Israel faces a truly disgusting irony: The more the public learns of the gruesome details of Hamas’ Oct. 7 war crimes, the more the left — President Barack Obama and President Biden, most shamefully — warn against Israel’s response, based on a bogus understanding of the laws of war.
Hamas terrorists filmed their atrocities — raping, kidnapping and slaughtering women and children — adding to the sickness of the acts.
And Israel has now presented some of the actual audio and video of many of the horrors:
- A terrorist bragging to his parents that he slaughtered 10 Jews “with my own hands.” His parents praise him.
- Hamas gunmen shooting civilians in their cars, then dragging their blood-soaked bodies onto the street.
- A note encouraging the jihadists to remove victims’ heads, hearts and livers.
- An Israeli boy sent door to door to bring out residents, who are then shot.
- Babies burned to ashes.
Everything Hamas has done constitutes a war crime, and the mounting evidence should harden hearts against it.
Instead, Obama this week warned that Israel’s response, particularly cutting off “food, water and electricity to a captive civilian population,” could “harden Palestinian attitudes.”
“The world is watching closely.” Israel, he said — echoing Biden — must abide “by international law, including those laws that seek to avoid . . . the death or suffering of civilian populations.”
Why lecture Israel?
Yes, Obama and Biden have acknowledged Hamas’ brutality. Yet there’s no doubt Israel obeys the laws of war, even as its enemy flagrantly violate them.
Jerusalem goes to enormous lengths to avoid civilian casualties.
It told Gazans to flee before targeting Hamas, while the group’s leaders have sought to stop evacuations.
It phones occupants to warn that their buildings are about to bombed.
Even its blocking of shipments of food, fuel and other goods is legal under international law.
Israel, for starters, has no obligation to provide anything to the Hamas-run enclave; though it’s done so in the past, that’s not possible now since Hamas intercepts these shipments.
And sieges are a common tactic in war: Cutting off your enemies’ supplies helps you defeat them; they’re only illegal if meant to starve civilians, which is clearly not the case here.
At the same time, civilian casualties are inevitable in war, but this is a war Hamas ignited.
And by basing fighters and war materiel in hospitals, churches, schools, etc., Hamas is responsible under the laws of war for resulting civilian deaths
Obama, and many on the left, reflexively feel the need to call out abuses by both sides.
Yet it’s only one side — Hamas — that’s committing the war crimes.
He, Biden and like-minded lefties need to focus on that.