HRW "white phosphorus" report again accuses Israel of violating international law that doesn't exist

Human Rights Watch issued another report accusing Israel of violating international law by using white phosphorus in Lebanese towns.

White phosphorus is a chemical substance dispersed in artillery shells, bombs, and rockets that ignites when exposed to oxygen. Its incendiary effects inflict death or cruel injuries that result in lifelong suffering. It can set homes, agricultural areas, and other civilian objects on fire. Under international humanitarian law, the use of airburst white phosphorus is unlawfully indiscriminate in populated areas and otherwise does not meet the legal requirement to take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian harm.

... Lebanon should promptly file a declaration with the International Criminal Court (ICC), enabling the investigation and prosecution of grave international crimes within the court’s jurisdiction on Lebanese territory since October 2023.

The wording is carefully chosen . WP is not an incendiary weapon nor is it a chemical weapon, which have very specific definitions under international law. It is a legal weapon used by major militaries including the US. But HRW makes sure to use the words "incendiary" and "chemical" to give the impression that white phosphorus is an illegal weapon.

HRW counts 17 alleged incidents of Israel using WP in populated areas. Yet, it admits, "Human Rights Watch did not obtain evidence of any burn injuries resulting from the use of white phosphorus munitions but heard accounts indicating possible respiratory damage."

If white phosphorus' main problem is that it can burn people, and not one case of anyone being burned was found, then it appears that Israel is using the weapon responsibly (if indeed this is white phosphorus and not a similar smokescreen.)

Unlike Human Rights Watch, the Lieber Institute at West Point goes into detail on the legality of using white phosphorus, and finds that it is quite legal, as long as it is not used to violate other laws of war like the principle of proportionality.. In fact, its legal use is far more expansive than HRW claims. Israel uses it for smokescreen and marking; but international law allows it to be used to directly attack enemy militants. 

There is no per se prohibition on the use of white phosphorous. For instance, a March 2009 HRW report notes that “[w]hen used properly in open areas, white phosphorous munitions are not illegal.” A 2017 article in the New York Times likewise noted that “it is not illegal under international law for militaries to possess and use white phosphorus.” The military manuals of several States indicate that it may be used lawfully, even as an anti-personnel weapon, in certain circumstances (e.g., United States (§ 6.14.2.1), Canada (para. 521.3.), France (p. 20-21), Germany (paras. 453-458), and Australia (paras. 4.30-31)). The question, then, is whether the use of white phosphorous munitions is restricted by weapons treaty law or the law of armed conflict rules governing the conduct of hostilities.

....[E]ven if white phosphorous munitions did qualify as “incendiary weapons,” Protocol III would not ban their use. Rather, it regulates the use of incendiary weapons by parties to the instrument for the purpose of protecting civilians.

The US Army War Manual says "[W]hite phosphorus may be used as an antipersonnel weapon. However, such use must comply with the general rules for the conduct of hostilities, including the principles of discrimination and proportionality.In addition, feasible precautions to reduce the risk of harm to civilians must be taken." 

Israel says it only uses shells with WP in urban areas under very specific (undisclosed) circumstances that have been approved by Israel's High Court. While the specific use cases are secret, we could get some clues from the footnotes in the US Army Manual, which says the army used white phosphorus in urban areas in Fallujah directly against terrorists: "We used it for screening missions at two breeches and, later in the fight, as a potent psychological weapon against the insurgents in trench lines and spider holes when we could not get effects on them with HE [High Explosive]. We fired ‘shake and bake’ missions at the insurgents, using WP to flush them out and HE to take them out.”

The Lieber article quotes the Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Incendiary Weapons, which says that even as an incendiary weapon, it is permitted "when such military objective is clearly separated from the concentration of civilians and all feasible precautions are taken with a view to limiting the incendiary effects to the military objective and to avoiding, and in any event to minimizing, incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects.

The Lieber article concludes, "The application of the law of armed conflict to the use of white phosphorus munitions must be done on a case-by-case basis. Like the use of any munition in combat, whether the use of white phosphorous munitions is lawful depends on the attendant circumstances." HRW cannot point to any illegal use of WP in Lebanon, and says that it does not know if there were any Hezbollah military targets in the areas where it was used. Even the implication that Israel would use WP without any Hezbollah targets - meaning, aiming it at civilians or using it indiscriminately  - is slanderous and nonsensical, not to mention that it shows that HRW knows nothing about the layers of review the IDF goes through in making decisions on types of weapons used in targeting. 

HRW's report can be summarized as "we cannot find that Israel did anything wrong, but it's Israel, so they must have."

There is a further irony here. The same day that HRW released this report, there are major forest fires in Israel's north sparked by Hezbollah weapons. If Hezbollah deliberately tried to set these fires and used munitions designed for that purpose, they would be violating the same prohibition on incendiary weapons HRW pretends Israel is violating. The same Protocol mentioned earlier says, "It is prohibited to make forests or other kinds of plant cover the object of attack by incendiary weapons except when such natural elements are used to cover, conceal or camouflage combatants or other military objectives, or are themselves military objectives."

Palestinians have deliberately set Israeli forests and fields on fire from the 1920s to today.. Some believe the current wildfires were purposefully set. The amount of damage to civilian property in Israel from fires dwarfs that from WP in Lebanon. 

But you can be very sure that Human Rights Watch is not going to write a report accusing Hezbollah of violating the same protocol they accuse Israel of violating. 

