Policy Alternatives Are a Must for Human Rights

The human rights community’s difficulty in swiftly mobilizing political actors to exert effective pressure on Israel is closely tied to its inability to formulate and present viable alternatives. When you seek to pressure a state to abandon abusive policies, it is not enough to say what should not be done; it is essential to articulate better policy options. Without such alternatives, the abusive state can easily claim that its actions are a necessary evil in order to confront a pressing social problem like terrorism. This is precisely what allowed Netanyahu’s government to frame demands for ending the war, freeing the hostages, and halting the atrocities in Gaza—especially the humanitarian crisis—not as legitimate goals, but as steps that would only strengthen Hamas, prolong its dangerous rule which risks both Israelis and Palestinians, and embolden terrorist groups worldwide.

Traditional human rights organizations are not designed to draft policy alternatives; their role is mainly to define what is permissible—and, even more so, what is forbidden—with regard to human rights. But herein lies part of the problem. The issue is not that classical human rights organizations are unnecessary, but rather that there is also a critical need for bodies that can go beyond this narrow frame: think tanks of a sort, capable of formulating, promoting, and making accessible to the public human rights–oriented policy alternatives. These are the kinds of organizations that can demonstrate that harmful policies—say, in counterterrorism or crime control—are not in fact necessary evils or the lesser of two evils when addressing acute social problems that themselves undermine human rights (terrorism and crime are, after all, direct threats to rights, foremost among them the right to life). Without such policy alternatives, every harmful policy will be presented as the best available response to society’s most acute challenges—like terrorism—and the human rights field will be portrayed, not entirely without reason, as one that merely dictates prohibitions without offering practical answers to our most urgent problems. Human rights actors will be dismissed as detached from reality, unfamiliar with practical constraints, living in an imaginary world of abstract ideals and principles. In crude terms: human rights advocates will be accused of aiding terrorism (with more fair-minded critics perhaps adding “unintentionally,” though in our populist era they will more often simply be branded as enablers of Hamas and ISIS).

In the case of the war in Gaza, this dynamic has been particularly stark. Gradually, Western governments came to realize that the war had exceeded a reasonable course of self-defense and of addressing the hostage crisis or preventing another October 7–style attack. They began opposing certain aspects of Israel’s conduct of the war (especially disproportionate bombings and restrictions on humanitarian aid and relief organizations) and, slowly, even the war as a whole. Some even began speaking vaguely about the need to involve the Palestinian Authority and moderate Arab states in a coalition against Hamas and jihadism more broadly. Yet the alternative remained vague, lacking detail, and did not include a concrete set of demands to be placed on Israel, with corresponding consequences if unmet. For instance, a hostage deal depends not only on Israel but also on Hamas; cooperation with the PA depends not only on Israel but also on the PA. Worse still, poorly designed pressure could create a twisted incentive structure in which Hamas stiffens its demands, feeling empowered by international pressure on Israel to reach a hostage deal.

What is needed, therefore, is the ability to generate a more detailed alternative scenario—one that includes specific demands of Israel that can be enforced if unmet, independent of other actors, and that avoids strengthening Hamas through distorted incentives. This scenario must be fair, addressing the legitimate concerns and sensitivities of both sides. For example: a proposal in which the IDF retains the right to hold a narrow security perimeter to protect Israeli border communities in the postwar era, while a wider security zone is controlled by the PA forces backed by a coalition of Arab and Western armies to push out Hamas and similar groups—after Hamas relinquishes power and releases the hostages. With such a reasonable policy alternative enjoying broad consensus, any side refusing it would face international pressure; the more flexible side would be rewarded with reduced pressure, while the intransigent one would face increased pressure. This creates an incentive structure for both sides to converge on a fair settlement that provides maximum freedom for Gazans, maximum security for Israelis (both in the border communities and beyond), and the release of the hostages. Ideally, the design of such alternatives should involve individuals with both professional expertise and field experience, so they can address real-world challenges while signaling seriousness to the public.

Such a framework could have dismantled the claim that Israel “has no choice,” and that opposing the war—or even just its more harmful aspects—amounts to strengthening Hamas. It could have demonstrated that there is a more effective way to end Hamas’s rule and free the hostages at a far lower human cost to both sides. And it could have persuaded a wider range of actors that Israel’s government, by refusing a fair settlement, deserves firm and effective international pressure.

Instead, the human rights field is dominated by actors focused almost exclusively on telling Israel what not to do, while completely ignoring Israel’s legitimate security needs and the risks Israelis face (risks that indirectly also endanger Palestinians, since each major attack on Israelis results in an even harsher Israeli counterattack). This only makes it easier for the Israeli government to frame human rights demands as impractical, unfair, and ultimately strengthening Hamas and terrorism. The human rights field must also include organizations capable of dismantling the supposed “necessary evils” presented as fate. Admittedly, practical policy alternatives will rarely achieve a utopia of perfect human rights, but improving the situation in real life is better than chasing after an unworkable utopia that yields little actual change. People in acute distress want relief—not utopia.