Self Defense Should Not Be So Offensive

When I firebomb your house, killing you, your spouse, your three children and 7 grandchildren, is it possible the court would find me not guilty based upon a self defense argument because you killed my child a month ago? Very likely not.

What exactly is self defense? And what isn’t?

It would surely be my right to defend myself and my child during the period of time that you were actively attacking them, or even when the attack was imminent. But, after the attack was over and you no longer posed an imminent or active threat, my legal right to harm you would not exist.

“The mainstream view in international law is that the only legitimate aim of self-defense is halting and repelling an ongoing armed attack, or perhaps preventing an imminent armed attack. Typically, the total destruction of the enemy would not be necessary to achieve that goal,” Adil Haque, a law professor at Rutgers University in the United States, told CNN, according to Egypt Independent.

Despite the repeated narrative, driven by the President and VP of the US, other US government officials from the State Department and Department of Defense, and the western media, among others, that Israel has the right to self defense and the “duty” to defend the people of Israel in relation to the Hamas attack on October 7, that right, if it indeed existed at all, ended a long time ago.

Based upon a reasonable understanding of the right to self defense, Israel’s “right to defend itself” ended when the Hamas attack ended.

Israel already defended itself, during the attack that began on October 7. And did so quite poorly. Catastrophically poorly, in fact.

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) failed to protect the people of Israel. And not only did it fail in its mission to “defend” Israeli citizens, but it actively attacked them as it attacked perceived Hamas gunmen. Israel killed an unknown number of kibbutz members, festival goers, Israeli residents, hostages, and potential hostages, all counted among the 695 Israeli citizens killed on October 7.

Almost nothing the IDF has done since 10/7 has been defensive, and all of it has been offensive. In every sense of that word.

Bombing and destroying buildings and killing their occupants when there is no attack being launched from said buildings, depriving hundreds of thousands of safe shelter, is not self defense. It is offensive.

Creating the conditions of starvation by blockading a nation, stopping sufficient food from entering, bombing bakeries, denying power and fuel for cooking, destroying agricultural land, preventing farmers from harvesting their crops, disrupting the work of aid groups and killing relief agency workers is not self defense. It is offensive.

Attacking medical systems and hospitals, killing doctors and hospital staff, sniping nurses and patients, bombing ambulances, killing and burying people sheltering on hospital property, denying power and fuel for hospital operation, blockading medical supplies, rounding up and interrogating hospital staff is not self defense. It is offensive.

Denying an entire population clean water by cutting off water supplies that you control, cutting off electricity and fuel to prevent water pumps from working, bombing desalinization plants, destroying water and sewage treatment facilities and water distribution and sewage systems is not self defense. It is offensive.

Parading stripped men and boys through the streets, blindfolding them, binding them, interrogating them, torturing them, forcing them to act out false surrender scenarios for the camera, and in some reported cases, summary execution of individuals, is not self defense. It is offensive.

Firing over 100,000 tank shells, in addition to tens of thousands of tons of bombs and missiles, into an area the size of Philadelphia, bombing and explosive demolition of historic sites, of mosques, of universities, bulldozing of monuments, and destruction of cemeteries is not self defense. It is offensive.

Displacing 1.9 million people, many of them multiple times, telling them to move to safe places, then bombing those safe places, then telling them to move to other safe places and bombing those safe places, is not self defense. It is offensive.

Killing 8000 children and counting, including premature babies in incubators, is not self defense. It is offensive.

Bombing schools that have turned in to refuges for the displaced, killing teachers and UN employees, assassinating professors and other academics, is not self defense. It is offensive.

Cutting off the electricity for an entire population, preventing fuel for power plants, bombing power infrastructure, destroying internet and cellular infrastructure, is not self defense. It is offensive.

Targeting reporters with bombs, missiles and gunfire, bombing their homes and killing them and their families, and destroying dozens of media offices, no matter how many times the western media calls it “self defense,” is not self defense. It is offensive.

Even “destroying Hamas” cannot be considered self defense. You can’t defend yourself against a possible, or even likely future threat. You can only defend yourself against an active or an imminent attack.

In addition to all of this there is the issue of Israel being the occupying force that controls Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. Under international law, an occupying power has the responsibility to provide for the safety and protection of the people under occupation. When the occupying force is also the aggressor in a genocidal campaign against the occupied, it is the world’s responsibility and legal duty to step in. The US is actively preventing this as it fully backs the genocide taking place.

Genocide is not self defense. Bombing people not actively engaged in an attack against you is not self defense. Starving a population is not self defense. Murdering children is not self defense.

It is offensive.