Thought bubbles I read.....
Hamas guy #1: "Let's use human shields."
Hamas guy #2: "They won't protect us, but IDF will massacre them to get us."
Hamas guy #1: "Exactly!"
IDF guy #1: "They're using human shields."
IDF guy #2: "Praise God! It's a toofer."
IDF guy #1: "Now we have license to kill any innocent Muslims."
IDF guy #2: "Death to the unbelievers & their spawn!"
One aspect I find especially untenable in many of the "human shield" arguments that attempt to absolve the IDF of all guilt for killing noncombatants is that there usually seems to be an implication of no agency on Israel's part, as if Israel were an automaton being forced to widely and aggressively bomb residential areas without a choice in the matter and without any ability to adopt a more careful and responsible approach.
I think applying the same argument to other scenarios could help to highlight just how dangerous and ethically alarming it is. Let's say a cartel leader, or even a few, hides inside a residential building where 20 or 30 families live. The police claim that the cartel are using the residents as "human shields" and bomb the entire building, killing most or all of its residents in order to get the cartel members.
This is not how most reasonable people expect law enforcement to work, and I have almost zero doubt that Israel wouldn't take its current approach if civilians in Gaza were Israeli rather than Palestinian. The October 7 massacre, which was the deadliest pogrom
since World War II, killed 1,400 people. This is a fraction of the number of Palestinian civilians killed by Israel in the last five years, let alone in several decades. I see no reason to react differently to such massacres whether the targets are Israelis or Palestinians.
There seems to be such widespread desensitization or apathy toward Palestinian deaths that we are now at the point of arguing why it is unacceptable and inhumane to greenlight heavy, widespread bombardment of densely populated areas and brush aside civilian deaths under the "human shield" banner. Replace Palestinian civilians with civilians from a Western country and imagine how most people would react in that scenario. I think the reactions of large segments of Western media to the Ukraine war versus the bombardment of Gaza should tell you much of what you need to know about how much they value the lives of each population.
Thankfully, an increasing number of people around the world are now opposing Israel's policies and becoming aware of how much abuse it has inflicted on Palestinian civilians, so hopefully the resultant pressure can lead to positive change.
www.theguardian.com
