I’ll note the already much overused “ticking bomb” phrase has been morphed into a whole “ticking infrastructure”. It’s easy enough to put under that rubric each and every member of any “terrorist” (with or without the scary quotes) organisation, their associates and families, their bakers (Gaza flour mill) and dairy producers (Bekaa, Lebanon – after all, terrorists eat bread and yoghurt, too). Any relation to an immediate threat – the actual proverbial “ticking bomb” is made obsolete or, as one of Blau’s military sources said, “the criteria for a ‘ticking bomb’ change if Condoleezza Rice is in the country”.

Blau consistently speaks of “preventive” actions, however he quotes Aharon Barak with “targeted preemption”. There’s a meaningful legal distinction between “prevention” and “preemption” – the latter can be lawful, the former not – which I can’t imagine to have been lost on Barak. The military rationale to nevertheless employ “prevention”, as confirmed by Yair Naveh in the interview, is to avoid risk of harm to themselves at all cost – the very same RoE that worked so wonderfully in Gaza last year.

Naveh again: “Don’t bother me with the High Court orders, I don’t know when there were High Court orders and when there weren’t. I know that a targeted assassination is approved and there is a preventive action procedure and I receive instructions from the Operations Directorate.”
IOW: “Fuck the law, I just follow orders.”

Which self-respecting High Court will gladly suffer such contempt? Chant with me: it’s the one of The Only Democracy In The Middle East.