Lost at Sea: NGO Legal Distortions in the Wake of the Flotilla Incident

NGO Monitor
03 June '10

Since the violent clash between the Free Gaza flotilla and Israeli naval forces on May 31, numerous NGOs and “human rights groups” have issued harsh and one-sided condemnations of Israel’s actions. Many of these statements have been couched in the terminology of international law. However, as the following analysis demonstrates, these claims are legally incorrect or dubious. They represent the continued exploitation of international law for political ends.

Claims:

1) Israel used excessive/disproportionate force

2) The blockade of Gaza is illegal and constitutes a form of collective punishment

3)Despite Israel’s 2005 “Disengagement,” Gaza continues to be under Israeli occupation

4)Israel’s actions constitute an act of piracy

1) Claim: Israel used excessive/disproportionate force

NGO quotes:

Adalah- “The Israeli military attack violates international law as it targeted civilians and civilian targets, and involved the use of disproportionate force.”
Amnesty International- “Israeli forces appear clearly to have used excessive force…Israel says its forces acted in self-defence, alleging that they were attacked by protestors, but it begs credibility that the level of lethal force used by Israeli troops could have been justified. It appears to have been out of all proportion to any threat posed.”

Analysis:

Israeli naval forces were met by violent activists wielding guns, knives, clubs and chains. According to video and audio released by the IDF, soldiers initially attempted to employ non-lethal force. Deadly force was only authorized after the soldiers were confronted by a well-armed crowd, and after they faced live fire. Several Israeli soldiers suffered gun and knife wounds. The right to self-defense in the face of an immediate and clear threat to one’s life is not contested in international law.

(Read full report)

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Universal jurisdiction — a really bad idea

FresnoZionism
24 December 09

Universal Jurisdiction sounds like such a great idea (well, to some people, anyway). One moral nation, acting for a moral world, can bring war criminals to justice, even when crimes are committed outside of its territory. You can understand why in principle this could be a good idea, especially if said war criminals are powerful enough in their own countries as to be untouchable. The concept has been supported by those watchdogs of international morality, the ‘human rights’ NGOs like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, etc.

Anybody that lives in the real world must know that the facts of international politics make the just application of this principle impossible. It would seem to me that anyone who has finished elementary school and read at least one history book would understand this, but apparently the people at the NGOs either don’t meet this standard or are dishonest. Judging by what they did with the war in Gaza, I vote for the latter.

The fatal defect of this idea is that it is based on analogy to criminal law inside a jurisdiction, where there is, at least in the best circumstances, a disinterested justice system and rules of evidence and of judgment intended to ensure fairness. For example, in our courts hearsay is not admitted as evidence, and juries are selected in ways designed to produce impartiality. Even rules for determining probable cause for an arrest are stringent. But this is exactly what isn’t the case in the international arena.

(Read full article)
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Human Rights Complex Take 13476:

HRW Does Hatchet Job on IDF and (silently) exculpates Hamas

Richard Landes

Augean Stables

13 August 09

HRW continues its assault on Israel based on methodologies that, were they used in science, would have us still living in the Ptolemean universe (i.e., human rights revolve around the Palestinians). Fortunately, both NGO Monitor and the IDF are responding vigorously.

Begin with what HRW doesn’t want to mention: i.e., that Hamas “operatives” systematically use civilians as shields, including those who wave white flags. Here’s IDF aerial footage from January 7, 2009 showing just such an incident.

Why does the HRW report contain no mention of these Hamas tactics, despite the fact that elsewhere they do acknowledge the problem? I think for two reasons.

1) It takes the moral heat off of Israel. How can you get your back into accusing Israel for shooting at people with white flags when there are combattants hiding among them. (Idem for ambulances, checkpoints, etc.) Exhibit B is the explanation for this twisted morality. Noah Pollak over at Contentions explains how both Sarah Leah Whitson of Saudi notoriety and the author of the report, Joe Stork, have long careers and anti-Israel advocates (”pro-Palestinian” would be too twisted a term for people who have no problem with the Palestinian treatment of their own refugees).

And 2) it raises a huge problem of the validity of the testimony they collect among Palestinians. If Hamas will fire from the midst of civilians, hide behind white-flag toting refugees, and keep them cooped up in areas to which they draw fire, then surely they are not going to be very happy with Palestinians complaining about that behavior. Once HRW grants that such matters go on within the same report in which they present Palestinian evidence as their key source for their allegations, the epistemological house of cards begins to fall.

So exhibit C is an analysis of a particular case which I treated at some length in the aftermath of operation Cast Lead — the tale of the Abed Rabbo family. Here Elder of Ziyon examines the way in which HRW uses testimony whose only value is to document how unreliable Palestinian witnesses tend to be, in order to indict Israeli soldiers.

Finally, NGO Monitor produced its own critique: HRW’s ‘White Flags’ Report Surrenders Morality.

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