Sunday's New York Times had an op-ed - a Sunday op-ed having particular prominence - by George Bisharat, “Israel on Trial.” Bisharat recites every charge raised by any source accusing Israel of violating international law in its treatment of Gaza.
Surely the NYT would defend its publishing of this screed as giving both sides of a story. A law professor who has known Bisharat, son of a Palestinian father, since law school remarks on Bisharat’s “Personal Intifada”:
Bisharat has devoted the past 25 years towards delegitimizing Israel. The links are too numerous to list, but almost everything Bisharat does and says is geared towards isolating and demonizing Israel. But Bisharat doesn't stop there, he also seeks to delegitimize Israel's supporters in the U.S.
One must wonder if the NYT publishing Bisharat’s op-ed means the NYT disbelieves its own reporting, and if the NYT is even sincere in its attachment to international law.
In January, the NYT examined the charges in long detail, “Weighing Crimes and Ethics in the Fog of Urban Warfare.”
Deciding requires an investigation into battlefield circumstances that cannot be carried out while the fighting rages, and such judgments are especially difficult in urban guerrilla warfare, when fighters like Hamas live among the civilian population and take shelter there. While Israel is the focus of most criticism, legal experts agree that Hamas, a radical Islamic group classified by the United States and Europe as terrorist, violates international law.
Shooting rockets out of Gaza aimed at Israeli cities and civilians is an obvious violation of the principle of discrimination and fits the classic definition of terrorism. Hamas fighters are also putting civilians at undue risk by storing weapons among them, including in mosques, schools and allegedly hospitals, too, making them potential military targets. While urban and guerrilla warfare is not illegal, by fighting in the midst of civilians, often in civilian clothing, Hamas may also bring risk to noncombatants.
But Hamas’s violations tend to be treated as a given and criticized as an afterthought, Israeli spokesmen and officials say. They say that Israel has never sought to hit civilians, medical workers or United Nations facilities or personnel. “The rules of engagement are very clear,” said Mark Regev, the government spokesman. “Not to target civilians, not to target U.N. people, not to target medical staff. All this is very clear in Israeli military doctrine.”
Since January additional evidence has emerged further clarifying the Hamas violations of international law and further exculpating Isreal's behavior. Yet, it is recognized, both by Israeli authorities and any other observer of any urban warfare, the extreme difficulty and even impossibility to every single time discriminate in advance the exactly appropriate level of force and possible repercussions upon civilians who may be innocent or less actively hostile.
Reading an International Red Cross 1997 symposium of reflections by authors of the 1977 Geneva Protocols meant to provide guidance for protection of civilians in such conflicts, one is struck by their recognition of this difficulty. In effect, the authors place primary responsibility upon civilized nations to take every measure to protect civilians.
Israel accepts that responsibility and repeated investigations have demonstrated only the most infrequent and still ambiguous lapses. Enemies of Israel, including those dominating the UN, nonetheless treat every lapse as evidence of pervasive, purposeful breaches of international law, while ignoring or excusing the actually pervasive, purposeful breaches of Hamas, Hizbullah, or any of the other Palestinian terrorist organizations.
Where does that leave the authors of international laws who sincerely seek greater
compliance to protect civilians? Unless they -- the people and nations, and newspapers, who believe better is attainable -- exert themselves to more honest reporting and to severe, ongoing sanctions on those who ignore or abuse civilian protections, they are complicit in delegitimizing the very international law they adore and, worse, in every civilian death or injury that results from those who consciously manipulate to place civilians in jeopardy.
Civilized nations will, anyway, continue to exert themselves to protect civilians. Who will protect civilized nations?
