“Israel is becoming a Middle Eastern country,” predicted the writer Amos Oz in 1979. “I hope that it will not behave worse than other Middle Eastern countries, but I doubt it will behave any better.” Oz was wrong. Today, Israel does behave considerably better than other Middle Eastern countries, even when it is behaving badly.

It was The Times that first reported the use of white phosphorus shells while Israel was conducting Operation Cast Lead into Gaza at the beginning of last year. Having initially denied using the shells at all, and then having subsequently insisted that they were only used for cover, the Israel Defence Forces have now reprimanded two senior army officers for “exceeding their authority in a manner that jeopardised the lives of others”.

The reprimand relates directly to the shelling of the United Nations headquarters in Gaza, in which more than 700 Palestinians were sheltering. For all those interested in Israel’s relations with the rest of the world, it brings two lessons. The first is that, unlike many of its neighbours, Israel has a strong domestic desire to hold itself to account. The second is that, in this most fraught and nuanced of regions, condemnatory megaphone diplomacy does not work.

For an example of such ineffective megaphone diplomacy, consider Judge Richard Goldstone’s report into the Gaza conflict for the UN, released last September. Both dangerously and unreasonably, Judge Goldstone implied an equivalence between the indiscriminate rocket fire with which Hamas bombarded Israel and the steps that Israel subsequently took to defend itself. While he alleged war crimes on both sides, he reserved his strongest ire for Israel’s “disproportionate” use of force and its “deliberate targeting” of Palestinian civilians.

Faced with such provocative bias, a country might be expected to slam down the shutters and turn away. Instead, the Middle East’s only functioning democracy quietly continued to conduct its own investigation into the conflict, which it has now submitted to the UN. The censure of Brigadier-General Eyal Eisenberg and Colonel Ilan Malka, a brigade commander — the first high-ranking officers to be named as having been at fault — is an indication that this is no mere whitewash. True, Israel’s process is far from flawless. The deployment of white phosphorus shells over a heavily populated area is an horrific act. When such shells explode, they shower sticky and flaming pieces that burn and burrow into clothing and flesh. A “slap on the wrist” (to quote one senior Israeli official) is an indefensibly cursory punishment for those responsible. Even so, it should be seen for what it is — a clear acknowledgment by Israel that, during the conflict, it behaved in a manner in which it should not.

For obvious reasons, Israel is a country deeply uncomfortable about criticising its own military. But those who cry “war crime” and seek to paint Israel as a pariah do diplomacy itself a disservice. They make it harder, not easier, for that country to behave as it should. Contrary to the impression some would like to give, Israel is not a rogue state with good PR, content, like Shakespeare’s Claudius, to smile and smile and be a villain. It is an accountable, democratic, transparent nation, and fighting to remain one amid challenges that few other nations ever have to face.