Are they grossly ignorant or are they willfully slandering the IDF?

...One cannot claim that the IDF is both a uniquely bloodthirsty army using precision weapons to target civilians and at the same time maintain that the IDF is so poor at targeting. Anyone claiming that the IDF is deliberately targeting civilians is either grossly ignorant of how wars are waged, or they are willfully slandering the army.

Elder of Ziyon..
03 August '14..

I have described how Hamas is violating at least 19 principles of international law in the current fighting.

Now, is Israel?

The criticism most often given of Israel's actions is that it is violating the "principle of distinction." The Geneva Conventions Additional Protocol 1, article 52, states it this way:

1. Civilian objects shall not be the object of attack or of reprisals. Civilian objects are all objects which are not military objectives as defined in paragraph 2.

2. Attacks shall be limited strictly to military objectives. In so far as objects are concerned, military objectives are limited to those objects which by their nature, location, purpose or use make an effective contribution to military action and whose total or partial destruction, capture or neutralization, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage.

3. In case of doubt whether an object which is normally dedicated to civilian purposes, such as a place of worship, a house or other dwelling or a school, is being used to make an effective contribution to military action, it shall be presumed not to be so used.

Many countries, when they ratified this article, clarified it to ensure that collateral damage is not covered by the first sentence of paragraph 2. So, for example, Canada wrote:

It is the understanding of the Government of Canada in relation to Article 52 that ...the first sentence of paragraph 2 of the Article is not intended to, nor does it,deal with the question of incidental or collateral damage resulting from an attack directed against a military objective.

Italy, Australia, the UK, France and New Zealand added similar language (CIHL II para. 83-91)

Logic dictates that it cannot be otherwise. If these caveats aren't in place, then anyone can make any military target immune from attack placing a civilian there, or placing the target in a house or church or hospital that is still used as such. So, for example, Australia's Defence Force Manual states:

The presence of noncombatants in or around a military objective does not change its nature as a military objective. Noncombatants in the vicinity of a military objective must share the danger to which the military objective is exposed.

Note that we are not saying that the existence of civilians at a military target can be ignored; that is part of the Proportionality discussion that will be forthcoming. But clearly international law allows the attack on military targets even if there are some civilians there.

Who determines whether something is a military target or not?

(Continue)

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Hypocrisy on a Truly Epic Scale. “Apartheid”? Blame the Geneva Convention

...In short, it’s precisely all those people who insist the West Bank is “occupied territory” who have no grounds to complain about the discriminatory legal system in place there–because occupied territories are supposed to be governed by the Geneva Convention, which mandates this discriminatory regime. That such people are now accusing Israel of “apartheid” for having bowed to their demand to apply the convention is hypocrisy on a truly epic scale.

Evelyn Gordon..
Commentary Magazine..
08 May '14..

John Kerry’s infamous apartheid comment continues to make waves in Israel, eliciting push-back from some surprising places–like yesterday’s Haaretz column by Zvi Bar’el. Bar’el, whom nobody could accuse of being an Israel apologist (his column asserts Israeli control over the West Bank is even worse than the apartheid), points out that under apartheid, the legal regime discriminates between citizens of the same country. That’s fundamentally different from an occupation, under which the legal regime discriminates between the occupying power’s citizens and the occupied noncitizens. All occupying powers have given their own citizens more rights than the occupied noncitizens, from the British in India through the French in Algeria to the Americans in Iraq, he noted; yet none of these were ever labeled apartheid. Why should Israel be any different?

But Bar’el neglects to mention one important point: The legal distinction all occupations make between citizens and noncitizens isn’t just a whim of “racist” occupiers; it’s mandated by the Fourth Geneva Convention.

This convention largely bars occupiers from applying their own laws to the occupied population, requiring them instead to maintain the preexisting legal system except where alterations are necessary to ensure the occupier’s security. For instance, Article 64 states “The penal laws of the occupied territory shall remain in force”; Article 51 requires the occupier to uphold the “legislation in force in the occupied country concerning working conditions”; and so forth. One of the most discriminatory practices of all is explicitly mandated by Article 66, which states that if the occupier promulgates laws for its own security in the occupied territory, violators from among the occupied population shall be tried in “properly constituted, non-political military courts.”

Israel has never officially deemed the West Bank occupied territory; it considers it disputed territory to which Israel has a valid claim. But under pressure from the rest of the world, which insists the West Bank is occupied territory, Israel long ago agreed to voluntarily uphold most of the Geneva Convention’s provisions. The ironic result is that in many cases, West Bank Palestinians have fewer rights than Israelis.

Rachel’s tomb and the protection of Jewish holy sites

Meryl Yourish
Yourish.com
19 January '10

Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I), 8 June 1977.

Part IV : Civilian population #Section I — General protection against effects of hostilities #Chapter III — Civilian objects

Article 53 — Protection of cultural objects and of places of worship
Without prejudice to the provisions of the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict of 14 May 1954, and of other relevant international instruments, it is prohibited:

(a) to commit any acts of hostility directed against the historic monuments, works of art or places of worship which constitute the cultural or spiritual heritage of peoples;

(b) to use such objects in support of the military effort;

(c) to make such objects the object of reprisals.

If, as Dickens wrote, “The law is a ass …” then, pardon the crudity, international law is donkey crap. Once upon a time, Rachel’s Tomb – where, according to tradition, the Matriarch, Rachel is buried in Bethlehem – was, as depicted in the mural below, located in an open area.

