Responding to Hamas Attacks from Gaza - Issues of Proportionality

From Responding to Hamas Attacks from Gaza - Issues of Proportionality:

Israel is forced to act in self-defense to protect itself from deliberate missile attacks on its civilians by Hamas terrorists. Although Hamas makes no effort to comply with international law, Israel is committed to limiting itself to a lawful response. This means that, while Hamas uses civilians both as a shield and a target, Israel seeks to limit injury to civilians on both sides.

International law recognizes that for a military operation to be lawful, it must be directed at a "legitimate military objective" and be "proportionate."

Under the Geneva Conventions, if a military objective, such as a missile launcher or weapons stockpile, is placed in the heart of a civilian area, it does not cease being a lawful military objective. The responsibility for civilian casualties arising from the "shielding" lies with the party that deliberately placed civilians at risk.

A survey of international practice suggests that the steps taken by Israel, and its approach to proportionality, correspond to, or are more stringent than, those taken by most Western countries confronting similar threats.

Is Israel Bound by International Law to Supply Utilities, Goods, and Services to Gaza?

More data and definitions for you to use in the TalkSpeak and NewSpeak war against Israel and the manufactured accusations of her "violation of International Law". From The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs:

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and Development Secretary Douglas Alexander recently alleged that Israel's decision to respond to ongoing Palestinian rocket attacks by limiting the supply of fuel to Gaza violated international law. The new UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Robert H. Serry, also asserted: "Israeli measures amounting to collective punishment are not acceptable. We call on Israel to meet its obligations toward the civilian population of Gaza under international law." Yet international law does not require Israel to supply Gaza with fuel or electricity, or, indeed, with any other materials, goods, or services.

Article 23 of the Fourth Geneva Convention permits states like Israel to cut off fuel supplies and electricity to territories like Gaza. It only requires Israel to permit passage of food, clothing, and medicines intended for children under fifteen, expectant mothers, and maternity cases. Moreover, Israel would be under no obligation to provide anything itself, just not to interfere with such consignments sent by others. Article 70 of the First Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 1977 creates a slightly broader duty regarding the provision of essential supplies, but it does not list fuel and electricity as items for which passage must be permitted.

Dependence on foreign supply - whether it be Gazan dependence on Israeli electricity or European dependence on Arab oil - does not create a legal duty to continue the supply. Absent specific treaty requirements, countries may cut off oil sales to other countries at any time. In addition, neither Israel nor any other country is required to supply goods in response to its foes' resource mismanagement or lack of natural bounty.

There is no precedent that creates legal duties on the basis of a former military administration. For instance, no one has ever argued that Egypt has legal duties to supply goods to Gaza due to its former military occupation of the Gaza Strip. Furthermore, control of airspace does not create a legal duty to supply goods either. For instance, UN Security Council-ordered no-fly zones in Iraq and Libya were not seen as the source of any legal duty to supply those countries with electricity, water, or other goods.

The Attempt to Annihilate Israel

The collective annihilation of the Israeli people. Excerpted from The Attempt to Annihilate Israel:

Every year since Israel’s founding, Israeli civilians have been murdered by Arab soldiers, the fedayeen, Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Al Aqsa Martyr's Brigade, Hezbollah or some other shadowy Islamic militant group. Israel's enemies have, from the start, sought to eliminate the Jewish state through whatever means necessary, including committing genocide against the Jewish people.

Islamic terrorists use suicide bombers and increasingly sophisticated rockets, launched from lands relinquished by Israel to the Palestinians, to accomplish their grisly deeds. Their killing machines of choice tomorrow will be whatever weapons of mass destruction they can get their hands on.

Israel is falsely accused of ‘collective punishment’ when it strikes back to defend its citizens. This propaganda has been repeated at the United Nations, right up to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon himself. He said late last month, for example, that “I would hope that the Israeli Government should not take such a collective punishment to the general public.”

