“There is no moral equivalence between Israel and Hamas.”

It would be difficult to exaggerate just how important this argument is in Israel’s public relations war. The point has been repeated by:

• US politicians like Chuck Schumer & Ron DeSantis (here & here)

• Popular media personalities like Sam Harris & Scott Galloway (here & here)

• Nearly every major Jewish organization around the world (here)

• 137 former US democratic politicians in a letter sent to President Joe Biden (here)

But is it true? Short answer: No. Long Answer:

“Moral equivalence” not a legal term, it’s an emotive slogan. So, instead, let’s look at international humanitarian law, the next best thing. Two key legal principles in conflict & war are proportionality and distinction. So, how do Israel and Hamas fair on each principle?

This post will focus on distinction. Distinction requires armed groups and states alike to distinguish between civilian and military targets.

During its first seven years as a militant organization (1987-1994), Hamas directed the majority of its attacks against Israeli military targets, including in February 1989, May 1992, July 1992, October 1992 & December 1992. None of these attacks resulted in any civilian loss of life. It also killed four Israeli civilians in two attacks, one in December 1990 & on in June 1993.

During roughly this same time period, the Israeli military killed over 1,000 Palestinians civilians, the vast majority of whom posed no serious threat to the soldiers that kill them. Israeli security services frequently shot indiscriminately at civilians, such as during a December 10, 1987 protest in which Israeli soldiers fired aimlessly into a crowd of Palestinians, killing 17 year-old Hatem Abu Sisi, or on October 8, 1990, when Israeli security services slaughtered 22 unarmed Palestinian protesters.

From 1987-1994, there was indeed no moral equivalency between Hamas and Israel. Hamas had the unequivocal moral high ground on the question of distinction.

The tides turned in 1994, when Baruch Goldstein entered the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron and slaughtered 29 Palestinian worshippers. That triggered a decade long barrage of attacks during which Palestinian militants slaughtered more than 1,200 unarmed Israeli civilians from 1994-2005. Hamas deliberately targeted noncombatants in dozens of attacks on Israeli buses and cafes. The most violent period took place between September 28, 2000 and February 8, 2005, during which time Palestinian militants carried out 138 suicide attacks and killed 1,038 Israelis.

Of course, Israel also deliberately targeted Palestinian civilians during this decade-long war. Israel robbed millions of Palestinians of their sources of livelihood through its “closure” policy, imposing lockdowns on Palestinians in the occupied territories for 17 days in 1993, 64 days in 1994, 84 days in 1995, 90 days in 1996, 57 days in 1997, 14 days in 1998 and 7 days in 1999. During periods of total lockdowns in the 1990s, unemployment reached 70% in the Gaza Strip. During the early 2000s, when Israel imposed frequent lockdowns, average Palestinian incomes dropped by more than a third from 2000-2004. By 2004, nearly half of all Palestinians lived below the poverty line, while more than 600,000 people (16% of the population) could not afford even the basic necessities of subsistence. All of this was intentional. All of this was a direct result of Israel’s policy of collective punishment that made no attempt to distinguish between civilian and military targets.

Poverty is highly correlated to mortality. In one study, poverty was associated with a 42% increased risk of death. Researchers also found that persons who have spent 10 years consecutively at or below the poverty line were at a 71% increased risk of death. In other words, Israel’s war on Palestinian livelihoods had led to countless hundreds if not thousands deaths, reduced Palestinian life expectancy and prevented Palestinians from accessing life saving medical services, also resulting in loss of innocent life. Lockdowns, in a word, are lethal, and they were Israel’s standard operating procedure for more than a decade in the 1990s and 2000s.

Meanwhile, from 2000-2004, Israeli security services also killed 3,135 Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Many of those killed posed no lethal threat to Israeli soldiers but they were targeted nevertheless. On September 29, 2000, for instance, the Israeli security services killed 7 Palestinians. They shot live ammunition at Palestinian children, aiming for their heads. Ala Badran, 12, lost an eye; Mohammed Joda, 13, lay dying in the intensive care ward of Makassed Hospital in East Jerusalem; and Majdi Maslamani, 15, was already dead and buried in the cemetery of the Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina. They were civilians, and they were assassinated by Israeli soldiers.

During the period 1994-2007, both Hamas and Israel clearly violated the law of distinction. You can be a reasonable person a disagree about the moral equivalency between Israel and Hamas during this period.

Now, let’s review the period, 2007-present.

In 2007, Israel imposed a land, air and sea blockade on Gaza. International law considers any imposition of a blockade an act of war. (As does Israel, of course, which infamously regarded the Egyptian blockade of the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping as “an act of war” in the lead up to the June 1967 War.) In other words, for every second of every minute of every day of every month of every year since 2007, Israel has been waging a war on Gaza’s civilian population. Moreover, one of the principal motives behind the imposition of the blockade was “a desire to punish the people of the Gaza Strip for having elected Hamas.”

