46 No. 72 JUSTICE mong the most lamentable fallout from the war in Gaza following October 7, 2023, is the speed at which diplomats and political figures from the community of democracies turned from supporting Israel’s “right to defend itself” to the leveling of accusations that Israel is committing genocide and war crimes. One must set the record straight: when fighting to defeat an asymmetrical enemy like Hamas, which employs human shields and stores its weapons in mosques, schools, hospitals, apartment buildings and in tunnels deep beneath Gaza as a doctrine of war, civilian casualties simply cannot be avoided. Hamas’s tactics are not a secret, nor are they a stunning new revelation for the world to absorb. For years, over the course of a series of Gaza wars, Israeli civilian and military figures have gone to great lengths to explain the nature of Hamas’s tactics, but still take extraordinary steps in battle to avoid mass civilian casualties wherever possible. We have lost count of the video clips showing drones that track terrorists traveling on foot or in vehicles and moving in and out of populated areas. How many times have IDF spokespersons noted the text messages, emails, phone calls, the “knock on the roof” warnings, and other means of advance alerts when attacks are imminent, often placing IDF units at a disadvantage on the battlefield? Yet, expressions of support for Israel, which flowed from a number of international capitals in the days just after the Hamas massacres, began to fade even before the IDF had sent a single soldier into Gaza. And once Israel entered Gaza, it did not take long for the tide to turn. In response to the attacks by Hamas on October 7, UN Secretary General António Guterres unleashed a cascade of opprobrium when he declared that the terrorist attack “did not happen in a vacuum.” Once Israel’s ground operation began on October 27, 2023, international media outlets, governments, and civilians began relying on casualty figures from the “Gaza Health Ministry,” which is a governmental arm of Hamas. The artificial value of these figures has been aided by much of the international media’s coverage of the war. Gabriel Boric, the Chilean president, was one of the first figures to charge Israel with violating international law in Gaza. During a visit with President Joe Biden at the White House, Boric said, “the right of a state to defend itself has limits, and those limits imply respecting the lives of innocent civilians, especially children, and respecting international humanitarian law.”1 A few months later when back in Chile, Boric, a backer of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and an incessant critic of Israel, described Israeli operations in Gaza as a form of “barbarism.”2 Subsequently, Boric vetoed Israeli participation in his country’s widely attended aerospace show, recalled his ambassador to Israel, and joined South Africa in its genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. Brazil also joined this chorus early on. Its president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, is a veteran disparager of Israel. While at a meeting of the African Union in February 2024, Lula said, “What’s happening in the Gaza Strip with the Palestinian people hasn’t happened at any other moment in history. Actually, it has happened: when Hitler decided to kill the Jews.”3 In fact, the civilian casualty figures Lula cites go wildly beyond what the “Gaza Health Ministry” shares. Early Blood Libels Are Back: The Politicization of Antisemitism since October 7 Daniel S. Mariaschin 1. Andrea Shalal, “Chile's Boric, After Condemning Israel Over Gaza, Raises Concerns With Biden,” U.S. NEWS AND WORLD REPORT, Nov. 2, 2023, available at https:// www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2023-11-02/ chiles-boric-after-condemning-israel-over-gaza-to-raiseconcerns-with-biden 2. Sinan Dogan, “Chilean president calls Israel's attacks in Gaza 'barbarism',” ANADOLU NEWS AGENCY, April 24, 2024, available at https://www.aa.com.tr/en/americas/ chilean-president-calls-israels-attacks-in-gazabarbarism/3200783 3. “Speech by President Lula at the opening of the 37th African Union Summit,” GOV.BR, Feb. 17, 2024, available at https://www.gov.br/planalto/en/follow-the-government/ speeches-statements/2024/02/president-lulas-speech-atthe-opening-of-the-37th-african-union-summit A
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