How impunity became Israeli policy

What we are witnessing, from Gaza to southern Lebanon and from Jenin to the skies over Syria, is not a chain of disconnected crises. It is a single political doctrine expressed across multiple arenas: the normalization of impunity as Israeli state policy. This doctrine is no longer incidental or reactive. Under Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership, it has become ideological, strategic and brutally consistent — protected by an international system that has confused restraint with surrender and diplomacy with abdication of responsibility.

The repeated claim that Israel is acting defensively no longer withstands serious scrutiny. Defense implies proportion, necessity and accountability. What we see instead is a model of power that treats force as a governing principle, civilian harm as acceptable leverage and international law as an obstacle to be neutralized rather than a framework to be respected. When violations are repeated across borders and years without consequence, they stop being violations. They become policy.

Gaza stands as the clearest and most devastating example. The sheer scale of destruction — entire urban districts erased, critical infrastructure dismantled, mass starvation and displacement engineered through siege — cannot be explained as unfortunate byproducts of war. They reflect conscious political decisions taken by a government whose senior figures openly reject restraint, demonize international institutions and frame annihilation as a necessity.

Netanyahu’s coalition, dominated by far-right and messianic actors, has abandoned even the pretense of proportionality. In its place stands an ideology that sees unchecked force not as a last resort but as a historic mission.

Netanyahu’s coalition, dominated by far-right and messianic actors, has abandoned even the pretense of proportionality

Hani Hazaimeh

Yet Gaza did not mark a rupture. It marked a culmination.

Southern Lebanon is now increasingly drawn into the same logic. Villages are struck, civilians displaced and escalation normalized under the language of deterrence. Each attack is presented as preemptive, unavoidable and rational. But collectively, they demonstrate an alarming pattern: borders are treated as suggestions, civilian zones as negotiable and international warnings as noise. This is not deterrence, it is doctrine. And it is built on the certainty that consequences will not follow.

The West Bank offers a slower but equally revealing illustration. Here, impunity is granular and intimate. Armed settlers — many ideologically aligned with Netanyahu’s political partners — carry out attacks on Palestinian communities with near-total protection. Homes are burned, land seized and lives taken. Israeli forces stand by or participate, while ministers justify, excuse or outright celebrate the violence. This is not a breakdown of law and order, it is the ideological weaponization of it. The absence of accountability is structured, deliberate and politically useful.

Syria, too, has become a permissive arena. Regular airstrikes are described as routine security measures, sovereignty is treated as irrelevant and civilian harm is rarely acknowledged. That these attacks provoke little more than ritual statements only reinforces a dangerous belief within Israel’s leadership: that military privilege grants legal immunity. When rule-breaking meets indifference, escalation becomes the rational choice.

At the center of all this stands Netanyahu — a leader who has transformed Israel’s security doctrine into a survival strategy for his own political future. Facing domestic crisis, corruption charges and sustained public protest, he has leaned ever further into extremism, forging alliances with figures who openly reject equality, international law and democratic constraints. War has become a mechanism of political cohesion. Fear has become governance. And the lives of Palestinians, Lebanese civilians and Syrians have become expendable currency.

International courts and investigative bodies are undermined the moment they approach Israeli conduct

Hani Hazaimeh

This trajectory is not sustained by Israeli politics alone. It is enabled by a global order that has failed its most basic test: equality before the law. The UN Security Council is paralyzed by vetoes wielded in defense of power, not principle. Western governments that proclaim a commitment to human rights enforce international law selectively — relentless when confronting adversaries, flexible to the point of emptiness when dealing with allies. International courts and investigative bodies are undermined the moment they approach Israeli conduct. Accountability is not delayed; it is actively sabotaged.

This double standard has consequences far beyond the region. When the rules apply only to the weak, they cease to be rules. When international law becomes conditional, it becomes political theater. And when an extremist ideology learns — year after year — that it will face no meaningful cost for collective punishment, forced displacement and indiscriminate force, it has every incentive to continue.

Defenders of this status quo argue that accountability would inflame tensions or destabilize diplomacy. This is a dangerous illusion. It is impunity that fuels escalation. It is silence that invites repetition. The lesson Netanyahu’s government has absorbed is painfully clear: the world will protest, then move on. And so, the calculus shifts from “can we justify this?” to “how far can we go?”

From Gaza to southern Lebanon and from the West Bank to Syria, impunity has proven catastrophically effective — at destroying societies, entrenching hatred and hollowing out the legal norms meant to prevent exactly this outcome. What it has not delivered is security, peace or stability.

The international community does not lack evidence. It lacks courage. Until accountability is enforced without exception, until extremist ideologies are confronted rather than indulged and until international law is treated as binding rather than optional, these cycles will persist.

• Hani Hazaimeh is a senior editor based in Amman. X: @hanihazaimeh