On International Law
dayan
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This was written, as noted at the bottom of the article, by an expert on International Law. I hope those with an open mind can gain something from it.
AT LAW
A War Crime at Qana?
Hezbollah, Iran and Syria--not Israel--are flouting international law.
BY ORDE F. KITTRIE
Sunday, August 6, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT
The Qana tragedy has intensified accusations that Israel's actions in Lebanon violate international law. Every death of an innocent person is extremely regrettable; but there is no evidence Israel has committed any war crimes. In contrast, Hezbollah, Iran and Syria have clearly violated international law in this conflict. Moreover, Israel's conduct compares favorably to how its most powerful accusers have behaved when their own interests have been threatened.
International law has three major prohibitions relevant to the Qana incident. One forbids deliberate attacks on civilians. Another prohibits hiding forces in civilian areas, thereby turning civilians into "human shields." A third prohibition, the proportionality restriction that Israel is accused of violating, involves a complicated and controversial balancing test.
Geneva Convention Protocol I contains one version of the proportionality test, the International Criminal Court Statute another; neither is universally accepted. As a result, the proportionality test is governed by "customary international law," an amalgam of non-universal treaty law, court decisions, and how influential nations actually behave. It does not hinge on the relative number of casualties, or the force used, however, but on the intent of the combatant. Under customary international law, proportionality prohibits attacks expected to cause incidental death or injury to civilians if this harm would, on balance, be excessive in relation to the overall legitimate military accomplishment anticipated.
At Qana, Israeli aircraft fired toward a building to stop Hezbollah from shooting rockets at its cities. The aircraft did not deliberately target civilians; but Hezbollah rockets are targeted at civilians, a clear war crime. U.N. humanitarian chief Jan Egeland last week called on Hezbollah to stop its "cowardly blending" among women and children: "I heard they were proud because they lost very few fighters and that it was the civilians bearing the brunt of this." If Hezbollah used Lebanese civilians in Qana as "human shields," then Hezbollah, not Israel, is legally responsible for their deaths.
If Israel was mistaken and Hezbollah was not firing from or hiding amongst these civilians, the legality of its action is assessed by the proportionality test. Because the test is vague, there have been few, if any, cases since World War II in which a soldier, commander or country has been convicted of violating it. In the absence of guidance from the courts, determining whether Israel's military has failed the proportionality test depends on an assessment of what civilian casualties it expected, what its overall military goals are, the context in which the country is operating, and how the international community has in practice balanced civilian risk against military goals.
Israel did not expect civilian casualties; it warned civilians to leave Qana, and Israel's official investigation has concluded its military attacked based on "information that the building was not inhabited by civilians and was being used as a hiding place for terrorists." The law of war recognizes that mistakes are inevitable, and does not criminalize soldiers who seek in good faith seek to avoid them.
Israel's overall military goal is to survive attacks by enemies determined to annihilate it. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has stated: "Israel . . . is an aggressive, illegal and illegitimate entity, which has no future. . . . Its destiny is manifested in our motto: 'Death to Israel.' " Thus Israel is attempting to prevent Hezbollah from using its 10,000 remaining rockets, and to implement the requirement of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559 that Hezbollah be disarmed.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah and Iran--which provides this terrorist group with arms, direction and over $100 million a year--are in continual violation of international law. Their calls for Israel's destruction violate the international genocide treaty's prohibition of "direct and public incitement to commit genocide." Iran's effort to develop a nuclear arsenal that could obliterate Israel, or deter its responses to future Hezbollah attacks, violates the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Iranian (and Syrian) support for Hezbollah violates U.N. Security Council Resolution 1373, requiring states to "refrain from providing any form of support, active or passive, to entities or persons involved in terrorist acts." Hezbollah began the armed conflict with rocket attacks on Israeli towns and the abduction of Israeli soldiers: unprovoked acts of war violating an internationally recognized border.
Israel is acting in self-defense and avoided killing civilians, even giving advance notice by phone to the occupants of homes targeted for attack as Hezbollah hideouts. While Hezbollah deliberately maximizes harm to Israeli and Lebanese civilians, Israel puts its soldiers at risk to minimize Lebanese civilian casualties.
The track record of many of Israel's most powerful accusers--including China, Russia and the European Union--is not nearly as good at balancing civilian risk against military goals.
