All Is Fair in Law and War? Legal Cynicism in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the role played by international law generally, and international criminal investigations particularly, in a growing new battlefield: the war on public perception of contested wartime events. Building on the theory of legal cynicism, the chapter argues that perceptions of the illegitimacy of international humanitarian law weaken the legal authority of international law and its potential to guide behaviour during armed conflicts. This chapter focuses on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, arguing that the prevalence of legally cynical framing of international law, institutions and war crimes investigations intensifies pre-existing processes of social backlash and denial among Jewish-Israelis. To test this argument, the chapter utilises both qualitative and quantitative methods. First, the chapter analyses the international humanitarian law-based investigations concerning the 2018 Israel-Gaza border hostilities, demonstrating the centrality of international law—and the ‘war crimes’ terminology—in these fact-finding efforts, and the way these processes strengthened legally cynical framing of international law among Jewish-Israelis. Second, the chapter reports data from a survey-experiment measuring the impact of ‘war crimes’ terminology on Jewish-Israelis’ beliefs about contested wartime actions committed by Israeli soldiers. The findings demonstrate that adopting international legal terminology to present facts about war actions affects people’s willingness to believe the reported facts. In particular, framing factual findings about Israeli military activities in the West Bank and Gaza using ‘war crimes’ terminology decreases the willingness of Jewish-Israelis to believe reports about Palestinians’ deaths. Moreover, using legal terminology to present and interpret facts does not stimulate feelings of guilt or empathy toward the victims. The findings suggest that applying international humanitarian law to disseminate information about wartime events may backfire, contributing to production of disinformation and of cynical perception of international humanitarian law.