Neve Gordon

Most Is­raelis be­lieve the vi­o­lence un­leashed on civil­ians is nec­es­sary – and jus­ti­fied – to achieve vic­to­ry in Gaza.

Ma­nip­u­lat­ing in­ter­na­tion­al law al­lows Is­rael to evade con­dem­na­tion for its war crimes.

Is­raelis are re­al­is­ing gov­ern­ment fail­ures en­abled Hamas’s at­tack, but that may not be enough to bring Ne­tanyahu down.

In­ter­na­tion­al law bars Is­rael from push­ing Er­itre­ans out. But that, as Pales­tini­ans know well, hasn’t stopped it be­fore.

Are protest­ing Is­raelis re­al­ly long­ing for ‘a bet­ter democ­ra­cy for the good of all the peo­ple’?

Is­rael wants the Pales­tini­ans to re­mem­ber the Nak­ba but not to com­mem­o­rate it.

Is the new Ne­tanyahu gov­ern­ment re­al­ly on course to ‘de­stroy Is­raeli democ­ra­cy’?

And as they fight for sur­vival un­der apartheid rule, they re­ceive no real sol­i­dar­i­ty from their Is­raeli coun­ter­parts.

The hu­man shield ac­cu­sa­tion has be­come an in­creas­ing­ly com­mon de­fence when states act im­moral­ly.

Ne­tanyahu had his Likud par­ty vote against the cit­i­zen­ship law to em­bar­rass the new Is­raeli gov­ern­ment.