Israel's Actions are Legal

In today's Washington Post--a paper whose news coverage of the war has quickly deteriorated from bad to worse--there is a quite reasonable defense brief for Israel's actions under international law, written by attorneys David B. Rivkin, Jr. and Lee A. Casey:

Israel's conduct has been fully compliant with the applicable norms of international law.

The primary claim by Israel's critics is that it used force disproportionately in response to Hezbollah's initial attack against Israeli soldiers, eight of whom were killed and two captured. The underlying assumption appears to be that Israel should have treated these provocations as terrorist acts and limited its response accordingly, rather than as justifications for a full-scale attack on Lebanese territory.

But in determining the existence of a legitimate casus belli , a state is entitled to consider the entire context of the threat it faces. Hezbollah is not simply a terrorist gang, like Germany's Baader-Meinhof or Italy's Red Brigades. It is a substantial political and military organization that has more than 12,000 short- and medium-range rockets and that has operated freely on Lebanese territory for many years, periodically launching attacks against Israel. Its stated goal is Israel's destruction, and it is the client of a major regional power -- Iran -- whose government appears dedicated to the same goal.

Moreover, although international law requires a state to have a lawful reason to use force -- such as self-defense -- it does not mandate that a state limit its military response to "tit for tat" actions. Once a country has suffered an armed attack, it is entitled to identify the source of that attack and to eliminate its adversary's ability to attack again. Its actions must be consistent with otherwise applicable international norms, but it is not required to accept a limited conflict that fails to meet and resolve the danger it faces.

That Lebanon has suffered from Israel's actions does not change the legal rules involved. No state has the right to permit a foreign military force to use its territory to launch attacks against another country. Indeed, every country has an obligation to control its own territory. Lebanon's failure (or refusal) to expel Hezbollah would in and of itself have been a legitimate cause for Israeli military action. It was the Taliban's sheltering of al-Qaeda that was the basis of the U.S. attack on Afghanistan in 2001. And, although the current Lebanese government is certainly more democratic than the feudalistic Taliban, democratic credentials cannot insulate a state from responsibility for controlling its territory.

The specific aspects of Israel's military operations in Lebanon and Gaza have also been condemned as being disproportionate and as thereby violating the laws of war. Although there is some grim humor in the spectacle of Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose troops have ravaged Chechnya, criticizing Israel for a "disproportionate" use of force, the claims -- including dark warnings from Louise Arbour, U.N. high commissioner for human rights, about "war crimes" liability for Israel's leaders -- are without merit.

If the authors are right, and I believe they are, then it certainly is time for Louise Arbour to go...

NATO's "Disproportionate" Bombing of Serbia

Among others at the time, the World Socialist Website condmned NATO for "disproportionate" attacks on Serbia in 2000:

Human rights advocates accuse NATO of deliberately bombing Serbia's civil infrastructure. The executive director of the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), Kenneth Roth, said the targets chosen by NATO were "disproportionate and should be found violations of international humanitarian law".

HRW is drawing up a detailed report that will be submitted to the war crimes tribunal at The Hague. Among the examples of targeting violations it will cite are electricity grids, oil refineries and radio and television stations.

The report is also expected to attack the use of cluster bombs by US and British aircraft. At least 5 percent of these bombs failed to explode on impact, and many lie unexploded in Kosovo, where HRW say they are still killing or maiming two civilians a day.

HRW place the number of civilian Serbs killed by NATO bombing at around 600, and Belgrade claims the figure is as high as 2,000. The charges being brought forward against NATO by HRW and others serve to unravel the tissue of lies assembled in Washington, London and Brussels to justify the bombardment of an innocent population.

Russia's "Disproportionate" Chechnya Campaign

From the BBC's December, 1999 report:

NATO has condemned Russia's military campaign in Chechnya, saying that disproportionate and indiscriminate force was being used against civilians.

The RAF's "Disproportionate" Bombing of Iraq

Anti-war websites also called Western military action in Iraq "disproportionate." For example, this Common Dreams post condemns Britian's Royal Air Force bombing of Iraq :

Ministers were last night asked to explain the circumstances in which the RAF participated in a spectacular increase in bombing raids on Iraq in apparent defiance of Foreign Office legal advice.