Yet it is the Palestinian and other Islamic terrorists who continually violate the Israelis’ human rights under the Geneva Conventions, which state that “Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited”.[Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, Geneva, 12 August 1949, Part III: Status and treatment of protected persons, Section I: Provisions common to the territories of the parties to the conflict and to occupied territories, Article 33]

The innocent Israeli women and children, who have been slaughtered while going about their daily lives in their homes, their schools, on buses, at shopping malls, and places of worship, have committed no wrong against the Palestinian people. They are the victims of the Islamic terrorists’ measures of intimidation and terrorism, which violate their most basic of human rights - life itself. The Islamic terrorists are pursuing nothing less than the collective annihilation of the Israeli people.

When the Israeli government responds with stern but non-violent, defensive measures to protect its most vulnerable citizens from murder – for example, with border closures, security checks, economic sanctions and a separation wall – the terrorists’ apologists complain that it is Israel which is violating the Palestinians’ human rights under international law. Their premise is that Israel, as the occupying power, is prohibited by international law from imposing collective punishment on the occupied population. As recently as last week, Ban Ki-moon’s spokesperson declared on the record that the UN still regards the Gaza Strip as part of the Occupied Territory. This assumption leads to the proposition that Israel is thereby precluded from taking actions that might hurt the people who are under its occupation.

The premise underlying this argument is false because Israel is no longer occupying Gaza - or Lebanon, for that matter. Hamas controls Gaza and the Lebanese have sovereignty over all of Lebanon. Yet Israel’s citizens continue to suffer intimidation and terrorism launched from those liberated areas in violation of their international human rights. The perpetrators are Palestinian and other Islamic terrorists, with the active support of state sponsors such as Iran. Israel in good faith ceded the Gaza Strip to the Palestinians in a good faith effort to advance peace. Gaza turned instead into hostile territory under Hamas’s control. More than 4200 rockets have been launched from Gaza into Israeli residential areas after Gaza was no longer occupied territory.

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International Law and Gaza: The Assault on Israel's Right to Self-Defense

From International Law and Gaza: The Assault on Israel's Right to Self-Defense:

International law authorizes Israel to initiate military countermeasures in Gaza. If Gaza is properly seen as having independent sovereignty, Israel's use of force is permissible on the grounds of self-defense. If Gaza is properly seen as lacking any independent sovereignty, Israel's use of military force is permissible as in other non-international conflicts.

The rule of "distinction" includes elements of intent and expected result: so long as one aims at legitimate targets, the rule of distinction permits the attack, even if there will be collateral damage to civilians. The rule of "proportionality" also relies upon intent. If Israel plans a strike without expecting excessive collateral damage, the rule of proportionality permits it. Israeli attacks to date have abided by the rules of distinction and proportionality.

Israel's imposition of economic sanctions on the Gaza Strip is a perfectly legal means of responding to Palestinian attacks. Since Israel is under no legal obligation to engage in trade of fuel or anything else with Gaza, or to maintain open borders, it may withhold commercial items and seal its borders at its discretion.

The bar on collective punishment forbids the imposition of criminal-type penalties to individuals or groups on the basis of another's guilt. None of Israel's actions involve the imposition of criminal-type penalties.

There is no legal basis for maintaining that Gaza is occupied territory. The Fourth Geneva Convention refers to territory as occupied where the territory is of a state party to the convention and the occupier "exercises the functions of government" in the territory. Gaza is not territory of another state party to the convention and Israel does not exercise the functions of government in the territory.

The fighting in Gaza has been characterized by the extensive commission of war crimes, acts of terrorism and acts of genocide by Palestinians, while Israeli countermeasures have conformed with the requirements of international law.

International law requires states to take measures to bring Palestinian war criminals and terrorists to justice, to prevent and punish Palestinian genocidal efforts, and to block the funding of Palestinian terrorist groups and those complicit with them.

Ahmadinejad and international law

Read this, then ask yourself why is Israel the only state that gets repudiated when real derelicts of law and perpertrators of crimes against humanity literally get away with murder? From JPost:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent visit to the United States and the UN was no less than a three-act play in the Theater of the Absurd. While it has been argued that his command performances at the UN, Columbia University and in the media further exposed his absurdity, critics need to look behind and beyond the on-stage theatrics, lest we ignore the depth of his regime's criminality and the suffering of the Iranian people.