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Amnesty's absurd report on Israeli airstrikes proves its antisemitism

How do we know Amnesty International is antisemitic?

I once listed 15 separate reasons, examples of egregious Amnesty bias and lies about Israel.  And I could have listed dozens more. 

Here's yet another.

Amnesty released a report on the early part of Israel's bombing campaign against Hamas. 

The Israeli army claims it only attacks military targets, but in a number of cases Amnesty International found no evidence of the presence of fighters or other military objectives in the vicinity at the time of the attacks. Amnesty International also found that the Israeli military failed to take all feasible precautions ahead of attacks including by not giving Palestinian civilians effective prior warnings – in some cases they did not warn civilians at all and in others they issued inadequate warnings.

“Our research points to damning evidence of war crimes in Israel’s bombing campaign that must be urgently investigated. Decades of impunity and injustice and the unprecedented level of death and destruction of the current offensive will only result in further violence and instability in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories,” said Agnès Callamard.

“It is vital that the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court urgently expedites its ongoing investigation into evidence of war crimes and other crimes under international law by all parties. Without justice and the dismantlement of Israel’s system of apartheid against Palestinians, there can be no end to the horrifying civilian suffering we are witnessing.”

These three paragraphs show that culminate in the "apartheid" libel which has nothing to do with Gaza proves that Amnesty's aim is dismantling Israel, not justice for Gazans.

If Amnesty does not know the targets of the attack, then it cannot call the attacks unlawful. In the past I've documented scores of cases where Amnesty claims that only civilians were killed and weeks later terror groups published the names of their members killed in the same attacks. 

The fact is that Amnesty is clueless as to what the real targets were. If the targets were senior Hamas members, then no warnings could or should have been given. 

That is real international law, not the fabricated version Amnesty pretends exists.

Amnesty's methodology is to interview survivors who claim that there were no terrorists around,. Often these people are lying, and sometimes these people are themselves members of terror groups!

Moreover, when Amnesty publishes these reports, it doesn't even consider that a professional army would not shoot expensive  precision weapons at civilians for no reason. No, Amnesty thinks it can read the IDF's minds, and knows that there was no possible reason for the attack. To Amnesty, the IDF - with multiple layers of checks and balances, lawyers reviewing every target and every airstrike, and approvals needed at all levels - is just randomly attacking civilians. 

Amnesty's track record of investigating these types of events is beyond awful. It shows a pattern where Palestinians are believed without question without even Googling their names, and where Israeli denials are assumed to be lies. 

Even worse, an Amnesty researcher has admitted that Palestinian "eyewitnesses" often lie.  But they haven't changed their methodology of believing their lies implicitly. 

Beyond that, Amnesty never mentions that Gazans would be punished by Hamas if they were known to be saying anything Hamas doesn't like. That is a salient fact when they quote Gazans but Amnesty doesn't want anyone to know that. 

That, ladies and gentlemen, is beyond sloppiness and beyond ignorance of how modern warfare works. That is antisemitism - assuming malicious intent from Jews and nothing but the truth from those with  a long track record of lying to Amnesty. 

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Better Question: What Does International Law Require The Rest of The World To Do About Hamas? (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

These days, when people talk about what International Humanitarian Law requires in the aftermath of the Hamas massacre of Israeli citizens, the discussion falls first on what limitations need to be placed on Israel. Almost as an afterthought do a few people ask what international law requires of Hamas.

That in itself demonstrates an odd sense of priorities among the global community.

But a third topic in international law is being ignored, namely: what are the obligations of the international community in the face of this terrorist attack. By merely sitting back and focusing on Israel's obligations, the nations of the world run the risk of themselves violating international law.

First of all there is the Genocide Convention. It was approved for ratification by the UN General Assembly in 1948 and went into effect in 1951. According to Article I:

The Contracting Parties confirm that whether committed in time of peace or of war, genocide is a crime under international law which nations are obligated to prevent and to punish.

The convention addresses an act committed with the intent to destroy, even in part, a

o  national
o  ethnical
o  racial or
o  religious group

Genocide includes -- among other things -- killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm and deliberately inflicting conditions with the intent to cause the group's physical destruction in whole or in part. In addition to being directly involved in the genocide, this law also applies to conspiracy, incitement, complicity and even the mere attempt to commit genocide. In addition, the convention not only rulers but also public officials and private individuals liable for punishment.

Then there is UN Security Council Resolution 1373 (2001), which was passed in response to the jihadist attack on 9/11, making this resolution especially relevant to the current situation, given the obvious similarities. It was passed under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, making it binding on all UN members, unlike other UN resolutions.

