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Undermining Justice: Israel-Hamas Cease-Fire Breaches International Law
by Louis René Beres
• September 10, 2014 at 5:00 am
No
authoritative system of law can allow or encourage accommodation between a
proper national government and an unambiguously criminal organization. By
definition, under pertinent rules, Hamas is an illegal organization.
Even if
an insurgent group claims the legal right to wage violent conflict for
"self-determination" -- Hamas's argument -- the group does not
have the right to use force against the innocent.
In no
circumstances, under international law, are states permitted to characterize
terrorists as "freedom fighters."
Once again, Israel and Hamas have agreed upon a so-called "cease
fire." Once again, as Hamas regards all of Israel as "Occupied
Palestine," the agreement will inevitably fail. And once again, for
Israel and the wider "international community," there will be
significantly dark consequences for international justice.
In specifically jurisprudential terms, the immediate effect of this
latest cease-fire will be wrongfully to bestow upon the leading Palestinian
terror organization (1) a generally enhanced position under international
law; and (2) a status of formal legal equivalence with Israel, its
beleaguered terror target.
The longer-term effect will be seriously to undermine the legitimacy and
effectiveness of international law itself.
Britain's
Hamas Appeal
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British celebrity Martin Freeman appears on a BBC
broadcast of the DEC's "Gaza Crisis Appeal". (Image source: DEC
YouTube video screenshot)
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In early August, most of Britain's broadsheet newspapers published a
full-page advertisement for a "Gaza crisis" appeal launched by the
Disasters Emergency Committee [DEC], a British charity that serves as a
fundraising body for its 13-member bodies, each one itself a prominent
British charity.
Broadcast versions were also aired on major television channels,
including the taxpayer-funded BBC television and radio stations. On August 15th,
DEC announced the appeal had raised over £9 million.
Although DEC claims to use the appeal's funds "to reach hundreds of
thousands of people with urgently needed food and safe drinking water,"
DEC does not provide these charitable services itself; it simply raises the
funds. The money is then handed over to its 13 member-bodies, which are
tasked with actually providing the humanitarian help.
Turkey's New Government: Old Wine in a New Bottle
by Burak Bekdil
• September 10, 2014 at 4:00 am
After the
Islamic State took 49 Turks hostage, Davutoglu's deputy minister said that,
"they were not being kept hostage" but "were merely
interned." How nice! Perhaps the Turks are now playing backgammon with
the Islamic State backgammon heavyweights.
Do the
Turks think that the Islamic State is a charity organization?
The ever-optimistic Ahmet Davutoglu, now Turkey's Prime
Minister, is pictured during his tenure as foreign minister, flanked by the
foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states. (Image source:
Bahrain Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
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In 2011, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development
Party [AKP] won a landslide election victory, garnering almost half of the
national vote. Customarily, he read out his government's program in
parliament:
"One of the most important prerequisites for stability in the
[Middle East] region is a humanitarian and peaceful solution to the
Palestinian dispute....The key to peace is a two-state solution that should
come under UN resolutions and [parties that can live in] peace with each
other. Turkey will keep on actively supporting any reconciliation to revive
peace talks... It is out of the question that our ties with Israel normalize
unless Israel apologizes for this unlawful incident [Israel's raid on the
Mavi Marmara flotilla], pays compensation for our citizens who lost their
lives and removes the embargo on Gaza."
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