"It did not take very much to work out that the increase in bombing bore no relation to the protection of Iraqi citizens in the north or the south of the country," Sir Menzies Campbell, Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, said referring to the ostensible reason for the "no-fly" zones. He told the Guardian: "The obvious explanation was that air defenses were being degraded deliberately and that any provocation by the Iraqi military would be met with a disproportionate response".

America's "Disproportionate" Bombing of Afghanistan

The condemnation of Israel reminded me that I had heard similar complaints about "disproportionate" use of force and civilian casualties before--from critics of America after the US bombed Afghanistan in the aftermath of 9/11.

Professor Marc W. Herold of the University of New Hampshire has a website still dedicated to attacking the 2001-2002 Afghan campaign. Here's a sample of his criticism:

The American Afghan War -- historically the Fourth Afghan War -- is anything but a 'just war' as James Carroll has adroitly pointed out.26First, the disproportionate U.S. response of making an entire other nation and people 'pay' for the crimes of a few is obvious to anyone who seeks out the real 'costs' perpetrated upon the people of Afghanistan. Action should be based upon some measure of proportionality, which here clearly is not the case. Secondly, this war does little to impede the cycle of violence of which the WTC attacks are merely one manifestation. The massive firepower unleashed by the Americans will no doubt invite similar indiscriminate carnage. Injustices will flower. Thirdly, by defining these events as a war rather than a police action without providing any argument for the necessity of the former, the American Afghan War is un-necessary and, hence, not 'just.' As Carroll writes, "the criminals, not an impoverished nation, should be on the receiving end of punishment."

It is simply unacceptable for civilians to be slaughtered as a side-effect of an intentional strike against a specified target. There is no difference between the attacks upon the WTC whose primary goal was the destruction of a symbol, and the U.S-U.K. revenge coalition bombing of military targets located in populated urban areas. Both are criminal. Slaughter is slaughter. Killing civilians even if unintentional is criminal.

Sound familiar?

An Israel-Hezbollah War Blog

Here.

Here's an interesting graph from the blog, showing a pattern of recent Hezbollah rocket attacks on Israel:

What Next for Israel & Lebanon?

Writing in Haaretz, Amos Harel says Israel's next steps will be tough. (ht War and Piece)

Where do we take it from here? The general staff admits that Nasrallah can go on firing at Israel for many days. Some of the officers are talking of the necessity for a diplomatic move, at the same time as the ground action, that will speed up the conclusion of the battles without the IDF's going into too many more villages and suffering heavy losses. But Israel still has two basic problems: Only a massive blow to Hezbollah can lessen its stranglehold over the Lebanese government, something which has not yet been achieved. Secondly, even if this is achieved, it will be necessary to have a very strong political arrangement to prevent Iran from rearming Hezbollah and waiting to open another round next summer.

Israeli TV News in English

You can watch here.

Francisco Gil-White:Why Hezbollah is Responsible for Civilian Casualties

Francisco Gil-White makes a logical case with this analogy:

The argument that the Israeli response is ‘too harsh’ says that some Lebanese civilians are dying as a result of Israeli firepower, and this means that Israel is guilty for their deaths and hence ‘too harsh’ in its response.

To see whether this is a valid argument, let us conduct another thought experiment.

Suppose that a criminal is shooting at you and your family. You shoot back in self-defense, to protect your spouse and children -- your life. Accidentally, you shoot dead a bystander. Question: Who is morally responsible for the death of the bystander? Morally responsible. You were not aiming for the bystander, and you would not have used your gun if this criminal had not been shooting at your family in the first place. And you do have an obligation to defend your family; you cannot simply turn your family over to anybody who is prepared to use violence. Therefore, the moral responsibility for the death of that bystander belongs to the man who decided to shoot at your family and in so doing forced you to perform your moral duty and defend it. If the bullet that killed the bystander came out of the barrel of your gun, that does not absolve the man who attacked your family, and neither does it convict you.

Now, consider the situation of Israel.