According to Article 2, All States shall:

(a) Refrain from providing any form of support, active or passive, to entities or persons involved in terrorist acts, including by suppressing recruitment of members of terrorist groups and eliminating the supply of weapons to terrorists;

(c) Deny safe haven to those who finance, plan, support, or commit terrorist acts, or provide safe havens;

(e) Ensure that any person who participates in the financing, planning, preparation or perpetration of terrorist acts or in supporting terrorist acts is brought to justice and ensure that, in addition to any other measures against them, such terrorist acts are established as serious criminal offences in domestic laws and regulations and that the punishment duly reflects the seriousness of such terrorist acts;

According to Article 3, All States shall:

(f) Take appropriate measures in conformity with the relevant provisions of national and international law, including international standards of human rights, before granting refugee status, for the purpose of ensuring that the asylum seeker has not planned, facilitated or participated in the commission of terrorist acts;

(g) Ensure, in conformity with international law, that refugee status is not abused by the perpetrators, organizers or facilitators of terrorist acts, and that claims of political motivation are not recognized as grounds for refusing requests for the extradition of alleged terrorists;

Furthermore the resolution

5. Declares that acts, methods, and practices of terrorism are contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations and that knowingly financing, planning and inciting terrorist acts are also contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations;

On Sunday, Caroline Glick spoke with Professor Avi Bell -- an expert in International Law -- about the legal obligations of the rest of the world in response to the Hamas terrorist attack, and how nations are violating those obligations. Some of his insights are summarized in a JNS article published yesterday.

Bell makes reference to UN Security Council Resolution 1373, and illustrates how some of its requirements are being violated. For instance:

Resolution 1373 stipulates that all U.N. member nations must “Refrain from providing any form of support, active or passive, to entities or persons involved in terrorist acts.”

Any provision of any aid to Gaza, which is completely controlled by Hamas, is of course either “active or passive” assistance to Hamas, and hence illegal.

This puts the claims of the obligation to provide humanitarian aid to Gazans in a different light, considering how Hamas terrorists are sure to take - and have taken - the aid for themselves.

Professor Bell also points out how Qatar's involvement, supported by the Biden administration, is also in violation of Resolution 1373:

Resolution 1373 also requires all U.N. member states to “Deny safe haven to those who finance, plan, support or commit terrorist acts, or provide safe havens.”

Following Blinken’s visit to Israel last Thursday, he traveled to Qatar. Qatar houses Hamas’s top terror masters. They planned their atrocities from Qatar. Iran’s cash and arms are funneled to Hamas through Qatar. Qatar’s Al Jazeera satellite channel is an integral component of Hamas’s terror machine. On Monday morning, the IDF announced that Al Jazeera reporters are transferring information about IDF troop placements and numbers to Hamas both directly and through their broadcasts...

By embracing Qatar as an ally rather than punishing it for its central role at all levels of Hamas’s terror infrastructure, the administration is breaching international law, yet again. It is also betraying Israel.

Like Resolution 1373, article VII of the Genocide Convention also addresses the issue of extradition:

Genocide and the other acts enumerated in article III shall not be considered as political crimes for the purpose of extradition. 

The Contracting Parties pledge themselves in such cases to grant extradition in accordance with their laws and treaties in force.

This becomes relevant because CDR David Levy writes about Hamas Leadership and America’s Extradition Option for The Begin-Sadat Center For Strategic Studies:

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Hamas has conducted the most devastating terror attack in Israel’s history, demonstrating humanity’s worst depravity. The attack led to the tragic loss of over 1,200 lives, including at least 22 Americans, with many more individuals held hostage. The US has a responsibility to its citizens to demand the extradition of Hamas leadership to face trial in the US. Drawing upon precedent and previous successful extraditions of international terrorists, the US can leverage diplomatic relationships and military assets to actively pursue their extradition from Qatar, Lebanon, or other locations where they may reside. [emphasis added]

Levy writes that the fact that the US does not have an extradition treaty with Qatar does not have to make it impossible to get that country to hand over the terrorist leaders:

The US does not have extradition agreements with Qatar or Lebanon, but it has leverage. In requesting extradition from Qatar, Washington has some influence over Doha. Initially, Doha will almost certainly not accept. However, the US can orchestrate the desired outcome with a well-constructed “carrot and stick” approach. The US has a significant military presence in Qatar, including the Al Udeid Air Base, a crucial regional strategic asset. The future of this base and broader military cooperation, such as access to military sales, could be used as a bargaining chip. Economic levers could offer incentives like future trade deals or impose targeted sanctions against individuals or entities. Also, the US can endeavor to work with other allies, like Saudi Arabia and Turkey, to influence Qatar.

The article details examples of the US "holding those responsible for the deaths of its citizens accountable" and Levy brags that this is part of a long-standing US tradition. The article would be more convincing if we had not seen the failure of multiple administrations to apply the necessary leverage to get Jordan to hand over the mastermind of the Sbarro massacre, responsible for 16 deaths, including 2 Americans.

If a country like the US will not apply international law for itself, what are the odds we will see any country apply international law for others?

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No, Israel isn't engaging in "collective punishment" under international law

Ken Roth, the former Human Rights Watch head, tweeted:

"International humanitarian law prohibits collective punishment of...protected persons for acts committed by individuals during an armed conflict. The imposition of collective punishment is a war crime." -- Red Cross @ICRC

He gave the source  from the ICRC - and it proves the opposite  of his attempt to paint Israel as guilty.

The first paragraph, which he skips, defines collective punishment:

The term refers not only to criminal punishment, but also to other types of sanctions, harassment or administrative action taken against a group in retaliation for an act committed by an individual/s who are considered to form part of the group. Such punishment therefore targets persons who bear no responsibility for having committed the conduct in question.

The word "retaliation" makes it sound as if the action must be done deliberately as a punishment, not as a consequence of going after the actual guilty party.

For example, if a terrorist group gets its arms flown in on flights t a commercial airport, a nation can bomb that airport runway - even if it means that legitimate airplanes cannot land. It definitely affects innocent people but it is not collective punishment, because that is not the intent. 

