The killing of five jour­nal­ists in a tent in Gaza this week is a cru­el les­son for world lead­ers who have played along far too long with Israel’s “right­eous vic­tim” shield: what you do out of fear is what you become.

The tar­get­ed assas­si­na­tion, in and of itself a clar­i­on announce­ment by the Israeli author­i­ties that what they fear most is expo­sure of the way their immoral, delib­er­ate­ly cru­el poli­cies and behav­iour are remak­ing Israel in their own image, was wide­ly condemned.
But the oppro­bri­um, con­se­quences and demands for jus­tice have been nowhere near the lev­el they would have reached if the vic­tims had been a lead­ing U.S. net­work cor­re­spon­dent and colleagues.
Israel claimed, with­out offer­ing any proof, that the intend­ed vic­tim, Al-Jazeera’s  pre­em­i­nent Gaza cor­re­spon­dent Anas al-Sharif, was a Hamas oper­a­tive. Nor did it accuse the jour­nal­ists who died with him of ties to militants.
What­ev­er the truth, five for one is at least four counts of murder.
Accord­ing to the Inter­na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists, “since the begin­ning of the war in Gaza, at least 195 jour­nal­ists and media work­ers have been killed, dozens have been injured and oth­ers are missing.”
Not even the Israelis dis­pute that many of them were delib­er­ate­ly tar­get­ed, or that there were “col­lat­er­al dam­age” victims.
Yet, West­ern gov­ern­ments con­tin­ue to sup­ply Israel with weapon­ry it con­sis­tent­ly deploys in vio­la­tion not only in terms of sale or dona­tion,  but any­thing resem­bling its claim to be “the most moral army in the world”.
Moral?
A state­ment by 19 EU and oth­er Nations said that “human­i­tar­i­an suf­fer­ing in Gaza has reached unimag­in­able lev­els” and warned that “Israel’s rules for aid-giv­ing NGOs will exac­er­bate it.”
The  prof­fered solu­tion was to implore the Israeli author­i­ties to facil­i­tate “the imme­di­ate entry of wide­spread aid into Gaza via the U.N. and inter­na­tion­al NGOs” and stop using “lethal force” against des­per­ate Gazans at aid sites.
Be it ever so bland, there’s no place like diplomacy.

                                    HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH?

Sure­ly the tip­ping point between that and an arms embar­go, inter­na­tion­al finance restric­tions, and any oth­er pun­ish­ment or deter­rent short of armed inter­ven­tion, to make the Israeli gov­ern­ment wor­thy of the place it claims in the world, has come.
In the spir­it  of  “Nev­er Again” would there be wan­ton and unchecked per­se­cu­tion of the Jew­ish peo­ple, the civilised world turned a blind eye and ignored inter­na­tion­al laws and  human­i­tar­i­an principles.
Approx­i­mate­ly three quar­ters of all Pales­tini­ans liv­ing in what are now the inter­na­tion­al­ly recog­nised bor­ders of Israel were vio­lent­ly expelled from their homes “…by Zion­ist mili­tias and the new Israeli army dur­ing the state of Israel’s estab­lish­ment (1947).”
The west­ern world accept­ed it.
Today, it’s called eth­nic cleansing.
The Irgun and Stern gangs who fought for an inde­pen­dent Israeli state were ter­ror­ists by anyone’s definition.
In one attack in April 1948, the gangs “killed 250 per­sons of whom half, by their own admis­sion to Amer­i­can cor­re­spon­dents, were women and children.”
At one point Men­achem Begin led one gang, Yitzhak Shamir the oth­er. With the Holo­caust in mind, no west­ern nation brought that up as a rea­son they should not both become, in lat­er years, Prime Min­is­ter of Israel.
Holo­caust denial, anti-Semi­tism and Nazi­ism are abhor­rent, and in some cas­es crimes, in civilised society.
Hamas has been con­demned as ter­ror­ists and murders.
How much more lee­way does Israel deserve?
The answer is: not what is being demand­ed.
What was excus­able or tol­er­at­ed in the imme­di­ate after­math  of the hor­rors of the Holo­caust out of which Israel is his­to­ry, not a blue­print in perpetuity.
It is time for both Israelis and Pales­tini­ans to move on.
And the only place to go is two states, with secu­ri­ty guar­an­tees for both, and a defin­i­tive sidelin­ing of the right-wing extrem­ists in the Israeli cab­i­net, and  any­one else who refus­es to accept it on ide­o­log­i­cal or reli­gious grounds.
The Oslo Accords, signed by both the Israeli gov­ern­ment and the Pales­tin­ian Author­i­ty, “estab­lished a peace process for the Israeli-Pales­tin­ian con­flict through a mutu­al­ly nego­ti­at­ed two-state solu­tion.”
Cana­da, France the UK and oth­ers have said they are plan­ning to recog­nise a Pales­tin­ian state at the UN in September.
They seem to feel that’s admirable and some­how adequate.
In the view of Hugh Lovatt, an expert on the con­flict at the Euro­pean Coun­cil on For­eign Rela­tions, it could strength­en moves to pre­vent Israeli annex­a­tion of Gaza, but needs to include “prac­ti­cal steps.”
Recog­ni­tion of a Pales­tin­ian state and Israel cheek-by-respect­ful-jowl, instead of airstrike- to-ter­ror­ist-attack, is not clear cut. It is not per­fect. It will not be quick, or easy.
But every­thing else the apol­o­gists, naysay­ers, ide­al­ists, hand-wringers, moral cow­ards, war­mon­gers and dogged­ly ded­i­cat­ed diplo­mats, have dreamt up or tried, has failed.
The evi­dence that it is the only moral way out of the mad­ness, is what’s left of a tent and the jour­nal­ists who died try­ing to show the world why it is well past time to accept it, or become what you fear.

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