Hezbollah means to kill every last living Jew. Hezbollah is growing fast inside the Lebanese state across the border. And Hezbollah attacked Israeli civilians. When the Israeli government retaliated against Hezbollah, this was its moral obligation, because the Israeli government must protect Israeli citizens. Hezbollah must be destroyed because the purpose of Hezbollah is to kill all the Jews. No such organization can be allowed to exist, and recruit, and arm itself to the teeth. If we tolerate such organizations, we tolerate genocide. Therefore, Hezbollah must be destroyed. This is the morally correct thing to do.

In the effort to reduce Hezbollah, the Israeli government has not been able to keep casualties of Lebanese civilians to zero, this is true. It is a terrible thing when anybody dies, but we are not discussing whether this is good or bad -- we agree that the deaths of civilians are a terrible thing, and the same goes for the deaths of soldiers. What we are trying to do is decide whose fault this is.

Hezbollah’s core doctrine is to seek the total destruction of the civilian Jewish population, and it deliberately targets Jewish civilians. The Israeli government, by contrast, is not trying to kill Lebanese civilians: it is dropping leaflets to warn civilians before it strikes a place. And the Israeli government would not be shooting at all if Hezbollah had not attacked Israeli civilians in the first place. In attacking Hezbollah, the Israeli government is discharging its moral obligation to Israeli citizens, precisely in the manner that you protected your family in the above thought experiment. Israel is not guilty for the deaths of the bystanders. It is to Hezbollah that you should account these deaths, because Hezbollah forced the Israeli government to attack Hezbollah, and the Hezbollah ‘soldiers,’ like the cowards they are, hide among Lebanese civilians, thus endangering them.

David Horowitz v The Nation

Do readers of The Nation care about this David Horowitz blast?

The Nation’s current apologetics for the terrorist bloc continue a nearly 100-year tradition of its editor's support for the totalitarian enemies of America and the West. For nearly 100 years, the editors of the Nation explained and justified every Communist tyrant from Stalin to Castro; when terrorists slaughtered the innocent on 9/11, the Nation's editors decried American jingoism and America’s “empire;” they opposed the overthrow of Saddam Hussein; and they continue to attack the liberation of Iraq as an imperialist “occupation” and democratic America as a “terrorist state.”

But even in the context of this sordid record, the Nation’s present support for the agents of the second Holocaust marks for it a new moral low. Its role in this war, as in the war in Iraq, is too transparent to be defended. Its editors may not openly embrace the goal of eliminating the Jewish presence in the Middle East, and possibly can’t even admit to themselves that this is the radicals’ goal. But the Nation editors are nonetheless dedicated to justifying the jihadists who are pursuing this goal, and for that they cannot be forgiven.

Michelle Malkin on Hezbollah's American Victims

NGOs Repat Hezbollah Party Line

From NGO Monitor:

Following NGO Monitor's July 18 report, "NGOs quick to exploit Lebanon Crisis to attack Israel," a number of NGOs have issued further statements, many of which focus disproportionately on condemnations of Israel.

Common themes among the NGO statements include:

* Accusations of "disproportionate force" by Israel, with no explanation of what would comprise a proportionate response to Hezbollah terror attacks.

* Criticism of Israel's targeting of bridges, major roads and the Beirut Airport as "collective punishment," despite the clear military rationale of sealing off air and sea ports, roads and other such targets to prevent the re-supply of arms from Syria and Iran.

* No mention that Hezbollah's concrete reinforced military headquarters are located under buildings in southern Beirut, and that the positioning of military/guerrilla installations in residential areas is considered a war crime, as defined by Protocol I (1977) to the Geneva Convention, article 51(7), relating to human shields. Hezbollah also stores and launches missiles from civilian villages in southern Lebanon, but no NGO explores the human rights implications of Hezbollah's use of human shields.

* Few NGOs call for the release of the two abducted Israeli soldiers.

Pierre Rehov's Middle East Documentaries

Thanks to a mention by Phyllis Chesler, I found filmmaker Pierre Rehov's website, a welcome alternative to the mainstream media, which reveals how enemies of Israel deliberately use women and children as part of their war and propaganda machine--then blame Israel for any deaths or injuries...:

"Palestinian mythology is based on an absurd "martyrdom
philosophy" that every reporter working in the "territories" is forced to buy, in order to work safely.

There is no freedom of press under the Palestinian Authority, and no journalist can report honestly without risking is life.

