of religion, race, or sex.” This belief in the dignity of every individual is enshrined in the Geneva Conventions, which were handed over to governments that same month. Today, Israel’s founding vision and the laws of war are being challenged in Gaza. The fate of both is being decided on its bombed and devastated soil.

From the beginning, the world has struggled to live up to the lofty ideals of 1948. Israel was born out of violence and has since struggled with the tension between respecting universal rights and seeking to be a home for peoples on a disputed land. The Cold War was a clash of two systems that too often treated humanitarian law as an impediment. Yet the decades after the fall of the Soviet Union raised hopes that leaders who broke the law could be held accountable.

Gaza shows how that vision is failing. The laws of war are being violated, and the system that is supposed to protect them is failing. Yet this failure does not absolve Israel of its responsibility to be accountable for its actions in Gaza, including war crimes and crimes against humanity. Indeed, Israel’s very foundations as a liberal democracy dictate that it must.

Something has gone seriously wrong in Gaza. Israel’s just war against the terrorists who massacred its citizens on October 7, 2023, has turned into a death and destruction of biblical proportions. Much of Gaza has been razed to the ground, millions of civilians have been displaced, and tens of thousands have been killed. Yet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cannot be stopped. This week, it emerged that he wants to occupy all of Gaza. But Hamas no longer poses a military threat, so the war no longer has a strategy, and continuing the fight is no longer justified.

Worse still, the Israeli government, despite its obligations as an occupying power, has used food distribution to civilians as a weapon against Hamas. It has continued to do so even when, as predicted, it has led to starvation and the deaths of desperate people who have been waiting in lines for survival rations. By forcing civilians into isolated pockets while systematically demolishing their homes, Israel is also committing ethnic cleansing.

Gaza is no exception. Civilians are being killed and driven from their homes in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar, Sudan, Ukraine, and almost every other war zone today. Hamas, let us not forget, started the current conflict in Gaza 22 months ago with an orgy of hostage-taking and crimes against humanity. Instead of seeking peace, it has been feeding on the suffering of its own people. It recently described the recognition of a Palestinian state, promised by Britain, Canada, and France, as “the fruits” of October 7.

Yet Hamas' crimes cannot justify Israel. The Jewish state is a democracy. It should be held to higher standards than terrorists, warlords, and dictators.

As the laws of war are violated, the system that guarantees them is collapsing. The Geneva Conventions were intended to spare civilians. But they were designed for wars between states. Most conflicts today involve at least one militia, making it difficult to separate combatants from civilians. Under the Geneva rules, the high ratio of civilian to military casualties in Gaza is not in itself evidence of a crime. Israel has relaxed the rules on the use of force, but the enclave is densely populated. Hamas deliberately hides among civilians. In such circumstances, many civilians are killed, as the United States learned in the Iraqi cities of Mosul and Fallujah.

The International Criminal Court has become increasingly active, issuing arrest warrants for Netanyahu and the then defense minister before the Israeli justice system had a chance to react. The courts have also become a tool in the ongoing “legal war.” South Africa accused Israel of genocide before the International Court of Justice just 12 weeks after October 7, allowing activists to further strengthen campaigns calling for Western boycotts of Israel long before the ruling was made.

Hamas' crimes cannot justify Israel. The Jewish state is a democracy. It should be held to higher standards than terrorists, warlords, and dictators.

Activists dream that the courts will impose their vision of virtue on a world that does not share those values. That dream is doomed to failure. Major powers, including America and China, do not recognize the jurisdiction of these courts. International law takes a long time to reach final judgments. It has limited enforcement mechanisms. The process launched today may one day have a deterrent effect, but it is a weak tool for stopping war crimes while they are taking place.

It may sound like capitulation, but it is not. And the reason for this takes us back to 1948. The laws of war were not intended only as a weapon against militarists and Nazis. They also represented the latest example in a long history of belligerents imposing their own limitations. So the key question is whether Israel, a state founded as democratic and universalist, remains true to that tradition.

Israel has a history of investigating wars and holding some political and military leaders accountable. It is comparable to other countries in investigating war crimes committed by its soldiers, albeit slowly and mostly focused on lower ranks, as in the case of the deadly attack on World Central Kitchen staff in 2024. But accountability at higher levels remains lacking. The Supreme Court and the attorney general are embroiled in an internal power struggle with Netanyahu. When it comes to criticizing the government over Gaza, they are nowhere to be found.

It is not too late. The key test at this point is whether Israel will allow a massive influx of food and medicine into Gaza to avert a looming famine. It should also agree to a ceasefire, which would allow it to return its hostages. The second, longer-term test will be whether, after the war is over, probably under a new prime minister, it will establish a truly independent commission of inquiry.

The outside world, and especially the United States, has a role to play in making that happen. No American president in recent memory has been less committed to international law than Donald Trump. But peace in Gaza would help him stabilize the troubled region and reset relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. America has intervened repeatedly in the past to stop Israeli wars. This week, some 600 former Israeli security officials called on Trump to do so again.

These officials understand that Israel also has an interest in upholding the law. Some Israelis are counting on doing whatever they want now and repairing relations with the West later. But attitudes toward Israel in Europe are bleak, and in America they are changing, both among Democrats and within the MAGA right. If Israel becomes an ethno-nationalist state that annexes the West Bank and crushes its people, the violence will not stop.

Some might argue that Israel, having suffered the worst attack in its history, would be unwilling to prosecute its own leaders. Yet the profound lesson to be learned from the Geneva Conventions is that countries that shamelessly and with impunity violate the laws of war not only harm their victims, they harm themselves.

Israel has an existential interest in seeing justice done. If it instead glorifies those who are carrying out the famine and ethnic cleansing in Gaza, its politics and society will take a path of demagogy and authoritarianism. The young, idealistic state born in May 1948 will be suppressed.

Prepared by: A. Š.