Innocent civilians die in wars, this is the tragic but inevitable truth. An army often uses the same bridges and the same power plants as the civilian population, bases are commonly placed in densely populated areas and government buildings are located at the hearts of nations’ capitals. All these are legitimate targets in a war and when civilians are killed in military actions against those targets it is, for the lack of better words, an unfortunate consequence.

This of course does in no way mean that a country at war has a right to intentionally kill civilians whenever it desires so, the opposite is true. The targeted killings of civilians is not only a war crime but also highly immoral.  

Germany alone suffered 2 million civilian deaths during World War II,  most of them presumably completely innocent. This is the price of war, a war started – in the aforementioned case – by Germany. Accordingly, you would be hard pressed to find someone willing to call the deaths of 2 million German civilians (barring isolated exceptions) a war crime.

Why is it then that war crime allegations are routinely raised against Israel every time a military action causes the death of a few civilians? The figures on civilian deaths during targeted killings in the West Bank and Gaza vary between 20%-35% of the total deaths, the higher estimate taken from B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights group that strongly sympathizes with the Palestinian cause. Although these figures vary strongly from conflict to conflict the Israeli figures are by no means an exception to any relevant group.

Although it can be reasonably argued that because of the continued use of civilian "shields" by terrorist, we should even expect higher than average civilian casualties and the lack thereof signifies great caution on behalf of the Israeli army, it is not necessary for the general argument of this article. It remains that civilian casualties are within the average (and accepted) range of such numbers.

This makes it clear that the problem is not - and never was - civilian deaths. The actual question that proponents of the ‘war crimes’ arguments raise concerns nothing else than the legitimacy of military action in the first place, civilian deaths or not. The tactical use of civilian deaths is, just like the ‘zionism is racism’ campaign, an attempt to drag the argument over Israel’s right to defend itself into a politically correct light. A place where the PR battle can be fought realistically.

We should strive to take the argument back to it’s natural place, and then win it by default. The state of Israel, like any other state, has the right to defend itself against attack. Targeting terrorists that are currently engaged in a war against Israel should be a routine matter.