Saturday, June 06, 2015
From Ian:
Attorneys at War
Attorneys at War
Israel’s fight with Hamas is not just an example of classic asymmetric warfare, it’s also just plain nasty. Why? Hamas may be a nonstate actor but its militants have access to a broad array of sophisticated weaponry that is more typically found in the arsenals of nation-states. Either way, bad news for Israel.France deports Algerian father of Toulouse terrorist
And maybe bad news for other Western nations as well. “The IDF’s warnings certainly go beyond what the law requires, but they also sometimes go beyond what would be operational good sense elsewhere,” says Michael Schmitt, director of the Stockton Center for the Study for International Law at the U.S. Naval War College. “People are going to start thinking that the United States and other Western democracies should follow the same examples in different types of conflict. That’s a real risk.” Schmitt is the author of a just-completed comprehensive analysis of the IDF’s targeting systems.
There’s another risk to the preoccupation with protecting civilians. Some commanders and outside legal experts worry that Dabla attorneys risk discrediting themselves in the eyes of the major consumers of their advice, combat commanders. The commanders at some point may say, “Why? We went overboard to protect civilians last time and we still got criticized. What’s the point?”
A valid question, and one for which Colonel Neuman has an unequivocal answer. “We tell commanders what they need to do to comply with international law. We are clear with them that they don’t need to do more but in a lot of cases they do anyway.” Neuman, a gentle soul who radiates integrity, leaves no doubt he believes that it’s the IDF commanders—and not Dabla—who do more than what is required by international law.
Despite Neuman’s unambiguous response, ambiguity remains as to who is the driving force behind the IDF’s taking such extensive measures to minimize civilian casualties. The commanders say the lawyers. The lawyers say the commanders. The Naval War College’s Schmitt believes both fighters and lawyers in the IDF share responsibility for the high standards. Ultimately, does it really matter?
There’s one final risk to Israel that stems from this preoccupation with protecting civilians. This risk comes from the north, where Israel faces a far more dangerous enemy than Hamas. That would be Hezbollah, the militant Islamic group, supported and funded by Iran, that controls southern Lebanon. Hezbollah is exponentially stronger and better equipped than Hamas. It seems readily apparent that the IDF will not be able to use methods like individualized phone calls and “roof knocking” in combat with Hezbollah. Will IDF officers then get hammered for acting one way in Gaza and another way in southern Lebanon? It’s a good bet they will.
No matter. For better or worse, combat commanders and Dabla attorneys will bend over backwards to prevent civilian casualties. The concept is simply deeply embedded into the IDF culture.
The father of Mohamed Merah, who shot dead three soldiers before gunning down three students and a teacher at a Jewish school, had been in the country illegally for months after authorities refused to renew his residency permit in March.Saban calls Orange liars, joins with Adelson to battle boycott ‘tsunami’
A source close to the case said the father, Mohamed Benalel Merah, was arrested near the cemetery where his son was buried after being killed by elite police after a 32-hour siege of his apartment in the southern city of Toulouse.
He was questioned and put on a flight to Algeria.
His son embarked on a killing spree, gunning down his victims from the back of a scooter between March 11 and 19, 2012, boasting that he was working for Al-Qaeda to police during the siege of his apartment.
Mohamed Benalel Merah later filed a murder complaint when police ended the siege by shooting his son.
Intelligence sources told AFP earlier this year that Merah’s half-brother Essid was suspected of having appeared in an Islamic State group execution video.
Merah’s sister Souad also left for Syria in 2014, the sources said.
Israeli-American media mogul Haim Saban on Saturday rejected as a “blatant lie” the claim by French telecom giant Orange that it was not pulling out of Israel for political reasons, and vowed to fight back so robustly against Orange that any other company thinking of boycotting Israel would reconsider. “We do have an anti-Semitic tsunami that’s coming at us,” said Saban of the international effort to boycott and demonize Israel.
Saban was speaking in a joint Israeli television interview with Jewish American billionaire Sheldon Adelson from Las Vegas, where Adelson this weekend hosted representatives of some 50 Jewish and pro-Israel organizations to coordinate a strategy for battling anti-Israel boycott efforts.
Adelson said his prime focus initially was to reverse the inroads being made by what he called “the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) and company… the anti-Israel and anti-Semitic organizations [that] are making a lot of headway on the campuses in the United States.” He said he would encourage Jewish groups to work to have boycott decisions taken by student campus groups reversed.
But Saban made clear that he intended to fight back against any business groups inclining to boycott Israel, and create a climate in which they were deterred from doing so.
Saban — who owns Partner, the Israeli company whose rights to use the Orange name are now to be cancelled by the French telecom giant — angrily dismissed Orange CEO Stephane Richard’s claim that Orange is not pulling out of Israel for political reasons.
