"Shoot the Hostage!"
Dismantling the human shield rationale of Israel's supporters and genocide apologists
“Pop quiz, hot shot! Terrorist holding a police hostage got enough dynamite strapped to his chest to blow a building in half! Now what do you do!?”
If you are an IDF soldier, then the answer to this once complicated scenario is actually quite simple - obliterate the hostage (or human shield, as seen in the example above, taken from the 1994 movie, Speed).
In this example, we see LAPD detective Harry Temple (Jeff Bridges) in the position of human shield for terrorist Howard Payne (played by the always brilliant Dennis Hopper) to hide behind. Knowing the precarity of his position, Temple offers a limb up as sacrifice.
“Shoot the hostage!” he demands of his partner, fellow LAPD officer Jack Traven (Keanu Reeves).
After a moment’s hesitation, Traven acknowledges the rationale behind Temple’s demand, and obligingly shoots him in the leg (though a little too high up for Temple’s liking).
Unfortunately for our brave heroes, it wasn’t as simple as that. With all that dynamite strapped to his chest, and his finger on the trigger, Traven cannot just put a bullet in Payne’s head. All he can do is order the terrorist to give himself up. But that is not an option either. Knowing that he has all the power, Payne is safe to exit through the door behind him, a comically maniacal laugh a signifier of his diabolical victory.
In the following scene, we see Temple, aided by a walking stick, still unhappy with Traven for shooting him so perilously close to his cojones. But how little did Temple know. If this scenario would have taken place today, Temple could be expected to be shot in the chest, head, and, after the terrorist has escaped, grenaded.
Jokes aside, the answer to Payne’s “pop quiz,” if put to the IDF, would be to kill the hostage/human shield. For nearly two years now, this has been the rationale and justification for a continuing number of civilian casualties that go well beyond what can be expected as “collateral damage,” which is a disgusting term in itself, that is only ever applied to a population that has been thoroughly dehumanised. In a sane world, not a single civilian casualty should be accepted, but this is not a sane world.
In acknowledgement of this fact, we can only deal with the reality in which we live. For Israel’s supporters and genocide apologists, it is Hamas’ fault for embedding themselves within a civilian population. Well, assuming that this is true (and as followers of my substack will know, I’m no fan of Hamas or Islamic fundamentalist groups, or any other groups of religious fanatics for that matter, including Zionists), the question still remains - when exactly did it become the norm to obliterate the human shield? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, using the most extreme analogy I can think of. If Adolf Hitler himself, at any point, was holed up in a hospital, a school, or just an ordinary apartment block, amongst a civilian population of mainly women and children, then guess what? You don’t bomb the buildings. Unfortunately, you have to find another way. And what makes this even worse, as I also continuously point out, Israel has proved time and again that they are capable of sophisticated political assassinations.
Some basic facts need to be acknowledged here:
Ignoring the word “genocide” for a moment, to speak in the language of liberal media outlets such as the BBC, the extent of civilian deaths in Gaza would not be lamented as a simple wrongdoing if the civilian population had been predominantly white.
The fact that Palestinians continue to be killed en masse on a daily basis, after two years almost, is evidence of a desensitisation to extreme violence inflicted on non-white populations. Dare I say that if a similar number of civilian deaths were being recorded in Ukraine then all-out war between Russia and the West would have long since broken out.
The evidence of desensitisation to such violence is in itself evidence of dehumanisation. Only can such extreme violence, broadcast around the world, including images of dead children, killed in the most horrific of ways, be tolerated as a “wrongdoing” if that population had not already been dehumanised.
Also, some speculations we can assume to be a safe bet:
If Israel had negotiated for the hostages, and secured their release in the days after the 7th October attacks, which was entirely possible, and THEN proceeded with their genocidal onslaught, the response to Israel’s terror would have been the same. This is important, as it dismantles the absurd argument that Israel was left with no choice other than to embark on a total destruction of Gaza.
Israel could have chosen to target specific Hamas personnel via assassination, something they have proven to be capable of for decades, either before or after securing the release of hostages. This, to my mind, would have been the most logical reaction in the eyes of Israel’s geo-political allies, and would have left their standing on the world stage as it was pre-7th October 2023. Which was still pretty bad, but not to the extent to which it is now.
In summary, then, Israel have set a new precedent, legitimising the targeting of civilians as common practice in warfare. This has been done by legitimising the eradication of the human shield as a means to achieving a set goal - the capturing or killing of a specific target.
As for their supporters and apologists, these people are guilty of seeing Palestinians as being of lesser value than that of, say, Ukrainians. They have also endorsed and legitimised the idea of eradicating the human shield in the event of a human shield scenario. For Harry Temple in Speed, this would have resulted in his unfortunate, but necessary, death. And that decision wouldn’t even be up for debate.