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The Geneva Conventions are so outdated and are written so broadly that they have become a sword used by terrorists to kill civilians, rather than a shield to protect civilians from terrorists.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

America and the World

Daniel Pipes reviews Samuel P. Huntington's Who Are We: The Challenges to America's National Identity and gives this framework of different ideologies look at the world.

Along the way, Mr.Huntington observes that Americans can choose among three broad visions for their country in relation to the outside world.

Cosmopolitan: America "welcomes the world, its ideas, its goods, and, most importantly, its people." In this vision, the country strives to become multiethnic, multiracial, and multicultural. The United Nations and other international organizations increasingly influence American life. Diversity is an end in itself; national identity declines in importance. In brief, the world reshapes America.

Imperial: America reshapes the world. This impulse is fueled by a belief in "the supremacy of American power and the universality of American values." America's unique military, economic, and cultural might bestows on it the responsibility to confront evil and to order the world. Other peoples are assumed basically to share the same values as Americans; Americans should help them attain those values. America is less a nation than "the dominant component of a supranational empire."

National: "America is different" and its people recognize and accept what distinguishes them from others. That difference results in large part from the country's religious commitment and its Anglo-Protestant culture. The nationalist outlook preserves and enhances those qualities that have defined America from its inception. As for people who are not white Anglo-Saxon Protestants, they "become Americans by adopting its Anglo-Protestant culture and political values."

Mr. Huntington sums up this triad of choices: "America becomes the world. The world becomes America. America remains America."

The left tends to the cosmopolitan vision; the right divides among imperialists and nationalists. Personally, I have wavered between the latter two, sometimes wanting the United States to export its humane political message and at other times fearful that such efforts, however desirable, will overextend the American reach and end in disaster.

Which brings us back to Iraq and the choices at hand.

Cosmopolitans reject the unilateralism of the Iraq campaign, despise the notion of guiding the Iraqis to "a free and peaceful" country, and deeply suspect the Bush administration's motives. They demonstrate on the streets and hurl invectives from television studios.

Imperialists are guiding American policy toward Iraq, where they see a unique opportunity not just to rehabilitate that country but to spread American ways through the Middle East.

And nationalists find themselves, as usual, somewhere in between. They sympathize with the imperial vision but worry about its practicalities and consequences. As patriots, they take pride in American accomplishments and hope U.S. influence will spread. But they have two worries: that the outside world is not ready to Americanize and Americans are unwilling to spend the blood and treasure to carry off an imperial mission.

QOTD: Clausewitz

QOTD: Clausewitz

Philanthropists may readily imagine there is a skillful method of disarming and overcoming an enemy without causing great bloodshed, and that this is the proper tendency of the art of war. However plausible this may appear, still it is an error which must be extirpated; for in such dangerous things as war, the errors which proceed from a spirit of benevolence are the worst

Understanding Arab anti-Americanism

Understanding Arab anti-Americanism

The difference between Arab leadership and the Arab people is the key to understanding Arab anti-Americanism. When Arabs say that they like Americans but not American policies, they are saying they do not understand the basic principle of representative government: The American people are their government. When we disagree with the policies our government enacts, we hire a new one. Arabs do not enjoy this privilege.

Arguing from Sharon's Own Words

Benny Begin is about to debate the Gaza surrender.

"I think it is very hard to compare that which occurred in Sinai, or what we could have achieved then, with what we face now. Sinai was a land far from our population centers, and we were able to reach an agreement that an area 200 kilometers wide would remain free of Egyptian military forces forever. In addition, we signed an agreement with a sovereign country that controls its territory - and not with a terrorist organization that cannot and does not want to control terror organizations, nor even its own internal factions that continue to employ terrorism. In addition, Egypt had no other territorial demands (other than the areas we transferred to them), and this is different than the present situation."

Dr. Begin [in an upcoming debate on the surrender of Gaza] will thus be able to say, in Prime Minister Sharon's name, that there are at least four reasons why even those who justify the Sinai evacuation would have to oppose the disengagement plan Mr. Sharon is now promoting:
* Gaza is close to Israeli population centers.
* No agreement on demilitarization has been reached.
* No agreement has been signed with a sovereign country, or with any entity at all.
* The entity that will take control of the area still has major territorial demands upon Israel.

Arens on Surrendering Gaza

Former three-time Defense Minister Moshe Arens weighs in the Gaza surrender.

