Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

I wrote earlier about the death of Fadel Shana, the Gaza Reuters cameraman, whose spine was severed by metal flechette darts fired by an Israeli tank, which also killed five other civilians in the same incident. Human Rights Watch has denounced the attack:

New York-based Human Rights Watch has said it has evidence suggesting that the tank fired “recklessly or deliberately” at the Reuters news crew.

When I earlier wrote about this I was under the mistaken impression that the cameraman was the only person killed. But two others died with him and two others died subsequently–all from the same single shell. This clearly indicates how savage, destructive and heinous the flechette weapon is. It is a tank version of a cluster bomb which explodes in the air above the target and sprays sharp metal darts indiscriminately throughout the vicinity.

The tank attack took place shortly after a Hamas ambush which resulted in three IDF soldiers being killed. Could we surmise that the tank was outfitted with such weaponry and the tank crew eager to fire in order to avenge the deaths of their comrades–even if the Palestinian target was of no military value? An act of sheer, naked vengeance?

One of my readers has attempted to argue that one of the victims was armed as an attempt to explain the tank’s firing. I haven’t even heard the IDF claim this and one would think it would be eager to do so if there was any evidence at all to support it (hell, they’re not even above lying in these types of circumstances so I truly doubt if that charge can be supported). Others have argued that the tank crew might’ve confused the cameraman’s camera for an RPG launcher. But there were at least seven, and probably more civilians standing at the scene of this incident. Can anyone credibly argue that Hamas militants gather in groups this large in the open air when they fire an RPG?

I think it’s important also to document how one dies when hit by such a shell:

Shana’s body armour, which bore a blue-on-white “PRESS” marking, was ripped off by the attack, which medical examination showed had thrust several 1.5-inch (38-mm) metal darts through his neck, shredding his flesh and severing his spine.

I seem to spout the same old almost cliches by now about how Arab life is so cheap to the IDF. But it bears repeating until Israel learns the lesson if it ever will. A man wearing a clearly marked flak jacket indicating he was a journalist, and whose vehicle was similarly marked, was blasted to kingdom come by an Israeli tank using ultra-lethal anti-personnel weapons. It’s unfortunately par for the course for this conflict.

The total inadequacy of the Israeli Supreme Court in policing the IDF’s overaggressive tactics is indicated by this passage:

The Israeli army has defended its use of flechettes, noting that the Israeli Supreme Court turned down a petition to ban their use as a danger to civilian bystanders.

Maybe they’d want to reconsider their previous ruling in light of the death toll from this incident and the international opprobrium that will attach to it. Even if a sense of humanity doesn’t move Israel to act properly, sometimes just plain embarrassment will do the trick. Whatever it takes.

tags fadel shana, flechette weapon, gaza, idf, reuters

I just saw Charlie Wilson’s War tonight and it was one helluva romp. Directed by Mike Nichols and scripted by the inimitable Aaron Sorkin, it will remind you of Primary Colors, a Nichols film about another captivating American politician with prodigious appetites for vice and virtue. Tom Hanks’ performance is stellar, but Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s really is a sleeper and deserves an Oscar nomination. In fact, the film would be much less interesting if not for Hoffman’s gruff, funny, salt of the earth CIA spy. Even Julia Roberts, who I haven’t really enjoyed in a role in many years, does a decent job portraying a wealthy born-again Texas anti-Communist true believer.

One thing that I missed in the film was a sense of the irony of Wilson’s full-throated embrace of the mujahadeen struggle in Afghanistan. Except at the end, there was hardly a glimmer of recognition that all this would bite us in the ass. I also detested the glee with which Wilson and the CIA agent said: “Let’s go kill some Russians!” I guess the film is being true to the characters, but the notion is disgusting.

But one of the most telling lines in the film spoken, if I recall correctly, by Hoffman’s spook is “we always leave.” In other words, we invade countries to get what we want from them, but then we abandon them when we’ve achieved our interests or been defeated in the process. “We always leave,” of course will apply to Iraq, yet another country which will likely turn into the type of shambles Afghanistan became after the mujahadeen came to power, tearing the country apart in the process, and we exited.

