A reader left a comment under one of my recent articles that stopped me.

Her argument was simple. Protest the people who possess real power. Direct legal consequences at people who make decisions. Do not make civilians answer for things they could not control.

I kept thinking about that from Karachi.

We spend enormous amounts of political energy deciding which people should be blamed: Israelis, Palestinians, Jews, Muslims, Zionists, Arabs. Yet the more useful question is often much narrower.

Who actually made the decision?

That question changes the conversation.

A Jewish baby kidnapped on 7 October 2023 did not determine Israeli policy toward Gaza. A Palestinian child in Gaza did not plan the Hamas attack. A Jewish student in London does not sit in Israel’s cabinet. A Palestinian shopkeeper does not become a Hamas commander because Hamas once governed Gaza.

Identity tells us who someone is. Agency tells us what someone actually had the power to do.

Confusing the two is one of the most destructive habits in modern politics.

A baby cannot be responsible for a government

The absurdity becomes clearest when children enter the picture.

During the Hamas-led attack of 7 October 2023, civilians were killed and hostages were taken into Gaza. Children were among those abducted. The UN Commission of Inquiry subsequently found that Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups committed war crimes during the attacks.

Those children possessed no political agency.

The same principle applies in Gaza.

Palestinian children did not decide Hamas’s military strategy. They did not determine Israeli military policy either. Yet children have suffered enormously during the conflict.

International humanitarian law begins from precisely this distinction between combatants and civilians. The International Committee of the Red Cross explains that parties to a conflict must distinguish between civilians and combatants.

There is another principle that matters just as much: nobody should be punished for an act that person did not commit.

This sounds obvious. Politics repeatedly makes it difficult.

Citizenship is not command authority

Someone may immediately object that Israel is a democracy.

Israelis vote. Governments therefore act with democratic legitimacy. Surely citizens carry some responsibility for what their elected leaders do?

Political responsibility certainly exists in a democracy. Citizens can vote, demonstrate and organize. They can challenge governments in courts or public debate.

But influence is not the same thing as command authority.

I have voted in Pakistan for decades. That has never meant that I personally ordered every military operation conducted by Pakistan, approved every decision taken by a government I voted for, or became morally responsible for every action of the Pakistani state.

Democracy does not work that way.

A citizen can vote against the government. A voter can support a party for one reason and oppose another part of its program. A government can take decisions after an election that were never placed before voters. Children do not vote at all.

Agency therefore exists on a spectrum. The prime minister who approves a policy possesses more agency over that policy than an opposition voter. A military commander issuing an operational order possesses more agency than a civilian watching events on television.

Accountability should notice that difference.

International law already understands this

There is nothing radical about individualizing responsibility. It is built into international humanitarian law.

The ICRC’s explanation of customary international humanitarian law describes the prohibition of collective punishment as extending beyond criminal sentences to sanctions or harassment imposed on people for acts they did not commit.

Its factsheet on serious violations of international humanitarian law explains the other side of the principle. Individuals can bear criminal responsibility for war crimes they commit. Commanders can also be responsible for crimes they order, or in certain circumstances for failing to prevent or punish crimes committed by subordinates.

Notice where the inquiry goes.

Who committed the act? Who ordered it? Who possessed authority?

That is very different from asking which ethnic or religious community the person belonged to.

Netanyahu illustrates why precision matters

Benjamin Netanyahu is not a synonym for “the Jews.” He is an identifiable political actor.

He is Israel’s prime minister and heads a government capable of making decisions about military operations and state policy.

The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu in November 2024. The Court says there are reasonable grounds to believe he bears criminal responsibility for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. Netanyahu and Israel have rejected allegations of unlawful conduct and have challenged the Court’s jurisdiction.

That distinction is essential.

The allegations concern an identifiable political leader and alleged conduct connected to governmental decision-making. They are not an indictment of Jews in Manchester, Brooklyn, Paris or Karachi.

They are not even an indictment of every Israeli.

This is what agency-based accountability looks like. One can strongly criticize an Israeli government without transferring its alleged wrongdoing to a Jewish neighbour thousands of kilometres away.

The same rule has to apply to Hamas

Consistency becomes uncomfortable when we cross the line.

Hamas cannot be transformed into “the Palestinians” either.

