Connect with us

conflict

High death toll does not mean Israel’s violating international law

Published

7 minute read

From the MacDonald Laurier Institute

By Sarah Teich and Brian L. Cox

Many critics of Israel seem to be operating under a misunderstanding of the law of armed conflict.

The seven-day truce between Israel and Hamas ended on Dec. 1. Since the fighting resumed, calls to keep Israel accountable to international law have been intensifying, including, most recently, from Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly, who said that Canada will “support any form of accountability systems … at the international level that will look into” Israel’s conduct. On Tuesday, Canada voted for a ceasefire in Gaza at the United Nations, which will likely further embolden critics of Israel’s military operations.

Critics stand ready to lambaste Israeli military forces for the destruction of civilian infrastructure and civilian deaths, even accusing Israel of war crimes and genocide. Yet these criticisms often involve a distortion of the facts and a distortion of the law.

Oct. 7 was the single most brutal massacre against Jewish people since the Holocaust. The images and videos of the massacre are horrific. Women were paraded half-naked through the streets of Gaza; babies were ripped from the arms of their mothers and burned alive; elderly Holocaust survivors were terrorized and abducted. Approximately 1,200 people were killed and over 200 taken hostage in attacks orchestrated and carried out by Hamas, a recognized terrorist organization that receives funding and training from the Islamic Republic of Iran.

In the weeks that followed, and as Hamas continued to launch rockets indiscriminately at Israeli cities, Israeli forces initiated extensive ground, air and sea operations in Gaza, with the aim of dismantling Hamas and retrieving the hostages. These goals are, presumably, incredibly difficult for Israeli forces to achieve without risking harm to civilians, given that Hamas is known to use Palestinian civilians as human shields. Deaths in Gaza, according to local authorities, have surpassed 18,000.

There is a general prohibition on the use of force in international law. Unprovoked wars of aggression are illegal. States are, however, generally permitted to use force when acting in self-defence and with necessary, proportionate objectives. It is apparent that, following Hamas’s attack on Oct. 7 and continued indiscriminate rocket fire at Israel, Israel’s goal of dismantling Hamas and retrieving hostages would be considered necessary and proportionate objectives justifying the use of force. These strategic objectives comply with jus ad bellum, the body of law that governs when force may be initiated.

International humanitarian law, or jus in bello, governs the conduct of armed hostilities, even in the context of a lawful war. This is the law of war, or the law of armed conflict, and it applies to all parties to a conflict. Under the law of armed conflict (LOAC), the proportionality rule prohibits engaging in an attack “when the expected incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage that is anticipated from the attack.”

Credibly determining that a violation of the LOAC proportionality rule has been committed requires evidence of the incidental harm anticipated and the military advantage expected at the time by those responsible for planning or conducting the attack. This assessment is difficult — if not impossible — to accomplish reliably based only on information available in the public domain.

Many critics of Israel seem to be operating under a misunderstanding of the law of armed conflict. As summarized by Charles Kels, senior attorney for the United States Department of Homeland Security and a judge advocate in the U.S. Air Force Reserve, there is a disturbing trend wherein academics and others conflate jus ad bellum and jus in bello.

What those who make this mistake are saying, writes Kels, “is that even if a state is acting in self-defence with a lawful objective, and even if their forces abide by (the laws of war) in military operations, they still have a legal obligation to stop fighting if civilian casualties are too high.” This is not the law, nor should it be.

The death toll in Gaza cannot be taken lightly. However, the magnitude of civilian harm alone is not a reliable indicator of compliance with international law. The fact that Hamas embeds itself within civilian populations, and actively prevents civilians from leaving dangerous areas, likely needlessly heightens the death toll.

International law prohibits deliberately making civilians the object of attack. Israel has committed publicly to complying with international law throughout this operation, just as it has done in the past. In contrast, Hamas has targeted, and continues to target, Israeli civilians with indiscriminate attacks. Hamas refuses to release all the hostages it abducted, which constitutes an ongoing serious violation of international law.

Accountability for atrocity crimes is something that should be encouraged, across the board. However, efforts should focus on the most likely perpetrators and the most egregious crimes. Hamas can and should be held accountable for its ongoing crimes against Israelis and Palestinians, and Israel should be supported as it defends itself in accordance with the law.

