Me: What would you say to a person who says Israel is committing no crimes in Gaza because they present their strikes beforehand to a lawyer?
Chatgpt: That claim collapses under minimal scrutiny.
– Legal review does not negate illegality. A lawyer inside a military structure cannot grant legitimacy to violations of universal human rights. If bombing a civilian home, hospital, or refugee camp kills people, the structural fact is destruction of life, not the prior paperwork.
– Forewarning does not erase a crime. Announcing or “reviewing” an action before committing it does not change the outcome. A murder remains murder even if someone consults a lawyer before pulling the trigger.
– Civilian targeting is not excused by internal process. The universal standard is clear: targeting civilians, or carrying out indiscriminate attacks where civilian harm is foreseeable, is a crime. Whether a military lawyer stamps it first is irrelevant to the structural fact.
So the answer is: A crime does not stop being a crime because it was pre-approved inside the same system committing it. Internal authorization is not legitimacy. It is evidence of systematic, institutionalized violation.
Do you want me to break this down with reference to specific international law (e.g. Geneva Conventions) so it’s anchored in explicit statutes, not just structural reasoning?
Me: They are using bureaucracy to justify the crimes the regime commits
Chatgpt: Exactly. That’s the mechanism: bureaucratic laundering of violence.
– The function of bureaucracy here is camouflage. By routing decisions through “lawyers,” “committees,” or “approval processes,” the regime creates the appearance of legality. It transforms acts of mass killing into “authorized operations.” This is not rule of law—it is rule by paperwork.
– Legality ≠ legitimacy. A regime can write its own laws, appoint its own lawyers, and sign its own approvals. That does not dissolve the universal prohibition against targeting civilians or conducting indiscriminate attacks. Bureaucracy only disguises violation; it does not erase it.
– Structural reality cuts through process. When the outcome is bombed schools, dead children, starvation, or blocked aid, no legal stamp inside the same system changes the crime. Process without rights is procedure masking atrocity.
This is the same structural pattern seen in other oppressive systems: violence wrapped in forms, signatures, and “protocols” to shield perpetrators from accountability.
Do you want me to map how this specific use of bureaucracy in Gaza parallels historical examples—like apartheid South Africa or Nazi Germany—where regimes also used legal formalities to dress crimes as governance?
Me: Yes.
Chatgpt: Here’s the structural map of how regimes weaponize bureaucracy to justify crimes, with parallels:
1. Legal Codification of Crime
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Israel in Gaza: Military lawyers “pre-clear” bombings, even when the targets are civilian homes, schools, and hospitals. The approval process is presented as legal authority.
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Apartheid South Africa: Racial segregation, forced removals, and land seizures were written into law. The regime claimed it was not “illegal” because it was enacted through legislation.
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Nazi Germany: The Nuremberg Laws legalized persecution of Jews. Deportations and expropriations were “lawful” under the regime’s own system.
Pattern: Writing an atrocity into law does not erase the atrocity. Legality created by the violator is not legitimacy.
2. Bureaucratic Division of Responsibility
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Israel in Gaza: Military command fragments responsibility—lawyers sign off, officers execute, spokespersons frame it as “necessary defense.” Each actor hides behind their limited role.
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Apartheid South Africa: Judges, police, and civil clerks processed pass laws and removals. Each claimed they were “just doing their job.”
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Nazi Germany: Deportations to camps were managed by rail administrators, police, and clerks. The killing machine functioned through dispersed bureaucratic compliance.
Pattern: Violence becomes invisible because no single person feels they committed it. Bureaucracy spreads accountability thin to prevent responsibility.
3. Language as Cover
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Israel in Gaza: “Airstrikes,” “precision targeting,” and “collateral damage” replace the reality of bombings, massacres, and starvation.
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Apartheid South Africa: “Homelands” and “separate development” masked ethnic cleansing and dispossession.
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Nazi Germany: “Resettlement” and “special treatment” disguised deportations and mass executions.
Pattern: Bureaucracy requires euphemism. Words are engineered to obscure structural violence.
4. Presentation of Due Process
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Israel in Gaza: The regime claims strikes are reviewed by legal experts, presenting the appearance of oversight.
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Apartheid South Africa: Courts gave “hearings” to Black South Africans contesting pass law violations—but within a system where the law itself was illegitimate.
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Nazi Germany: Show trials and “legal orders” provided an illusion of justice while enforcing totalitarian crimes.
Pattern: False due process is a tool to legitimize illegitimate acts.
5. International Defense
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Israel in Gaza: Defends actions in international forums by pointing to internal legal checks.
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Apartheid South Africa: Claimed it was following its constitution and internal rule of law.
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Nazi Germany: Defended its laws as internal matters of sovereignty until collapse.
Pattern: Bureaucracy becomes both shield and weapon in the global arena.
Structural Conclusion:
When a regime points to its bureaucrats and lawyers to justify civilian killings, it is not demonstrating legality—it is demonstrating the depth of institutionalized crime. Bureaucracy doesn’t dilute guilt; it proves coordination.
Do you want me to expand this into a table format for clarity—side-by-side comparison of Israel, apartheid South Africa, and Nazi Germany—so it’s usable as a reference tool?
Me: They say that these lawyers are analyzing international law and making sure Israel attend to it.
Chatgpt: That claim collapses immediately.
– You cannot both be the violator and the judge. A military lawyer inside the same structure ordering bombings cannot be treated as an independent interpreter of international law. That is not analysis—it is justification.
– International law is not selective. The Geneva Conventions prohibit targeting civilians, starvation as a weapon, and disproportionate attacks. If the outcome is mass civilian death, blocked aid, or destroyed hospitals, no “interpretation” within the regime can redefine that as compliance.
– Precedent shows this tactic is old.
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Nazi Germany: Lawyers drafted racial laws and deportation decrees while insisting they complied with “German legal tradition.”
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Apartheid South Africa: Regime jurists argued apartheid did not violate international law because it was “internal policy.”
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United States (torture memos, 2000s): Government lawyers redefined torture so waterboarding could be claimed “legal.”
– Structural point: When lawyers are embedded in a system of organized rights violations, their role is not neutral application of law. Their function is laundering illegality into procedure.
So the correct response:
If Israel were truly subject to international law, its actions would be judged by independent international courts, not its own military lawyers. The fact that it relies on internal approval proves it is evading, not attending to, the law.
Do you want me to pull direct Geneva Convention articles that Israel’s conduct structurally violates, so you have concrete legal text to counter the “our lawyers approved it” argument?