Jacob Lew, who served as U.S. ambassador to Israel under President Joe Biden, recently spoke with The New Yorker’s Isaac Chotiner, offering what can only be described as a shameless defense of Washington’s Gaza policy, if ever there was one. Lew even suggested that “the Trump White House could learn from its predecessor” in handling this catastrophe. By this, he meant that when Israel committed yet another atrocity, Biden officials would sometimes call their counterparts “in the middle of the night” demanding “explanations.”
What caught the attention of many readers, however, was Lew’s casual contrast of “the children of Hamas fighters” with other “children taking cover in places.” The implication was unmistakable: that the killing of children could be justified if that regrettable fate fell upon the sons and daughters of “terrorists.” In fact, the contrast was so startling that Chotiner could not resist interrupting Lew, pressing him to clarify “what follows from” this “explanation.” He reminded the former ambassador that under international law, the identity of the civilians is irrelevant, especially when they are children.
Of course, identifying the victims as “the children of Hamas fighters” could never justify their killings; yet, perhaps, it could “explain” them, in a very specific and technical sense of the word. In response to Chotiner’s reminder, Lew emphasized the supposed “complexity” of the matter. He explained that in those midnight calls to Israeli officials, he would try to “get more detail” as though the task were to determine whether the children killed had truly deserved their miserable fate. And, importantly, Lew would tell the Israeli officials that “they have to be able to explain these things.”
It is important to note that the demand from Israel has always been for explanations, and explanations only. And for all its faults, Israel has rarely failed to deliver on that front. After all, the Hebrew word for the state of Israel’s official doctrine of public relations, “hasbara,” is usually translated as “explanation” – and it is really this technical sense of the word “explanation” that Lew must have in mind when he talked about demanding “explanations” from Israel. But what exactly might be the purpose of this strange demand?
It is natural to assume that explanations are not demanded for the direct consumption of those who issue those demands. Rather, those who demand explanations, instead of seriously engaging with them, simply seek to make their public consume them. And, of course, the media and press dutifully make this transmission possible. For a recent example, in their coverage of Israel’s “double tap” attack on Naser Hospital in Gaza (specifically intended to kill medics and journalists), many of these institutions and corporations chose, once again, to take seriously the absurd Israeli claim which, in this case, was so preposterous as to be embarrassing: namely, that the occupation was actually targeting a “Hamas camera” near the hospital.
As absurd as the claim may be, it apparently met the accepted standards for a good “explanation.” Occasionally, expectations appear to rise at least on the surface, especially when Israel commits a particularly notorious atrocity that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may later refer to as a “mishap.” Yet in the end, even absurd explanations are considered better than no explanation at all. This is the real standard.
One important aspect of this attitude has to do with how it reshapes the perception of scandals in general. With the focus placed on explanations rather than on the events those explanations are meant to illuminate, actual atrocities come to be seen as less scandalous than the absence of an explanation for them, for example. And this is perhaps why Netanyahu keeps warning that Israel is “losing the public relations war.” If so, however, the remedy should be obvious: fewer atrocities without an explanation and more atrocities with an explanation. In other words, one ought not to commit too many atrocities, but if it happens nonetheless, one ought to try to “explain them away.”
