Before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could make Israel’s case to the United Nations on Thursday, scores of diplomats got up and left.
uncertain
scores → make → diplomats
They did not walk out after hearing his defense of Israel’s conduct in Gaza.
asserted
They → walk → Gaza
They walked out before hearing it.
asserted
They → walk → it
For nearly three years, a familiar formula has accompanied much of the world’s criticism of Israel: “Oct. 7 was horrific, but …”
The atrocity is acknowledged.
asserted
atrocity → accompany → Israel
Hamas is condemned.
asserted
Hamas → condemn → ?
Sympathy is expressed for the hostages.
asserted
Sympathy → express → hostages
Then comes the pivot, and Oct. 7 gradually recedes from the moral calculation of everything that followed.
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that → come → everything
Ed Sheeran offered a revealing example last weekend.
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Sheeran → offer → example
At a Philadelphia concert, he called the Hamas attack “horrific” and said it “compounded centuries of Jewish pain.”
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it → call → pain
Then came the pivot: What was happening in Gaza, he said, was “catastrophic and unjustifiable and disproportionate.”
asserted
he → come → Gaza
This week, the same rhetorical structure reached the United Nations.
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structure → reach → Nations
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called Oct. 7 an “abhorrent” terrorist attack.
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Guterres → call → Oct.
His next words were: “What followed was an onslaught on Palestinians in Gaza,” with killing and destruction on a scale unlike anything he had witnessed as secretary-general.
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he → follow → general
Israeli military decisions and government policies should be scrutinized.
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decisions → scrutinize → ?
Israelis themselves have been scrutinizing them, loudly and relentlessly, throughout the war.
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Israelis → scrutinize → war
But something peculiar happens when acknowledging Oct. 7 becomes almost ceremonial.
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becomes → happen → Oct.
Establish that you understand Jewish suffering.
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you → establish → suffering
Then comes the “but.”
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but → come → ?
Everything before it can become less context than a disclaimer — a few words establishing a faux balance before the argument returns almost entirely to Israel.
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argument → become → Israel
Netanyahu came to the General Assembly determined to put Oct. 7 back into the discussion.
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Netanyahu → come → discussion
He recounted the massacre and the hostages, defended Israel’s conduct of the war, and argued that Israel had gone to extraordinary lengths to protect Palestinian civilians.
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Israel → recount → civilians
Those claims do not settle the debate over Israel’s conduct.
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claims → settle → conduct
They are arguments to be tested, not accepted merely because Netanyahu made them.
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Netanyahu → test → them
But some of the underlying facts cannot simply disappear.
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some → underlie → facts
In a Washington Examiner op-ed published the morning of Netanyahu’s speech, I wrote about Palestinian photojournalist Motaz Azaiza, once celebrated by Time magazine as Gaza’s “eyes and ears.”
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I → publish → eyes
Azaiza acknowledged that he filmed Palestinians beating Israeli hostages after they were brought into Gaza on Oct. 7, then withheld the footage because, he said, he feared Israel could identify and target the people shown.
uncertain
Israel → acknowledge → people
Hours later, Netanyahu invoked the same episode from the U.N. podium.
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Netanyahu → invoke → podium
Azaiza’s account does not make Gazans collectively responsible for Hamas.
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Gazans → make → Hamas
But rejecting collective guilt does not require ignoring evidence of individual participation.
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rejecting → reject → participation
An independent U.N. Commission of Inquiry verified evidence that civilians from Gaza entered Israel and joined militants in attacks at Nir Oz, Be’eri and the Nova music festival.
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civilians → verify → Oz
In several cases, it concluded on reasonable grounds that they were not members of Palestinian armed groups but civilians directly participating in the hostilities.
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they → conclude → hostilities
The moral distinction matters: A civilian population cannot be held responsible for the crimes of Hamas.
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population → matter → Hamas
But neither should the label “civilian” erase what particular individuals actually did.
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individuals → erase → what
Hamas’s conduct afterward matters, too: its extensive tunnel network and its operations amid civilian infrastructure in densely populated Gaza.
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conduct → matter → Gaza
None of that gives Israel an unlimited license.
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None → give → license
The laws of war apply to Israel regardless of Hamas’s violations.
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laws → apply → violations
Palestinian civilians’ suffering does not become irrelevant because Hamas helped create the battlefield on which those civilians were endangered.
But Hamas cannot become a footnote while Israel’s response becomes the entire story.
That is where Guterres’s own warning this week becomes especially important.
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warning → become → which
The U.N. Charter, he told the General Assembly, must be defended “without double standards.”
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he → tell → standards
But “without double standards” is an empty slogan if the secretary-general himself applies one standard to Israel and another to everyone else.
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general → apply → everyone
That does not mean insulating Netanyahu or his government from criticism.
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That → mean → criticism
…and 5 more, not listed.
The Aporia
