A New Thread fot the Current Israel/Palestine/Lebanon mess

-- Tracey Hand (tracerhan...), July 21st, 2006.

I think they're kind of unusual/deserving of their own category now that they're a "sectarian militia" that effectively controls a region of the country and remains fully armed and hostile to a neighboring country but also holds seats in parliament.

So, kind of like Texas ca. 1880?

Um, that's kinda what they ARE doing with the rocket attacks.

But yeah, until they are intentionally striking civilian targets instead of military ones, they aren't technically terrorists.

Nonsense. A force could conduct a terrorist campaign against a government entity, police force, gendarmerie, or military in an effort to sap their morale, as in, say, Iraq, for instance.

That's the problem with the last 30 years of media coverage and its appropriation of state-issued jargon. Terrorists target civilians, which raises the prickly question of whether one can prosecute a group of non-uniformed murderers for war crimes.

I know this sounds like splitting hairs, but I think it's important to avoid characterizing Israel as some kind of genocidal maniac country bent on the destruction of Arabs, because I don't think it's true, and I think it's highly counterproductive in the long run.

Who is a Civilian?

By Alan Dershowitz

The news is filled these days with reports of civilian casualties, comparative civilian body counts, and criticism of Israel, along with Hezbollah, for causing the deaths, injuries and collective punishmentto civilians. But who is a civilianin the age of terrorism, when militants don't wear uniforms, don't belong to regular armies and easily blend into civilian populations?

We need a new vocabulary to reflect the new realities of modern warfare. Accordingly, a new phrase should be introduced into the reporting and analysis of current events in the middle-east: the continuum of civilianality.Though verbally cumbersome, this concept aptly captures the reality and nuance of describing those who are killed, wounded and punished by today's military and para-military actions.

There is a vast difference -- both moral and legal -- between a two-year-old baby who is killed by an enemy rocket and a 30-year-old civilianwho has allowed his house to be used to store Katyusha rockets. Both are technically civilians,but the former is far more innocent than the latter. There is also a difference between a civilian who merely favors or even votes for a terrorist group and one who provides financial or other material support for terrorism. Finally there is a difference between civilians who are held hostage against their will by terrorists who use them as involuntary human shields, and civilians who voluntarily place themselves in harms way in order to protect terrorists from enemy fire.

These differences and others are conflated within the increasingly meaningless word civilian -- a word that carried great significance in the days when uniformed armies fought other uniformed armies on battlefields far away from civilian population centers. Today this same word equates the truly innocent with guilty accessories to terrorism.

The domestic law of crime, in virtually every nation, reflects this continuum of culpability. For example, in the infamous Fall River rape case (fictionalized in the film The Accused), there were several categories of morally and legally complicit individuals: those who actually raped the woman; those who held her down; those who blocked her escape route; those who cheered and encouraged the rapists; and those who could have called the police but did not. No rational person would suggest that any of these people were entirely free of moral guilt, although reasonable people might disagree about the legal guilt of those in the last two categories. Their accountability for rape is surely a matter of degree, as is the accountability for terrorism of those who cheer the terrorists, make martyrs of them, encourage their own children to become terrorists, or expect to benefit from terrorism.

It will, of course, be difficult for international lawand for the mediato draw the lines of subtle distinction routinely drawn by domestic criminal law. This is because domestic law operates on a retail basisone person and one case at a time. Evidence is required of each defendants specific culpability. International law and media reporting about terrorism tend to operate on more of a wholesale basiswith body counts, civilian neighborhoods and claims of collective punishment. But the recognition that civilianalityis often a matter of degree, rather than a bright line, should still inform the assessment of casualty figures in wars involving terrorists, para-military groups and others who fight without uniformsor help those who fight without uniforms.

Bright lines can be useful when they reflect or even approximate reality. But artificially bright lines that distort realityas the one between civilianand combatantcurrently doesconfuse moral, legal, diplomatic and political accountability.

Turning specifically to the current fighting between Israel and Hezbollah and Hamas, the line between Israeli soldiers and civilians is relatively clear. Hezbollah missiles and Hamas rockets target and hit Israeli restaurants, apartment buildings and schools. They are loaded with anti-personnel ball-bearings designed specifically to maximize civilian casualties. Hezbollah and Hamas militants, on the other hand, are difficult to distinguish from those civilianswho recruit, finance, harbor and facilitate their terrorism. Nor can womenand childrenalways be counted as civilians, as some organizations do. Terrorists increasingly use women and teen-agers to play important roles in their attacks.

The Israeli Army has given well publicized notice to innocent civilians to leave those areas of southern Lebanon that have been turned into war zones by Hezbollah rocket and missile launchings. Those who voluntarily remain behind to serve as human shields have become complicit with the terrorists. Some -- those who cannot leave on their own -- can be counted among the innocent victims of the Hezbollah attacks and the predictable counter-attacks.

The media, human rights organizations and the international community should conduct new counts, based on this continuum of civilianality. It would be informative to learn how many of the civilian casualtiesfall closer to the line of complicity and how many fall closer to the line of innocence.

Every civilian death is a tragedy, but some are more tragic than others.

But they don't conduct their activities to attacking "against a government entity, police force, gendarmerie, or military in an effort to sap their morale" so it is both.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel_Bombing

In July 2006, right-wing Israelis including Binyamin Netanyahu attended a 60th anniversary celebration of the bombing, which was organized by the Menachem Begin Centre. The British Ambassador in Tel Aviv and the Consul-General in Jerusalem complained, saying "We do not think that it is right for an act of terrorism, which led to the loss of many lives, to be commemorated.".[1]

There is a vast difference -- both moral and legal -- between a two-year-old baby who is killed by an enemy rocket and a 30-year-old civilian who has allowed his house to be used to store Katyusha rockets.

clearly written to vilify lebanese and sanctify israelis. so fucking gross.

revolutionary war aside, heh.

the leaking of the internal police report on the bombing during the 1970s proved that a warning had indeed been received. However, the report claimed that the warning was only just being delivered to the officer in charge as the bomb went off.

I came across it here fwiw: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerrilla_warfare#Guerrillas_in_Israel_and_the_Palestinian_Territories

Anyway, the interesting point is the modern Israeli perception of the hotel bombing.

I also don't really think the hotel bombing ought to be cause for party time.

Some -- those who cannot leave on their own -- can be counted among the innocent victims of the Hezbollah attacks and the predictable counter-attacks.

Ham-fisted buck-passing. Israel's response was so predictable, so expected, it's as if Hez blew up those Lebanese people themselves!

see, that is the main problem: israel will never do this as it will be an admission of guilt for past crimes. there is never going to be a mandela-type moment for this to happen, or perhaps it passed with rabin's assassination (thanks right wing settlers!).