Now that the curtain has fallen, the question becomes: What are the lessons to be learned and actions to be taken?

Arguably, there are three lessons to be learned, each corresponding with the acts in the Theater of the Absurd, and each with a lesson anchored in the rule of law; more particularly, in the disregard of the rule of law.

First, President Ahmadinejad should have been declared an inadmissible person and placed on the "United States's Watchlist" of persons barred from entering the country. For American law excludes from entry any person who has engaged in, or incited to, terrorist activity, or who "has used his position of prominence to endorse or espouse terrorist activity in a way that undermines United States' efforts to reduce or eliminate terrorist activities."

The evidence of Iran's complicity in terrorist activity is clear and compelling. Ahmadinejad's Iran has recruited, trained, financed, instigated and armed its terrorist proxies such as Hamas, Hizbullah and Islamic Jihad, whose platforms and policies are replete with genocidal calls and terrorist activity that outdo even its Iranian patron.

Moreover, Ahmadinejad is in standing violation of the Genocide Conventions prohibition against the "direct and public incitement to genocide," which alone should be cause for exclusion. If it be argued that no precedent exists for excluding an sitting president, it should be recalled that Austrian president Kurt Waldheim was placed on the "US Watchlist" for his participation in the persecution of civilian populations during the Second World War.

The second Act in this Theater of the Absurd was the invitation extended to Ahmadinejad to address Columbia University. This was not a matter of academic freedom. Columbia was not obliged to give Ahmadinejad a podium; rather, given his criminality, it was obliged not to give him a podium. Nor was this a matter of "free speech;" incitement to commit genocide is not protected speech. Indeed, it is a violation of international criminal law - including not only the Genocide Conventions but the International Criminal Court Treaty.

In fact, the best evidence for not inviting Ahmadinejad to Columbia was set forth in the "introduction" by Columbia's President Lee Bollinger of Ahmadinejad , which was more indictment than introduction, and appeared more as an exculpatory disclaimer - however discourteous - for the wrongful judgment to invite Ahmadinejad to begin with.

Further, the "justification" offered for the invitation by Columbia University Dean John Coatsworth - that he would have given Hitler a platform - was devoid of any moral compass.

Third, and most disturbing, Ahmadinejad should not have been a welcome guest at the United Nations General Assembly. He should have been - and should be - the object of a criminal indictment, the elements for which can be found in Lee Bollinger's own introduction.

A person who incites to genocide; who is complicit in crimes against humanity; who continues the pursuit of the most destructive of weaponry in violation of UN Security Council Resolutions; who warns Muslims who support Israel that they will "burn in the umma of Islam;" who is engaged in a massive repression of human rights in Iran; who assaults the basic tenants of the UN Charter - such a person belongs in the dock of the accused, rather than the podium of the UN General Assembly.

But it is not enough to lament what occurred in this Theater of the Absurd, or even to learn its lessons. It is important to act on those lessons so as to restore respect for the rule of law and the Responsibility to Protect doctrine, fidelity to the UN Charter, and the struggle against impunity. Accordingly, the following actions should be undertaken with all deliberate speed:

State parties to the Genocide Convention, such as Canada, have not only a right, but a responsibility, to enforce the convention, particularly as regards the prevention of genocide.

State parties should therefore refer the criminal incitement to genocide by President Ahmadinejad and other Iranian leaders to the appropriate UN agencies. It is astonishing that this criminal incitement has yet to be addressed by the UN Security Council, the UN General Assembly, or any other body or agency of the United Nations, though it has found fit to give him a podium.

State parties should initiate, in the International Court of Justice, an inter-state complaint against Iran - for its "direct and public incitement to genocide" in violation of the Genocide Convention, to which Iran is party.

The crimes of President Ahmadinejad and other Iranian leaders should be referred by the UN Security Council to the special prosecutor of the International Criminal Court for investigation and prosecution.