China killed hundreds of peaceful Tiananmen Square protestors in 1989. It has for five decades occupied Tibet, slaughtering tens of thousands; and it vows to invade Taiwan if it declares independence. Neither the Tiananmen protesters nor Tibet nor Taiwan has ever threatened to "wipe China off the map."
Russia has fought since 1994 to suppress Chechnya's independence movement. Out of a Chechen population of one million, as many as 200,000 have been killed as Russia has leveled the capital city of Grozny. Chechen rebels pose no threat to "wipe Russia off the map." All of the leading EU countries actively participated in NATO's 78-day bombing campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999. The military goal was to stop Yugoslavia from oppressing its Kosovar minority. NATO bombs and missiles hit Yugoslav bridges, power plants and a television station, killing hundreds of civilians. Yugoslavia posed no threat to the existence of any of the EU countries that bombed it.
Compared with how China, Russia, and the EU have dealt with non-existential threats--and despite the law-flouting behavior of Hezbollah, Iran and Syria--Israel's responses to the threats to its existence have been remarkably restrained rather than disproportionately violent.
Mr. Kittrie is professor of international law at Arizona State University and served in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the U.S. State Department from 1993 to 2003.
AT LAW
A War Crime at Qana?
Hezbollah, Iran and Syria--not Israel--are flouting international law.
BY ORDE F. KITTRIE
Sunday, August 6, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT
The Qana tragedy has intensified accusations that Israel's actions in Lebanon violate international law. Every death of an innocent person is extremely regrettable; but there is no evidence Israel has committed any war crimes. In contrast, Hezbollah, Iran and Syria have clearly violated international law in this conflict. Moreover, Israel's conduct compares favorably to how its most powerful accusers have behaved when their own interests have been threatened.
International law has three major prohibitions relevant to the Qana incident. One forbids deliberate attacks on civilians. Another prohibits hiding forces in civilian areas, thereby turning civilians into "human shields." A third prohibition, the proportionality restriction that Israel is accused of violating, involves a complicated and controversial balancing test.
Geneva Convention Protocol I contains one version of the proportionality test, the International Criminal Court Statute another; neither is universally accepted. As a result, the proportionality test is governed by "customary international law," an amalgam of non-universal treaty law, court decisions, and how influential nations actually behave. It does not hinge on the relative number of casualties, or the force used, however, but on the intent of the combatant. Under customary international law, proportionality prohibits attacks expected to cause incidental death or injury to civilians if this harm would, on balance, be excessive in relation to the overall legitimate military accomplishment anticipated.
At Qana, Israeli aircraft fired toward a building to stop Hezbollah from shooting rockets at its cities. The aircraft did not deliberately target civilians; but Hezbollah rockets are targeted at civilians, a clear war crime. U.N. humanitarian chief Jan Egeland last week called on Hezbollah to stop its "cowardly blending" among women and children: "I heard they were proud because they lost very few fighters and that it was the civilians bearing the brunt of this." If Hezbollah used Lebanese civilians in Qana as "human shields," then Hezbollah, not Israel, is legally responsible for their deaths.
If Israel was mistaken and Hezbollah was not firing from or hiding amongst these civilians, the legality of its action is assessed by the proportionality test. Because the test is vague, there have been few, if any, cases since World War II in which a soldier, commander or country has been convicted of violating it. In the absence of guidance from the courts, determining whether Israel's military has failed the proportionality test depends on an assessment of what civilian casualties it expected, what its overall military goals are, the context in which the country is operating, and how the international community has in practice balanced civilian risk against military goals.
Israel did not expect civilian casualties; it warned civilians to leave Qana, and Israel's official investigation has concluded its military attacked based on "information that the building was not inhabited by civilians and was being used as a hiding place for terrorists." The law of war recognizes that mistakes are inevitable, and does not criminalize soldiers who seek in good faith seek to avoid them.
