No, Israel is not hamstrung to only using a "law enforcement" paradigm in Jenin under international law

Call the police!

Last week,  the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk condemned the Jenin operation, saying that some of the methods and weapons used “are more generally associated with the conduct of hostilities in armed conflict, rather than law enforcement."

“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.

What Turk is saying, and what many "human rights" NGOs believe, is that an belligerent occupier must adhere strictly to human rights law which means that any activity done must be police-type law enforcement operations. 

Nations at war, on the other hand, must adhere to international humanitarian law (IHL), which govern wars. The Geneva Conventions are the source for much of IHL.

Turk is wrong. When Israel faces an armed militant group, it not only can but should apply the laws of war. It is absurd to pretend that police actions are adequate to maintain the peace when an armed group has taken over a town. When there are civilians protesting, that calls for law enforcement; when there are heavily armed militants with machine guns and IEDs, that calls for the army and the laws of armed conflict.

The line between the two is not so clear. This was recognized in a 45-page article published in the International Review of the Red Cross in 2012, "Use of force during occupation: law enforcement and conduct of hostilities."

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.

In reality, the situation in Jenin is even more tilted towards actual warfare because there is a law enforcement vacuum there. The PA police aren't going into Jenin. If Israel is the legal occupier, then it would be obligated to have forces in Jenin 24/7 - because law enforcement is the responsibility of the occupier!

Obviously, none of the people who insist that Israel is occupying Jenin want to see Israeli police or soldiers opening up police stations there and maintaining order for the civilian citizens. But if Israel is the occupier, that is exactly what Israel is obligated to do!

Which proves that Jenin, and Area A altogether, is not occupied under international law. It is a town with a law enforcement vacuum. By the time Israeli forces must enter, it has turned into a full blown military conflict with armed militias "defending" no one but themselves. 

Even with this, Israel attempts to apply law enforcement paradigms as much as possible when going into towns are trying to arrest militants. This puts Israeli troops and police at extra risk. 

I wrote a satirical thread, somewhat exaggerating the position of "human rights" groups that try to apply a strict law enforcement paradigm to Israel in the territories:

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.

Luckily, real international law is not as restrictive as the fairy tale versions pushed by Amnesty, HRW and the UN. 

(Made a correction thanks to Irene)

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Today's Nablus operation adhered to all international standards. Palestinians lie about it anyway.

In my last post, I noted that  UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk was upset that the Jenin raid on terror infrastructure earlier this week went beyond "law enforcement," which he (falsely) claimed is all Israel is allowed to do to combat militants under international law.

This morning, Israeli police from the Yamam counter-terrorism unit tried law enforcement in Nablus. Al Jazeera, which cannot be accused of pro-Israel bias, reported the operation this way:

Two Palestinian youth have been killed after Israeli forces raided the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, officials said.

The raid took place early Friday morning, with some locals describing it as an “invasion”, and resulted in the deaths of Hamza Maqbool and Khairi Shaheen, according to Al Jazeera correspondent Alan Fisher.

Israeli forces raided the city in search of the two men, one confirmed to be affiliated with the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, said Fisher, reporting from the Occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.

The men were tracked down to a house in old Nablus. Israeli forces then used loudspeakers to ask the men to surrender themselves, Fisher said.

They were met with the return of improvised explosive devices, which prompted the Israeli army to call for more reinforcements, he added.

“It appears there was some sort of confrontation between the two men in the house and the Israeli army, and the two men in the house were shot dead,” he said.

The men were suspected of carrying out a shooting attack against police this week, according to Israel’s military.

Israeli police cordoned off the area to avoid any danger to civilians. It called on them to surrender. They responded with throwing explosives. Only then did the Israeli forces respond with deadly force.

Here's what Al Jazeera didn't report: 

The men attempted a drive-by shooting of Israeli police on Wednesday.

תיעוד הירי. אותרו פגיעות בחנות ובניידת משטרה pic.twitter.com/1gt9MJyjok

— Carmel Dangor כרמל דנגור (@carmeldangor) July 5, 2023

The men were not "youth" but members of Fatah's Al Aqsa Brigades, Hamza Moqbel (34) and Khairy Shaheen (32.) 

Terror groups celebrated them as heroic martyr fighters. 

And other militants in Nablus attacked the Israeli forces during the operation. 

But that is not the narrative that the Palestinian Authority wants the world to know.