Similarly, other dual use targets - power stations, TV and radio broadcast stations - may be attacked if they are also used by the combatant. (All of these are subject to proportionality analysis, as with any military action.)

Looking at specific legal rulings listed the ICRC, we see that collective punishment was defined quite clearly by the Special Court for Sierra Leone:

224. The Appeals Chamber finds that the correct definition of collective punishments is:

i) the indiscriminate punishment imposed collectively on persons for omissions or acts for which some or none of them may or may not have been responsible;

ii) the specific intent of the perpetrator to punish collectively.

Although sometimes individual politicians have said stupid things in the heat of argument, but Israel has made it clear in its policy and actions that it has no intention of hurting the Gaza population for anything Hamas has done. 

This brings up a bigger question. In many points of international law, such as the principle of distinction, proportionality and even genocide,  the intent of the parties is paramount in determining guilt. No one is a mind reader so the only evidence we have on intent is the actions - if they can be explained without resorting to malicious intent, then such intent should not be assumed. On the other hand, if there are other examples where the malice is clear, due to what parties said or because their other actions leave no other explanation, then one can assume the intent is malicious. 

With Israel, NGOs and people like Ken Roth always assume malicious intent - which they have never done for Hamas. 

This is how people can quote international law to damn Israel. Even when they quote everything accurately, they are assuming Israel is breaking the rules and therefore they interpret intent in that way.

And if you automatically assume that only the Jewish state has malicious intent against civilians in war, especially when there are thousands of counterexamples that prove otherwise, that pretty much make you an antisemite.

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International Law Supports Israel Besieging Gaza (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

The outpouring of sympathy and concern from around the world in reaction to the massacre of Israeli men, women and children by Hamas terrorists is welcome and appreciated.

But we are talking about Israel, so we knew that it would only be a matter of time -- after Israel struck back -- than some of that sympathy would dry up. More than that, critics are now claiming that Israel is the villain and is guilty of war crimes because of its efforts to remove the dangerous threat of Hamas.

Specifically, in an effort to not only get rid of Hamas but also save the hostages being held by the terrorists, Israel is imposing a siege -- and the West is crying foul.

The reasoning for the condemnation is that by cutting off water and electricity, Israel is supposed to be guilty of violating international law due to the collateral damage caused to Gazans. The problem of course is that while critics of Israel enjoy throwing around phrases like "international law," "genocide," and "war crime" they do this without knowing -- or caring -- what these terms actually mean.

The legal issue here is the concept of siege.

The US Law of War manual summarizes the legality of a siege in warfare:

It is lawful to besiege enemy forces, i.e., to encircle them with a view towards inducing their surrender by cutting them off from reinforcements, supplies, and communications with the outside world.  In particular, it is permissible to seek to starve enemy forces into submission. 

Article 23 of the Geneva Convention (IV): Consignment of medical supplies, food and clothing says:

Each High Contracting Party shall allow the free passage of all consignments of medical and hospital stores and objects necessary for religious worship intended only for civilians of another High Contracting Party, even if the latter is its adversary. It shall likewise permit the free passage of all consignments of essential foodstuffs, clothing and tonics intended for children under fifteen, expectant mothers and maternity cases.

The obligation of a High Contracting Party to allow the free passage of the consignments indicated in the preceding paragraph is subject to the condition that this Party is satisfied that there are no serious reasons for fearing:

(a) that the consignments may be diverted from their destination,

(b) that the control may not be effective, or

(c) that a definite advantage may accrue to the military efforts or economy of the enemy through the substitution of the above-mentioned consignments for goods which would otherwise be provided or produced by the enemy or through the release of such material, services or facilities as would otherwise be required for the production of such goods.

The key point is that while supplies are not to be automatically held up from the enemy, international law recognizes that this is subject to exceptions where those consignments may be diverted or aid the adversary's military efforts. Concrete for underground tunnels and piping used for rockets come to mind.

Then there is Customary International Humanitarian Law, rules based on general practice that has become accepted as law and is independent of treaty law.

According to Rule 53, The use of starvation of the civilian population as a method of warfare is prohibited. That being the case, how can Israel apply a siege on Gaza?

The answer is that those who blindly claim that Israel is violating International Law by using a siege just don't know what they are talking about:

Sieges that cause starvation

The prohibition of starvation as a method of warfare does not prohibit siege warfare as long as the purpose is to achieve a military objective and not to starve a civilian population. This is stated in the military manuals of France and New Zealand. Israel’s Manual on the Laws of War explains that the prohibition of starvation “clearly implies that the city’s inhabitants must be allowed to leave the city during a siege”. Alternatively, the besieging party must allow the free passage of foodstuffs and other essential supplies, in accordance with Rule 55. States denounced the use of siege warfare in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was also condemned by international organizations.

Israel's goal is not to cause starvation to civilians. The goal it to achieve the release of the hostages kidnapped by the terrorists and get rid of Hamas. As far as allowing "the free passage of foodstuffs and other essential supplies," we saw above in Article 23(c) that international law recognizes the advantage gained by an enemy that is relieved of the responsibility for providing for its citizens -- plus there is an obvious concern that Hamas would take the supplies for itself. Recall that the consignments are to be intended for children under 15.

Now let's see how lawyers apply these principles.

