Thursday, November 02, 2023
- Thursday, November 02, 2023
- Elder of Ziyon
- 07Oct23, 2023 Operation Iron Swords, anti-Zionism, antisemitism, framing, Hamas war crimes, media bias, propaganda, psy-ops, The Laws of Armed Conflict, Zionism
Thursday, September 21, 2023
- Thursday, September 21, 2023
- Elder of Ziyon
- 2023 terror, child abuse, child soldier, DCI-P, Defense for Children-Palestine, Fake Civilians 2023, ICRC, international conventions, Jenin, NGO lies, Palestinian propaganda, The Laws of Armed Conflict
Rafat Omar Ahmad Khamayseh, 15, was shot by Israeli special forces while leaving his grandfather’s house in Jenin refugee camp around 7:30 p.m. on September 19, according to documentation collected by Defense for Children International - Palestine. As he left the house, Rafat saw Israeli special forces exiting three Palestinian licensed cars and surround the home of the father of a Palestinian man wanted for arrest. Rafat fled, yelling, “Special forces! Special forces!” One Israeli soldier chased Rafat and shot him in the abdomen from a distance of 10 meters (33 feet).
While nearly all of the reports on the Jenin incident identify Khamayseh as being 22 years old, photos indicate that he probably really was 15.
And that he was not exactly an innocent child.
Yet even if we take DCI-P at their word that all he was doing was warning terrorists that the IDF was there, that makes him legally a militant and a legitimate military target.
The US Department of Defense Law of War Manual (revised July 2023) says that a civilian is considered to be taking a direct part in hostilities when he or she is "acting as a guide or lookout for combatants conducting military operations."
The ICRC agrees. In its document "Interpretive Guidance on the Notion of Direct Participation in Hostilities Under International Humanitarian Law" it says, "a person serving as one of several lookouts during an ambush would certainly be taking a direct part in hostilities although his contribution may not be indispensable to the causation of harm."
This is exactly what DCI-P is admitting that Khamayseh was doing. His warning endangered the Israeli forces and therefore he became a combatant and legitimate target, no matter what his age.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. Read all about it here! |
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- Thursday, September 21, 2023
- Elder of Ziyon
- 2014 Terror, anti-Zionist Jews, B'tselem, fifth column, gaza, human shields, ICRC, judicial reform, Operation Protective Edge, Shira Eting, The Laws of Armed Conflict
Monday, September 04, 2023
- Monday, September 04, 2023
- Elder of Ziyon
- Abdullah Hassan Mohammed Sobeh, counterterrorism, hamas, IDF, IED, Islamic Jihad, Jenin, Mus’ab Ja’aydah, NGO lies, NGO silence, PIJ, Shin Bet, The Laws of Armed Conflict, TOI, Ward Sharim
The Israeli military arrested three members of the Hamas terror group during a raid in the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank on Monday morning, marking the first overt entry of forces to the camp since a major operation was carried out in the area two months ago.In a joint statement, the Israel Defense Forces, Shin Bet security agency, and Border Police said troops entered the camp and nabbed Abdullah Hassan Mohammed Sobeh, Ward Sharim, and Mus’ab Ja’aydah.The IDF said troops opened fire at the wanted gunmen as they attempted to flee a building when the forces arrived. One of the armed Palestinians shot in the leg and seriously wounded, and was taken by helicopter to Rambam Hospital in Haifa.An assault rifle belonging to one of the wanted Palestinians was seized, the IDF said.The IDF said troops also responded with live fire against Palestinian gunmen who opened fire at forces in the area, and Palestinian rioters hurling stones.A local wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group said its gunmen opened fire at Israeli forces on the outskirts of the camp.The Palestinian Authority health ministry said four people were lightly wounded by Israeli fire in the area and taken to nearby hospitals.No Israeli soldiers were wounded in the operation.
The IDF did injured the captured terrorists, and transported them by helicopter to a hospital.
Imagine the difficulty of such an operation.