Their official English-language news agency Wafa made up a story that these men, heroic fighters in Arabic, were trying to surrender when they were brutally murdered:

Israeli military units forced their way into the Old Town and cordoned off a house amid the heavy firing of live fire while demanding two youths to surrender. Israeli soldiers opened fire heavily and directly at the youths the second they came out and agreed to surrender, fatally shooting them. They were identified as Hamza Maqbool, 32, and Khairi Shaheen, 34.

The more you research the details of Israel's counterterrorism operations, the more you see how careful they are to not only adhere to the law, but also to go out of their way to minimize civilian harm when often confronting heavily armed terrorists. 

But Palestinian propagandists give a completely different story - and the international media often parrots their lies, despite their long track record of literally making things up. 

It is not unbiased to favor one side of the story when that side has a better record of telling the truth than the other. But the media, wanting to paint one side as victims, does the opposite.

Consistently. 

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The absurdity of "Palestine Refugees," illustrated by Al Jazeera

Al Jazeera published this graphic to illustrate who has been a refugee for the past 75 years.

Notice that the Palestine stream is the only one (besides "Others") that keeps getting bigger and bigger. Every other individual refugee situation either disappears eventually or, in the case of Afghanistan, cycles to an extent. 

The UNHCR annual report gives all the proof we need to show how UNRWA should be dismantled.

Of course, if we would apply the Refugee Convention definition of refugee to Palestinians, there wouldn't be 5.9 million. There wouldn't be 30,000. 

And even if you include descendants of refugees, the number would still be roughly one million, since nearly 5 million are either full citizens of another country (Jordan - 2M), they live in British Mandate Palestine (West Bank/Gaza- 2.2M) or they have already moved to other countries (most from Lebanon ~300K and many from Syria ~200K.)

Instead of  17% of world refugees being Palestinian, it is between 0-3% by any sane definition.

When statistics are subjective with different rules for different people, they are meaningless. And when they are weighted to damn only the Jewish state, they are antisemitic. 

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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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Everyone hates Palestinian Arabs when there are no Jews around

An eye-opening report from the UN's IRIN news site,  May 25:

Until November, it is alleged that Jordan routinely deported Syrian refugees who had broken the law back to Syria... Most Syrians are now sent to the Azraq refugee camp in Jordan instead. However, this is not the case for Palestinians, whose deportations do not appear to have been halted.

Jordan has denied entrance to Palestinian refugees living in Syria since January 2013, although this had already been the unofficial policy for months prior to the official announcement.

“They should stay in Syria until the end of the crisis,” Jordan’s Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour said in an interview at the time with the pan-Arab daily newspaper al-Hayat.

Many people fleeing Syria’s civil war have, however, been smuggled across the border, and Palestinians found to have entered the country illegally have been detained and are often deported back to Syria.

At least 42 Palestinians from Syria have been forcibly deported this year, in addition to 117 in 2014, according to sources familiar with the cases. Rights groups say those deported are at high risk of being arrested and tortured.

Here is the full quote from Jordan's Prime Minister:

Al-Hayat: But why are you preventing the Palestinian refugees fleeing from Syria from entering the kingdom, while knowing that they have Syrian travel documents?

Ensour: There are those who want to exempt Israel from the repercussions of displacing the Palestinians from their homes. Jordan is not a place to solve Israel’s problems. Jordan has made a clear and explicit sovereign decision to not allow the crossing to Jordan by our Palestinian brothers who hold Syrian documents. Receiving those brothers is a red line because that would be a prelude to another wave of displacement, which is what the Israeli government wants. Our Palestinian brothers in Syria have the right to go back to their country of origin. They should stay in Syria until the end of the crisis.

If we save their lives, we'd be doing what Israel wants us to do! Better to let them rot!

This is reminiscent of Mahmoud Abbas' own words saying that it is better for Palestinians to die in Syria rather than give up the mythical "right to return" to Israel.

The IRIN article shows that it is not only Jordan that turns its back on Syrian residents with Palestinian ancestry:

Palestinians from Syria are not allowed to register with the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, to receive aid, and many say they cannot contact other NGOs for fear of being discovered and stripped of their citizenship and deported. Many aid agencies will not work with them or represent them, making them particularly vulnerable to exploitation in the informal labour market.

Other Middle Eastern countries, including Lebanon, have also effectively banned Palestinians from Syria from entering.

There are literally hundred of NGOs operating in Israel and the territories, mostly funded by Europe, that are "pro-Palestinian." Yet almost none of these supposedly "pro-Palestinian" agencies take the slightest interest in the plight of Palestinians whose suffering cannot be blamed on Jews.

Now, why would that be?

(h/t Irene)

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