Since October 7, TV screens, Internet sites, and newspapers have been filled with two competing narratives. First there are the images of violent devastation and the murder of Israeli Jewish civilians in dozens of kibbutzim bordering Gaza by the military wing of Hamas, alongside the shock and grief of a country that has treated security as its utmost public, political and military concern. Then there are the images of the utter destruction of Gaza under the relentless bombing of the Israeli Defense Forces, and by the horror of yet another Nakba for people whose parents and grandparents survived the previous expulsion.
These two narratives reveal a deep polarization in understanding about the local, regional and global realities upon which they are built, and about the main actors involved in the violence. Yet, over and above the perceptions of these realities and actors, one thing is clear.
October 7 is a defining political moment, not just for Palestine, Israel and the Middle East, but for the politics of justice and accountability at large.
Terrorists, Freedom Fighters and Moral Armies
An old saying goes: Your freedom fighter is my terrorist.
But are not “terrorists” those who indiscriminately slaughter children, the elderly, and unarmed civilians in their homes, and take hostages? Freedom fighters fight with arms against other forces with arms, or against politicians who use armed forces to deprive others of freedom. Freedom fighters don’t kill children, youth at open-air concerts, and grandmothers. The decades-long Israeli occupation of Palestine can never be an excuse for such butchery. Only shameless cowards with no honor, dignity, or conviction perpetrate such crimes, and only those with no honor, dignity, or conviction can condone, excuse, or justify such awful acts.
These acts reveal not just Hamas’s hatred of Jews but also its total disregard for the lives of Palestinians. Were the fighters delusional, misinformed, or ill advised? Or was a dead Jew more important to them than a living Palestinian? Those who planned the slaughter of Israeli civilians on October 7 must have known that their acts would serve as a pretext for a massive, merciless, and absolutely deadly reaction by Israel.
And Israel’s reaction has indeed been a terrible series of war crimes. Israeli forces have erased entire neighborhoods by bombing hospitals, ambulances, schools, churches, mosques, bakeries, water purification plants, and electricity installations. They have indiscriminately slaughtered children, the elderly, and unarmed civilians in their homes, and displaced hundreds of thousands, telling them to go south and then bombing them en route or at their destination. Palestinians in Gaza have been deprived of water, food, medicines, and fuel. The most technologically advanced and modern army in the Middle East is using medieval siege warfare.
Meanwhile, Israeli politicians have repeated that the Israeli army is one of the most moral in the world because it informs its future victims that they will be victims, because the Israeli army is destroying Hamas and not Gaza, and because the Israeli army will actually save Gazans by ridding them of Hamas. Israel claims that the war crimes and crimes against humanity that the IDF is perpetrating against Gaza and Gazans are actually acts of self-defense. These blatant lies suggest that Israel thinks either that it is addressing a global audience of idiots or that its military and its political leaders are so powerful as to be beyond the reach of any justice whatsoever. Any objections that the response to the October 7 violence is violating all principles of international law and constitute “collective punishment”—a euphemism for genocide—is met with righteous outrage from the IDF and Israeli government. But their acts on the ground show that a dead Palestinian is to them more important than a living hostage.
Israel is able to do this because there has been nothing to stop it. Inside Israel, no political force or wave of public opinion has served as a restraint on the use of indiscriminate force. Nor have the pleas of some of the families of the hostages who openly reject revenge stayed the hand of the Israeli leadership. Outside of Israel, no powerful international actors—institutions, agencies, laws—have had any impact. On the contrary, the vast majority of Western political leaders still support Israel in its genocidal politics in Gaza, and the United States continues to send both money and arms to the Israeli government.
Everything that European and U.S. politicians have accused Russia of doing to Ukraine, Israel has done to Gaza—and worse. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has received not sanctions or condemnations but hugs and whatever else he has wanted, even though he stands despised and delegitimized as a criminal by so many of his own citizens. Few have been the voices of Western political leaders who have openly stood up against Netanyahu’s justifications of the war. Quite the contrary: majority of these leaders equate every criticism of Israeli apartheid politics towards Palestinians with anti-Semitism. They have criminalized the peaceful Boycott, Divest, Sanction movement and censored pro-Palestinian protests.
And now, these same leaders plan to deliver the destroyed land and devastated people of Gaza into the hands of Fatah and its octogenarian despot Mahmoud Abbas, despised and delegitimized by scores of his own nationals. The United States and Europe have a long history of constructing the futures of countries that are not their own. The Arab world, fearful of mass protests on their streets and unsure of the benefits of being in the Israeli, American, and European good books, is only now beginning to wake up from paying lip service to the Palestinians’ plight.
The Future of Justice
Were the world different, the massive popular revolt across the world against the carnage in Gaza would result in a radical change of local, regional, and global politics—and a change in politicians, too. The political and military leaders of Israel, the United States and a number of European countries would find themselves tried in a Special International Court for the criminal enterprise of executing, aiding, and/or abetting war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. The Hamas planners and perpetrators of the October 7 murders would be just a row behind them on the benches. Abbas and his cohort would be tried, in Palestine, for high treason for collaborating with Israel against their own people.
None of this would be a novelty. After all, some victims of some war crimes, crimes against humanity, and crimes of genocide have seen some justice—however partial, selective, incomplete, and slow. Heads of states, military leaders, warlords, and other perpetrators of atrocities have faced international trials for crimes in former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Cambodia, Lebanon, and East Timor. Many countries have also set up national courts, either independent of international bodies or in cooperation with them. Truth (and reconciliation) commissions have been established instead of or in addition to trials from Argentina and Guatemala to South Africa, Rwanda, and most recently Colombia. Each of these bodies has faced controversies, opposition, and accusations of bias as well as logistical and financial difficulties. Each of them has been denounced by many a victim as disappointing, at best.
Yet, no Western state or its political and military leaders have ever faced even a remote threat of being brought to international justice for the people they have harmed. Their victims haven’t even had a chance to be disappointed by the proceedings and their results. To take but one of many examples, the atrocious bombing of Iraq should have warranted a lock-up of men and women who still enjoy the benefits of U.S. government pensions instead of being imprisoned as war criminals.
It’s unlikely, then, that Israel and its enablers will ever face trials for the gruesome trail of blood their choices have left. At most, they could face electoral defeats, though this too is far from guaranteed. Benjamin Netanyahu, for instance, has repeatedly been returned to office. At the same time, Israeli courts will likely try the captured Hamas members who perpetrated the gruesome slaughter of October 7, which Israeli citizens will view as justice even as they continue to support the onslaught on Gaza.
Because of the certainty of impunity for Israel and its allies, the ideas, ideals and mechanisms of justice and accountability have forever changed after October 7. In the wake of the U.S. declaration of a “war on terror,” every dictator around the world used the pretext of “terrorism” to curb or destroy any movement for freedom, equality, and justice. Similarly, politicians after October 7 who see that killing and destruction leads to no punishment will proceed with their murderous plans without any concern for the international repercussions. Until and unless Israel is punished, nobody will be considered duly punishable.
Meanwhile, generations of ordinary Israelis and Palestinians will live with bitterness, if not rage, against what has befallen them, accusing each other, seeking revenge, justifying violence with violence, and still electing leaders who will trade them for money and power. Little space will be permitted to those in the region and beyond who have tried in the last decades to form links between the presumed enemies, to see humanity in one another, and to understand the intermingling of their collective fates. Around the world, an old lesson will gain a renewed and urgent relevance: power is a law unto itself and all that one needs for impunity. The politics of might-is-right will bury the once-upon-a-time noble idea of common humanity, and a new era of raw power will reign.