UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Thursday said Israel used excessive force in the counter-terror operation in Jenin earlier this week and blamed Israel for the violence in the West Bank city.
During a press briefing at UN Headquarters in New York City, Guterres said he had been “deeply disturbed” by news of the Jenin operation and “strongly condemns all acts of violence against civilians.”
Asked if his condemnation applied to both sides of the conflict, Guterres said, “It applies to all use of excessive force and obviously in this situation there was an excessive force used by Israeli forces.”
“Israeli airstrikes and ground operations in a crowded refugee camp were the worst violence in the West Bank in many years, with a significant impact on civilians,” Guterres said, blaming Israel for disruptions to water and electricity services, and blocking people from accessing medical care, a charge that Israel denied.
“I once again call on Israel to abide by its obligations under international law, including the duty to exercise restraint and use only proportional force,” Guterres said. “The use of airstrikes is inconsistent with the conduct of law enforcement operations.”
“I understand Israel’s legitimate concerns with its security but escalation is not the answer,” he added. “It simply bolsters radicalization and leads to a deepening cycle of violence and bloodshed.”
The article goes on to quote other UN officials also claiming that the Jenin operation was excessive and disproportionate.
Guterres is the least anti-Israel UN Secretary General in many decades. But his statement reveals the thinking of much of the Western world, even from Israel's putative allies. When they frame their criticisms in terms of proportionality, they are saying that Israel should simply accept that terrorists will kill Jews every few days, and only use token methods to try to stop them.
Jenin's camp had turned into a locus for terror. The PA didn't do anything to stop that from happening. The Jenin Brigades have been building a Gaza-style military center in the midst of a civilian area - just like Gaza. The longer Israel would wait, the more difficult the inevitable counter-terror operation would become, and the more it would affect civilians.
The IDF managed to destroy critical terror infrastructure, something that could not easily be done with only ground troops. The operation took months to plan and clearly the Israeli intelligence on targeting crucial infrastructure was excellent. The additional force and airpower used reduced the number of casualties compared to what a ground-only operation would have done. And every single Palestinian killed was an armed militant - a valid military target.
In other words, this operation was successful by every metric, including proportionality. And while the IDF cannot stop all "lone wolf" operations, it can stop much bigger attacks that were being planned.
But Guterres and much of the Western world, outside of military analysts, simply do not understand the facts. They don't see that the increased firepower is necessary because of the increased capabilities of the terrorists. And they cling to how they pretend things are, not the reality on the ground.
Which brings up another point from another UN official:
On Tuesday, the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk decried the cycle of violence in Israel and the West Bank... Turk said the scale of the Jenin operation, including the use of repeated airstrikes, along with the destruction of property, raised serious issues regarding international human rights norms and standards.
Some of the methods and weapons used “are more generally associated with the conduct of hostilities in armed conflict, rather than law enforcement,” he said.
“The use of airstrikes is inconsistent with rules applicable to the conduct of law enforcement operations. In a context of occupation, the deaths resulting from such airstrikes may also amount to willful killings,” he said.
Turk is saying that as an occupier, Israel is only legally allowed to do "law enforcement" and not treat this as an armed conflict.
He has it exactly backwards. Israel doesn't occupy Jenin - if it did, then the terrorists there would never have been able to build such an extensive infrastructure. Jenin is not under Israeli control, and it is clearly not under Palestinian Authority control - it is under Iranian control by proxy. The terrorists are not "criminals." Criminals don't walk around openly with M-16s.
If Israel would wait longer, Jenin would become another Gaza, and the steps necessary to protect Israeli lives would be much harsher. If these UN officials really cared about human rights, they would want terror groups combatted earlier rather than wait until it is too late.
Israel's actions are the only way to minimize civilian casualties (outside of really re-occupying much of Area A.) People whose very jobs are to uphold human rights should understand these basic facts - and when they are so ignorant of the realities on the ground, they shouldn't say anything until they learn the entire story.
(That being said, Israel once again did not do a good job explaining this operation.)
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Sunday, September 03, 2023
Elder of Ziyon
