Civilians in war
from Christiane Wilke at the Ottawa Citizen:
The Washington Post reported that as of July 25, 34 Israeli soldiers and three Israeli civilians were killed in the recent war, whereas 122 armed Palestinian militants, 77 Palestinians with unknown roles, and 645 Palestinian civilians, including 102 women and 122 children had been killed. The level of detailed information on the Palestinian deaths suggests an uncertainty about which Palestinians counts as civilians. Women and children are highlighted because they are undisputed civilians: they appear innocent, passive, and in need of protection. The civilian status of the Palestinian men is never quite as certain, as the category of “unknown role” suggests. There is no such uncertainty about the Israelis who were killed.
Who is a civilian and why does this matter? The law of armed conflict doesn’t directly define civilians except as non-combatants. It permits combatants to engage in violence against other combatants, but prohibits combatants from intentionally target non-combatants.
The official history of the civilian is that since the codification of the laws of armed conflict in the Hague and Geneva Conventions, civilians are increasingly protected by international law. Armed forces publicly declare the importance of protecting, sparing, and liberating civilians. The shadow side of this story is that civilians are expected to be passive, innocent, and submissive. This ideal civilian doesn’t exist. Where people live under military occupation figuring as liberation, they engage in nonviolent political action against foreign rule instead of patiently waiting for deliverance . . .
. . . we need to remember that the international law of armed conflict was, by agreement of the colonial powers, not intended to protect colonized peoples from oppression. For example, the term civilian originally applied to white European servants and non-military personnel engaged in colonial rule. The colonial powers insisted on the protection of “their” civilians but did not legally recognize civilians among the people under their rule. Before civilians are killed, their civilian status is challenged or erased, and international law has been repeatedly called upon to justify these erasures.
We see echoes of this history in the Israeli Defence Forces’ persistent efforts to disqualify Palestinians from the status of civilian. Palestinians in Gaza live in inescapable proximity to Hamas combatants. They are exposed to the gaze of Israeli drones whose operators equate spatial proximity with association and guilt as well as to the terrifying force of Israeli bombs. They are also exposed to an international context in which many are quick to condemn the violence of non-state militaries like as Hamas and slow to condemn the violence of state armed forces like the IDF. When the footage of the boys killed on the beach emerged, we watched in horror. It is certainly wrong to kill children. Yet when we see children being shot dead, we also need to acknowledge the ways in which we have dehumanized and demonized their families and friends who are no longer children and whose deaths become less noteworthy because we are less convinced of their innocence.
International law is often championed as a tool against violence and dehumanization, but the history of international law is entwined with histories of colonialism, oppression and racism. When we turn to international law, we need to be cognizant of this past and ask ourselves how we use this law and this history: to lessen violence, or to justify it; to analyze oppression, or to gloss over it. We must pay attention to civilian casualties, and we must also pay attention to the ways that the categories of combatant and civilian are constructed.
read: http://ottawacitizen.com/news/world/civilians-in-war
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