Eugene Kontorovich asked the question in an article in 2014, Does Israel have to give free power to Gaza? He writes that civilian power stations are legitimate targets for attack when they are also used by the enemy military, and all the more so does Israel have the right to merely turn off the power it provides to Gaza, adding:

I do not believe such an affirmative duty to provide energy to one’s enemy has ever been suggested in any other context [other than Israel].

He points out the obvious military advantage that Hamas would be deprived of by withholding electricity: providing the lighting necessary for its underground tunnels. 

This week, international law professor Avi Bell published a paper Imposing a Siege on the Gaza Strip During War. He writes that Israel has no obligation to provide anything to Gaza under the current conditions of war. And he goes further:

In addition, there is no doubt that the obligation to allow foreign parties to supply food and medicine does not exist under the circumstances of the current war, when there is a well-founded fear that Hamas will take control of the products or take a share for itself or use them to improve the enemy's economy or military efforts.

Bell wrote further on the topic in yesterday's New York Post: Israel has the right — and the duty — to besiege Gaza, clarifying the legal basis of Israel's siege of Gaza:

As the besieging state, Israel is not required to fund or assist Hamas’ war effort as it attempts to butcher Jews.

Siege law includes a humanitarian aspect: International law requires that Israel facilitate the passage of food and medicine by third parties, but only if such goods can be reliably delivered without diversion to Hamas and without fear the goods will give Hamas an economic and military boost.

Given Hamas’ 16-year exploitation of humanitarian aid and infiltration of human-rights and international organizations in Gaza, diversion is not merely a possibility — it is a certainty. [emphasis added]

Instead, Professor Bell suggests how allowing humanitarian workers or aid into Gaza will have the exact opposite of its intended effect:

Doing so would prolong the conflict, worsen Gaza’s physical destruction and result in greater loss of civilian life.

If governments and international organizations are serious about aiding Gazan civilians — to date, such organizations have been more invested in condemning Israel and immunizing Palestinian terrorists from accountability and punishment — they should devote their resources to facilitating the safe and rapid evacuation of Gaza’s civilian population outside the conflict zone.

It is up to the governments and international organizations to recognize Hamas for what it is, for what it has proudly done, and to take the appropriate measures to put this war to an end. 

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Egyptian, Jordanian, Moroccan and Saudi government ministries condemn Jews visiting their holiest site on Rosh Hashana

On Sunday, about 250 Jews visited the Temple Mount for Rosh Hashanah. There were no major incidents:  one Jew blew a shofar and was quickly removed by police.

But since so much ink had been spilled in the Arab world about how "Al Aqsa is in danger" the Arabic media had to create the impression that the Jews who calmly and quietly visited - as they do every Sunday through Thursday - were disruptive and insulting. 

Even Arab video shows they weren't:

Yet the lies spread throughout the Arab world. Countless articles claim that the shofar blower was supported by Israeli police, not detained. Al Jazeera has an entire article on the dangers of blowing a shofar there - a place where there are huge loudspeakers blaring much louder than any shofar five times a day, every day.

The Jordanian Council of Endowments, Islamic Affairs and Holy Sites in Jerusalem issued a statement condemning the Israeli police for allowing a Jew to enter with his shofar.

But these condemnations of Jews visiting their holiest site are not relegated to op-eds and fringe groups. They come from the governments of nations at peace with Israel, or seeking peace with Israel.

The Jordanian Foreign Ministry "condemned the extremists’ storming of the Blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque/the Holy Mosque of Jerusalem and their provocative practice under the protection of the Israeli police." They said that the Jews touring the area "represents a violation of the historical and legal status quo in the Blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque/the Holy Mosque and a violation of the sanctity of the holy places." It also emphasized that the entire area of the Temple Mount is purely for Muslims, not only insulting Jews but also the thousands of Christians who visit every year. 

Morocco's Foreign Ministry was reported also to have condemned Jews visiting the site, saying, "These escalatory actions inflame feelings and undermine efforts to calm the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories."

Dr. Muhammad Mukhtar Gomaa, the Egyptian Minister of Endowments, said that "the repeated incursions into Al-Aqsa are a sinful assault on one of the holiest sanctities of all Muslims, a blatant provocation to the feelings of Muslims from all over the world, and a blatant violation of all international laws, and the rational people of the international community must work to curb this extremism."

The Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs also issued a statement, in English:

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs expresses the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's condemnation and denunciation of the storming of the Al-Aqsa Mosque by a group of extremists under the protection of the Israeli occupation forces. The Ministry affirms that these practices are considered a blatant violation of all international norms and conventions, and a provocation to the feelings of Muslims around the world. 

In reality, international law would prohibit the banning of Jews from the Temple Mount that these members of the United Nations are explicitly demanding.  

In the history of Jerusalem, only Jewish rulers have allowed all people to visit their holy places. Gentiles were allowed to offer sacrifices in the Temples. There is a huge irony that the people who have been the most liberal and accepting of all have been the ones accused of intolerance - by people who proudly say that no one has any rights on the Temple Mount besides Muslims. 

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The UN's latest anti-Israel legal argument is predicated on lies

On Thursday, the UN published a document titled, "Study on the Legality of the Israeli Occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Including East Jerusalem."

It is 107 pages of tendentious and one-sided arguments all intended to declare Israeli actions since 1967 to be illegal. There are counterarguments to each of their arguments - but they don't let the readers know that.

However, the entire basis of the paper is bogus. Turn to page 18, which declares its "methodology.":

The study takes it as a starting point that the Palestinian territory – i.e., the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip – was occupied by Israel in 1967, in the course of an international armed conflict. 

