Palestinian Rockets, International Law, and the Goldstone Report

Johanna Markind
jewishpolicycenter.org
Palestinian Rocket Report
December 23, 2009

Twenty-two years ago, President Ronald Reagan cautioned that proposed extensions to "international law" would aid terrorists and endanger civilians. Today, in the aftermath of the Goldstone Report, his comments are more pertinent than ever. The Goldstone Report ignores multiple violations of international law by the Palestinian terrorist organization known as Hamas, and challenges Israel's right to defend its citizens from rocket attacks.

Hamas Violates Geneva

The Goldstone Report, a report on the Israeli incursion into the Gaza Strip in December 2008 and January 2009, was released in September 2009. It alleges that Israel violated international law in the course of defending its population from Hamas rocket attacks. The report has a great many flaws – too many to list here. For the purposes of this essay, however, the problems associated with international law begin on page 82 of the report.

Buried in the report, like a needle in a haystack, is the grudging acknowledgment of Goldstone and company that directing attacks against civilian targets, as Hamas has done with homemade rockets since http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif2001, is prohibited by international law. This is, in fact, prohibited by the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 (article 3).

Hamas Violates Oslo

Additionally, the Goldstone report completely fails to note that the rocket attacks violate the Oslo Accords – the peace agreement that guides relations between Israel and the Palestinians. Under the Accords (Annex I, Article II), the Palestinians are obligated to "act systematically against all expressions of violence and terror." They are further obligated to "apprehend, investigate and prosecute" terrorist incidents and to prevent incitement of terrorism.

Though Hamas does not recognize Israel or its obligations under Oslo, it is still bound by them, since the Oslo Accords were signed on behalf of all the Palestinians. At a minimum, Israel should not be accused of violating Oslo (as the Goldstone report charges) without also charging Hamas for its violations, or recognizing that Israel is reacting to Hamas' violations.

Hamas Violates 1977 Protocol

The 1977 Protocol, which the Goldstone report insists is binding as part of customary international law, bars attacks directed against civilians (Articles 2, 52). It also prohibits indiscriminate attacks that have no specific military objective, or which "employ a method or means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective" (Article 4). Hamas' indiscriminate rocket attacks have numbered in the thousands since 2001.

The 1977 Protocol also forbids locating military targets – such as rocket launchers – within civilian populations (Article 58). The Protocol weakens the duty of armed forces to distinguish themselves from civilians, but it does require them to do so while they are on the attack (Article 44). It also forbids feigning civilian status to kill or injure the enemy (Article 37). Moreover, both the Geneva Convention (Article 28) and the Protocol (Article 7) recognize that parties may not render military targets immune from attack by locating them within civilian populations.

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