The goal, as always, is to arrest terrorists - not to kill them. The IDF knows that it will be attacked from all directions in a crowded camp that is filled with booby-traps, IEDs and angry youth with stones, firebombs and automatic weapons.
And in the end, no one was killed on either side. The terrorists were captured alive.
This must have involved many, many hours of planning, intelligence and practice.
But this result is always what the IDF wants to see. It doesn't want to kill people, but when under fire, soldiers must return fire towards the source. Nearly every person killed in the past two years were involved in fighting or members of terror groups. For urban warfare, this is incredible, and military experts know this.
But the media ignores all of that. "Human rights groups" insist on perfection in a war zone and that the IDF use peacetime, law enforcement standards when the enemy is often a heavily armed military group. As much as they can, Israel tries to live up to those standards, and it showed that today, even if it is not at all clear that the more flexible laws of armed conflict wouldn't apply to Jenin today.
The world is so obsessed with demonizing Israel that it ignores how unique it is for an army to have so few civilian casualties in urban war zones.
Try to find stories where US or British troops entered a crowded town and extracted wanted men under constant fire without killing anyone. If it has ever happened, it is incredibly rare. Yet the IDF strives to do that each and every time - and its success today proves that.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. Read all about it here! |
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Monday, August 28, 2023
- Monday, August 28, 2023
- Elder of Ziyon
- Adam Ayyad, child soldier, Hamas war crimes, HRW, ICRC, Islamic Jihad war crimes, Mahmoud al-Sadi, Mohammed al-Sleem, NGO lies, NGO silence, The Laws of Armed Conflict
The Israeli military and border police forces are killing Palestinian children with virtually no recourse for accountability.Last year, 2022, was the deadliest year for Palestinian children in the West Bank in 15 years, and 2023 is on track to meet or exceed 2022 levels. Israeli forces had killed at least 34 Palestinian children in the West Bank as of August 22. Human Rights Watch investigated four fatal shootings of Palestinian children by Israeli forces between November 2022 and March 2023.
In the other cases investigated, the security forces killed boys after they had joined other youths confronting Israeli forces with stones, Molotov cocktails, or fireworks. While these projectiles can seriously injure or kill, in these cases, Israeli forces fired repeatedly at chest-level, hitting multiple children, and killed children in situations where they do not appear to have been posing a threat of grievous injury or death, which is the standard for the use of lethal force by law enforcement officers under international norms. That would make these killings unlawful.
Tuesday, July 25, 2023
- Tuesday, July 25, 2023
- Elder of Ziyon
- 2023 terror, Al Qassam Brigades, glorifying terror, innocent in English, lost in translation, PalArab lies, Palestinian Authority, The Laws of Armed Conflict, victimhood
Tuesday, July 11, 2023
- Tuesday, July 11, 2023
- Elder of Ziyon
- 2023 terror, Amnesty, Area A, Geneva Convention, HRW, irony, Jenin, The Laws of Armed Conflict, UNCHR, Volker Turk
Call the police! |
Once it becomes evident that the threat is emanating from a member of an organized armed group or a civilian taking a direct part in hostilities, such as by means of a vehicle-borne IED, then the conduct of hostilities framework would apply at law. In that situation, the use of force is not limited by law enforcement, although such norms would continue to govern the use of force against civilians who are not direct participants in hostilities. ... [T]he force permitted, at law, to counter an IED or suicide bomb by members of organized armed groups or a civilian taking a direct part in hostilities is governed by conduct of hostilities norms. For example, the soldier may be aware from information provided by aerial surveillance, human intelligence, other observation posts and checkpoints, or perhaps even the observation of certain tactics and procedures, that an attack is about to take place. That soldier does not have to wait until the attack is imminent, or the attacker is physically in close proximity and ready to set off explosives, before taking action to remove the threat. In addressing that threat, the soldier can use force governed by conduct of hostilities norms.