Setting aside Gaza for now, the question is - when did that territory become "Palestinian?"

Looking at newspaper articles in the years after the Six Day War, the West Bank was usually described as "occupied Jordan."

Here are two articles from 1972, the first about how militant Arabs threatened fellow Arabs running for office in the first elections in the West Bank after the war:

When, exactly, did the territory turn from "occupied Jordan" into "occupied Palestinian territory"? 

It never happened. The world just went along with Palestinian propaganda and eventually believed it. 

The question gets starker when we realize that Jordan's annexation of the West Bank in 1949 was illegal, and almost no nations recognized it. It was never legally Jordanian territory.

So the West Bank was never "occupied Jordan." It was part of the British Mandate of Palestine, the same mandate that promised the land to be the Jewish state. Not a Palestinian homeland - only a Jewish homeland.

This is international law, that has never been abrogated. Israel has a superior legal right to Judea and Samaria than anyone else. Israel's characterization of the territory as "disputed" was probably a mistake - it should have always claimed it all. But "disputed" is accurate, "occupied" is not.

Which is why the Mandate is never mentioned, and the "methodology" deliberately omits it, pretending that the territory is "occupied Palestinian territory" without ever saying when, legally, it became "Palestinian."

The paper spends a lot of time on the argument that the Mandate system provided a "sacred trust" for the rights of self-determination of the peoples in the territories. But as the Palestine Mandate document above shows, only the Jewish people were given that right under the Palestine Mandate. And the reason is as simple as it is unpalatable to the UN's legal "experts" - in 1920, no one considered that there existed an Arab "Palestinian people." The Arabs of Palestine who were speaking of nationalism wanted to become part of Syria, their interest in an independent state only arose (with very few exceptions) after the West drew the borders of British Mandate Palestine and unity with Syria was no longer an option. 

To apply the League of Nations Mandate language to apply to the self determination of a people who didn't exist as a people at the time - who didn't even consider themselves a people - is the height of deception.

The next part of the "methodology" is even more absurd:n"The study also takes it as a starting point that Israel continues to occupy the Gaza Strip."

Before Israel's withdrawal from Gaza, no legal expert had ever said that an occupation is possible without soldiers physically on the ground controlling the territory.

For example, see the definition in the 1972 Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms:

Military occupiers are obligated, under international law, to set up a court system, to ensure that cities are governed and continue to run, to set up an entire bureaucracy to run the territory. That is impossible without "boots on the ground," the informal definition of occupation for over a hundred years. 

Israel does not control Gaza. It cannot stop rockets or mortars, weapons manufacturing or military exercises. Israel cannot create a military court system - which is required under the rules of occupation. It cannot arrest anyone. 

The second sentence makes it quite clear that Area A in the West Bank is not "occupied" even if one accepts that somehow the West Bank is "Palestinian territory."

As with all other legal analyses when it comes to Israel, this paper was intended from the outset to determine that Israel's actions and "occupation" are illegal. It set the ground rules to ensure that pesky arguments like the League of Nations Mandate or the accepted definitions of occupation pre-2005 not even be brought up. (When JFK blockaded Cuba, did the US "occupy" Cuba?)

This isn't international law. It is twisting international law against only one state - coincidentally, the only Jewish state. 

And that is only the beginning of the problems with this document. But since the methodology itself is based on lies, that ensures that the rest of the document built on this foundation of lies is invalid as well. 

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The UN just said that burning the Quran is against international law

In 2019, the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 73/328, "Promoting interreligious and intercultural dialogue and tolerance in countering hate speech." It included this paragraph:

Strongly deploring all acts of violence against persons on the basis of their religion or belief, as well as any such acts directed against their homes, businesses, properties, schools, cultural centres or places of worship, as well as all attacks on and in religious places, sites and shrines that are in violation of international law, 

A resolution voted on yesterday thas an identical title. But it has a paragraph that says this:

Strongly deploring all acts of violence against persons on the basis of their religion or belief, as well as any such acts directed against their religious symbols, holy books, homes, businesses, properties, schools, cultural centres or places of worship, as well as all attacks on and in religious places, sites and shrines in violation of international law,

It adds "religious symbols" and "holy books" to what cannot be attacked, and it changes "that are in violation of international law" to "in violation of international law." 

In other words, Pakistan just managed to pass a UNGA resolution that states that burning Qurans is against international law.

There was, by all accounts, a major debate. Spain tried to take out the words "in violation of international law" from the text, but its attempt was voted down, 62-44 with 24 abstentions.

And then the entire resolution was adopted by consensus.

While burning the Quran is something to be condemned, it is not against international law, and this is on the slippery slope of adopting Islamic concepts of blasphemy as something the entire world must adopt. 

The text is in the preamble, and UNGA resolution itself, has no legal effect, but this is still significant - people use the text of UN resolutions as evidence of what international law is.

Two weeks ago, the UN Human Rights Council passed its own resolution that "Calls upon States to adopt national laws, policies and law enforcement frameworks that address, prevent and prosecute acts and advocacy of religious hatred that constitute incitement to discrimination, hostility or  violence, and to take immediate steps to ensure accountability." 

As one critic notes, "One only has to look at some of the 28 states that voted in favor of the (HRC) resolution to realize that the real purpose is not to counter hate speech or foster equality and tolerance, but to provide authoritarian governments cover and legitimacy when suppressing dissent."

