Assassination as Official Israeli Policy

[ProgressiveMuslim]

'Just war principles rule out gratuitous violence, assassinations ..'

By Stephen Lendman – Chicago

Extra-judicial killings are indefensible, morally abhorrent, and illegal under international laws and norms. Article 23b of the 1907 Hague Regulations prohibits "assassination, proscription, or outlawry of an enemy, or putting a price upon an enemy's head, as well as offering a reward for any enemy 'dead or alive.' "

Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) states that "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person." UDHR also recognizes the "inherent dignity (and the) equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family."

So do "just war" principles that rule out gratuitous violence, assassinations, especially if premeditated, war against civilians, and so on, despite the difficulties of distinguishing between combatants, those who've laid down their arms, and the innocent in times of war - let alone dealing with "terrorism" or what one analyst calls the "twilight zone between war and peace." Others say it's justifiable resistance or "blowback" in response to state-sponsored violence and other crimes of war and against humanity.

In 1980, the Sixth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders condemned "the practice of killing and executing political opponents or suspected offenders carried out by armed forces, law enforcement or other governmental agencies or by paramilitary or political groups" acting with the support of official forces or agencies.

The General Assembly also acted in response to arbitrary executions and politically motivated killings. On December 15, 1980, it adopted resolution 35/172 in which it urged member states to abide by the provisions of Articles 6, 14 and 15 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political rights that cover the right to life and various safeguards guaranteeing fair and impartial judicial proceedings.

The first principle of the 1989 UN Principles on the Effective Prevention and Investigation of Extra-legal, Arbitrary and Summary Executions states:

"Governments shall prohibit by law all extra-legal, arbitrary and summary executions and shall ensure that any such executions are recognized as offences under their criminal laws, and are punishable by appropriate penalties which take into account the seriousness of such offenses. Exceptional circumstances, including a state of war or threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency may not be invoked as a justification of such executions. (They) shall not be carried out under any circumstances including, but not limited to, situations of internal armed conflict, excessive or illegal use of force by a public official or other person acting in an official capacity or by a person acting at the instigation, or with the consent or acquiescence of such person, and situations in which deaths occur in custody. This prohibition shall prevail over decrees issued by governmental authority."

These articles and provisions apply to occupied civilian populations, and the Fourth Geneva Convention and its Article 3 affords ones (like the Palestinians) under foreign occupation special protection. It covers all actions related to "Violence to life and person, Murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture." In addition, "The passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all the judicial guarantees....recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples."

Its Article 32 states: "the High Contracting Parties specifically agree that each of them is prohibited from taking any measure of such a character as to cause the physical suffering or extermination of protected persons in their hands. This prohibition applies not only to murder, torture, corporal punishment, mutilation and medical or scientific experiments not necessitated by the medical treatment of a protected person, but also to any other measures of brutality whether applied by civilian or military agents."

Its Article 85 refers to "Grave Breaches" and defines them as "Acts committed willfully and causing death or serious injury to body or health....making the civilian population or individual civilians the object of attack (or)launching an indiscriminate attack affecting the civilian population or civilian objects...."

The 2002 International Criminal Court's Rome Statute also defines these grave violations as war crimes that include (in its Article 8):

-- "Grave" Geneva Convention breaches;

-- "Willing killing...."

-- "Intentionally launching an attack" knowing it will "cause incidental loss of life...."

-- "Killing or wounding" combatants who've laid down their arms;

-- extrajudicial killings; and

-- "Killing or wounding treacherously a combatant adversary...."

In 1982, the UN established the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions. It was one of several mandates to address disappearances, torture, assassinations and many other human rights abuses and violations of international law.

Philip Alston currently holds the post to investigate extrajudicial killings, hold governments responsible for committing them, failing to prevent them, or for not responding when they're carried out by others. In May 2008, he issued the latest report of his "principle activities" in 2007 through the first three months of 2008. As of March 2008, he requested permission from 32 countries and Occupied Palestine to visit. In spite of "proceed(ing) with plans for a visit," Israel "so far failed to respond affirmatively." The Palestinian Authority (PA) "issued an invitation."


lots more...
http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=14409

[Billy Burnett]

1. US's too.

http://www.638waystokillcastro.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MunPrYJWy0

[ensho]

2. yeah, the neo cons are good at it

may they all have slow deaths in prison

[Darwins Doberman]

3. Because Islam is completely innocent of official policy like this

I'm fairly certain Danish cartoonists and Salman Rushdie might disagree though.

I'm wondering though, what's the Israeli version of the policy of Shahada?

[sabbat hunter]

4. However

as members of the terror/milita group Hamas, they are irregular combatants and therefore are not covered by the extrajudicial killings portion of the Geneva convention. Now if they targeted the elected head of gaza or President Abbas then yes. But members of Hamas as members of a terror organization are fair game.

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[azurnoir]

6. The Gitmo logic

the favorite of rightwingers everywhere, and guess what those irregular combatants can be as old as 6 weeks. Except that Hamas is the elected government of Gaza, there for the combatants who fight under that banner are legitimate however Islamic Jihad is not.