We are in the midst of a 3.5-year war against the [Arabs of the Palestinian Authority], and as such, the most important considerations are those of security. We are right in the middle of the war, and we're making gains - we're even hearing various Arab spokesmen say that terrorism is not gaining them anything, and the like - and therefore this is not precisely a smart time to retreat. As the Chief of Staff said, a retreat from Gaza will strengthen and encourage the terrorists. Even President Bush has said that the main thing is to dismantle and destroy the terrorist infrastructure. - so now we should give them territory?!"

Arens said that the way the plan is being presented, "as if we're disengaging from and leaving Gaza," is not quite correct:
"Until 1994, we were really in Gaza - our forces were in Gaza City and Dir el Balah and Jabalya, and all the rest. In 1994, we left Gaza. The question now, therefore, is not whether to leave Gaza, but whether to uproot the Jewish communities in Gush Katif, which are mostly in southern Gaza and basically separate from the Arabs... I see no reason why land [such as the Golan and Gaza] from which attacks were launched against us, and which we then captured and settled, should have to be returned to the attackers... In any event, the main consideration is whether it will help our war against terrorism, and in my opinion, a withdrawal from Gaza now will merely encourage terrorists and will cause further terrorist attacks." [Emphasis mine]

Details of the Gaza Surrender

Avigdor Lieberman (National Union) on the Gaza pre-emptive surrender of Gaza.

He said that the plan is one of "retreat and flight" that binds Israel to Gaza more than ever.

The official letter by [Sharon's aide] Dov Weisglass states

Israel will pay the Palestinian Authority 40 million shekels per month

Israel will supply the PA with fuel, electricity, and water

Israel will be responsible for roads connecting Gaza to Judea and Samaria

Israel will increase the amount of workers entering pre-'67 Israel from Gaza

"Who will receive the Jews' homes? The families of the murderers?! And will the synagogues turn into mosques!?"...

"Where is the disengagement here?!"

QOTD

Mark Steyn

There is no point entering into negotiations predicated on not disturbing the fantasies of one side.

What Israel, America, and Britain Face

Excellent editorial by Janet Daley

Anybody who saw the unretouched photographs of the Madrid train bombing will know that this is not hyperbole. This is a fight to the death with forces who - quite explicitly - have no regard for the value of human life and who make no demands coherent or consistent enough to be comprehensible.

This is not politics as we know it. It is not war - or even terrorism as an act of war - as we have previously understood it. It is a kind of mystical nihilism. Defeating it is going to take all of the organised energy and commitment that the rich, decadent West can muster. It will also involve quite a few concessions with what we regard as our ancient freedoms. But that's how it is. The right to live is not just the most important entitlement in a free society: it is the one on which all the other rights are predicated. There are no civil liberties in the grave.

...

Their goal is not, as the anti-Zionist media lobby believes, the extinction of the Palestinian cause in the interests of US-Israeli imperialism. It is the eradication of an international terror network that uses the fate of Palestinian refugees as a pretext when it suits, but is actually dedicated to a transcendental vision of Arabic conquest of historical territories.

...

The closest parallel in modern history to this blood and soil dream of reclaiming ancient lands from the usurper was the Nazi dream of Aryan reclamation of those parts of Europe with Germanic roots. The Wagnerian, German romantic mythology of expulsion from homelands leading to a sacred Teutonic mission of rebirth, has an uncannily similar ring to the new Islamist claims of Muslim displacement and injustice. Europe (and especially Russia, whose behaviour in the current crisis has been ignominious) should have learnt its lesson about dealing with this kind of insanity - and about what happens when you try to pretend that it is somehow capable of rational containment.

...

When an enemy tells you in so many words that he is beyond reason, then the rule of law that is itself dependent on reason becomes useless. But force does not.

Reform and Eugenics

Stephen Prothero reviews a book about the history of eugenics. This is what I find interesting.

The period in which eugenics became faddish is typically remembered as an era in which science and religion were at war. (Think only of the clashes over Darwinism.) But as Christine Rosen notes in "Preaching Eugenics," (Oxford University, 286 pages, $35) liberal Protestants and reform Jews were aligned from the start with the progenitors of this pseudo-science.

...

In fact, the long list of clergy who plumped for eugenics -- among others, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise of the Free Synagogue of New York... -- reads like a "Who's Who" of American religious modernism. [Emphasis mine]