Israel's overall military goal is to survive attacks by enemies determined to annihilate it. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has stated: "Israel . . . is an aggressive, illegal and illegitimate entity, which has no future. . . . Its destiny is manifested in our motto: 'Death to Israel.' " Thus Israel is attempting to prevent Hezbollah from using its 10,000 remaining rockets, and to implement the requirement of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559 that Hezbollah be disarmed.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah and Iran--which provides this terrorist group with arms, direction and over $100 million a year--are in continual violation of international law. Their calls for Israel's destruction violate the international genocide treaty's prohibition of "direct and public incitement to commit genocide." Iran's effort to develop a nuclear arsenal that could obliterate Israel, or deter its responses to future Hezbollah attacks, violates the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Iranian (and Syrian) support for Hezbollah violates U.N. Security Council Resolution 1373, requiring states to "refrain from providing any form of support, active or passive, to entities or persons involved in terrorist acts." Hezbollah began the armed conflict with rocket attacks on Israeli towns and the abduction of Israeli soldiers: unprovoked acts of war violating an internationally recognized border.
Israel is acting in self-defense and avoided killing civilians, even giving advance notice by phone to the occupants of homes targeted for attack as Hezbollah hideouts. While Hezbollah deliberately maximizes harm to Israeli and Lebanese civilians, Israel puts its soldiers at risk to minimize Lebanese civilian casualties.
The track record of many of Israel's most powerful accusers--including China, Russia and the European Union--is not nearly as good at balancing civilian risk against military goals.
China killed hundreds of peaceful Tiananmen Square protestors in 1989. It has for five decades occupied Tibet, slaughtering tens of thousands; and it vows to invade Taiwan if it declares independence. Neither the Tiananmen protesters nor Tibet nor Taiwan has ever threatened to "wipe China off the map."
Russia has fought since 1994 to suppress Chechnya's independence movement. Out of a Chechen population of one million, as many as 200,000 have been killed as Russia has leveled the capital city of Grozny. Chechen rebels pose no threat to "wipe Russia off the map." All of the leading EU countries actively participated in NATO's 78-day bombing campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999. The military goal was to stop Yugoslavia from oppressing its Kosovar minority. NATO bombs and missiles hit Yugoslav bridges, power plants and a television station, killing hundreds of civilians. Yugoslavia posed no threat to the existence of any of the EU countries that bombed it.
Compared with how China, Russia, and the EU have dealt with non-existential threats--and despite the law-flouting behavior of Hezbollah, Iran and Syria--Israel's responses to the threats to its existence have been remarkably restrained rather than disproportionately violent.
Mr. Kittrie is professor of international law at Arizona State University and served in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the U.S. State Department from 1993 to 2003.
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THE ABDICATION OF LEBANESE LEADERS.
State of Denial
by Michael Béhé 1 | 2
Only at TNR Online | Post date 08.07.06 Discuss this article (21)
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[Editor's Note: This article was originally published by the Metula News Agency, for whom it was translated from the French by Llewellyn Brown, and is reprinted with permission.]
Beirut, Lebanon
he politicians, journalists and intellectuals of Lebanon have, of late, been experiencing the shock of their lives. They knew full well that Hezbollah had created an independent state in our country, a state including all the ministers and parallel institutions, duplicating those of Lebanon. What they did not know--and are discovering with this war, and what has petrified them with surprise and terror--is the extent of this phagocytosis.
In fact, our country had become an extension of Iran, and our so-called political power also served as a political and military cover for the Islamists of Teheran. We suddenly discovered that Teheran had stocked more than 12,000 missiles, of all types and calibers, on our territory and that they had patiently, systematically, organized a suppletive force, with the help of the Syrians, that took over, day after day, all the rooms in the House of Lebanon. Just imagine it: We stock ground-to-ground missiles, Zilzals, on our territory and the firing of such devices, without our knowledge, has the power to spark a regional strategic conflict and, potentially, bring about the annihilation of Lebanon.
We knew that Iran, by means of Hezbollah, was building a veritable Maginot line in the south, but it was the pictures of Maroun el Ras and Bint Jbail that revealed to us the magnitude of these constructions. This amplitude made us understand several things at once: that we were no longer masters of our destiny; that we do not possess the most basic means necessary to reverse the course of this state of things; and that those who turned our country into an outpost of their Islamic doctrine's combat against Israel did not have the slightest intention of willingly giving up their hold over us.
The national salvation discussions that concerned the application of Resolution 1559, and which included most of the Lebanese political movements, were simply for show. Iran and Syria had not invested billions of dollars on militarizing Lebanon in order to wage their war, simply to give in to the desire of the Lebanese and the international community for them to pack up their hardware and set it up back home.