There is a thin line between hate speech that could lead to violence - which is incitement - and legitimate criticism. Muslim-majority states are trying to blur that line to force the West to adopt their own bans on blasphemy as international law.

As we saw in the UN yesterday, the West caved. But free speech is not something to give up on. 

I don't have the text of the UNGA resolution, but the UNHRC resolution has at least two other problematic elements.

One is that, as we've seen, any statements against antisemitism are always paired with condemnations of Islamophobia. But the UNHRC resolution, supposedly against religious hatred, mentioned Islamophobia - and not a word about antisemitism. Which makes it pretty obvious that people are not serious about combating antisemitism.

The other is that the UNHRC resolution refers to the Quran consistently as "the Holy Qur’an." The word "Holy" should not be there - the Quran is only holy to Muslims. The insistence of that language indicates again that these resolutions are not meant to fight religious hatred as much as they are to elevate Islam as a belief over others. 

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One of the Islamic Jihad terrorists killed in the June drone attack, reported to be 17, was actually only 15!

Most of the coverage of the IDF drone strike on June 21 says that one of the victims, from Islamic Jihad, was 17-year old Ashraf Murad Saadi. Islamic Jihad's own press release for the attack said that their heroic martyr Saadi was 17, and most of the world's media accepted that as his real age.

But Saadi wasn't 17. He was 15. 

Electronic Intifada mentioned his real age. And so did an article in Al Ayyam a week after his death, where it was clear that his mother knew that Saadi was a member of a terror organization.

She said, "When Ashraf went out of the house in the evening hours, I felt a lump in my heart, and I watched him until he passed out of my sight, and I said to myself that I would not see him again."

But, of course, she is proud of him. She doesn't say a word about trying to seriously stop him or forbid him from getting mixed up with militants, the way a normal, caring parent would.

Both that article, and a newer obituary in the Al Quds Brigades website, say that his birthday was April 14, 2008. That means that Saadi turned 15 only two months before. 

If you ever had any doubt that Islamic Jihad recruits children barely out of puberty, this is proof positive.

But it turns darker than that.

Saadi was killed in a car along with two much older terrorists. They were 27 and 28.

Why would any older terrorists want to plan activities with a 15 year old? Why would they be hanging out together at nighttime?

Being a child soldier might not be the only child abuse that Ashraf Murad Saadi was subjected to.

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Despite BBC blood libel, combatants under 18 are legitimate targets in international law

Here is a blood libel from the BBC. 

In response to Naftali Bennett saying that every single person killed in Jenin was a terrorist, the presenter said, as a fact, "Terrorists but children. The Israeli forces are happy to kill children."

Bennett's answer was good, but here is another case where news interviewers are either ignorant or willfully twisting international law.

Child combatants are still combatants under international law. No matter whether they were forcibly recruited, whether they are under 14, whether they are girls - once someone is shooting at a soldier they are legitimate targets, according to every article I can find on the subject.

In 2000, a group of child soldiers in Sierra Leone known (in the West) as the "West Side Boys" captured a patrol of British soldiers from the Royal Irish Regiment along with their Sierra Leone Army liaison officer. Several of the British soldiers were held for two weeks before the British Army decided to free them in an operation that killed between 25 and 150 of the West Side Boys. 

Was the deliberate, planned killing of those children a war crime? Of course not.

Absolutely no international law scholar disputes that the British Army had the right to free their fellow soldiers because they were held by combatants under 18. And no BBC reporter responded to the event by saying on the air, "The British Army is happy to kill children."

No, only Jews are routinely accused of relishing the murder of children. The accusation is centuries old and it is as popular today in England as it was in 1144 when Jews were accused of happily murdering William of Norwich.

Unlike the West Side Boys, who were obviously children, the two "children" killed by the IDF in Jenin were heavily armed, fully grown near-adults. One was a member of Hamas' Al Qassam Brigades.

Of course soldiers in the middle of an operation are not expected to question the ages of those who are shooting at them to determine whether they've celebrated their 18th birthday yet.  The  idea is absurd to the extreme. International conventions do not distinguish between child combatants and adult combatants - anyone engaging in hostilities is a legitimate military target.

The BBC presenter is knowingly twisting the facts in ways that cannot be interpreted as anything but malicious. She says, " The UN has defined them as children and we know that four people between the ages of 16 and 18 have been killed in this targeted attack let's not forget it's a targeted attack."

Yes, the UN defines anyone under 18 as children. But the UN doesn't say that armed 16 year olds are not combatants.

And suddenly she switches from the UN definition of children to including 18 year old adults as "children," too, contradicting her own definition of children in the very same breath! Her desire to paint Israel as evil causes her to expand the definition of children to make it look like Israel "targeted" four children. 

If you think that blood libels went out of fashion in recent decades, here is an example of how they are just as malicious today as they were in the Middle Ages. 

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Document at UNRWA site admits UNRWA's definition of "refugee" is not valid in international law

The UN Human Rights Council issued a document last week by its reliably anti-Isrsel team of "experts" demanding that Palestinian "refugees" have the right to "return" under international law. 

Right of return of Palestinian refugees must be prioritised over political considerations: UN experts 

2022 marked the largest ever increase in the number of forcibly displaced persons worldwide, with over 108 million people across the globe uprooted from their homes, more than half are women and girls....