Palestinians deserve a country and self determination, but that will not happen as long as Israelis are described the way they are by most TV networks.

That leads to a situation where Palestinians are not considered grown-ups, while Jews are demonized in the same way they have been during the worst periods of their tragic history.

If a Palestinian child is found in the streets, throwing stones at a soldier, you have to ask yourself: "Who sent him there? Where are the parents ? Who is hiding with a gun behind him?"

I saw that happen many times, and I am asking you:

If you want to protect Palestinian children, don't let them be used as human shields by Muslim extremists! Don't keep silent! Do something, now!"

Who is an Israeli? (cont'd.) by Joseph Agassi

From Joseph Agassi's eulogy for Hillel Kook:

Hillel Kook said repeatedly that Israel’s leadership stole form
the Israeli people their nationality. The French Jew is both French and
Jewish. The American Jew is both American and Jewish. Only Israeli
Jews are not Israelis. OF course, Israel is a Jewish state the way Franc
is a Catholic state. And why can an Israeli not declare, as Hillel Kook
did repeatedly, I am 100% a Jew and 100% an Israeli? Why not?
Because if this were admitted, than it would also be admitted that
Israel has also nationals who are 100% Israeli but not Jewish at all,
but Muslim or Christian or Druse, or whatever else they may be.
Israeli Jews find this unacceptable. And on the ground that Israel must
be the state of all Jews no matter where they live. And this on the
ground that we must avoid the repetition of the shameful abandonment
of the Jews of Europe during the Holocaust. And so Israelis find the
right to religious discrimination in the Holocaust and in the
irresponsibility of their leadership then.

Religious discrimination has made Israel bi-national de facto.
As long as she maintains a national minority, said Hillel Kook, she
will not be viable. Most regrettably, recent events prove him right.
The national minority in Israel ahs the peculiar status. Its members
have the right to elect and to be elected, but not to bear arms. This
amounts to the idea that weapons speak louder than laws, that soldiers
are mightier than legislators. This is an intolerable insult to the laws,
and it introduces violence into all areas of life here. In Israel there is a
clear preference for contempt for the law, since the settlers violate the
law of the land. They imitate the heroic settlers in the period of the
British Mandate. In that period the British government had betrayed
its Mandate. Today the Israeli premiere praises the lawbreakers and
thus belittles the law and the government that rules by the law and
himself as its head.

Hillel Kook demanded all his life that we establish an Israeli
Republic that will be a normal nation-state in the western liberal
democratic pattern so that its government could initiate practical
political solutions to the difficult problems of the day that no Israeli
leader claims to have a plan for its solutions. Hillel Kook changed his
positions repeatedly in the light of changing circumstances and in
accord with the principle that a responsible government should display
one-sided political initiative. He was amazingly free of dogma. The
fact that he stuck to the idea of nationalism has no basis in any dogma.
It rests on two facts. First the sense of duty that he had towards the
people who dwell in Zion. The second is the absence, to date, of any
form of government that is preferable to the western-style liberal
democratic nation-state. This form is far from perfect. He was
convince that a day will come and nations will disappear, so he wrote,
and the unity of all humanity will prevail. But he added to this that if
we will not fulfill our national purposes, then we will have no
descendents to witness that great day. It is a matter of life and death.
We take leave of Hillel Kook with the promise not to forget his
message. It is a matter of life and death.

Art Kills 2, Injures 13

In England, according to the Guardian:

Two women were killed and a three-year-old girl seriously injured yesterday when wind flipped an inflatable art installation 30 feet into the air, tipping out as many as 30 visitors.

The accident at the Riverside Park, Chester-le-Street, County Durham, left another 12 people needing hospital treatment. They included an elderly man and woman who suffered heart attacks.

It happened at around 3.30pm when the Dreamspace inflatable, five metres high and the size of half a football pitch, broke its moorings, rose up and moved about 60 feet. The Arts Council-funded PVC installation crashed to the ground after colliding with a CCTV camera post.

Saudi Arabia to Join Moscow's Lebanon Push?

Middle East diplomacy could be getting interesting, according to Russia's RIA Novosti:

Saudi Arabia's foreign minister and national security chief will arrive in Moscow Tuesday to discuss ways to curb violence in the Middle East, the Saudi foreign ministry said.