State parties should prepare criminal indictments of President Ahmadinejad, former president Rafsanjani, and other Iranian leaders on the basis of the "Universal Jurisdiction" principle embodied in the Genocide Convention.

The UN Secretary General should refer President Ahmadinejad and other Iranian leaders to the UN Security Council, on the basis of their threats to international peace and security, pursuant to Article 99 of the UN Charter.

President Ahmadinejad and other designated Iranian leaders should be placed on a "watchlist" by concerned countries, preventing their entrance as "inadmissible persons." There is presently discussion about holding Iran accountable for its defiance of UN Security Council resolutions calling for the suspension of its uranium-enrichment process. The recommended options have included everything from UN sanctions to possible military strikes. It is time that the above juridical options was initiated, which might also embolden progressive forces within Iran while holding the responsible individuals accountable.

Indeed, recent history has taught us that sustained international juridical remedies can bring about the indictment of seemingly immune dictators, such as Slobodan Milosevic and Augusto Pinochet, and such actions are clearly preferable to military options.

This is an opportunity for countries such as the United States and Canada to exercise necessary leadership in regard to one of the most important threats confronting the international community today.

The writer is Opposition Critic for Human Rights and former minister of justice and attorney-general of Canada and professor of law at McGill University.

Ahmadinejad, the epitomy of what is wrong with Islam

Ahmadinejad, the misshapen capuchin monkey Islamo-nazi psychopath and his appearance at the UN General Assembly in NY on Monday, September 24, 2007, is possibly the most "shameful moment" in the history of an organization supposedly dedicated to advancing global peace and security. The leader of Iran is a Holocaust denier who also denies Israel's right to exist. It is unfortunate that the US, even if it felt compelled by its treaty obligations to allow Ahmadinejad to attend the UN session, do not also feel compelled to arrest him under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Via DrudgeReport:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will not press his plan -- just denied by New York City Police for security reasons -- to visit Ground Zero in New York City, he tells 60 MINUTES' Scott Pelley in an exclusive interview conducted today in Iran. The Iranian leader says he's "amazed" and skeptical that most Americans view his visit there as insulting as his intention was only to show respect. The interview will be broadcast on 60 MINUTES, Sunday Sept. 23 (7:00-8:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS television Network.

An excerpt from the interview follows:

PELLEY: Mr. President, do you intend to press your request to visit the World Trade Center site?

AHMADINEJAD: Well, it was included in my program. If we have the time and the conditions are conducive, I will try to do that.

PELLEY: But the New York Police Department and others do not appear to want you there. Do you intend to go there anyway?

AHMADINEJAD: Well, over there, local officials need to make the necessary coordinations. If they can't do that, I won't insist.

PELLEY: Sir, what were you thinking? The World Trade Center site is the most sensitive place in the American heart, and you must have known that visiting there would be insulting to many, many Americans.

AHMADINEJAD: Why should it be insulting?

PELLEY: But the American people, sir, believe that your country is a terrorist nation, exporting terrorism in the world. You must have known that visiting the World Trade Center site would infuriate many Americans.

AHMADINEJAD: Well, I'm amazed. How can you speak for the whole of the American nation?

PELLEY: Well, the American nation--

AHMADINEJAD: You are representing a media and you're a reporter. The American nation is made up of 300 million people. There are different points of view over there.

Developing...

Imagine, the audacity of this Islamo-bastard telling us Americans how we feel about Mohammad's monsters. Ahmadinejad looks innocent enough in this interview, wearing his light colored suit and all, but that's because his kill-switch was turned off for the interview. There is no doubt that when he is not in the spotlight, his kill-switch goes on auto-pilot, and it will be just a matter of time before he attacks the US. In fact, the piglet has sworn to attack America and Israel on October 12, the last day of Ramadan. Yup, on 10/12, just one step above 9/11.

