Rules of War Enable Terror

Rules of War Enable Terror - Alan M. Dershowitz (Baltimore Sun)
Summary by DAILY ALERT of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

The Geneva Conventions are so outdated and are written so broadly that they have become a sword used by terrorists to kill civilians, rather than a shield to protect civilians from terrorists.

Terrorists who do not care about the laws of warfare target innocent noncombatants. Indeed, their goal is to maximize the number of deaths and injuries among vulnerable civilians. The terrorist leaders - who do not wear military uniforms - deliberately hide among noncombatants. They have also used ambulances, women pretending to be sick or pregnant, and even children as carriers of lethal explosives.

By employing these tactics, terrorists put the democracies to difficult choices: Either allow those who plan and coordinate terrorist attacks to escape justice and continue their victimization of civilians, or attack them in their enclaves, thereby risking death or injury to the civilians they are using as human shields.

Whenever a civilian is accidentally killed or an ambulance is held up at a checkpoint, the terrorist leaders, and those who support them, have exploited the post-World War II laws of warfare to condemn the democracies for violating the letter of the law. This only encourages more terrorism, since the terrorists receive a double benefit from their actions. First they benefit from killing "enemy" civilians. Second, they benefit from the condemnation heaped on their enemies. Human rights are thus being used to promote human wrongs.

Democracies must be legally empowered to attack terrorists who hide among civilians, so long as proportional force is employed. Civilians who are killed while being used as human shields by terrorists must be deemed the victims of the terrorists who have chosen to hide among them.

QOTD

QOTD: Harry Truman

The fundamental basis of this nation's laws was given to Moses on the Mount. The fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teachings we get from Exodus and St. Matthew, from Isaiah and St. Paul.

If we don't have a proper fundamental moral background, we will finally end up with a totalitarian government which does not believe in rights for anybody except the State.

But We've GOT to Do SOMETHING!?

Dr. Aaron Lerner on why Sharon wants to withdraw from Gaza.

A key theme driving support for retreat among Israelis is a view that there is a need to "do something" about the "situation." But the key element of "the situation" is not specifically the Arab-Israeli conflict but instead the economic situation. The greater the proportion of the population that is drawn into the ongoing economic recovery, the lower the pressure to "do something." Thus, the longer the window available for both the education of the public on the one hand, and an improvement in the economy, on the other, the greater the possibility of bringing over the majority of the Israeli public to also oppose retreat.

The 100 Years War

David Rudge writes in JPost on an experts analysis of the war on terror.

Global terrorism is on the rise and is likely to continue unabated for the next 100 years, according to Prof. Yonah Alexander, one of the world's leading analysts on the subject.

Alexander, director of the Inter-Universities Center for Terrorism Studies, also believes it is only a matter of time before groups like al-Qaida use non-coventional weapons as part of attempts to promulgate their ideology and undermine western society.

Take it to the Terrorists, Ceasefire, Then Negotiate

David Trimble, the Ulster Unionist Party head from Northern Ireland on negotiations with terrorists and what really led to peace.

Trimble goes on to lay down a couple of fundamental principles that led to the Good Friday Agreement and a sea-change in the situation in Northern Ireland.

"When people press me for parallels between our situations, they say, 'you decided to talk with terrorists, you involved terrorists in the process.'

"My response is that we didn't involve the political representatives of the IRA until there was an effective cease-fire. And even afterwards, we wouldn't have talked to Sinn Fein until it declared its adherence to a set of principles that renounced the threat of violence as a means of achieving political ends, and until they agreed to respect the outcome of talks and not use violence or the threat of violence to try to change the outcome of the talks."

Another fundamental factor behind the negotiations, Trimble says, was that in the early 1990s, the IRA was losing the war. The negotiations would not have started, Trimble says, had not the security services been so successful, and had the IRA not been "staring failure in the face."

"The process would not have gone forward if they were not facing defeat; this is what induced them to abandon revolution for reform."

Expulsion Of Gaza's Jews Is Illegal

Expulsion Of Gaza's Jews Is Illegal

The main subject of today's Likud referendum - the expulsion of Jews from their homes - is completely illegal, and in violation of Israeli and international law according to the Dean of the Shaarei Mishpat Law College, Professor Emeritus Eliav Schochetman.

Professor Schochetman said in a lecture on Friday that any Israeli government decision to expel people from their homes, even in the context of a diplomatic move, would represent a wanton violation of basic human rights and civil liberties protected under Israeli and international human rights law.

The lecture, reported on by journalist David Bedein, focused on the legality of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to expel Israelis from their homes in Gush Katif.

Prof. Schochetman noted that the 1921 San Remo legislation of the League of Nations, reaffirmed by the United Nations in 1945, affirmed the right of Jews to purchase land anywhere west of the Jordan River including the Gaza coast region. The professor further added that the legal briefs of Dr. Eugene Rostow, the author of UN Resolution #242, confirm that no peace arrangement based on law curtails the right of Jews to settle anywhere in the borders controlled by the state of Israel.

Therefore, regardless of what happens in the Likud referendum, Prof. Shochetman stated that no expulsion of landowners in Gush Katif or Samaria could take place without a decision of Israel's Knesset. Such a decision, furthermore, would have to conform with international human rights law and Israel civil liberties statutes. However, a unilateral decision to expel Jews - and only Jews - from Gaza, the professor said, would violate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that it is illegal for sovereign governments to expel their own citizens from their homes, their private properties or from their farms.