This reality is all too familiar for the Palestinian people, 75 years since the Nakba - the event that shattered Palestinian lives and severed their ancestral connection to their land during the establishment of the State of Israel. Since then, they have endured forced displacement, dispossession, and disenfranchisement, with their rights to self-determination, restitution, and compensation repeatedly denied. For 75 years, their cry for justice, embodied in the demand for the right to return, has resounded with unwavering determination.

For Palestinians, forced displacement has become part of their life for generations, tracing back to 1947-1949 when over 750,000 Palestinians were forced to flee massacres and mass expulsions and forcible transfers during the birth of the State of Israel. The majority, along with their descendants, are still in neighbouring Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, while 40 per cent of them remain under occupation in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since 1967. Progressively, Palestinian exile has scattered them across various nations globally.

 Since 1948, both the General Assembly and the Security Council have consistently called upon Israel to facilitate the return of Palestinian refugees and provide reparations. Despite these repeated appeals, Palestinian refugees have been systematically denied of their right to return and forced to live in exile under precarious and vulnerable conditions outside the borders of Palestine.   

The thing is, even the UN admits that these Palestinian Arabs are not legally considered refugees.

The UNHCR's Refugee Survey Quarterly in 2010 has an article by Riccardo Bocco, a professor at the University of Geneva, looking at the history of UNRWA. It is hosted at the UNRWA website, today.  ASnd it admits what we have been writing here for years: the UNRWA working definition of "Palestine refugee" has nothing to do with international law.

In looking at who is a Palestinian refugee, there is no definitive response. The definition and the number of Palestinian refugees can differ according to the approach (administrative, juridical, political) used to define Palestinian refugees and also according to the social context of interaction between Palestinians (registered refugees or not) and others and the actors defining them. UNRWA, particularly at the beginning of its mandate, lacked a fixed definition; this changed mainly due to a need to delimit the number of relief recipients. When the Agency began its activities, it inherited a legacy of inflated registration: the United Nations Economic Survey Mission recorded approximately 720,000 people, while the number of recipients on the ration rolls of the United Nations Relief for Palestine Refugees (UNRPR) surpassed 950,000. It is the 1952 definition that has become the accepted one and has remained virtually unchanged: “a Palestine refugee shall mean any person whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period June 1, 1946 to May 15, 1948, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict”.

Some remarks should be noted.... [T]he descendants of original registered refugees inherited UNRWA’s administrative title independently of the fact that they may have obtained a nationality and/or left the Agency’s fields of operation. 

It is important to emphasize that the UNRWA definition of a Palestine refugee is an administrative one and does not translate directly into recognition by international law. Furthermore, a tacit understanding seems to prevail: UNRWA’s continued existence (and the associated Palestine refugee status) is directly linked to the realization of a permanent resolution to the Palestine refugee issue.

Four crucial facts are listed here:

1. Over 30% of the original "refugee" population UNRWA registered were not refugees, and took that status illicitly. They have never been purged.

2. The UNRWA definition of "refugee" is administrative, not legal, and has nothing to do with the legal definition of refugee under international law and the Refugee Convention.

3. UNRWA "refugees" and their descendants are still considered "registered refugees" even if they move away from UNRWA areas, even if they obtain citizenship elsewhere - not only Jordan but also EU countries and the US. This is a truly absurd situation that is impossible for any real refugee; it is axiomatic that one cannot be a refugee while simultaneously being a citizen of a state. But  millions of Palestinians are.  So we have an absurd situation where American multi-millionaire supermodels (whose father's family voluntarily walked away from their home in Safed in 1948) are still considered "Palestine refugees." 

4. UNRWA has a conflict of interest between staying in business and a sane definition of "refugee." . This is a major reason why it does not have any cessation clauses as UNHCR does. "Palestine refugees" are forever.

All of these facts are damning,. And they are on UNRWA's own website, today. 

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Islamic Jihad military camp for kids: "Fighting the Jews is an act of worship"

It is summer, and that means that Hamas and Islamic Jihad are proudly parading photos of their violating the war crime of recruiting child soldiers, calling it "summer camp."

These pictures from an Islamic Jihad "Revenge of the Free" training camp are not ambiguous.

This is a war crime. 

As the ICRC says,

The Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child differentiates between States and non-State armed groups in setting the age-limit for recruitment and use in hostilities. For States, the age limit for direct participation in hostilities and for compulsory recruitment is 18. This means they can accept voluntary enlistment of persons between the ages of 15 and 18. Armed groups, on the other hand, are bound by a stricter prohibition, affecting both voluntary and compulsory recruitment of under-18s.

There are no photos of the kids engaging in sports, playing games or otherwise having fun.  Calling this a "summer camp" is a joke. It is a military training camp for kids. And Islamic Jihad makes this clear in their recruitment video:

Not only that, but Islamic Jihad freely admits that the targets of the weapons the children learn to use are Jews.  Islamic Jihad official Darwish al-Gharabli said, "These camps qualify the generation to carry the banner after this generation, part of which has been martyred; it also establishes a generation that is aligned with the path of jihad and resistance; believing in this option and that Palestine is the central issue and fighting the Jews is an act of worship."

The UN and its agencies, and Defense for Children International Palestine, and other "human rights" NGOs are curiously uninterested in this incitement to violence and these violations of children's human rights and international law

It's just another "Palestine exception" where Palestinians are exempt from the laws and rules for the rest of the world.

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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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