Here is how Amnesty and HRW insist that Israel go after terrorists:1. Best to not do anything. They are probably innocent and it should be handled by the PA.2. If absolutely necessary to stop an imminent act of resistance that will definitely kill Israeli civilians, do not enter the town with force. This scares some children and could damage roads or houses. Just send one policeman to arrest the suspect.3. Give the suspect, and the entire town, advanced notice that Israel plans to arrest them. That way there are no surprises.4. In the unlikely event that the suspect or other people decide to shoot or blow up the policeman, only then is he or she allowed to respond with gunfire.5. When the suspect gives himself up voluntarily, do not frisk or handcuff him. These are painful procedures, and if the suspect is trans, it could be embarrassing, and it is a terrible thing to shame a Palestinian.6. In the unlikely event that an entire battalion of heavily armed militants respond to the arrest by killing the Israeli policeman and dismembering him or her, send in another and try again. Use more polite words when requesting his surrender.7. After several rounds of this with many Israeli policemen dead, then the IDF may enter with a single unarmed Jeep. Soldiers may wear helmets. Try again until successful.8. Under no circumstances may a bulldozer be used. Under no circumstances may drones be used. Under no circumstances may anything beyond a pistol be used. These are all prohibited as potentially hurting innocent civilians.9. Under no circumstances may the suspect be injured or killed. He is by definition a civilian since he is not wearing a uniform. Being aggressive is a violation of the Geneva Conventions and a bunch of other international laws that Amnesty has not read.10. The assumption that a suspect is a civilian also applies to anyone who allegedly attacks Israelis in Israel itself. They must be peacefully arrested.I hope this clears up the NGO ruling on how Israelis may defend themselves. In short - they may not.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. Read all about it here! |
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Friday, July 07, 2023
- Friday, July 07, 2023
- Elder of Ziyon
- civilian casualties, collateral damage, drone, Rafael, SPIKE FireFly, The Laws of Armed Conflict, weapons
For the first time ever, the IDF has dispatched the cutting-edge SPIKE FireFly suicide drone in an operational capacity during this week’s large-scale counterterrorism offensive in the West Bank city and refugee camp of Jenin.The elite Duvdevan and Maglan units deployed six of these loitering munitions, manufactured by Defense giant Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd., which carry a small amount of explosives to target terrorist targets around the Jenin refugee camp, including command centers that housed dozens of explosive charges.The mini-kamikaze drones managed to destroy the targets from afar, thus minimizing risk to troops. The IDF considers the weapon system’s first baptism of fire a remarkable success and examines its future use for targeted assassinations of terrorists.According to the arms manufacturer, the weapon, which is known in the IDF as MAOZ, “was designed for the dismounted soldier fighting within the urban arena where situation awareness is limited, the enemy is behind cover, and precision is critical.”FireFly drones hover silently around alleys or inside buildings. They can be operated autonomously and explode precisely and lethally on the target without endangering soldiers.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. Read all about it here! |
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- Friday, July 07, 2023
- Elder of Ziyon
- 2023 terror, Antonio Guterres, counterterrorism, double standards, Hypocrisy, Jenin, kill jews, Palestinian Security Forces, The Laws of Armed Conflict, UN, Volker Turk, z can't make this stuff up
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.”
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.)
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. Read all about it here! |
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Tuesday, July 04, 2023
- Tuesday, July 04, 2023
- Elder of Ziyon
- 2023 terror, Article 53, Hamas war crimes, Islamic Jihad war crimes, Jenin, jihad, justifying terror, media silence, NGO silence, The Laws of Armed Conflict
The Israel Defense Forces says troops located hidden underground storage sites with weapons and explosives inside a mosque in the West Bank city of Jenin.After lengthy gun battles with armed Palestinians who were holed up inside the mosque, Israeli forces managed to break in, the IDF says.The IDF says that on the ground floor, troops found two underground storage sites containing explosives, weapons, and other military equipment.
Using a mosque as a military site is a war crime.
Article 53 of the 1977 Additional Protocol I says:
Without prejudice to the provisions of the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict of 14 May 1954, and of other relevant international instruments, it is prohibited:
…
(b) to use such objects [historic monuments, works of art or places of worship which constitute the cultural or spiritual heritage of peoples] in support of the military effort
Additional Protocol II has identical language.
