Incentivising War Crimes: The High Cost of International Humanitarianism – Thomas Wells
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But rebels have ways to push governments over the edge into the moral abyss, and a clear incentive to do so. They can set out deliberately to provoke such a moral breakdown by escalating their guerilla war tactics to the point where the domestic political pain for the government is so great that they will do almost anything to end it. Thus, after Hamas’ performatively brutal assault on Israeli civilians in October 2023, Netanyahu’s government threw out Israel’s usual restraints on the use of its overwhelming military force – and Hamas had achieved its goal. Positive international attention has flowed to Hamas by the mechanism of sympathy via antipathy, while Israel has lost international standing, connections, and alliances it spent decades building up. The deaths and maimings of Palestinian civilians are merely a means to an end, a price Hamas is willing to pay. The supply of angry young men to recruit from has never been higher.
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Incentivising War Crimes: The High Cost of International Humanitarianism
