By rules of law you mean international law? By that logic we should also commit preemptive strikes against Israel to prevent it committing what is recognised by the internal community as genocide.
Take that logic further. Israel's enemies outnumber it by 10x or more and are more than ruthless enough to sacrifice as many as necessary*. There's no way ever that Israel could avoid having the other side having more casualties. The same would apply to every minority.
If your suggested law of war isn't 'majority or ruthless minority, get to do everything they want because they have more causalties', than you need an alternative. The alternative is the current laws of war, which allow for strikes with collateral damage (what Israel says it's doing), but not for terrorist attacks aimed at civilians.
* Suicide bombers, Iranian mullahs sending kids with 'plastic keys to heaven' to dismantle minefields, or current refusal of Hamas to allow civilians to use its tunnels as shelters. We could fill the page with examples really.
** Funny, I don't recall opposition to America's post 9/11 response based on counts. Almost as if the same rules don't apply.
So Israel can't enjoy the same right to self defense that any other state would? They can't conduct a war in an urban environment with an actual intentionally genocidal enemy, and must resort to targeted assassinations? That standard is absurd. Surely you can admit some middle ground ,if you're discussing in good faith.
It's a very nice slogan that 'Israel has every right to defend themselves' from the rocket attacks, but they have no legal rights to take actions outside of the constraints of International Humanitarian Law.
Reprisals against civilians and indiscriminate attacks are clearly and explicitly prohibited by both the Fourth Geneva Convention and Protocol I. (Although, I believe Protocol I cannot be enforced against Israel since they have not ratified it).
Israel DOES NOT have the right to attack civilians as revenge or to deter or prevent future attacks. This is a war crime under international law (GC IV Art. 33, Art. 53).
Israel DOES NOT have the right to indiscriminately shell Gaza under the pretext of defending itself from terrorists no matter how carefully civilian casualties are minimized. Again, this is a war crime (Protocol I, Art. 51), you go to The Hague for this (Nuremburg Principle VI).
Actually I did. By excluding one particular category of things. I can provide many other exclusions. General exclusions + some obligations is pretty much how laws of warfare are defined. Which is how nations agreed to wage wars more "humanely" in the past, including Israel.
And I think Israel should not wage its extermination campaign at all, btw. So I simply don't agree with the premise of your question, personally.
Your comment is a stellar example of the Bullshit Asymmetry Principle in action. You'd have us wade through untold reams of international law for specific references, a task that would likely take hours, just to rebut your glib denial of the current state of play. Oh well, I've got some time to kill...
Shit That Should Land Israel's Government and Military Apparatus In The Hague, Abridged:
- (i) Intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population as such or against individual civilians not taking direct part in hostilities;
- (ii) Intentionally directing attacks against civilian objects, that is, objects which are not military objectives;
- (iv) Intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects or widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment which would be clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipated;
- (v) Attacking or bombarding, by whatever means, towns, villages, dwellings or buildings which are undefended and which are not military objectives;
- (iii) Intentionally directing attacks against personnel, installations, material, units or vehicles involved in a humanitarian assistance or peacekeeping mission in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, as long as they are entitled to the protection given to civilians or civilian objects under the international law of armed conflict;
The Israeli army has a storied history of bombing the shit out of aid workers that goes back decades, everything from shelling UN aid warehouses with white phosphorous munitions to calling in artillery strikes on aid convoys. This behavior is well-documented and certainly not limited to the current conflict.
- (xxv) Intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare by depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, including wilfully impeding relief supplies as provided for under the Geneva Conventions;
Do we really need to review the current state of play with relief aid in Gaza given it hasn't been 5 days since an Israeli patrol greased a convoy of aid workers? Shit's gotten so bad foreign governments have taken to air dropping aid.
Additionally as I'm sitting here combing through the Geneva Conventions there are a few things that stand out:
- Part I, Article 3, 2) seems to be in olay between shelling the fuck out of aid workers, bombing hospitals out of existence, and the several documented attacks on emergency response vehicles.
I'm certain there's more here but you aren't getting more of my time than the initial hour I budgeted to the task of putting together this reply. Have fun with the supplemental reading...
War has rules? Until it doesn’t. Look at the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. It was concluded by an agreement for a total withdrawal of PLO forces from Lebanon with promises by the Israelis not to attack Palestinians. This was negotiated through US mediators. So what did the Israelis do? They lit the sky for their proxy forces to roam the newly defenseless refugee camps and carry out their killings [1].
In the end, I wonder which has destroyed more human lives?
In many countries authoruzed military operation on foreign territory against what is perceived as existential thread to its existence is legal. So it is legal by Israeli law, isn't this enough?
I'd love to know under what theory of international law do you think it was illegal for the US to develop nuclear weapons in the 1940's. Or how on earth the US and Israel have openly stated genocidal intentions towards Israel.
There's so much wiggle room within the statement. For example
78 - Israel must... take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of... acts... in particular: ... (d) imposing measures
intended to prevent births within the group.
Bombing or evacuating hospitals will have that effect, but it would be extremely difficult to prove intention. So they can keep doing what they say is necessary.
Many governments have issued vague calls to minimise civilian deaths etc. If Israel rejected those, it's hard to see it treating this differently.
Perhaps not "everything". But when one chooses to go around invading other countries (for whatever reason), one accepts legal responsibility to ensure reasonably safe access to humanitarian aid in the affected areas. In addition to agreeing to other fussy requirements, like ensuring reasonable access to hygiene and public health services, avoiding unnecessary destruction of property and public infrastructure, and so on.
It seems Israel "forgot" this responsibility, or is pretending to have forgotten it, in the course of Operation Iron Swords. Either way, this is why it is now facing legal action, and will have to go sit in a corner for while until it learns to clarify its values, and to at least try to act within the norms of civilized behavior in regard to such matters.
Correct, it's very likely that Israel is committing genocide and the court ordered them to stop while they do a full investigation. Presumably that leaves room for targeted assassinations against individual militants and other actions that don't kill civilians.
Now whether the right-wing soldier who has seen his friends murdered in a music festival and has been sent in with a tank into Gaza care? Very likely less so. Does every member of this right wing government care? Likely less. However the independent court system in Israel can also enforce the various conventions Israel is a signatory to (e.g. the Geneva convention). The situation where young soldiers are in Gaza armed to the teeth fighting an enemy that blends in with civilians is the creation of Hamas.
If Israel follows international law 100% you will still see a lot dead toddlers in this kind of warfare. So just that fact doesn't prove much.
There is some point at which a nation's "self-defense" is pertinent, although in reality that self is both composed of many people and nebulous to reason about. If people unjustly attack, it's not like saying "Hey! Stop violating international law!" is going to work. Of course, the supposed good actors should try their best to not cause war (in this case, Israel is not so innocent), but if war arrives unbidden on your doorstep, don't let them destroy your house and kill you.
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