The underlying bias of the arrest warrants against Israeli leaders contrasts with Israel's unmatched efforts to avoid civilian casualties

The arrest warrants issued against Prime Minister Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant by the International Criminal Court (ICC) are a travesty, if not themselves criminal. They are unquestionably immoral.

No army in the history of warfare—no army whatsoever—exerted anything like equal efforts to avoid civilian casualties compared to those employed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in the present conflict with Hamas and Hezbollah. The IDF informs civilians of their intention to attack specific targets, calling and messaging them on their cell phones! In more than one instance, an unarmed missile is first fired in what has been called the “knock on roof” stage, so as to further encourage civilians to leave, before armed munitions are fired at the target. Can you point to a single instance in which any other army has adopted such measures?

Hamas and Hezbollah premeditatedly embed themselves within civilian populations, set up positions, command posts, launch pad areas and munition posts in clinics, schools, hospitals, and mosques with the cold-blooded intention to use the inevitable civilian casualties thereby incurred (the more the merrier) for their propaganda purposes. Instead of accusing Israel, it is high time effective international protest was launched against such practices. But there are no demonstrations in the streets by those who profess to care for the Palestinians and the ICC has not been called upon to investigate such practices.

There is no starvation in Gaza. Israel continues to provide a generous supply of electricity and water, and to facilitate the provision of food and medications, freely made available by the international community. The relative scarcity of food and medication is the consequence of Hamas robbing the humanitarian aid convoys and warehouses so it can sell the supplies at exorbitant prices to the civilian population after first serving their forces and new recruits, thereby seeking to maintain its control over the population.

Can any of my readers point to a conflict in which one side made such provisions to the other? The so-called rules of war by which Israel is being held accountable have never, ever been practiced by any nation. They run contrary to history and to the very idea of war. Yet Israel has sought to adhere to them.

Has an arrest warrant been issued for Vladimir Putin? Has he not transgressed these sacred rules while his army shells civilian homes, targets a theater where children found shelter, and seeks to freeze the Ukrainians by attacking their electric grid as the cold winter months approach? Yet there is no outcry. There are no protests in the streets. There is no arrest warrant. Why? Is the blood of Palestinian civilians in support of Hamas redder than that of Ukrainian civilians?

How about Kim Jong Un’s starving of the people in North Korea or Xi’s methodological cultural and physical genocide of the Uyghurs in China? Why have there not been arrest warrants issued against these notorious criminals? Why is Israel held to account selectively? Are North Koreans and Uyghurs less deserving of sympathy than Palestinians?

There is only one plausible answer to such questions: underlying antisemitism. The protestors, the ICC, and all who support it are, in the mind of Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, Russia, North Korea, and China, no more than naïve but useful tools.

These rules of war to which Israel is being held accountable are no more than a naïve modern human invention. One does not win a war by being nice. Would an allied victory be attainable apart from the blockade and extensive bombing imposed on Nazi Germany? Today’s self-congratulating do-gooders decry the allied attacks from the safety of their couches, softened and desensitized by their detachment from reality, their mobile screens, and their video games. But which of them would offer a cupcake and coffee to someone attacking their child, raping their wife, or shooting their parent?

These rules of war are unreasonable, detached from the stark reality of needing to resist vicious attacks such as those perpetuated by Hamas and Hezbollah. They are immoral because they hand defenseless civilians over to the tyranny of armed gangs, and nations to the conquest of those who decline to abide by those rules.

I am not saying everything Israel does is right. I decry the “Israel right or wrong” view held by many of my co-religionists. I believe they betray the faith we hold in common by such an approach. Much of Israel’s conduct in the West Bank is reprehensible, including the establishment of settlements and the consistent turning of a blind eye toward the harassment of Palestinians by radicalized young settlers. I support the concept of a two-State solution in which Jewish and an Arab Palestinian State live side by side following a territorial compromise the major burden of which would lie on Israel. My heart burns and aches for those Palestinians blinded by a hatred born of justified frustration and the waning vigor of hope. I weep over their deaths and suffering. But I insist without reservation: Israel is not guilty of genocide. Nor is it the cause of the Palestinians’ woe in Gaza or that of the Lebanese. It is acting in justified self-defense.

This article originally appeared on www.themaozweb.com and is reposted with permission.