27 Fall 2023 brutality of the attack, so many voices purporting to advocate for human rights were quick to “take [Israel’s] responses out of context and describe them as gratuitous acts of violence against Palestinians.”11 Indeed, as the brief explained, “Palestinians are victims, but their victimizer is not Israel.”12 Hamas steals humanitarian aid directed to the Palestinians and uses it instead to establish its terrorism infrastructure. With that in place, Hamas targeted innocent Israelis to be raped, murdered, beheaded, and desecrated, while Israel undertook countless measures to save innocent Palestinians by providing advance warning of strikes on nearby Hamas militants and weaponry. “Terrorism victimizes Israelis initially. However, the Israeli response and induced precautions in turn harm Palestinians.”13 It is currently impossible to accurately summarize how Gaza’s civilians have been impacted by the entry of the IDF into Gaza to end Hamas’s rule over Gaza and Hamas’s capabilities to mount any attack upon Israel or its citizens. It is essential to note that Hamas continues the “use of Palestinians as human shields in defense against Israeli responses to terrorist attacks…launch[ings of] terrorist attacks from Palestinian civilian sites [in particular in this instance from hospitals] and attempts to blend into the Palestinian civilian population, putting that population at risk when Israel responds to terrorist attacks.”14 A related theme highlighted by B’nai B’rith that has become relevant in the aftermath of October 7, is the ambiguity with which death counts in Gaza are reported, as Hamas is the sole source of the reported numbers; it is commonly inferred by most readers that these numbers reflect the number of innocent civilians who were killed by the IDF. The reality may well track the circumstances during the Second Intifada, when “[b]etween September 27, 2000, and January 29, 2004, 78% of Israeli fatalities were noncombatants killed by Palestinians while only 36% of Palestinian fatalities were non-combatants killed by Israeli forces. Meanwhile, almost 50% of Palestinian fatalities were combatants or non-combatants killed by Palestinians.”15 Additionally, the international community must recognize how Arab governments were quick to hold Israel responsible to prevent a humanitarian crisis among the displaced Gazans, yet simultaneously refuse to welcome displaced Gazans for “resettlement or local integration of Palestinian refugees.”16 Israel’s “response is described as disproportionate, in violation of international law.”17 This is an absurd assertion that has used instruments such as the 2004 Advisory Opinion to bolster its merit. While it is implied that “proportionality” somehow relates to “similarity,” it is unfathomable that Israel should be expected to depart from its humane protocols and instead shape its response based on Hamas’s horrific actions of raping, beheading, and publicizing its acts of brutality. Perhaps that is why, as pointed out in the brief, “neither the word disproportionate nor its variations [are] found in any of the international instruments relating to response to armed attack[s] or counterterrorism.”18 A particularly instructive aspect of the October 7 massacre was how it began with a breach of Israel’s security fence in Gaza. This is an ironic fact when viewed in the context of the 2004 Advisory Opinion, which criticized Israel’s security apparatus as unnecessary and inherently offensive, even though the border barrier built in the early 2000s in the areas of the West Bank of the Jordan River and around Jerusalem was set up for the precise purpose of preventing such atrocities. For starters, as was argued in the B’nai B’rith Brief, “[c]alling a barrier a wall which is more than 96% a fence built solely for the purpose of fencing out the terrorists in keeping with Israel’s right and obligation to defend her people, is one small part of this pattern of obfuscation”19 and that “[t]he reason for the use of concrete in portions of the ‘wall,’ rather than a chain link fence, in minimal parts of the length of the barrier was that those are populated areas where snipers could engage in terrorist activity by shooting or launching stones through the fence.”20 Moreover, it is essential to recognize that the barrier has been largely effective. Since its construction, which began in 2003, suicide attacks decreased by 100 percent and terror attacks decreased by over 90 percent. Israeli civilian deaths decreased by over 70 percent, and the number of Israeli civilians wounded decreased by more than 85 percent.21 The aftermath to the October 7 massacre has been outrageous on college campuses in the United States and elsewhere, where students are regarding the massacre as 11. Ibid. 12. Id. at 67, 1. 13. Id. at 68, 2. 14. Id. at 78, 11. 15. Id. at 18, 33. 16. Id. at 78, 11. 17. Ibid. at 53, 7. 18. Ibid. 19. Id. at 10, 21. 20. Ibid. at 18, 33. 21. Ibid.
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