The EU says Israel has the right to "defend itself." But that doesn't seem to include anything beyond Iron Dome. ~ EoZ

Thursday, October 19, 2023

The EU says Israel has the right to "defend itself." But that doesn't seem to include anything beyond Iron Dome.

EU High Representative/Vice-President Josep Borrell gave a speech at the EP Plenary Session on Wednesday.

We have all condemned the indescribable horror of the attacks suffered by Israel. Those attacks against the civilian population have left so many dead, affecting so many defenceless people at a time when they were celebrating life, but instead they found themselves facing death.

Once again we condemn those attacks. And let us also say that Israel – of course – has the right to defend itself. It has always had this right, and anyone attacked in such a brutal way would have the right to defend themselves. But I think we can all agree that the right to defend oneself, as with all rights, has its limits. And, in this case, the limits are those set by international law and, in particular, international humanitarian law. All this is obvious and we can say it again, but repeating it will not help us move forward to make that necessary reflection, which will guide our actions.

Yes, we condemn those terrible terrorist attacks, but we must also condemn the civilian deaths – the civilian victims – in Gaza, which now stand at 3 000. Because speaking out against one tragedy should not prevent us from speaking out against another. Extending our sympathy to the dead, the victims of terrorist attacks, should not – and does not – prevent us from also expressing our sympathy for other victims.

He's correct that Israel has every right to defend itself.

He's correct that everyone should sympathize with the deaths of innocent civilians, including in Gaza.

But when Borrell condemns the deaths in Gaza, he is implying something that is sinister and immoral - that Israel does not really have the right to destroy Hamas. It does not really have the right to do what is necessary to stop the next horrific attack against civilians.

And he is also implying that Israel is violating international law in how it is waging the war, a false claim.

International law says that Hamas' use of Gaza civilians as (involuntary) human shields does not make Hamas targets immune from attack. As one top expert on international law writes,

It has traditionally been grasped that, should civilian casualties ensue from an illegal attempt to shield a military objective, their blood will be on the hands of the belligerent party that abused them as human shields. The long and the short of it is that a belligerent party is not vested by the law of international armed conflict with the power to block an otherwise lawful attack against military objectives by deliberately placing civilians in harm's way.

It has to be this way, because otherwise any terrorist can avoid retaliation by simply placing himself and his weapons among, behind and underneath civilians. Which is Hamas' exact strategy.

To be blunt, for Israel to defend itself, Gaza children must die - because Hamas is using them as human shields. The only party that should be condemned is Hamas and their blood is on Hamas' hands.

Borrell is not saying this. While he isn't explicitly condemning Israel, his words makes it clear that he is certainly not condemning Hamas for its use of human shields.

I don't think that the EU ever condemned the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians in the Iraq War. The humanitarian conditions over years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan were at least as bad as in Gaza today. But condemnations were muted or silenced - because Western militaries were doing the best they can. They understood that when you are fighting to utterly defeat, not just to degrade, the enemy, large numbers of civilian casualties are an unfortunate side effect - and the fault all lies with the terrorists.

To the EU, however, Israel is assumed at the outset of this war to be reckless and unlawful, even though the IDF is at least as professional and far more sensitive to civilian deaths than the coalition of troops in Iraq ever were.

Which means that when Borrell says Israel has the right to defend itself, he doesn't really mean it. He means they have the right to build walls, to use Iron Dome, to stop Hamas at the Gaza border - but not beyond, unless it is a perfect shot that doesn't damage anything else but Hamas.

It is equivalent to telling the US after 9/11 that it only has the right to place anti-aircraft batteries next to all tall buildings and nothing more.

International law gives far more latitude to an army than NGOs and the EU claim. But they are trying as hard as they can to handcuff Israel so it really cannot fully defend itself - and saying that Israel must allow Hamas and other terror groups to survive and strengthen indefinitely, as long as they hide behind civilians.

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