Dear Reader (even those of you who are indifferent to promiscuity among cicadas),

Seven staffers of World Central Kitchen (WCK) were killed in Israel by Israeli forces. Israel apologized, launched an investigation, and, as of this, morning dismissed two senior officers for their roles in the accident. 

That hasn’t stopped a tidal wave of coverage suggesting, declaring, or insisting that “Israel deliberately” killed those staffers. Celebrity chef José Andrés, the founder of WCK, put this discourse into overdrive by saying as much. I’ll spare you the headlines, but if you just search Google News for “Israel deliberately” you’ll find plenty of examples (and if you search Twitter you’ll find countless more, alongside a sadly predictable miasma of blood libels and conspiracy theories on a range of topics). 

I don’t want to get into a lot of parsing and logic-chopping, but a little is necessary. It’s not disputed that Israel deliberately fired on the convoy, in the sense that someone deliberately pulled the trigger and/or gave the order to pull the trigger. But that is not the same thing as saying Israel intentionally and knowingly killed aid workers. When a surprised cop shoots a kid with a toy gun, he “deliberately” pulls the trigger. But that doesn’t mean he is guilty of intentionally and knowingly killing an unarmed child. That doesn’t necessarily mean he’s not criminally liable for his mistake, but he is not criminally liable for first-degree murder, which requires intent.