Prof. Shochetman delivered the lecture at the Beit Agron International Press Center in Jerusalem; it was sponsored by the Center for Near East Policy in Wellesley, Massachusetts.

Reality and Illusion in Gaza

Nadav Shragai on reality and illusion.

The disengagement from Gush Katif will be perceived by the Palestinians as an Israeli escape, and will refill the sails of terror with wind. More densely populated areas in the south of the country will be exposed to long-range Palestinian weapons - not only the Gush Katif and western Negev, but also the area encompassing Sderot to Ashkelon. When that happens, will we reconquer Gaza?

Another terror region will open up in northern Samaria, and Israel will find it very difficult to preserve its intelligence and operational capabilities in the territories that are evacuated. Those who doubt this should take a look at recent history, the history of "Oslo," which still smashes us in the face nearly every day. The terror state that already exists in the Palestinian Authority areas will only upgrade its capabilities. And if that's not enough, then according to the disengagement plan, Israel once again agrees that in coordination with it, "the Palestinian security forces will be granted guidance, aid and training for fighting terror." If that's not an illusion, then what is?

But the mother of all these illusions is the cornerstone on which Sharon is basing his public relations strategy against the disengagement opponents. Evacuating Gush Katif, he says, will save the large settlement blocs in Judea and Samaria. In other words, we're cutting off a branch or two to save the entire tree from dying.

The truth is the precise opposite. It won't take long, maybe weeks or perhaps months, after the evacuation (or perhaps the destruction) of one of the most successful settlement areas in the country, until the pressure on Israel to evacuate more "blocs" increases. That evacuation, as far as the Palestinians, the U.S., and certainly some leftist elements like Peace Now are concerned will grant legitimacy to the demand to evacuate more settlement blocs in Judea and Samaria. For those who have forgotten, Gush Katif is also a settlement bloc.

An International Double Standard

A comparison of how the EU and UN deal with Cyprus and with Israel.

When the Turkish army invaded in 1974, approximately 200 thousand Greek refugees fled south to the Greek section of the island while approximately 50 thousand Turkish refugees fled northward. During the last three decades, there have been many incidents along the border fence when Greek refugees tried to return to their homes in the Turkish section. During negotiations for reunification, the Greeks demanded that all of the refugees and their descendents return to the Turkish section. Obviously, the Turks were opposed. When preparing their plan, the United Nations and European Union did not accept the Greeks? demand to allow the refugees to return!

Withdrawal From the Gaza Strip Is Rewarding Terror

Natan Sharansky provides his analysis of the Gaza surrender.

despite the horrible pain it would cause, I would have considered voting in favor of the Prime Minister's plan had I believed that it would solve the problems of terror, our international isolation, and the heavy burden of running the lives of others.

If only I believed that the disengagement could solve all these problems, as the Prime Minister promises, I would be willing, despite the heartache, to face the horrible reality of evacuating settlements. However, I am certain that the disengagement plan will not accomplish any of these things. It will not bring security or even calm but only more war, bloodshed, and suffering. There is no greater reward for terrorism than success, no greater encouragement than victory.

We are giving the terrorist organizations a chance to operate openly in the Gaza Strip and to import weapons freely and are fulfilling their greatest dream -- destroying Jewish settlements and turning the area judenrein, Jew-free. Will they have any reason to despair of fighting against us? Won't it give them even more motivation to continue the murderous terror attacks?

assume that even the Prime Minister does not really think that the disengagement will end terror or even decrease it. He does believe that after we leave the Gaza Strip, we would be able to close the border. The Palestinians will be able to work in Egypt and we, at long last, will be able to wash our hands of what happens there. In short, we'll send Gaza to hell.

He also thinks that as long as the terror continues, we will not be asked to make any further concessions and that the world, seeing the dramatic steps we have taken, will ask nothing more and give us their full support. Doesn't that sound familiar? That is what we thought after the Oslo Accords. That was what we thought during the Camp David era, when Barak offered the Palestinians everything they desired. But it didn't happened.

Rabbis Against the Gaza Surrender

Many gadolim and leading rabbis encourage Israelis to vote against the surrender. Among others:

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef

Former Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu

Rabbi Shalom Yosef Elyashiv

Kabbalists Rabbi Yitzchak Kaduri and Rabbi David Batzri

Former Chief Rabbi Avraham Shapira

The head of Sanz Hassidic sect, the Sanzer Rebbe, Rabbi Tzvi Elimelech Halberstam

The Keisim, the religious leaders of Ethiopian Jewry in Israel

Gaza Facts

Gush Katif: Facts In Brief

21 communities, most of them founded some 20 years ago

close to 8,000 residents

26 synagogues

over 20 yeshivot, schools and other educational institutions (not including nurseries and kindergartens)

900 acres of greenhouses growing bugless lettuce, cherry tomatoes (90% of Israel's exports), organic vegetables, spices, flowers, plants and more

$60 million a year in exports - an average of $7,500 for every man, woman and child

manufactures 70% of all of Israel's organic produce

has faced over 4,000 mortar shells and Kassam rocket attacks, as well as 10,000 shooting incidents, at the hands of Palestinian terrorists over the past 3.5 years

a 10% growth in population since the Oslo War began in September 2000