Reading the Hundred Years' War on Falastin by Rashid Khalidi (I should've read this thing earlier... why did I not learn of ProleWiki and Anna's Archive earlier)

There are a number of reasons for the silence of Washington and the media. The Arms Export Control Act of 1976 specifies that American-supplied weapons must be used “for legitimate self-defense.”[7. 36] Given this provision, the line offered by US officials from the president down—describing Israel’s operations in Gaza as self-defense—may be the product of legal advice to avoid liability and potential prosecution for war crimes, alongside the Israeli officials who issued the orders and the soldiers who dropped the bombs. The media, too, rarely mentions this important legal consideration, possibly out of bias, or to protect the politicians who would otherwise be implicated, or to dodge the attacks on the media that generally follow even the mildest criticism of Israel.