Sarah Teich is an international human rights lawyer, a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and a legal advisor to Secure Canada. Brian L. Cox is a visiting scholar at University of Ottawa School of Law, a lecturer at Cornell Law School and a retired U.S. Army military lawyer.

Todayville is a digital media and technology company. We profile unique stories and events in our community. Register and promote your community event for free.

Follow Author

conflict

US and UK authorize missile strikes into Russia, but are we really in danger of World War III?

Published on

From LifeSiteNews

By Frank Wright

Hopefully a world war appears unlikely, but the decision to allow Ukraine to shoot U.S. and U.K.-provided missiles into Russia once again reveals the lengths to which the ‘neocon globalists’ will go to throw a lifeline to their failing business model.

News that the lame duck President Joe Biden has authorized long-range strikes into Russia using NATO systems was announced with the alarming warning that he had “started World War III.”

The following day, U.S.-supplied and operated ATACMS missiles were fired into Russia.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov described the authorized strikes as an “escalation” showing that the West wants war.

“The fact that ATACMS were used repeatedly in the Bryansk region overnight is, of course, a signal that they want escalation,” he said, according to Reuters.

Lavrov continued: “Without the Americans, it is impossible to use these high-tech missiles, as Putin has repeatedly said.”

Why would the U.S. president finally give the green light to use NATO systems to attack Russia? German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has refused to follow suit and supply German-made Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine – because he does not want to see Germany drawn into a direct war with Russia.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer responded by suggesting it is only a matter of time before U.K.-supplied Storm Shadow cruise missiles strike deep into Russian territory.

The U.K. government has been behind a long campaign to escalate the war in Ukraine, a move seen as an attempt to secure continued U.S. commitments in Europe. The Trump camp has long signaled its desire to draw down its security provision to leave a “dormant NATO.”

In an indication of the dangers of the U.K.-backed move by Biden, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced an alarming amendment of the Russian nuclear doctrine.

The policy change, announced in September and published following Biden’s announcement, says “an attack from a non-nuclear state, if backed by a nuclear power, will be treated as a joint assault on Russia,” according to the BBC.

Russian nuclear doctrine has long included the use of low-yield “tactical” nuclear weapons in “conventional” warfare – a significantly lower threshold than that of NATO.

While Russian officials urged Western leaders to consult the text, Foreign Minister Lavrov stressed that “we strongly are in favor of doing everything to not allow nuclear war to happen.”

As Reuters reported, this latest provocation is “unlikely to be a gamechanger.” Western media outlets have moved from a narrative of Ukrainian victory to mulling how or even if the state of Ukraine can survive its “inevitable” defeat.

Yet it is not only Ukraine which faces an uncertain future with a Russian victory. The entire globalist order faces a significant blow should the war conclude. Statements from figures such as George Soros, U.S. General Mark Milley, E.U. chief Ursula von der Leyen, and the former head of NATO stressed that their liberal-globalist regime is threatened by defeat in Ukraine.

Biden’s decision has been seen as an attempt to frustrate Donald Trump’s declared agenda – to clear out the “deep state globalists” whose “neocons seeking confrontation … such as Victoria Nuland” have led the U.S. into endless wars since that in Iraq.

An escalation to all-out war with Russia would not only be a disastrous precursor to nuclear escalation, but would also preserve the dominance of the same “neocon globalists” whose “forever wars” Trump has pledged to end.

Arch-neocon Robert Kagan said Americans who support ending wars are “intolerant.” He went on to author two articles which Hitlerized Trump and appeared to incite the assassination of a man who promised in his 2024 victory speech, “I’m not going to start wars. I’m going to stop wars.”

This follows a long series of claims in the same vein.

“I will end the war in Ukraine,” Trump declared in February 2023, saying he would also end “the chaos in the Middle East” and “stop World War III.”

 

This move by Biden has no military significance in improving Ukraine’s chances of victory. Russia claimed to have shot down seven of eight ATACMS fired into its Bryansk region. Yet prolonging or even escalating this war has enormous political significance.

Since the publication of the RAND Corporation’s 2019 paper “Overextending and Unbalancing Russia,” a strategy of bleeding Russia on the battlefield to collapse its government has been clear. Russia’s near-limitless mineral wealth would provide an obvious boon to a Western system self-sabotaged by sanctions and the destruction of the Nordstream gas supply.

The enormous significance of the war is found in its use as an attempt to extend and consolidate the power of the same system of neocon “globalism” which Trump has vowed to end.