Unfortunately, we are a country with a short attention span and easily bored when things don’t go our way.

On a related note, I listened to an excellent On the Media interview with Michael Hodges, author of AK-47: Story of the People’s Gun. He interviewed Mikhail Kalashnikov, who said he often wished he’d invented a lawnmower instead of a gun. The Russian weapons designer called his gun a “golem,” a being created to protect a people, but who runs amok and endangers the very people it was supposed to protect. This was especially telling to me because I wrote an essay here likening the IDF to the golem myth.  And I suppose the mujahadeen were the U.S.’ golem.  They did our bidding to rid Afghanistan of the Russians and then ran amok afterward.  Now they rise up in the form of Al Qaeda against their former creator to overthrow him.

tags aaron-sorkin, ak-47-story-of-the-peoples-gun, charlie-wilsons-war, george-crile, golem, idf, michael-hodges, mujahadeen, philip-seymour-hoffman, tom-hank

I continually wonder at the clear-eyed, urgent, incisive and powerfully argued posts that Seth Freedman writes for the Guardian’s Comment is Free blog. Today, he’s published another called Occupation Breeds Terror. Seth brings the perspective of a former IDF soldier who now realizes the futility of his service and the futility of Occupation. He is a British Jew who made aliya and served out of a sense of duty to his adopted country. Gradually, it has dawned on him that new thinking will be required from both sides to achieve real peace. We need more of Seth’s humanity and decency:

When I first moved to this country, I was prepared to play my part by enlisting in the IDF and serving in the West Bank. While there, I saw for myself the effect my mere uniformed presence had on the Palestinians I encountered on a daily basis. Every interaction took place with me holding all the cards - it was me with the loaded gun in my hands; it was me barking instructions to “stop or I’ll shoot”, “lift up your shirt”, “don’t come another step closer”; it was me playing with my quarry as though they were puppets on the end of short, taut strings.

However, I still believed that we “did what we had to do”, since it was a case of us or them, and we could never ease up in our actions for fear that the next Palestinian we encountered was the one with a bomb strapped to his chest. And so it continued, bursting into buildings to round up the residents and lock them in their own basement, so that we could take over the house and grab a few hours’ sleep in the middle of a mission - and all perfectly acceptable in the context of war.

But that was when I saw the wide, silent eyes of the families’ children as we screamed at their father - their hero, their protector - and wrested from him the reins of power inside his own house. And that’s when it started to dawn on me just what kind of effect our actions were having on the next generation, who were guaranteed to end up hating us when all they saw was us herding them like cattle and imposing our will on them through the sights of our guns.

Once I left the army, my forays into the West Bank were on more equal terms, as I sought to meet the very people whose towns I’d previously patrolled, to hear their stories about life under military rule. From Jenin to Bethlehem to Ramallah and beyond, the extent of the suffering and the depth of the torment was exposed to me time and again. There was no doubt in my mind that our mere presence in their daily routines was twisting the knife every time they encountered a soldier - and breeding extremism and radicalism all the while.

The unspoken truth that every Israeli knows, uncomfortable as it may be to admit, is that occupation breeds terror. Every incursion, every raid, every curfew and collective punishment, drives the moderates into the welcoming arms of the militants, who promise to return their honour and their wounded pride by fighting the oppressors’ fire with fire of their own. And that fact alone should be enough to shake Israelis awake and realise that the occupation has to end, as much for our own security as for the sake of the Palestinians that we’re subjugating.

tags comment-is-free, guardian, idf, israeli-settlements-prevent-peace, occupation-breeds-terror, seth-freedman

First the Israeli High Court punted. Then appellants filed a complaint against their inaction and finally the Court felt that it could abscond from the issue no longer and it ruled. The infamous Israeli counter-terror policy of targeted assassination (or what others call extrajudicial assassination) is now legal. Before, the IDF and Shin Bet operated in a nether territory into which the Court refused to enter. But now the justices have turned treif meat into kosher with the wave of a pen.