(Read full article)
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BBC Removes Misinformation on US, Israel, Geneva Convention

Gilead Ini
CAMERA Media Analysis
05 January '10

As a result of CAMERA's formal complaint to the BBC, the British media giant removed inaccurate information from its Web site about the Geneva Accords and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The BBC's online informational piece, which since 2004 had been featured on the BBC Web site's "In Depth" section under the headline "The Geneva Conventions," included two egregious distortions. It sharply misled readers by concealing the extent of the United States' departure from its Carter-era position on the legality of settlements; and it quoted a passage from an American report's section on the "Palestinian perspective," casting the passage as representing the view held by the author of the report when in fact it was merely describing the Palestinian position.

The Historical US Position on Settlements

The article asserted: "The United States has in the past called the settlements illegal, but has more recently used milder language, at least in public."

This reference to "milder language" was extremely disingenuous. It was during the Carter administration that the US last referred to settlements as illegal. But the president that followed, Ronald Reagan, explicitly and publicly asserted that the settlements are "not illegal." In the Feb. 3, 1981 edition of the New York Times, Reagan noted: "As to the West Bank, I believe the settlements there — I disagreed when the previous Administration referred to them as illegal, they're not illegal."

Reagan's explicit statement that settlements are "not illegal" cannot fairly be described simply as "milder language" than that of previous administrations. It represents nothing less than an overturning of Mr. Carter's position.

(Read full article)
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The Times: Reinterpreting 'International Law'

Media Critiques/Honestreporting.com
15 October 09

The Times's correspondent opposes Israeli settlements by misrepresenting the Geneva Conventions.

When do journalists become experts in "international law"? The Times's James Hider writes an analysis piece "Geneva Conventions give the lie to Israeli stance on new settlements". Putting aside one's personal views on the desirability or otherwise of Israeli settlements, it is a particularly inappropriate turn of phrase in the headline to accuse Israel of lying.

This is even more so considering that the application of the Geneva Conventions to Israeli settlements is open to interpretation. Hider, however, chooses a blanket statement to make his own interpretation:

Under the Geneva Conventions, however, it is illegal to settle civilians on land captured in war, which is why the international community condemns the move into the Palestinian territories.

In fact, as Mitchell Bard points out:

• The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits the forcible transfer of people of one state to the territory of another state that it has occupied as a result of a war. The intention was to insure that local populations who came under occupation would not be forced to move. This is in no way relevant to the settlement issue. Jews are not being forced to go to the West Bank; on the contrary, they are voluntarily moving back to places where they, or their ancestors, once lived before being expelled by others.

Do the Geneva Conventions even technically apply to the settlements? The late Professor Eugene Rostow, former Dean of Yale Law School, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs under US President Lyndon Johnson and a drafter of UN Resolution 242 writes:

Article 2 of the convention provides that the agreement applies "to all cases of partial or total occupation of the territory of a high contracting party."Thus the convention cannot apply because the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip have never been generally recognized as territories of Jordan. Jordan administered them as a belligerent occupant between 1948 and 1967, after a war of aggression against Israel in 1948. Jordan's attempt to annex these areas in 1950 was recognized only by Britain (except for Jerusalem) and perhaps by Pakistan.

In any event, Jordan has formally renounced whatever claims it may have had to the territory, which is a residual part of the Palestine Mandate and therefore subject to the rights of "the Jewish people" to make "close settlement" on the land. I regard this aspect of the controversy as legally more important than arguments based on the Geneva Convention.

Thus, Hider not only fails to define the terms of the Geneva Conventions properly but also fails to note that their applicability to Israeli settlements is open to interpretation.

This is only the tip of the iceberg of a particularly virulent anti-Israel bias prevalent within Europe, as Israel's detractors invoke "international law" to promote accusations of "war crimes" and other illegal actions. While the European establishment may accept Hider's opinion as fact, not interpretation, the facts support a different conclusion.

Please send your considered comments to The Times - letters@thetimes.co.uk - remembering to include an address and daytime telephone number.

Weekly Commentary: Terror Gang Or State In The Making?

Blanket prisoner release demand inconsistent
Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA
6 August 2009

The Fatah General Assembly being held in Bethlehem unanimously adopted a resolution today demanding the release of all Palestinians being held in Israeli prisons while at the same time asserting that all Palestinians being held by Israel have the status of “prisoners of war and combatants” subject to the Geneva Convention “as they are not terrorists or criminals.”

Here’s the problem:

The moment that the Palestinians argue that each and every terrorist now being held by Israel should be subject to the international conventions that apply to combatant they cannot also insist on a blanket release of all Palestinians now being held by Israel.

International conventions set restrictions of what combatants can and cannot do. And there are many Palestinian terrorists serving time in Israeli prisons for actions that constituted gross violations of those international rules of combat.

If these terrorists are “combatants” then they are also “war criminals”.

And war criminals don’t win a “get out of jail” card just because the war the “fought” in is over.

Fatah has to decide what they are.

As a terrorist movement they can certainly argue that any and every terrorist attack is legitimate in their eyes and thus those who carry them out deserve praise as heroes and immediate release from captivity.

But if Fatah instead sees itself as the advance guard of a Palestinian state in the making then they must not only acknowledge that there are limits and restrictions that apply to the activities of “combatants” and that “combatants” who violate these restrictions must be punished.
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