Beyond the Pale: McMahan on Peace in Gaza

Abstract In the course of responding to my article ‘Peace in Gaza’, Jeff McMahan claims that if Hamas has by its conduct on 7 October 2023 placed itself beyond the pale of dialogue and negotiation then the same must be true of Israel because everything horrendous that Hamas has done, Israel has also done, usually to a much greater extent. This article rebuts this claim by focusing on three issues: sexual and gender based violence (SGBV), terrorism, and genocide. On all three measures, Hamas’s conduct has been markedly worse, and there is no basis to the charge that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza. McMahan argues that Israel must address the basic injustice that is the root cause of the conflict and that it can do that if it were now unilaterally to facilitate the establishment of a Palestinian state. This approach is shown to be unworkable.