And then, the indecision, the cowardice, the division and the irresponsible behavior of our leaders are such that they had no effort to make to show their talent. No need to engage a wrestling match with the other political components of the Land of Cedars. The latter showed themselves--and continue to show themselves--to be inconsistent.
Of course, our army, reshaped over the years by the Syrian occupier so it could no longer fulfill its role as protector of the nation, did not have the capacity to tackle the militamen of the Hezbollah. Our army, whom it is more dangerous to call upon--because of the explosive equilibrium that constitutes each of its brigades--than to shut up behind locked doors in its barracks. A force that is still largely loyal to its former foreign masters, to the point of being uncontrollable; to the point of having collaborated with the Iranians to put our coastal radar stations at the disposal of their missiles, that almost sunk an Israeli boat off the shores of Beirut. As for the non-Hezbollah elements in the government, they knew nothing of the existence of land-to-sea missiles on our territory ... that caused the totally justified destruction of all our radar stations by the Hebrews' army. And even then we are getting off lightly in these goings-on.
It is easy now to whine and gripe, and to play the hypocritical role of victims. We know full well how to get others to pity us and to claim that we are never responsible for the horrors that regularly occur on our soil. Of course, that is nothing but rubbish! The Security Council's Resolution 1559--that demanded that our government deploy our army on our sovereign territory, along our international border with Israel and that it disarm all the militia on our land--was voted on September 2, 2004.
We had two years to implement this resolution and thus guarantee a peaceful future to our children, but we did absolutely nothing. Our greatest crime--which was not the only one!--was not that we did not succeed, but that we did not attempt or undertake anything. And that was the fault of none else than the pathetic Lebanese politicians.
Our government, from the very moment the Syrian occupier left, let ships and truckloads of arms pour into our country. Without even bothering to look at their cargo. They jeopardized all chances for the rebirth of our country by confusing the Cedar Revolution with the liberation of Beirut. In reality, we had just received the chance--a sort of unhoped-for moratorium--that allowed us to take the future into our own hands, nothing more.
To think that we were not even capable of agreeing to "hang" Émile Lahoud--Al-Assad's puppet--on Martyrs' Square and that he is still president of what some insist on calling our republic. ... There is no need to look any further: We are what we are, that is to say, not much.
All those who assume public and communicational responsibilities in this country are responsible for this catastrophe. Except those of my colleagues, journalists, and editors, who are dead, assassinated by the Syrian thugs, because they were clearly less cowardly than those who survived. And Lahoud remained at Baadbé, the president's palace!
And when I speak of a catastrophe, I do not mean the action accomplished by Israel in response to the aggression against its civilians and its army, which was produced from our soil and that we did strictly nothing to avoid, and for which we are consequently responsible. Any avoiding of this responsibility--some people here do not have the minimal notions of international law necessary to understand!--means that Lebanon, as a state, does not exist.
THE ABDICATION OF LEBANESE LEADERS.
State of Denial
by Michael Béhé 1 | 2
Only at TNR Online | Post date 08.07.06 Discuss this article (21)
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he hypocrisy goes on: Even some editorialists of the respectable L'Orient Le Jour put Hezbollah's savagery and that of the Israelis on a par! Shame! Spinelessness! And who are we in this fable? Poor ad aeternumvictims of the ambitions of others?
Politicians either support this insane idea or keep silent. Those we would expect to speak, to save our image, remain silent like the others. And I am precisely alluding to General Aoun, who could have made a move by proclaiming the truth. Even his enemy, Walid Jumblatt, the Druze leader, has proved to be less ... vague.
Lebanon a victim? What a joke!
Before the Israeli attack, Lebanon no longer existed, it was no more than a hologram. In Beirut, innocent citizens like me were forbidden access to certain areas of their own capital. But our police, our army, and our judges were also excluded. That was the case, for example, of Hezbollah's and the Syrians' command zone in the Haret Hreik quarter (in red on the satellite map). A square measuring a kilometer wide, a capital within the capital, permanently guarded by a Horla army, possessing its own institutions, its schools, its crèches, its tribunals, its radio, its television and, above all ... its government. A "government" that, alone decided, in the place of the figureheads of the Lebanese government--in which Hezbollah also had its ministers!--to attack a neighboring state, with which we had no substantial or grounded quarrel, and to plunge the United States into a bloody conflict. And if attacking a sovereign nation on its territory, assassinating eight of its soldiers, kidnapping two others and, simultaneously, launching missiles on nine of its towns does not constitute a casus belli, the latter juridical principle will seriously need revising.