It was Hamas and Islamic Jihad that turned a mosque into a military target by firing from it and storing weapons within.
The fact that most Muslims are not upset at Palestinian terror groups for treating their mosques that way indicates that hate for Israel is more important to most Muslims than the sanctity of the mosque.
I don't see any fatwas on the topic, but my guess is that the Islamists pretend that this is a case of "defensive jihad" - defending Islam as a whole from destruction - which gives them wide latitude to even violate normative Islamic principles of war. It appears to be the justification for suicide bombings, and female suicide bombers, for example. Under that mindset, using mosques for war transforms from something reprehensible into an obligation.
Tuesday, June 13, 2023
- Tuesday, June 13, 2023
- Elder of Ziyon
- Amnesty, blame Israel, collateral damage, fact check, gaza, ICRC, international law, Islamic Jihad, jew hatred, LOAC, NGO lies, PIJ, The Laws of Armed Conflict
Amnesty International investigated nine Israeli airstrikes that resulted in the killing of civilians and in the damage and destruction of residential buildings in the Gaza Strip. Three separate attacks on the first night of bombing on 9 May, in which precision-guided bombs targeted three senior Al-Quds Brigades commanders, killed 10 Palestinian civilians, and injured at least 20 others. They were launched into densely populated urban areas at 2am when families were sleeping at home, which suggests that those who planned and authorized the attacks anticipated – and likely disregarded – the disproportionate harm to civilians. Intentionally launching disproportionate attacks, a pattern Amnesty International has documented in previous Israeli operations, is a war crime.The ICRC says
The principle of proportionality prohibits attacks against military objectives which are “expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated”.
Israel’s deliberate destruction of civilian homes also took a heavy toll on civilians in the Gaza Strip, including on people living with disabilities.On 13 May, Israeli forces targeted a four-storey building in the Jabalia refugee camp. The building was home to 42 people from the extended Nabhan family. Five members of the family live with disabilities, including three being wheelchair users.Hussam Nabhan, an eyewitness to the attack, told Amnesty International he had received a call he believed to be from an Israeli intelligence officer at around 6pm, saying residents of the building had 15 minutes to evacuate. Hussam told the caller that there were people with disabilities in the building and they needed more time, but the caller just repeated the warning.After the strike, 22-year-old Haneen Nabhan was so traumatized she found it hard to talk, saying that her wheelchair had been buried under the rubble of her home so she could no longer move around independently.Research by Amnesty International found no evidence that the Nabhan building – and other residential buildings destroyed or damaged during the last two days of the offensive – had been used to store weapons or any other military equipment or that rockets had been launched from their direct vicinity.“The root cause of this unspeakable violence is Israel’s system of apartheid. This system must be dismantled, the blockade of the Gaza Strip immediately lifted, and those responsible for the crime of apartheid, war crimes and other crimes under international law must be held to account,” said Morayef.
For commission of a war crime, a culpable state of mind is an essential element. Article 8 of the ICC’s Rome Statute requires a showing of either intent to harm civilians or recklessness: ordering an attack with the knowledge that the resulting harm to civilians would be “clearly excessive in relation to the … military advantage anticipated.” The high threshold for proof of a culpable state of mind is no accident. Rather, it is a recognition that a less demanding test would not adequately acknowledge the risk of harm that inevitably flows from the fog of war.
Sunday, March 12, 2023
- Sunday, March 12, 2023
- Elder of Ziyon
- 2023 terror, antisemitism, blame Israel, blame Jews, border controls, child soldier, civilian casualties, double standards, IDF, media bias, statistics, The Laws of Armed Conflict, twitter, UK, USA
92.5% of Palestinians killed this year were members of terror groups or actively involved in attacks
Shortly before 3 a.m. on July 19, 2016, American Special Operations forces bombed what they believed were three ISIS “staging areas” on the outskirts of Tokhar, a riverside hamlet in northern Syria. They reported 85 fighters killed. In fact, they hit houses far from the front line, where farmers, their families and other local people sought nighttime sanctuary from bombing and gunfire. More than 120 villagers were killed.
