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)

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Asymmetric Warfare: Hamas and the Livni Warrant

Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens
Standpoint Magazine
22 December 09

The Times reported yesterday that Hamas is "masterminding efforts to have senior Israeli leaders arrested for alleged war crimes when the visit European countries." The recent arrest warrant issued for Tzipi Livni by a British Court is certainly tied to this, and it is no surprise that the UK is the first port of call in this latest act of Hamas asymmetric warfare.

Although Hamas were not directly involved, it seems that they have acted as key facilitators, and claim to have provided lawyers with evidence of Israeli war crimes. This has been done through a Hamas initiative founded by Ismail Haniyeh called "the central committee for documentation and prosecuting Israeli war criminals," also known as Al-Tawthiq. According to its chairman, the commission's mission is to document and gather "evidence connected with Israel war crimes, tracking war criminals and prosecuting them in international, national and local courts."

Over the years, Hamas have been exceptionally successful at waging (and winning) an antisemitic propaganda war against Israel. So successful in fact, that in this country professing support for Hamas - a proscribed Islamist terrorist group - is now considered a mainstream position, which is held by some prominent politicians and high profile thinkers. Israeli officials have not yet come to terms with the effect that Hamas asymmetric warfare in Europe has on their ability to completely neutralise the terrorist threat they face at home. This Israeli underestimation of Hamas' capabilities outside of Gaza is no better illustrated than by the almost successful attempt to have one of their leading politicians put on trial for war crimes.

(Read full article)
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Guardian misleads on profile of pro-Palestinian lawyer

Just Journalism
17 December 09

The Guardian’s reporting of the Tzipi Livni arrest warrant story fell short of journalistic standards today when it failed to properly identify prominent pro-Palestinian lawyer Daniel Machover, who was quoted condemning the UK government for its response to the issuing of the warrant.

Machover is Chair of Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights and a partner at London law firm Hickman and Rose, which in 2005 successfully represented Palestinians seeking an arrest warrant in the UK against Israeli Major General Doron Almog over house demolitions in Gaza.

Only yesterday he authored an article published on The Guardian’s Comment is free website in which he claimed that Gordon Brown and David Miliband’s diplomatic intervention in favour of Livni ‘sends a message that Britain is in fact a safe haven for suspected torturers and war criminals’.

Despite his past and current active involvement in this issue, in ‘Outcry over plan to give attorney general veto on issuing of war crimes warrants’ by Guardian Legal Affairs Correspondent Afua Hirsch and Middle East Editor Ian Black, he is described simply as ‘a solicitor’. The article reads:

"I feel honest revulsion at the idea of a case where a judge has granted an arrest warrant and a politician gets on the phone and apologises," said Daniel Machover, a solicitor. "They have got to stay out of individual cases and legal decisions…

"It's outrageous and the only reason the Foreign Office wants to do it is to avoid embarrassment – there is no good legal reason," said Machover. "If there was an arrest warrant against Livni, it's because there was a case to answer according to a judge who found that there was reasonable suspicion."

This failure to identify sufficiently the contributor deprives Guardian readers and website users of the necessary information with which to contexualise his comments. They will have been misled by today’s description of Daniel Machover as ‘a solicitor’ because this implied falsely that he was being cited as an objective legal voice, rather than the extremely active pro-Palestinian legal advocate that he is.

Just Journalism’s August roundtable, which convened journalists and legal experts to discuss how international law is reported in the UK, addressed this very issue. Director of the Centre for Social Cohesion Douglas Murray discerned a ‘halo effect’ enjoyed by legal activists who are identified in the media simply as lawyers when they are, in fact, ‘more than lawyers’.

Just Journalism has contacted The Guardian on this issue and is awaiting a response.

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