This context explains why the U.K. government has consistently pressed for escalation since the 2022 intervention of then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson seems to have sabotaged peace in favor of an all-or-nothing gamble towards “regime change” in Russia.

Since then, the U.K. government has urged the authorization of long-range strikes into Russia, and it has supplied cruise missiles to attack Russian over-the-horizon nuclear radar warning systems, which play no role in the Ukraine war.

Reports have confirmed “terrorist operations” in Russia, including attacks on the Kerch Bridge leading to Crimea were U.K.-led. A recent expose by The Grayzone revealed that the British state appears to be training Ukrainians to fight a guerilla war, extending hostilities even beyond any ceasefire.

Ukraine’s recent and failed offensive into Russia’s Kursk region appears to have also been a British operation – to secure the kind of “morale boost” which Alastair Crooke says is the only significant war-fighting contribution of the authorization of “wonder weapons” like ATACMS.

The ATACMS authorization was heralded as a turning point in the war by Foreign Affairs. Yet the suspicion of Responsible Statecraft that it was a “sideshow that may become a tragedy” appears to have been confirmed.

The grim reality of this war is underscored by the fact that measures taken which will result in even more needless loss of human life are done so to legitimize useful propaganda headlines. This is undertaken to sell a war which has long been predicted to end as it now seems certain to do so: with a victory on Russian terms.

Though it appears unlikely that a world war will result from this latest reckless move, what has been demonstrated once more is the lengths to which the “neocon globalists” will go to throw a lifeline to their failing business model.

That lifeline is perpetual war, and when they end – so do the careers of so many whose livelihoods and reputations depend on keeping them going.

Continue Reading

conflict

Putin Launches Mass-Production of Nuclear Shelters for his People

Published on

From Armstrong Economics

By Martin Armstrong

Russia has begun mass production of mobile nuclear bunkers. This is in response to Ukraine’s use of Western US and British missiles to attack deep inside Russia to destroy its conventional capability so NATO can launch an invasion by March/April 2025.

nuclear_doctrine Putin 11 2024

This has coincided with Mr Putin’s change of Russia’s doctrine to lower the threshold for using nuclear weapons to include the use of conventional weapons by Ukraine. Russia’s defense ministry said Ukraine attacked an ammunition stockpile in the Bryansk region using missiles supplied by the US military’s MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS).

Russia has also ordered the production of its mobile nuclear bunkers to protect citizens. They are shelters capable of protecting people from the light radiation of a nuclear explosion and radioactive contamination of the surrounding environment. These are known as “KUB-M” and will protect 54 people for 48 hours from the air shock wave and light radiation of a nuclear explosion; penetrating radiation and radioactive contamination of the area; high-explosive and fragmentation effects of conventional weapons; falling debris from building structures; dangerous chemicals; fires. Unlike traditional, stationary bunkers, mobile bunkers are built to be easily moved from one location to another, often on vehicles or trailers. They can be equipped with advanced shielding, air filtration systems, and other necessary survival equipment to withstand the harsh conditions of a nuclear event.

Zelenskyy Johnson

The Western press keeps putting out the Neocon and NATO propaganda that Russia will never fire a nuke and Ukraine can win the war. But this is all a smoke screen for NATO will invade Russia, and they are using Ukraine as our Hesbolla, the same as Iran is using Lebanon. Zelensky claimed he invaded Russia to force Putin to peace. But they had a peace deal. Boris Johnson ran to Kiev and instructed Zelensky he was not allowed to sign a peace deal, and now far more than 1 million Ukrainians have been killed so Europe can invade Russia.

Just as Robert McNamara said about Vietnam and the Weapons of Mass Destruction that did not exist in Iraq, what if these people are wrong AGAIN? There goes Europe! Not a single European leader cares about their own people.

Either the Ukrainian people rise up and take their country back, or Putin needs to nuke Kiev to show the world he is serious. Otherwise, we are sleepwalking into World War III. Our press will NEVER write a single word for peace. It is always Putin is bluffing. What if you are wrong again?

Meanwhile, the U.S. Embassy in Kiev was just shut down after Biden gave the go-ahead to use long-range missiles. Hm. If this was to win the war, then why flee Kiev? They know Putin will respond forcefully against Zelensky. Russians get nuclear bomb shelters, and we get Fake News – Don’t worry – he’s bluffing.

Continue Reading

Trending

X