Do you remember reading about this incident, or the dozens of others that were uncovered in that story using Pentagon records? No, the story disappeared from the news media radar in no time.
Now, imagine the tsunami of coverage from multiple news outlets, the UN resolutions and condemnations from every nation on the planet, that would result if Israel killed 120 civilians in an air strike and claimed it was a successful strike on dozens of fighters.
That is not just a double standard. That is treating Israel as uniquely evil and ignoring far, far worse things done by "the good guys."
And that is the entire point. Israel's critics do not want you to know this context when they accuse Israel of war crimes. They do not want you to see how Israel compares to other armies. They never make 3D models of US bombing of wedding parties.
There is only one possible explanation for putting Israel under an electron microscope for doing an amazing job targeting terrorists while virtually ignoring the horrible mistakes that every other professional western army does. It isn't "concern over taxpayer dollars" or "humanitarian concerns" or any of the dozens of other excuses used to justify this obsession with how Israel fights terror. None of the Western armies who wantonly bombed dozens of innocents had to worry about an immediate threat of someone slipping through a porous border and attacking their own citizens who live only a few kilometers away.
The only explanation is antisemitism.
Maybe not the explicit, neo-Nazi kind, but this crazed obsession with finding everything wrong with Israel defending itself from real, imminent threats while ignoring everyday Palestinian terror cannot be logically explained any other way except to say that a Jewish state is assumed to be automatically criminal the way Jews have lived under that assumption for thousands of years.
The truly remarkable thing is that the IDF, like the Jews throughout history, don't respond by saying that they might as well act the way they are being accused of acting. Instead, they continue to improve their methods and work towards a 100% record of only killing those who are actively trying to kill them first. (In attacks on Iranian targets in Syria, they are very close to that 100%.)
The IDF is truly the most moral army in the world. It isn't even close.
- Sunday, March 12, 2023
- Elder of Ziyon
- Arab war crime, forensic evidence, human shields, international law, media bias, Nablus, The Laws of Armed Conflict, WaPo
The Washington Post documented a war crime in Nablus - but it was done by Palestinians, not Israelis
This frame appears to show a muzzle flash, but the WaPo can't see it. |
Israeli security forces in an armored vehicle fired repeatedly into a group of civilians sheltering between a mosque and a clinic after a Feb. 22 raid in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, killing two people, including a teenager, and wounding three others, according to witnesses and a visual reconstruction of the event by The Washington Post.
Monday, January 16, 2023
- Monday, January 16, 2023
- Elder of Ziyon
- house demolition, lethal journalism, media bias, NGO lies, NGO silence, The Laws of Armed Conflict, Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, Yoram Dinstein
Similarly, here he talks about how theoreticians and human rights law experts do not understand the purpose and use of LOAC - and indeed how their theories are not only wrong but ultimately destructive.Another pernicious confusion is spawned by the dual existence in armed conflict of human rights law and LOAC. Naturally, there is some synergy and even a degree of overlap between the two branches of law. The prohibition of torture, which is reiterated in both bodies of law, is a leading example of such overlap. But human rights law and LOAC do collide head-on in certain critical areas. The archetypical case in point relates to recourse to force. Put in a nutshell, the pivotal question is whether lethal force can be used as a first resort or only as a last resort. In ordinary law enforcement (police) action in peacetime, lethal force can be employed against law-breakers only as a last resort. Conversely, in the course of hostilities forming part of an armed conflict, lethal force can be used against enemy combatants as a first resort on a 24/7 basis. When human rights law and LOAC clash - as they do in this respect - LOAC must prevail over human rights law because - as recognized by the International Court of Justice and other tribunals - it is the lex specialis.The trouble is that zealous advocates of human rights law are not willing to yield the moral high ground. They behave like the high priests of a Holy Gospel who regard any deviation from their received dogma as apostasy. They fail to appreciate the special nature of armed conflict and therefore contest the overriding force of LOAC. They ignore the fact that LOAC - which is directly responsive to the unique features of warfare - is a product of a pragmatic compromise between military necessity and humanitarian considerations. They think that, by rejecting military necessity, they will lead us to utopia. But what they are liable to bring about is dystopia. If international law were to ignore military necessity, military necessity would ignore international law. Belligerent Parties would simply shed off any inhibitions in the conduct of hostilities.
