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UK
Commander: World's Weak Response to 'Human Shields' Encourages Terrorists
to Use Them
by Michel Gurfinkiel
PJ Media
October 27, 2015
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Originally published under the title "UK Commander Slams
World's Weak Response to 'Human Shields' for Causing Terrorists to Use
Them More."
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French
Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian: "We pay as much attention to
the targets we select as to the need to combat Daesh [Islamic
State]."
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French Minister of Defense Jean-Yves Le Drian recently made an
essential statement about the war against terror and the difficulties it
involves for Western countries. In an interview
with Europe 1 focusing on the French air strikes against the Islamic
State, he remarked:
Daesh [ISIS] is organized in such a way
that children, women, civilians are being put on front lines. Its
leadership is hiding in schools, mosques, hospitals, making the action of
the coalition in Iraq and the action of France and other partners in
Syria difficult, because we don't want civilian casualties. We pay as
much attention to the targets we select as to the need to combat Daesh.
This is a frank admission of the human shield tactic practiced
by Islamists and its crippling effect on Western fighting.
Undoubtedly, Le Drian is aware that the United States and other
Western partners in the coalition against ISIS are facing the same
challenge, and that Israel faces similar difficulties when
counter-attacking organizations like Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and
Fatah-affiliated terror groups.
What remains to be seen is whether he and the French government, now
having this experience with human shields, will reconsider their foreign
policy regarding Israel.
We asked Colonel Richard Kemp, the former British commander in
Afghanistan and an expert about war ethics, to comment on Le Drian's
no-nonsense statement.
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Colonel
Richard Kemp (ret.)
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PJM: Do Le Drian's remarks come as a surprise to you?
Kemp: Not in the least. The Islamic State (ISIS) is adept at
using human shields and locations protected under the Geneva Conventions.
They are war criminals. The comments by Jean-Yves Le Drian are
understandable and it is right that so-called collateral casualties are
avoided as far as possible; but his comments also indicate the danger of
the Western response to Islamist terrorist use of human shields, which
often serves to encourage greater use of this tactic and leads to more
and more civilian deaths.
PJM: Is the use of human shields common practice among Islamist
terrorists?
Kemp: Islamist terrorists everywhere use innocent men, women,
and children from their own population as human shields. They also use
protected buildings such as hospitals, mosques, and schools to shelter
their fighters in, to store munitions, to locate command centers, and to
attack from. All of this is illegal under the Laws of Armed Conflict
(LOAC). Islamist terrorists have no interests in LOAC except to the
extent that they can exploit their enemy's — such as French, British and
Israeli forces — adherence to it.
"[T]he Western response to
Islamist terrorist use of human shields ... often serves to encourage
greater use of this tactic."
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Islamist terrorists have no interest in protecting their civilian
populations. They are happy to use them as human shields, to terrify
them, to risk and to sacrifice their lives. Whatever happens, the
terrorist who uses human shields wins. If he deters Western forces from
attacking his terrorists and his munitions, then he scores a tactical
victory. He can attack our troops with impunity.
On the other hand, if we attack him and kill or wound his human
shields, then he exploits this in the world media and there is an outcry.
He has gained a strategic victory.
PJM: Did you witness such use in Afghanistan or other places?
Kemp: The Taliban, Al-Qaeda, and other terrorist groups in
Afghanistan frequently use human shields. They drive innocent local
people between NATO forces and the terrorists who are attacking them.
They force them to stay in place when they know Western forces will counter-attack
into that location. They use young boys of 14 years old to throw grenades
at NATO troops knowing that we will be reluctant to shoot a child. They
have killed British soldiers by booby-trapping mosques and schools, and
by attacking them from protected locations and from behind human shields.
PJM: The Israelis say that Hamas constantly resorted to similar
tactics in Gaza in the 2009 and 2014 wars, and that most Palestinian
civilian casualties were killed in such a context. Is that correct?
Kemp: Hamas have become the masters of human-shield use. Many
other terrorist groups have learned from their effectiveness. Hamas know
that they cannot do significant damage to Israel by firing rockets at
their civilian population or by attacking them from tunnels.
These tactics ... [are] designed
to force an Israeli defensive response which will inevitably result in
Palestinian civilian deaths."
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These tactics, combined with extensive use of human shields, are
merely designed to force an Israeli defensive response which will
inevitably result in Palestinian civilian deaths. They then exploit these
deaths in the media to bring international condemnation down onto Israel.
This is the only way they can inflict damage on the State of Israel —
and it works.
It works through the isolation of Israel in the world community, the
branding of Israeli soldiers and leaders as war criminals, pressuring
international bodies such as the UN and International Criminal Court to
launch damaging investigations, economic harm to Israel through the BDS
movement, worldwide demonstrations against Israel, and increased
anti-Semitism around the world which hurts Israel and hurts Jews
everywhere.
PJM: What is the appropriate response to such tactics?
Kemp: The international community — national governments, world
bodies such as the EU and UN, human rights groups and the media — all
take precisely the wrong response to the use of human shields. This has
been nowhere stronger or more damaging than in relation to Israel and the
Gaza conflict.
Instead of condemning the use of human shields by Hamas, the
international community and media condemn Israel out of hand and often
without any investigation or consideration of the reality. This plays
absolutely into the hands of Hamas.
And the consequence of the international community's response? To
further encourage the use of human shields by Hamas and by terrorists
everywhere.
Hamas increased their use of human shields after each conflict when
they saw the consequences of doing so.
Hezbollah has learned from Hamas's success, and has embedded 100,000
missiles pointed at Israel in the civilian communities of southern
Lebanon.
By condemning and pressuring Israel rather than Hamas — who are
actually responsible for the vast majority of civilian deaths — the
international community has blood on its hands. This approach ultimately
results in more human misery, suffering, and death.
The proper response to human shields is strong condemnation and
sanction against anyone who uses them. The international community should
not allow the use of human shields to pay.
In military terms, forces should not allow themselves to be deterred
by the use of human shields. To do so again plays into the hands of the
terrorists and encourages their further use of human shields, ultimately
resulting in greater numbers of casualties. Of course they can't attack
without consideration of civilian casualties and they have a duty to
minimise civilian casualties in every situation. Under LOAC they must
only ever risk inflicting civilian casualties when proportionate to the
overall military gain.
If armed forces and politicians continue to allow themselves to be
deterred from effective action by human shields, then their use will
expand even further, and it will become impossible for Western forces to
prosecute military conflict and to defend their countries and their
interests. This is, of course, the terrorists' objective as well as the
objective of many activists and supporters in the West.
Michel Gurfinkiel, a
Shillman-Ginsburg Fellow at the Middle East Forum, is the Founder and
President of the Jean-Jacques Rousseau Institute, a conservative think
thank in France.
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