Hospital in Gaza.

The blame game between Israel and Hamas over Tuesday's bombing of the Al-Ahli Arabi Baptist Hospital, in which over than 500 people were killed, shows how Israel is trying to avoid the blame for war crimes, and how its favourite victim card is wearing thin. Its blaming the bombing on a misguided missile fired by Islamic Jihad serves two purposes: first, it lets its own forces escape culpability for something that is considered a classic war crime; second, it throws the blame onto an organization it badly wants to go after because of its ties with Iran

Another subtext of the Israeli attempt to throw the blame onto the Palestinians is perhaps its desire to portray them as guilty of the crime they have themselves committed so often, the killing of children. The reaction to the hospital bombing, with the victims including a large number of infants, has caused a revulsion of feeling even within those countries which have been steadfast in their support of Israel. Israel contrasts that reality with the failure of its claim that Hamas had decapitated babies in its October 7 attacks. It had wanted Hamas to have done so, judging by how much that claim was pushed, but it was so patently false, that it failed to gain any traction, even among the...