The global onslaught against Israel

( With thanks to Melanie Philips. For her full article go to https://tinyurl.com/yz2tnntj) Israel made a major and tragic error. It killed seven aid workers when it fired three precision missiles in succession at a three-car convoy belonging to the humanitarian agency World Central Kitchen (WCK) that was on its way to deliver supplies to Gaza civilians. Although an IDF inquiry has yet to explain what happened, the Israelis have acknowledged a terrible mistake caused by “misidentification”. Bad things happen in war and this was a dreadful tragedy. But the malice of the response is astonishing. Israel is being accused of having deliberately targeted the aid convoy, which allegedly proves that Israel has no concerns about civilian deaths, no heart and no conscience. WCK’s response has gone far beyond justifiable anger and horror, defaming Israel with baseless and incendiary charges. The organisation’s chief executive, Erin Gore, accused Israel of a “targeted attack” designed to deter aid agencies working in Gaza and of using food “as a weapon of war”. WCK’s founder, José Andrés, accused Israel of targeting his workers “systematically, car by car”. But that wasn’t because the IDF wanted to kill humanitarian workers with whom it had previously worked closely to deliver aid to Gaza. It was because the three cars were all “misidentified” in the same awful error. In the fog of war, “friendly fire” fiascos are unfortunately all too common. Yet this was not acknowledged in the world’s response. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said America was “outraged”. President Joe Biden said he was “heartbroken” and that Israel “has not done enough” to protect civilians. Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said “far too many aid workers and ordinary civilians have lost their lives in Gaza, and the situation is increasingly intolerable”. The UK Foreign Secretary, Lord Cameron, said the aid workers’ deaths were “completely unacceptable”. This is hypocrisy and selective amnesia. Both the US and the UK have caused similar tragic errors in wartime in which many more than seven lives were lost. In an incident in 2011, during the NATO intervention in Libya about which then-Prime Minister Cameron was extremely gung-ho, 13 civilians including ambulance workers were wiped out. In 2006, US troops in Iraq mistakenly killed aid workers in Mosul. In 2008, they killed dozens at an Afghan wedding party, including the bride. Both the Biden administration and the British government have seized on the aid convoy tragedy to buttress their claims that Israel is killing “too many civilians” in Gaza and thwarting supplies of aid. These are lies. Even if Hamas’s implausible casualty figures are to be believed, Israel is killing around 1.3 civilians for every combatant — a vastly smaller proportion of civilians killed in warfare than has been achieved by any other army in the world.