Joe Hildebrand: Israel has to defend itself but there’s no justice in recklessly bombing civilians

I am a strong supporter of Israel and want Hamas wiped from the face of the planet, but they are going the wrong way in their pursuit of what should be a righteous goal, writes Joe Hildebrand.

Exactly 25 years ago a book appeared called “Unrestricted Warfare” or “Warfare Beyond Bounds”.

It suggested that in order to serve a cause or national interest, conventional methods of attack should be expanded to include every possible means of causing harm to the enemy.

Nothing would be off the table. No one would be safe. All that mattered was that the objective of the warmonger was achieved regardless of how many innocents died.

This is of course the logic and language of terrorism – and terrorism was indeed one of the methods sanctioned by the authors. But they were not from al-Qa’ida or ISIS. They were senior military figures from the People’s Republic of China.

Moreover, the book was published – in the original Chinese – by the People’s Liberation Army Literature and Arts Publishing House, which is apparently a thing.

Needless to say when an English translation emerged it caused a bit of a stir.

Of course war is always deadly and innocents are inevitably among that number, but that is a very different thing to the deliberate targeting of such innocents.

Zomi Frankcom, Australian Aid worker with World Central Kitchen, was killed in an Israeli air-strike in Northern Gaza. Picture: LinkedIn

Even in the depths of the horrors of World War II when Britain was being bombarded by the Luftwaffe and Nazis were killing Jews in their millions, there were still Allied leaders who fretted over the civilian toll in cities like Hamburg and Dresden, let alone Tokyo and Hiroshima.

That was a total war without bounds; it consumed all rules. Since then, under the shadow of the atomic bomb, there has been a global understanding that even war must have its limits.

And this is what made the emergence of what was seemingly an officially sanctioned Chinese manifesto so alarming.

It is one thing for a rogue terrorist organisation to declare there should be no rules in war. It is quite another for a nation state to do it.

This naturally brings us to Israel and the awful death of an Australian aid worker this week. Of course Zomi Frankcom is not alone. She is one of seven humanitarian workers from World Central Kitchen who were killed by an Israeli air strike on their convoy in Gaza.

And she joins thousands – now tens of thousands – of Gazans also killed in Israel’s response to the reprehensible October 7 attack.

To be clear, Israel had every right and duty to respond to that atrocity. If such a brutal and cruel assault had been enacted against Australian women and children I have no doubt there would be almost unlimited thirst for retribution.

And I have no doubt Israel did not intend to target aid workers when it killed Frankcom and her colleagues.

This aerial picture shows people gathered around a destroyed building following Israeli bombing on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Picture: Said Khatib/AFP

Even the morality aside, the cold clear logic is it has been immensely damaging to its own cause and the support of its ever-dwindling allies.

But these deaths, the thousands of others, and the collapse in international solidarity are nonetheless a tragedy entirely of Israel’s own making. Or, rather, that of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s increasingly Quixotic leadership.

There is no doubt the kneejerk calls for Israel to show restraint in the immediate aftermath of the October 7 atrocities were ridiculous and offensive. Hamas-adjacent leftie luvvies veritably flooded the back line to defend what was indefensible.

But equally true is that after denying international aid and pressing into Rafah days and weeks after warnings of apocalyptic consequences, Israel has also charged like the proverbial China shop bull into a morally indefensible position.

The fact that in a phone call to our own PM, Netanyahu acknowledged culpability – he is not a man who apologises – is proof enough of that. Unfortunately admitting the f--k up won’t bring Zomi or her colleagues back.

I am a strong supporter of Israel and Australia’s Jewish community. I believe their homeland has a right to exist, has a right to defend itself and is a rare outpost of democracy in the Arab world.

And I want Hamas wiped from the face of the planet.

But there is no justice in the death of these aid workers, nor in the reckless bombing of civilian populations to achieve what ought to be a righteous goal.

I know Hamas hides behind human shields, has infected innumerable Gazan institutions, and has no qualms about using and fuelling innocent deaths to promote its status of victimhood.

But if Israel wants to fight against that then it needs to be better than that. It cannot decry base ruthlessness while at the same time deploying base recklessness.

Yes, it is a double-standard, but it is the most important one.

Do decent states – like decent people – lower themselves to the standards of their indecent enemies? Or are they, as they would see themselves, truly something better?

In ancient times Israel was a beacon of peace and justice. It needs to urgently remember what it is supposed to be fighting for.

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Originally published as Joe Hildebrand: Israel has to defend itself but there’s no justice in recklessly bombing civilians