But in quasi-Solomonic fashion, they’ve only given the IDF 7/8 of the loaf. The government had maintained, in consonance with true U.S. neocon legal reasoning that Palestinian terrorists were “enemy combatants” and therefore not protected by international law. The Supreme Court found that militants were indeed civilians and so covered by international law. Since the Israeli Court is held in some repute around the world, this ruling will come as a blow to the Bush Administration’s legal strategy in prosecuting Al Qaeda suspects. Defendants in the U.S. will be able to argue that the nation with arguably one of the greatest terror threats has thrown out the notion of enemy combatants.

Returning to Palestinian militants, the justices qualify their earlier argument by saying that their civilian status provides no immunity from military assault:

The court ruled that the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist organizations has the characteristics of armed international conflict, and therefore is subject to international law.

“In its fight against international terrorism, Israel must act according to the rules of international law,” the court said. “We must balance security needs and human rights. Not every efficient means is also legal. The ends do not justify the means.”

According to the ruling, terrorist operatives are not legally defined as combatants and therefore must be considered civilians. The court rejected the state’s argument that international law currently recognizes a third category comprising “unlawful combatants.”

Nonetheless, the court ruled that civilians involved in terror activities are not afforded the same protections granted to innocent civilians under international law.

“A civilian, in order to enjoy the protections afforded to him by international law during an armed conflict, must refrain from taking a direct part in the hostilities,” said the court. “A civilian that violates this principle … is subject to the risks of attack like those to which a combatant is subject, without enjoying the rights of a combatant, e.g. those granted to a prisoner of war.”

The Court provides four criteria to guide what constitutes a legitimate Israeli counter-terror attack:

First, “well based, strong and convincing information” regarding the individual’s terrorist activities.

Second, “a civilian taking a direct part in hostilities cannot be attacked if a less harmful means can be employed.”

Third, an independent, thorough investigation must be conducted after the attack to determine “the precision of the identification of the target and the circumstances of the [targeted killing].”

Fourth, every effort must be made to minimize harm to innocent civilians, and “harm to innocent civilians caused during military attacks (collateral damage) must be proportional.”

The court also ruled that, since a targeted killing is essentially an attack on a civilian that is engaged in hostile activities, the attack is only justified if carried out against a civilian currently involved in terrorism. Therefore the IDF cannot target former terror operatives who have distanced themselves from terror activity.

The reason I wrote that the Court gave the IDF 7/8 of what it wanted is that the above criteria provide almost no protection either for targeted militants or civilians caught in crossfire. Who determines whether the IDF has satisfied the criteria? The IDF of course. Who monitors IDF compliance with the guidelines? Nominally, perhaps the Court. But it took years for them to hear this case and they only did so under threat of a legal complaint filed against them by an Israeli human rights group. Does anyone make any presence that the Israeli legal or political system provides any checks on IDF counter-terror policy?

That is why number three above is almost laughable. What is an “independent” investigation? Who may be considered independent enough to judge IDF conduct? IDF policy has been to appoint an IDF senior officer to investigate such killings. This may hardly be called “independent.” Perhaps a judicial inquiry might be more independent, but I see no chance that the IDF would be willing to have a truly independent entity, even the courts, investigate its counter-terror activity.

Criteria four is also laughable since it is simply not possible to “minimize harm to innocent civilians.” The IDF makes a point of attacking militants among the most crowded neighborhoods of Gaza in which it is all but guaranteed that it will kill innocents. Further, the Court argues that such killing must be “proportional.” Who determines what is “proportional?” If you kill a militant and also kill a civilian, is that proportional?