[eyl]

7. In what way?

1) Care to cite the case where a 6-week-old was the target of an assassination? Bystander deaths are irrelevent as far as the question of whether the assassination is ethical or not go.

2) I fail to see why you argue Hamas members can be treated as combatants while IJ members cannot. The Hamas forces are affiliated with the HAmas government but are not, AFAIK, formally designated as armed forces of the PA; thus, their legal status should be the same as IJ. Also, I should point out that only combatants have the right to attack enemy soldiers (except in cases of strict self-defense). So by your position, prior to the elections, any Hamas member attacking an Israeli soldier was guilty of murder? Because ISTR you arguing differently (granted, I may be confusing you with someone else - it's ahrd to keep track sometimes).

3) Most significantly to my mind, is that these circumstances fall between the cracks in international law*. Insurgents of this type are not soldiers, formally affiliated with the armed forces of a government, and thus in theory shouldn't be handled as combatants, but rather arrested, tried and punished according to the law. However, given that they have physical control of the territory they inhabit, arresting them becomes a very difficult proposition. Sure, the IDF can go into the Territories and make an arrest. In fact, they often do this - it's the more common state of affairs compared to an assassination. But try to imagine what would happen if they tried to do so someplace like Gaza City - it would provoke an instant and massive gunfight, almost certainly leaving more dead than even a particularly sloppy assassination (and that's not counting Israeli casualties), and with a much lower chance of success.

Under those circumstances, I see assassination as a "least bad policy". The other options are do nothing and allow the Palestinian organizations to organize attacks against Israel with impunity (the assassination policy is targeted against those who are actively planning or operating violence against Israel, not at random) or else launch an arrest raid with the consequences described above. The preferred possibility, of course, would be for the PA to arrest them - which they can do with a lot less force than Israel would need to employ - but that usually isn't in the cards.

*I actually speculated a while back on what changes I would make in order to bring the laws of war more in line with the realities of combat in the current time, with the prevalence of war between state and non-state actors. Interestingly, my proposals were not to much different from the standards the Israeli Supreme Court set in its ruling on the permissibility of the assassination policy, which found thta it was in allowed under the laws of war under specific circumstances.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

8. Exactly. Gitmo logic.

[shira]

9. versus illogic

Israel can either do nothing at all to stop Hamas 'militants' or try to make arrests and risk killing far more civilians? And this is preferable to stopping people who deliberately target kindergartens - which presumably you're against?

[azurnoir]

14. Ah the hystronics and weak accusations

who deliberately target kindergartens - which presumably you're against

first off those firing the can not target anything the rockets are unguided, they can can fire them in a general direction but that is all, unless of course you are claiming that Hamas is using some very pinpiont trajectory to hit always almost but not quite of course kindergartens that are how many miles away?

[eyl]

10. would you like to expand on that?

[ProgressiveMuslim]

11. Video discussing Israeli targetting of children in Gaza.

http://imeu.net/news/article0014575.shtml

[eyl]

12. Video doesn't work for me

(possibly because this is a POS computer; I'll try tomorrow at work)

In any event, are the allegations that these children were specifically targeted? That is, was the child in question targeted because of his particular identity? If not, it's not an assassination and the incident, whether true or false, is tangential at best to the OP.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

16. Same video on you tube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dc4yHPrFeoU

And Eyl, when you practice collective punishment against an entire civilian population, you are ABSOLUTELY TARGETTING CHILDREN. Aren't they they highest impact targets?

[eyl]

18. OK, saw the video

It's "discussion" of Israel deliberately targetting children is comprised soley of the PCHR rep saying that Israel deliberately targets children. He offers no evidence or even examples and the rest of the segment offers no such evidence either (there's one single example of a Palestinian child kileld given and no support is given that that case was deliberate either - IIRC, it's said he was a bystander to an attack against another target). And frankly, I don't really trust the PCHR; your own video pointed out they included in their report as "children deliberately killed by Israel" teenagers who were killed while attacking Israeli forces., and I remember reading a report of them which counted suicide bombers as casualties of Israeli attacks.

Again, the subject of this thread is assassinations. Even if I agree with you for the sake of argument that Israel is inflicitng collective punishment which disproportionately affects children, it is still not Israel assassinating children (which requires a specific child to be targeted to apply) so it's not relelvent to the OP.

[azurnoir]

13. First off

"I fail to see why you argue Hamas members can be treated as combatants while IJ members cannot. The Hamas forces are affiliated with the HAmas government but are not, AFAIK, formally designated as armed forces of the PA; thus, their legal status should be the same as IJ. Also, I should point out that only combatants have the right to attack enemy soldiers (except in cases of strict self-defense). So by your position, prior to the elections, any Hamas member attacking an Israeli soldier was guilty of murder? Because ISTR you arguing differently (granted, I may be confusing you with someone else - it's ahrd to keep track sometimes)."

How are Hamas combatants not "affiliated" with Hamas? Because it suits the purposes of the Israeli government to claim that? IJ is not the government in Gaza in fact Hamas was fighting them until recently. Using that logic any person in Gaza can be claimed to be a militant and there for punishable, which come to think of it they are being.

