From Gaza to Hiroshima

14Jan09

 International lawyers such as Richard Falk (video) are cropping up on foreign networks such as Aljazeera to crticise Israel’s war in Gaza..  In recent days, accusations have abounded that the Israelis are using white phosphorous in urban areas (video) as well as targeting civilian schools and mosques.  As the number of confirmed dead in Gaza nears1000, the scale of Israel’s assault is manifestly grotesquely out of proportion to the casualties and damage caused by Hamas rockets.

 

Americans have never paid much attention to international conventions limiting a nation’s military self-defense to that which is proportionate to the military force or threat inflicted by the other, a principal of international law that has existed for nearly 200 years (the Caroline doctrine).   Dramatic examples of American disregard include the deliberate firebombing of Japanese cities by Curtis LeMay’s AAF in 1945, and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Japan was prostrate, and at the time of the atomic bombings, was seeking a negotiated surrender.  The military utility of the bombings was slight: the principal effect was the wholesale annihilation of urban populations.  In 1996, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory decision (On the legality or threat of use of nuclear weapons) which noted that the first protocol to the 1949 Geneva Conventions that embodied the rule of a proportional response implicated atomic weapons which by their very nature result in outsized, disproportional results.

 

As addressed by the International Court of Justice in the 2003 Oil Platforms Case (Iran v. United States) any exercise of self defense under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter is conditioned by the requirement that the exercise of force be necessary and proportional to the act of the aggressor.  The case began when Iran instituted legal proceedings against the United States in the International Court of Justice to seek a declaration that American attacks against its oil facilities in 1987 and 1988 as retaliation for a suspected mining of an American ship violated international law.  The ICJ agreed with Iran, concluding that the attacks were not justified under Article 51 and disproportionate.

 

In the case of The Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, the ICJ held that Israel’s construction of a military barrier in the occupied West Bank could not be justified under Article 51 since it did not involve attacks attributable to a foreign state, but territory which itself occupied.  This rathionale applies equally to Gaza, which is for all intents and purposes an illegal bantustan created by Israel.

 

To put the Gaza campaign in perpective and in human terms, there is an excellent column by Mustafa Qadri, Gaza attacks: murder with impunity on the Foreign Policy in Focus website (30 December 2008).

 

Israel has targeted Hamas, but the vast majority of the casualties from its attacks have been civilian police officers, government workers, and other civilians. The Palestinian death toll currently stands at 350 while more than a thousand have sustained injuries. The figure is expected to increase as Israel’s bombardment continues. Since Monday morning, Israel’s navy has commenced bombing Gaza from the coast. Compounding the suffering is the fact that medical and other humanitarian supplies are in a dire state thanks to Israel’s three-year-old blockade of the territory. Half the population of Gaza, even before this most recent attack, was living below the poverty line.

So far, rockets fired from Gaza have killed two Israelis and injured several others.

The Israeli government argues that the bombardment is a response to these rockets attacks. But the calls of self-defense must be understood within the broader context of the continued annexation of Palestine. It is the greatest of reverse-psychology ploys. Israel calls Hamas and other Palestinian resistance movements existential threats while, at the same time, it continues to ensure that a viable Palestinian state can never hope to exist by imprisoning Gaza and expropriating much of the West Bank.

The UN Security Council quickly released a non-binding statement calling for an end to hostilities. But the document failed to name either Israel or Hamas by name and glibly called for a return to the ceasefire. It did not mention any justice for the hundreds killed. The international community – and particularly the Middle East Quartet consisting of the European Union, UN, United States, and Russia – have been completely incapable of protecting those most exposed to the conflict – the Palestinians of the occupied territories who are killed, harassed and humiliated on a daily basis.

There is good reason to be critical of Hamas too. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has cited Hamas’ inability to renew a ceasefire with Israel for this most recent assault. But Israel must shoulder the lion’s share of culpability for the carnage presently unfolding in the occupied territories.

It is becoming increasingly clear that Israel’s latest attack on Gaza was a pre-meditated attempt to destabilize the Hamas regime. The Israeli Ha’aretz newspaper recently revealed that even while it was negotiating a ceasefire, the Israeli government drew up a detailed plan to destroy Hamas in Gaza six months ago.

No member of the international community is more complicit in Israel’s crimes than the United States. The Bush White House was quick to blame the violence on Hamas even though Israel is responsible for the vast majority of the death and destruction. A spokesperson for President Bush described the movement as a bunch of “thugs.” Such statements legitimate Israeli aggression by dehumanizing a democratically elected government.

There is little hope, however, of a shift toward a more balanced U.S. role under President Barack Obama. Ever fearful of the powerful Israel lobby, he has gone to great lengths to prove his loyalty. “If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night,” Obama said during a visit to Israel earlier this year, “I’m going to do everything in my power to stop that.” Sadly, that logic does not appear to apply to the Palestinians. According to the UN, 105 Palestinian children have been killed this year, thanks largely to Israeli forces armed and supported by the United States.

While grand rhetoric has been a feature of Barack Obama’s political career, he has so far opted to remain silent as Israel wreaks havoc on Gaza this week.

Others have not been silent, however. Already protesters have taken to the street throughout the world, including in Israel, to voice their opposition to the strikes. The Turkish government has rejected calls from Israel and the Palestinian Fatah Movement of President Mahmoud Abbas to broker another ceasefire with Hamas. Turkey has also pulled out of landmark peace negotiations it had hitherto been conducting between Israel and Syria over the occupied Golan Heights. Israel’s attacks in Gaza are also expected to dominate discussions this week by Arab leaders at the Gulf Cooperation Council ahead of an extraordinary meeting of the Arab League on Wednesday. Arab leaders have called for a unified position on the current conflict, no doubt under significant domestic pressure to do something to protest Israel’s actions.

Meanwhile, the exiled leader of the Hamas movement in Syria called on Palestinians to commence a third intifada in response to Israel’s offensive. Given Israel’s full spectrum dominance of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, such an uprising might be well nigh impossible. One shudders, nevertheless, to think what fury a third intifada would unleash.

 

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