This was the approach of a group of human rights experts in Geneva who condemned Israel's actions as collective punishment. The group lacked a single military expert to weigh in on the critical military goal Israel sought to achieve.
Similarly, a group of United Nations Human Rights Council special rapporteurs labeled an airstrike on the Jabaliya camp a "brazen violation of international law" without any knowledge or consideration of the military goals of the operation.
In the current conflict, international law has been so twisted by some that even humanitarian measures are presented as violations. In an attempt to minimize the risk of civilian casualties, Israel has urged civilians — through flyers, radio broadcasts, and even individual phone calls — to leave the areas of terrorist entrenchment and move to the safe zones in southern Gaza.
Israel even delayed its ground operations for weeks to afford civilians ample time to evacuate, notwithstanding the increased risk to its own soldiers that resulted.
Still, international officials have argued that the call to evacuate the war zone is itself a violation of international law, with the Commissioner General of United Nations Relief and Works Agency terming the attempt to save civilian lives "forced displacement."
This misstatement of the law plays directly into Hamas' strategy of trying to keep civilians within and above its terrorist centers as human shields.
International law is not a suicide pact. It makes demands on defending democracy but presented accurately, it leaves room to defeat terrorism.
Not so the parody of international law that is offered by these international experts.
By failing to recognize that Hamas is cynically hiding not only behind its own civilians but behind their misinterpretations of law, these experts are rewarding its disdain and undermining the laws they pretend to uphold.
Inevitably, terrorist organizations become emboldened to continue to deploy these methods, confident in international support for their illegal and immoral actions.
It is challenging enough for a defending democracy to act in accordance with the laws of armed conflict.
Israel's supreme court, which insists that Israel's defense forces comply with international law, has stated that "democracies fight with one hand tied behind their back."
If international officials who should know better make democracies tie their other hand back as well, among the victims may be international law itself.
(Daniel Taub is an international lawyer who served as Israel's ambassador to the UK from 2011 to 2015.)