Gaza and the Perils of Militarised Humanitarianism: Universal Values, Politics, and the Hypocrisy of r2p

Israel’s assault on Gaza is now widely recognised as genocidal, yet the Responsibility to Protect ( r2p ) has had little impact on debates over how the international community might respond to protect Palestinian civilians. This article argues that the intertwining of humanitarianism and the use of force within the r2p has led to a situation where the use of force is now often shielded by humanitarian claims and that this, in turn, makes selectivity and hypocrisy an inherent feature of the norm. The only way out of this bind is to dissociate r2p from the use of force.