Thoughts on Lawyer Behind Much Lawfare Against Israel

Charlie Ettison
thoughts: a buck each
06 January '10

Daniel Machover, a lawyer from London and founder of Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights, has published a salvo against "die-hard supporters of Israeli policies" who he argues have co-opted the term "lawfare" on the Huffington Post blog. His comments have prompted some thoughts.

Mr. Machover begins by suggesting that applying the term lawfare is meant to discredit non-violent resistance as politically motivated efforts with no legal merit. What Mr. Machover ignores is that these claims, while indeed non-violent, are politically motivated on their face and they often have no legal merit, as evidenced by them being thrown out of court by judges in reputable, western jurisdictions. Consider, further to this argument, that Palestinian Lawyers for Human Rights has as it's goal the furthering of a political aim, that being achieving Palestinian self determination. Mr. Machover as well has represented the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights who have launched an extensive legal fishing expedition in the hopes of finding just a single case with which they can point to a legal decision branding an Israeli as a war criminal.

More compelling, however, is the fact that courts in the west have been considering and throwing out these lawfare style cases that Mr. Machover suggests are legitimate. Cases in Canada, the Netherlands and Spain, have all been thrown out because the courts determined that there were no legal grounds to pursue them. Mr. Machover, as a person who seems to speak with true conviction, and as a lawyer being paid by a client, naturally disagrees with these courts and may think that the law should be otherwise, but the courts of liberal democracies disagree with him. His response to these legal victories is to suggest that these cases were decided the way they were because "It is arguable that Israeli legal successes abroad have had nothing to do with the core merits of the cases concerned." Mr. Machover, however, does not make this argument.

(Read full article)

.