The Politics of Human Shielding

Focusing on the 2014 Gaza war, in this paper we outline the emergence of the phrase human shields in its contemporary normative and political meaning. We begin with a concise genealogy of human shields in international law, followed by an overview of how the discourse of human shields emerged in the context of Israel/Palestine. Next, we analyse a series of infographics spread by the IDF on social media. After showing how the deployment of the phrase human shield both helps constitute the legality and morality of slaying civilians while simultaneously shielding those who carry out the killing, we conclude by arguing that the phrase highlights the manifestation of a contemporary political antinomy. Our objective is to better understand the politics of human shielding, by which we mean the epistemic and political operations through which the deployment of the legal category of human shield legitimises the use of lethal force.