The UN Commission of Inquiry found that Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups committed war crimes during the 7 October attacks, including intentionally directing attacks against civilians and taking hostages.

Those findings concern organizations and people responsible for particular acts. They do not turn Palestinian civilians into perpetrators.

Gaza’s political structure has also changed. Under the post-2025 international framework endorsed by the UN Security Council, a Palestinian technocratic body called the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza was established for civilian administration. The implementation framework requires Hamas to cease military, policing and administrative activities.

Whatever happens to that transition, one principle survives every institutional change.

A Palestinian civilian is not Hamas.

Jews are not a foreign branch of the Israeli government

The same confusion travels outside the Middle East.

A synagogue in Europe is not an Israeli embassy. A Jewish university student is not an Israeli government spokesperson. A Star of David worn around someone’s neck is not a statement approving every decision made in Jerusalem.

This is where the distinction between political criticism and antisemitism becomes especially important.

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition includes holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the Israeli state among its examples of antisemitism. At the same time, it states that criticism of Israel comparable to criticism directed at other countries cannot itself be regarded as antisemitic.

The Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism approaches some Israel-related questions differently and was written partly because its authors considered aspects of the IHRA framework unclear.

Yet an important point survives the disagreement. Jewish identity cannot by itself establish responsibility for Israeli government policy.

Symbols can collapse distinctions

The reader who prompted this article made another observation that stayed with me. She mentioned the Star of David.

It is displayed prominently on Israel’s national flag. That inevitably gives it a political meaning in some contexts. But the symbol did not originate with the modern Israeli government. It has a much broader history in Jewish religious and communal life.

Context therefore matters.

A Star of David displayed on an Israeli flag at a demonstration may clearly represent Israel. The same symbol painted on a synagogue carries a completely different meaning.

Political communication becomes dangerous when those distinctions disappear.

If criticism is directed at a government, show the government. Name the minister. Identify the institution. Describe the policy.

Precision usually strengthens criticism rather than weakening it.

Palestinians deserve the same precision

There is a mirror image of this mistake.

When an attack is committed by Hamas, language can slide rapidly from “Hamas” to “Palestinians.” That substitution is just as intellectually careless.

Gaza’s civilians include children, elderly people and families who possess no military authority. Many have endured displacement and severe humanitarian hardship.

As of September 2026, UN reporting continues to describe humanitarian conditions across the occupied Palestinian territory as deeply alarming, with most of Gaza’s population displaced.

None of that erases Hamas’s responsibility for crimes attributed to its members. It demonstrates why responsibility must remain attached to those responsible.

The UN Commission of Inquiry has emphasized a principle worth keeping in view: unlawful conduct by one party does not justify unlawful conduct by another.

Collective guilt is politically convenient

There is a reason political movements repeatedly abandon precision. Collective categories are easier.

“The Israelis did this.” “The Palestinians did that.” “The Jews support this.” “The Muslims believe that.”

Once political language reaches this stage, millions of individuals disappear behind a label. The actual decision-maker can disappear too.

That is the irony.

Collective blame sometimes feels like radical accountability while doing the opposite. Instead of identifying the official who signed an order or the commander who planned an operation, anger spreads across an entire population.

The target becomes larger. The analysis becomes weaker.

This principle has to survive our sympathies

There is an uncomfortable test I try to apply to myself.

Would I accept the same rule if the identities were reversed?

If I reject collective blame when Muslims are treated as responsible for terrorism, I cannot embrace collective blame when Jews are treated as responsible for Israeli government policy.

If I insist that Israeli civilians cannot be targeted for decisions made by their government, I must insist that Palestinian civilians cannot be punished for Hamas’s crimes.

The principle cannot depend on which population I sympathize with at that moment.

Otherwise it is not a principle. It is a preference.

Ask the smaller question

Perhaps our political vocabulary has become too ambitious.

We constantly ask who is guilty. Sometimes we should ask something smaller.

Who made the decision? Who issued the order? Who carried it out? Who possessed the authority to prevent it?

Those questions lead toward evidence. They lead toward institutions and identifiable actors. In serious cases, they can lead toward courts.

Identity takes us somewhere else.

It turns a Jewish child into Israel. It turns a Palestinian child into Hamas.

Neither child ever possessed that power.

Political responsibility should follow agency.

The moment we forget that, civilians begin paying for decisions that were never theirs.