by Walter E. Block, Oded J.K. Faran
Only when Israel defends itself does the world erupt in outrage.
On October 7, 2023, a day that will forever live in infamy, Israel was blamed for the atrocity before the IDF had fired a single defensive shot. Thirty-one student organizations at Harvard infamously made this charge, with numerous other groups piling on in support of this perverse accusation.
Hours later, when the Israeli military did begin its defensive operations, the outrage intensified exponentially. Critics excoriated Israel for responding to the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, even though every action was taken in self-defense to ensure that “never again” would such a calamity befall the Jewish state. Israel was determined to cease being the punching bag of its neighbors in the Middle East.
The list of pundits, editorialists, journalists, and commentators who castigated Israel for defending itself grew a mile long. The mainstream press (the New York Times, The Washington Post, NBC, CBS, and the rest) dismissed the few dissenting voices as being in the pay of Zionists or, perhaps even worse, being themselves actual Zionists and fellow travelers.
The Executions the Media Ignored
More recently, Hamas has been killing Palestinians. This is not a typographical error. According to Donald Trump’s 20-point peace proposal, Hamas was supposed to disarm, though nothing of the sort has occurred. Several Palestinian family clans, believing that Hamas was receding from power, attempted to take over policing functions and serve as an interim government. This was a fatal miscalculation.
Hamas would tolerate no such challenge to its authority. Members of these Palestinian clans were forced to kneel in the street and shot execution-style in the back of the head. The message was clear: Any Palestinian who dared disrespect Hamas would suffer the same fate. As of mid-October 2025, multiple sources report that at least 33 men have been killed in these public executions.
Wait a moment. Weren’t we told that killing Palestinians is unconscionable? Didn’t virtually all news media proclaim this? Where, then, was the outrage at this wanton slaughter? Where were the 31 Harvard student groups? Where were the New York Times editorials decrying genocide against Palestinians? Where was the massive international outcry?
Nowhere. The outrage was reserved exclusively for the IDF when it killed Palestinians in defensive military operations. The anti-Zionist Jewish organizations (American Council for Judaism, IfNotNow, Jewish Voice for Peace) that relentlessly accused the IDF of killing Palestinians disproportionately? Not a peep from them about Hamas executing Palestinians in cold blood.
A Pattern of Selective Outrage
This is hardly the first time Palestinians have been killed without provoking global protests. When King Hussein of Jordan invited large numbers of Palestinians into his kingdom, they repaid his hospitality by attempting to topple him from his throne in what became known as Black September. In September 1970, the Jordanian Armed Forces launched a massive assault on Palestinian refugee camps and strongholds. Thousands of Palestinians were killed in the resulting conflict. Estimates vary widely: Jordan’s official count was around 3,000, whereas PLO leader Yasser Arafat claimed that 25,000 Palestinians were killed. Most historians place the number between 2,000 and 3,400.
Was there worldwide outrage? There was not. The event became notorious among Palestinians and led to the formation of the terrorist Black September Organization, but the international community largely remained silent about the Jordanian killing of Palestinians.
The pattern is unmistakable: When Jews defend themselves against those who would annihilate them, the world erupts in condemnation. When anyone else kills Palestinians, silence reigns.
The Moral Chasm
Consider the stark contrast in methods. When the IDF operates in Gaza, it strives mightily to limit targets to actual terrorists and minimize civilian casualties. Israel expends enormous effort limiting collateral damage, an almost unavoidable aspect of warfare made exponentially more difficult because Hamas deliberately uses Gazan civilians as human shields by placing military installations in schools, hospitals, and residential areas.
Hamas, in sharp contrast, has been killing Gazan civilians in two distinct ways since October 8, 2023, and hardly a word of condemnation has been uttered by Israel’s critics.
First, indirectly, by using civilians as shields (a tactic even the Nazis found abhorrent). In these cases, IDF bullets and bombs may be the proximate cause of death, but the moral responsibility rests entirely with Hamas.
Second, directly, as in the recent executions of clan members. Here it was Hamas guns, not those of the IDF, that murdered these Palestinians in cold blood. Video footage verified by Reuters and other international media showed masked Hamas gunmen forcing men to their knees and shooting them in the back of the head in public squares.
The Inescapable Conclusion
The world (at least its antisemitic portions) continues its silence. We are thus entitled to infer that it is entirely legitimate for Hamas to murder Palestinians, but woe betide Israel when it engages in defensive military action to protect its citizens from those committed to its destruction.
This double-standard is not merely hypocritical. It reveals something far darker: a worldview in which Jewish self-defense is uniquely illegitimate, in which Jewish blood is cheap, and in which those who slaughter Jews bear no moral responsibility for the consequences of their actions.
When the criterion for condemning the killing of Palestinians is not the act itself, but rather the identity of those doing the killing, we are no longer discussing legitimate criticism of military tactics or concern for civilian casualties. We are witnessing naked antisemitism dressed in the language of human rights.
The silence that greets Hamas’s execution of Palestinians speaks louder than any protest ever could. It confirms what many have long suspected: For much of the world, the only unforgivable act is Jewish self-defense.
Image via Pxbarn.
Walter E. Block, Oded J.K. Faran
Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2026/01/hamas_gets_a_pass_for_killing_palestinians.html
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