Israel Supreme Court: Targeted Killings of Terrorists Is Legal

From Israel Supreme Court: Targeted Killings of Terrorists Is Legal:

A panel of three High Court of Justice judges ruled unanimously Thursday against a petition asking it to declare that the policy of targeted killings of terrorists was illegal. The court determined that those who were on their way to commit an attack against the IDF or civilians or had planned an attack or were in between carrying out a series of attacks were fair targets.

The court cited Article 51(3) of the 1977 Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions which states: "Civilians shall enjoy the protection afforded by this section, unless and for such time as they take a direct part in hostilities."

Thus, the court said, a civilian who takes direct part in hostilities does not enjoy the protections granted to a civilian and is subject to the risks of attack like those to which a combatant is subject.

The ant farm

Folks, the whole world's focus will be on the Jews in Gaza, Israel, in approximately two weeks. It will be a morbid curiousity that will picque everyone's interest, because when almost 10,000 Jews get deported from their homes on August 17, everyone will watch because it will be Jew versus Jew.

Will blood be shed? Will children get killed? Will the IDF turn on the deported Jews, like the Polish and the French turned on their Jewish neighbors during Europe's Holocaust against the Jews? Those are the things that everyone will be looking and hoping for. That's human nature. It's like watching the Indianapolis 500 and wondering if there will be a fiery burning multi-car wreck.

So of course the world is interested.

If you uprooted a group of people from their homes anywhere else it would be a war crime. Research it for yourselves starting with the Geneva Protocols. Uprooting people from their homes is a war crime.

But when it's Jew versus Jew, it's just considered fascinating. It will be like an ant farm. All the Jews will be the ants and everyone else looking at them thru the looking glass will be the American left, the Arabs, the Hollywood Jewish left, the Muslims, the fabricated "palestinians", Condi Rice, and Osama bin Laden and his depraved sycophants.

It's a shame the world doesn't focus this much attention on other important issues. If they reported on Darfur and how Muslims are killing off the Sudanese Christians by the thousands, or how Muslims perform female genital mutilations to deprive women of pleasure during lovemaking, or how Muslims perform honor killings because a Muslim's 7th-century perception of honor is more important to them than the lives of everyone else, perhaps these problems within Islam would be resolved.

And wouldn't the world be so much better off? You better believe it.

Arafat should have been arrested when he was in the US

Folks, do you want to know of a flagrant violation of International Law? Arafat entering the US.

Understood in terms of international law, in particular Article 53 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, Arafat entering the United States borders represents a clear assault upon this Article.

Former Pres. Clinton invited Arafat and the murderous pus-bucket did enter the United States at least two times.

United States authorities are obligated under national and international law to arrest and prosecute Yassir Arafat.

Why, exactly, does the United States have such a responsibility?

The answer lies in pertinent facts concerning Arafat's particular role in terrorist crimes and in applicable rules of law. Regarding facts, the criminal record of Arafat's Fatah branch of P.L.O. is well documented.

During September and October 1999, Arafat's Palestinian Authority (PA) distributed weapons, including submachine guns, to the 199 Arab terrorists who had just been released from Israeli jails. Many of these terrorists had been imprisoned for murder against Israelis. And all of these 199 terrorists were immediately recruited into the PA "security forces."

These are representative facts. What is the law?

Consider the following:

When the allied powers established a special military tribunal at Nuremberg on August 8, 1945, they reaffirmed the ancient principle of "no crime without a punishment."

In 1946, this reaffirmation was underscored in Principle I of the binding Nuremberg Principles:

"Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefore and liable to punishment."

These Nuremberg Principles were later formulated by the United Nations International Law Commission, at the request of the General Assembly, in 1950, stipulating:

"Offenses against the peace and security of mankind...are crimes under international law, for which the responsible individuals shall be punished."

Terrorist crimes, as part of a broader category called crimen contra omnes (crimes against all) by the lawyers, mandate universal cooperation in apprehension and punishment. In this connection, as punishers of "grave breaches" under international law, all states are expected to search out and prosecute, or extradite, individual perpetrators.

For more information, pertinent authority can be found at Article 146 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.