This chart illustrates the severity of the blockade:

Israel’s siege has inflicted tremendous suffering upon the civilian population in the Gaza Strip, leading 80% of households to become dependent on food aid to survive. By 2022, half of the population were forced to reduce expenses on health or utility bills (i.e. water, electricity) just to put enough food on the table. The number of Palestinians who have died slow, miserable, silent — and easily preventable — deaths owing to the blockade alone is almost certainly in the many thousands over the past sixteen years for the reasons discussed above. One of the victims was Fatimah al-Masri, a 2-year old girl who died in 2022 after Israel denied her the exit permit she needed to receive life saving medical treatment that was unavailable in Gaza owing to the blockade:

Israel also waged five military campaigns over the past sixteen years. In 2008-9, the Israeli military killed 926 civilians in Gaza, while Hamas killed 3 Israeli civilians in its indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israeli population centers. The Goldstone Report found that in 10 of 11 incidents investigated in which the Israeli military launched deadly attacks on civilians, no justifiable military objective was identified. Moreover, the report found no evidence that Hamas had deliberately fired rockets from civilian homes or stored weapons in mosques, but rather that Israeli army officials used Palestinians as human shields during their ground invasion as they entered into urban spaces. Finally, the report determined that Israel’s goal was to punish, humiliate and terrorize the civilian population of Gaza. In other words, while both Hamas and Israel targeted innocent civilians, Israel killed ~100 times more innocent civilians than Hamas.

In 2014, the Israeli military killed 1,500 civilians in Gaza, while Hamas killed 6 civilians in Israel in its indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israeli population centers. The UN investigated 15 strikes in which 216 people were killed. In 6 of the 15 strikes, no military justification was found. In other words, while both Hamas and Israel targeted innocent civilians, Israel killed ~100 times more innocent civilians than Hamas.

Let’s fast forward to October 2023. Hamas militants killed ~1,000 Israeli civilians in its October 7th attack. Human Rights Watch verified multiple videos in which Hamas militants are seen targeting Israeli civilians. Hamas officials also declared its intent to repeat October 7th “again and again.” The attack amounts to the worst war crime committed by Hamas to date. It was a massacre.

If Hamas committed a massacre — Israel responded by committed 20 such massacres. A +972 investigation found that “the army significantly expand its bombing of targets that are not distinctly military in nature. These include private residences as well as public buildings, infrastructure, and high-rise blocks.” Based on conversations with current & former members of Israel’s military intelligence & air force involved in operations in the besieged Strip, the investigation discovered that Israel’s assault on civilian targets is “mainly intended to harm Palestinian civil society: to ‘create a shock’ that, among other things, will reverberate powerfully and “lead civilians to put pressure on Hamas,” as one source put it.” We now know that the Israeli military knowingly and intentionally targets civilians. It also calculates how many Palestinians are “certain to die” in each strike.

If you do not trust the unnamed sources of +972, you can instead refer to the statements of every major Israeli political and military leader. Prime Minister Netanyahu likened the enemy to Amalek, a call to extermination 100% of the men, women, children and livestock of Gaza. Israeli President Isaac Herzog declared the “entire nation” responsible for October 7th. The Palestinians would not receive a drop of water or “until they leave the world,” according to Energy Minister Israel Katz. Palestinian civilians were said to be “partners in terrorism” and “human animals.” The list goes on and on and on. The calls to murder every last human being in Gaza continue at the time of writing among senior Israeli politicians and military officials.

Israel has carried out its campaign of mass murder with great vigor and no remorse. Israel has already slaughtered 15,000-20,000 innocent Palestinian civilians. It has uprooted 1.7M from their homes, forcing many into open air shelters and camps, waiting 5-10 hours a day for a piece of bread. People do not know where their next drop of fresh water will come from or when their next meal will be. Israeli leaders have declared their intent to create conditions of life calculated to destroy every last human being in Gaza, and they’ve carried out a campaign of total siege and unrelenting aerial bombardment calculated to make Gaza unlivable, not for Hamas, but for all of its 2.3M people.

Both Israel and Hamas have failed repeatedly to distinguish between civilian and military targets. From 1987-1994, Hamas had the clear moral high ground. From 1994-2005, neither Israel nor Hamas had the clear moral high ground. And, from 2007-2023, while both Israel and Hamas failed to live up the principle of distinction, Israel’s violations of law of distinct has resulted in 1-2 orders of magnitude more destruction, disability and death on the Palestinian side.

Alas, perhaps there is no moral equivalency between Israel and Hamas.