UN Official Blames Hezbollah for Civilian Deaths

Let's see if this statement by UN representative Jan Egeland gets the Western media coverage that it deserves:

On Monday, he had strong words for Hezbollah, which crossed into Israel, captured two soldiers and killed eight others on July 12, triggering fierce fighting.

"Consistently, from the Hezbollah heartland, my message was that Hezbollah must stop this cowardly blending ... among women and children," he said. "I heard they were proud because they lost very few fighters and that it was the civilians bearing the brunt of this. I don't think anyone should be proud of having many more children and women dead than armed men."

(ht lgf)

An Animated Map of Hezbollah Rocket Attacks

In case your local newspaper or television news didn't mention this, here's a link to a flash animation map of Hezbollah's rocket launches:

Names of Israeli villages and towns hit by missiles:
Ein Keniye, HaGoshrim, Beit Hillel, Amir, Ne’ot Mordekhai, Ma’ayan Baruch, Misgav Am, Rajar, Kfar HaNasi, Tuba, Amiad, Korazim, Kfar Zeitim, Kfar Hittim, Kfar Yuval, Or HeGanuz, Safsufa, Peki’in, Yechiam, Tzuriel, Alkush, Matat, Shumrah, Ben-Ami, Evron, Abu-Snan, Mitzpe Shlagim, Har Hermon, Tel Dan, Hulata, Mishmar HaYarden, Machana’im, Gush Chalav, Dishon, Yiftach, Malkieh, Bar’am, Sasa, Dovev, Biranit, Majad El-Krum, Even Menahem, Kabri, Gesher HaZiv, Achziv, Chorfesh, Hanita, Kiryat Motzkin, Kiryat Haim, Kiryat Yam, Kiryat Tivon, Kfar Szold, Sde Eliezer, Dalton, Ma’alot, Hosen, Bustan HaGalil, Julis, Tel El, Lochamei HaGhettaot, Nazareth, Haifa, Tiberius, Acre, Kiryat Shmona, Manara, Avivim, Hazor HaGlilit, Ramot, Rosh Pina, Yesud HaMa’ala, Shetula, Meron, Safed, Nahariah, Nesher, Migdal Ha”Emek, Afula.

(ht Michelle Malkin)

Arnold Schwarzenegger: "Am Israel Chai...I'll be back"

According to the Jerusalem Post, the Governator spoke at a pro-Israel rally in Los Angeles:

Schwarzenegger told the crowd, "It is great to be here during this difficult time Israel is facing. We are all here to support the State of Israel.

"While we all regret the loss of innocent life, there is no doubt that Israel has the right to take all appropriate steps to keep its people safe.

"I have been to Israel many times," he said. "I started in the '70s as a body-building champion. I went back in the '80s as the Terminator. I went back in the '90s to open my Planet Hollywood restaurant, and Israel was the first country that I visited after I became governor of the great state of California."

"There is nothing Israel wants more than to live in peace. That is why I am happy to be here to be supportive of that here today ...Am Israel Chai...I'll be back," said the governor.

Benjamin Netanyahu: No Cease Fire in Lebanon

From the Wall Street Journal:

At stake in the current operation is not only Israel's security, Lebanon's democratic future, and stability in the region, but a central principle in the war on terror. Soon after Sept. 11, President Bush made clear that America would no longer make a distinction between the terrorists and the regimes that harbor them. This policy is essential because international terrorism cannot survive without the support of sovereign states.

In order for the global terror network to be dismantled, its support by sovereign states must end--whether that supports comes in the form of actively perpetrating terror attacks (as in the case of Iran and the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority), providing safe havens for terror groups (as in the case of Syria) or not acting against terror groups within their borders (as is the case in Lebanon). A world in which the international community does not hold states accountable for the terrorism that emanates from within their borders is a world in which the war on terror cannot be won.

That is why any cease-fire or diplomatic effort that does not have as its objective the disarming of Hezbollah will only strengthen the forces of terror. And that is also why the world should fully support Israel in disarming Hezbollah--for Israel's sake, for Lebanon's sake and for the sake of our common future.