Frequently, there are passionate debates as to whether what we are doing in war is in full harmony with LOAC. As a rule, when the law is equivocal or controversial, the legal literature can become a useful tool in identifying and interpreting normative obligations. I myself regularly contribute to that literature, and I am not inclined to trivialize its potential import as a roadmap for practitioners. All the same, it is necessary to acknowledge the existence of a cottage industry of law review articles trying to recast LOAC, reconciling it with conditions of some fantasy land in which war can be conducted without putting any civilian in harm's way. These writings are produced not only by preachers of human rights ascendancy but also by LOAC theorists who are constantly citing each other without much concern for battleground realities (of which they seem to know very little). For persons familiar with general state practice, this is a matter of bemusement or perhaps even amusement. It is accordingly advisable to keep in mind that LOAC - just like other branches of international law - is created solely by states, in treaties or in custom. The legal chatter of armchair quarterbacks is no different from static in a telecommunications system. It must be separated from the genuine sound of law.How many times have we seen the media claim that what Israel does is "disproportionate" without knowing what that actually means in a legal sense?
Whereas a lot is being done by all modern armed forces to train soldiers, sailors, and aviators-especially officers of all ranks-in the intricacies LOAC, not enough is being done to instruct journalists as to what is permissible and impermissible in military engagements. Media reports are therefore frequently predicated on false assumptions as to the "do"s and "don't"s of warfare.
Dinstein talks a bit about how every new conflict spawns new areas of LOAC, with which Israel is unfortunately one of the leaders. Here he challenges the ICRC for not understanding that there is no clear distinction within armed groups between "civilian" and "militant."
[There is a] broader challenge to LOAC presented by civilians directly participating in hostilities. The failure of an ICRC endeavor to engender a consensus on the range and repercussions of this omnipresent phenomenon has left much of the relevant law shrouded in doubt. Suffice it to mention the controversial ICRC advocated requirement of continuous combat function against three different backgrounds:(a) The incidence of the so-called revolving door of "farmers-byday, fighters-by-night" and their susceptibility to attack at a time slot in between engagements in hostilities. The ICRC looks at every fraction of DPIH [direct participating in hostilities] activity separately. I (and others like me) highlight the continuum.(b) The DPIH standing of members of organized armed groups who serve as cooks, drivers, administrative assistants, legal advisers, etc. In my opinion, it is wrong to discriminate between legal advisers in the government armed forces (like many present here)-who are categorized as combatants and are susceptible to attack-and those who are members of organized armed groups and are consequently exempt from attack according to the ICRC. For sure, organized armed groups are not inclined to issue membership cards. But for that very reason, the expectation that in the thick of battle a distinction can be made between actual fighters and accompanying support staff is illusionary.(c) The DPIH status of those who orchestrate behind the scenes the combat activities of others through military planning, training, and recruiting of personnel. Those who fire arms are often pawns manipulated by others who are literally calling the shots while purportedly belonging to a political rather than military wing of the organized armed group. The problematics of these and other outstanding DPIH issues is fraught with battlefield dilemmas that refuse to go away.
Dinstein is hardly a hawk. Even in this speech, he criticizes Israel's policy of demolishing terrorist houses as a violation of LOAC, although he understands that one must find disincentives for suicide attackers; he prefers sealing up the houses of their families instead.
Living in Israel, he knows how LOAC must evolve to handle new situations and that Israeli rights in war are no less than the rights of Palestinians or Hezbollah - something that eludes "human rights experts" like Ken Roth.