To me, this is merely apportioning rain in teaspoons. In practice, I cannot see how the ruling will have much affect on actual anti-terror tactics on the ground. And perhaps this is what the justices intended. They wished to appear to rule that targeted assassination was acceptable under law. But they also wished to provide the IDF every latitude in pursuing their objectives almost unfettered. Which in effect is the status quo ante. In short, a lot of hocus pocus to get us back to where we started.

Perhaps I’m being overly cynical. Perhaps the ruling will save a civilian’s life down the road. In that case, I will be the first to admit the ruling has some benefit.

I heard Amos Guiora (audio) a former IDF officer argue that certain prior targeted assassinations (he uses the Shehadeh killing as an example) in which there was massive loss of civilian life would no longer be acceptable. Unfortunately, I will only believe this legal directive has been implemented when I see the body count. My hunch is that virtually nothing will change. The IDF are experts at bureaucratic trench warfare. They outlast their critics with sheer tenaciousness and cunning. We’ll see who has the last word on targeted assassination. My guess is that there will be very little change in policy and that civilians will continue to die in great numbers through this heinous military tactic. Guiora argues that yesterday’s ruling is of “seminal importance.” We shall see.

tags extrajudicial-assassination, idf, israeli-counter-terror-policy, Israeli-supreme-court-approves-targeted-assassination, shin-bet

And the beat goes on. Or should I say ‘beating a dead horse’ goes on? That would be Israel’s failed Lebanon war. The logic seems to be–if we haven’t won this thing thus far let’s sink even more troops into it so that we finally can. Just the trap that John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson fell into in their escalation of U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

The NY Times writes this telling passage explaining what might be the Israeli thinking behind this latest escalation:

Israeli troops may push northward to the Litani River, 15 miles from the border, cabinet ministers said after their latest meeting, which ended in the early hours on Tuesday. But the Israeli intention now seems to be to clear a wide strip of land along the border into which an international force could deploy without itself having to fight Hezbollah, a cabinet minister said.

Now, isn’t that neat and tidy. Israel prepares a nice little nest for the international peacekeepers so they can keep their hands clean and avoid fighting Hezbollah. What this neat little scenario neglects to take into account is what good does it do to clear out a buffer zone if Hezbollah will treat it as it has Israel’s northern border? In other words, it will attack the peacekeeping force mercilessly until it withdraws as it did U.S. and French forces in 1983. The Israeli perspective seems to be: let the French get killed in southern Lebanon. Better them than our boys.

Ehud Olmert continues in his blissful ignorance of what the true facts will be once the peacekeepers are installed:

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Tuesday evening, “We are at the beginning of a political process that in the end will bring a cease-fire under entirely different conditions than before.”

Speaking at the graduation ceremony at the National Security College, Mr. Olmert said, “The State of Israel is winning in this battle, and is gaining impressive achievements, perhaps unprecedented ones.”

He added, “If the military campaign would have ended today, today we could already say with certainty the face of the Middle East has changed.”

Yeah, sure. In your dreams, buddy. “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss” to quote the immortal The Who. Olmert seems to have forgotten another passage from that song: “We won’t get fooled again.”

In case anyone harbors any illusions about the impact this disaster will have on Lebanese democracy, read this:

The last few weeks have essentially transformed Lebanese politics, marginalizing the democratic forces promoted by the United States and France — known as the March 14 group — and instead empowering President Émil Lahoud, a staunch ally of Syria, and above all the Shiite Muslim speaker of Parliament, Nabih Berri, who is the only official link to the Hezbollah leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah.

The AngryArab has called this process a ‘coup d’etat’ by which he means that Israel has returned Lebanon to something like it was politically before Syria withdrew. Hezbollah and the Shiites are ascendant. Democratic forces are bending the knee to the new heroes of the resistance (to Israel). Essentially, everything’s gone to shit. Here’s to you, Mr. Olmert.

tags 000-israeli-troops-invade-lebanon, 7, ehud-olmert, hezbollah, idf, lebanese-demoracy, lebanese-shiites, litani-river, new-york-times, un-peacekeeping-force

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