Most significantly to my mind, is that these circumstances fall between the cracks in international law*. Insurgents of this type are not soldiers, formally affiliated with the armed forces of a government, and thus in theory shouldn't be handled as combatants, but rather arrested, tried and punished according to the law. However, given that they have physical control of the territory they inhabit, arresting them becomes a very difficult proposition. Sure, the IDF can go into the Territories and make an arrest. In fact, they often do this - it's the more common state of affairs compared to an assassination. But try to imagine what would happen if they tried to do so someplace like Gaza City - it would provoke an instant and massive gunfight, almost certainly leaving more dead than even a particularly sloppy assassination (and that's not counting Israeli casualties), and with a much lower chance of success.

Falling between the cracks of of international law which I seen Pro Israel people on this board claim has no meaning when it works against Israel is the same logic used by the current American government to detain "combatants" at Gitmo for upwards of 7 years in some cases. However the incoming administration is closing Gitmo and giving trials to these people I believe some will be released outright though. Although gotta love the "we could hurt them a lot worse" that is reverted to when pressed.
There is also the fact that the blockade of Gaza's waters is an act of war or at least that is what Israeli government called it in 1967 when Egypt blockaded the Strait of Tiran. The Israeli government
IMO does not to fight this as a war then rules would apply.

[eyl]

17. asdf

How are Hamas combatants not "affiliated" with Hamas? Because it suits the purposes of the Israeli government to claim that? IJ is not the government in Gaza in fact Hamas was fighting them until recently. Using that logic any person in Gaza can be claimed to be a militant and there for punishable, which come to think of it they are being.

ISTR people here arguing that Hamas' military wing was a seperate entity from the political party.

Reading back, my post was a bit unclear. What I meant was that Hamas' military forces are not affiliated with the government of the PA regardless of which party is actually in power; instead, they're essentially the ruling party's private army. If the Likud was in power in Israel, and had its own private military forces, would you argue that that force's members had the same status as IDF soldiers?

Falling between the cracks of of international law which I seen Pro Israel people on this board claim has no meaning when it works against Israel is the same logic used by the current American government to detain "combatants" at Gitmo for upwards of 7 years in some cases. However the incoming administration is closing Gitmo and giving trials to these people I believe some will be released outright though. Although gotta love the "we could hurt them a lot worse" that is reverted to when pressed.

So you actually have no answer to my contention that there's a gap in the laws of war which Israel must address somehow? I might mention that the logic is quite different from Gitom, since in that case it is used on prisoners the US has while in Israel's case it is people we can't takeout of circulation any other way (again, if you have other suggestions I'd love to hear them).

There is also the fact that the blockade of Gaza's waters is an act of war or at least that is what Israeli government called it in 1967 when Egypt blockaded the Strait of Tiran. The Israeli government
IMO does not to fight this as a war then rules would apply.

1) Gaza isn't a state.
2) Even if it was a state, then it doesn't follow that everyone fighting on their side is a combatant entitled to POW status.
3) If Hamas' forces are combatants as you claim, then their attacks against Israel - and in particular, the Shalit kidnapping - are acts of war in any event.

[Scurrilous]

15. Report: Ya'alon said Israel must 'consider killing Ahmadinejad'

<snip>

"Former Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Moshe "Boogie" Ya'alon was quoted as saying by an Australian newspaper this week that the West must consider all options necessary to stop Tehran's nuclear program, including assassinating Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

"We have to confront the Iranian revolution immediately," Ya'alon said in an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald, published Monday morning in Australia. "There is no way to stabilize the Middle East today without defeating the Iranian regime. The Iranian nuclear program must be stopped."

When asked whether "all options" included a military deposition of Ahmadinejad and the rest of Iran's current leadership, Ya'alon told The Herald: "We have to consider killing him. All options must be considered."

The Jerusalem Post, meanwhile, quoted an aide to Ya'alon as saying the former chief of staff never suggested assassination, just defeating the Iranian regime."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1040208.html

[eyl]

19. Accoring to the morning paper

he denied saying that (or rather says he was misquoted)

[bemildred]

20. Political murder is always an admission that you don't expect to win by debating the issues. nt

[Kurska]

21. Would you consider suicide bombings political murders? Crazed militant gunmen in jerusalem?

Or do politcally motivated murder only count when it's directed at the big guys at the very top?

[eyl]

22. Except that in this case

we're not talking about political killings (Except prehaps in the loosest sense of the word) but rather military ones.

[Scurrilous]

23. IDF killed wanted Palestinians despite court guidelines, documents show

<snip>

"The Israel Defense Forces has assassinated wanted men in apparent defiance of High Court of Justice guidelines for such operations, according to operational briefings obtained by Haaretz.

The documents reveal that the IDF approved assassinations in the West Bank even when it could have been possible to arrest the targets instead, and that top-ranking army officers authorized the killings in advance, in writing, even if innocent bystanders would be killed as well.

Moreover, the assassination of at least one member of a so-called "ticking infrastructure" was postponed due to an impending visit by a senior U.S. official.

Finally, Haaretz discovered that contrary to what the state told the High Court, assassinations were subject to only minimal restrictions prior to the court's ruling."

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