In Iraq, Syria, US lifts rules meant to protect civilians
The White House revealed on Tuesday that its usually strict rules of engagement, intended to prevent civilian casualties of US airstrikes, have been relaxed in the current offensive against the Islamic State and other radical Islamist groups.Apologize to Israel, Mr. President
National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden told Yahoo News in an email that a much-publicized statement last year by President Barack Obama that US drone strikes would only be carried out if there is a “near certainty” of no civilian injuries would not apply to the US campaign against jihadi forces in Syria and Iraq.
Hayden wrote that the “near certainty” rule was intended “only when we take direct action ‘outside areas of active hostilities,’ as we noted at the time.
“That description — outside areas of active hostilities — simply does not fit what we are seeing on the ground in Iraq and Syria right now,” she continued, but added that the strikes, “like all US military operations, are being conducted consistently with the laws of armed conflict, proportionality and distinction.”
This summer, as Hamas was raining rockets on Israeli civilians, storing munitions in civilian buildings, and firing rockets from mosques, schools, and clinics, the Obama administration had the audacity to say that it was “appalled” by Israeli attacks that unintentionally killed civilians, even calling them “disgraceful.”UN Watch: Exclusive: Schabas’ own colleague, human rights icon Aryeh Neier, calls for him to quit UN Gaza probe due to prior statements
In response, I observed that the administration holds Israel to a higher standard than it holds itself, demanding stricter rules of engagement for Israelis than Americans.
Now, as we drop our own bombs in Syria (and civilians die), the administration is further exempting itself from its own standards:
A top figure in the human rights world has called for William Schabas to “recuse himself” from the new UN probe on Gaza, undermining Schabas’ claim that the only people who believe he should go are critics of the UN.
The statement was made last week by Aryeh Neier, founding director of Human Rights Watch, former head of the ACLU, and President Emeritus of George Soros’ Open Society Foundation, and revealed today in a Wall Street Journal interview with UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer.
In a lecture at the SciencesPo Paris School of International Affairs, where Neier teaches together with Schabas, the former said that commissions of inquiry are one of the few good things to come out of the UN Human Rights Council.
Turning to Schabas, Neier called him a well known and leading scholar. However, given Schabas’ statement on bringing Netanyahu to ICC, Neier said that “Schabas should recuse himself.”
Neier said that “any judge who had previously called for the indictment of the defendant would recuse himself.”
Schabas’ appointment gives Israel a perfect excuse to denounce the UN commission of inquiry, said Neier. “Why make it so easy for Israel to do so?” he asked.
Neier went on to say that the sheer quantity of resolutions against Israel at the UN Human Rights Council gives Israel the ability to cast the HRC as “anti-Israel” and therefore to “justify its own rejections of the HRC.”