Denial of Mass Atrocities and How Perpetrators Group Evade Accusations: The Case of Israel

ABSTRACT Israel's response to the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, has been considered by many international agencies such as the United Nations and the International Court of Justice as violating human rights and international law. However, Israel denied such accusations and is very confident in its innocence and does not attempt to halt the alleged wrongdoing. In this article, by understanding the socio‐historical context of Israeli‐Palestinian relations, the social construction of knowledge regarding good and evil, and how “inhumane acts” are justified and normalized, we learn that the ways in which violence emerges and how it can be stopped is influenced by many aspects, including macro, meso, and micro level factors that are interconnected. Furthermore, power relations also play a critical role in dictating knowledge of who is on the right side and who is not. In this manuscript, we discuss the case of Israel's recent invasion of Gaza by highlighting that what is considered human rights violations can be politicized and dictated, thus leading to debates about whether Israel's actions are right or wrong. This indicates that having evidence of war crimes or human rights violations alone is not enough to charge a perpetrator group for its wrongdoings.