Lately, I’ve seen a growing number of Israeli voices accusing people of hypocrisy — specifically, those who condemn the genocide of Gaza but express satisfaction when Israel is attacked.
Their argument goes something like this: “If you’re against the destruction of one civilisation, you should be against the destruction of all civilisations.”
It sounds reasonable on the surface. But dig even slightly deeper, and you realise it’s a false equivalence — and a dangerous one.
These two situations are not morally similar. In fact, they couldn’t be more different. One is the calculated oppression and mass murder of a civilian population that has been brutalised for generations. The other is a nation responding to an illegal and unprovoked attack with proportionate force.
To put it plainly: there is no moral ambiguity here.
Occupation Is Not Defence
When people condemn Israel, they are not doing so arbitrarily. They are reacting to decades of violent occupation, systemic apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and the routine killing of Palestinian civilians. These aren’t just opinions — they are well-documented realities, confirmed by human rights groups and international law.
You don’t have to be a scholar or legal expert to recognise injustice when you see it. People around the world, regardless of their government’s position, are watching a state commit crimes against a defenceless, stateless population. Of course they are outraged.
So when Israel bombs Gaza — killing families, flattening homes, destroying hospitals — that is not “defence.” That is the behaviour of a colonial power enforcing domination through brute force.
The Right to Resist
Now contrast that with a nation like Iran retaliating after an Israeli airstrike hits its diplomatic mission — a clear violation of international law. Iran’s response, whether you agree with it or not, is entirely different in nature. It is a direct, proportionate retaliation against military targets, not a campaign of ethnic cleansing against civilians.
International law recognises the right of people under occupation to resist and sovereign nations to defend themselves against foreign invaders. When the oppressed strike back or a nation retaliates — whether through diplomacy, protest, or even armed struggle — it may be uncomfortable to watch, but it is not the same as the violence of the oppressor or the aggressor.
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Moral Clarity Isn’t Hypocrisy
Feeling grief for the oppressed and relief — even a grim satisfaction — when the oppressor faces consequences is not hypocrisy. It is moral consistency.
This would be like accusing a Brit in the early 1940s of being hypocritical for mourning the Blitz but not the bombing of Dresden. It’s absurd. We don’t treat the violence of Nazis and those who resisted them as morally equivalent — nor should we.
Israel is not the victim in this story. It is the aggressor, the occupier, the coloniser. And in that role, it should expect the same global outrage and consequences that any oppressive regime would face.
To pretend otherwise is not a call for peace — it’s a defence of impunity.