Thus almost all of these cowardly politicians, including numerous Shia leaders and religious personalities themselves, are blessing each bomb that falls from a Jewish F-16 turning the insult to our sovereignty that was Haret Hreik, right in the heart of Beirut, into a lunar landscape. Without the Israelis, how could we have received another chance--that we in no way deserve!--to rebuild our country?
Each Irano-Syrian fort that Jerusalem destroys, each Islamic fighter they eliminate, and Lebanon proportionally starts to live again! Once again, the soldiers of Israel are doing our work. Once again, like in 1982, we are watching--cowardly, lying low, despicable, and insulting them to boot--their heroic sacrifice that allows us to keep hoping. To not be swallowed up in the bowels of the earth. Because, of course, by dint of not giving a damn for southern Lebanon, of letting foreigners take hold of the privileges that belong to us, we no longer had the ability to recover our independence and sovereignty. If, at the end of this war, the Lebanese army retakes control over its territory and gets rid of the state within a state--that tried to suffocate the latter--it will only be thanks to the Tsahal [Israeli Defense Force], and that, all these faint-hearted politicians, from the crook Fuad Siniora, to Saad Hariri, the son of Lebanon's plunderer, and general Aoun, all know perfectly well.
As for the destruction caused by the Israelis ... that is another imposture: Look at the satellite map! I have situated, as best I could, but in their correct proportions, the parts of my capital that have been destroyed by Israel. They are Haret Hreik--in its totality--and the dwellings of Hezbollah's leaders, situated in the large Shia suburb of Dayaa (as they spell it) and that I have circled in blue.
In addition to these two zones, Tsahal has exploded a nine-storied building that housed Hezbollah's command, in Beirut's city center, above and slightly to the left (to the north west) of Haret Hreik on the map. It was Nasrallah's "perch" inside the city, whereby he asserted his presence and domination over us. A depot of Syrian arms in the port, two army radars that the Shiite officers had put at Hezbollah's disposal, and a truck suspected of transporting arms, in the Christian quarter of Ashrafieh.
Moreover the road and airport infrastructures were put out of working order : they served to provide Hezbollah with arms and munitions. Apart from that, Tsahal has neither hit nor deteriorated anything, and all those who speak of the "destruction of Beirut" are either liars, Iranians, anti-Semites or absent. Even the houses situated one alley's distance from the targets I mentioned have not been hit, they have not even suffered a scratch; on contemplating these results of this workyou understand the meaning of the concept "surgical strikes" and you can admire the dexterity of the Jewish pilots. Beirut, all the rest of Beirut, 95 percent of Beirut, lives and breathes better than a fortnight ago. All those who have not sided with terrorism know they have strictly nothing to fear from the Israeli planes, on the contrary! One example: Last night the restaurant where I went to eat was jammed full and I had to wait until 9:30 p.m. to get a table. Everyone was smiling, relaxed, but no one filmed them: a strange destruction of Beirut, is it not?
Of course, there are some 500,000 refugees from the south who are experiencing a veritable tragedy and who are not smiling. But Jean Tsadik, who has his eyes fixed on Kfar Kileh, and from whom I have learned to believe each word he says, assures me that practically all the houses of the aforesaid refugees are intact. So they will be able to come back as soon as Hezbollah is vanquished.
The defeat of the Shia fundamentalists of Iranian allegiance is imminent. The figures communicated by Nasrallah's minions and by the Lebanese Red Cross are deceiving: firstly, of the 400 dead declared by Lebanon, only 150 are real collateral civilian victims of the war, the others were militiamen without uniform serving Iran. The photographic report "Les Civils des bilans libanais" made by Stéphane Juffa for the Metula News Agency constitutes, to this day, the unique tangible evidence of this gigantic morbid manipulation. Which makes this document eminently important.
Moreover, Hassan Nasrallah's organization has not lost 200 combatants, as Tsahal claims. This figure only concerns the combats taking place on the border and even then the Israelis underestimate it, for a reason that escapes me, by about a hundred militiamen eliminated. The real count of Hezbollah's casualties, that includes those dead in Beirut, the Bekaa Valley, Baalbek and their other camps, rocket and missile launchers and arms and munition depots amounts to 1,100 supplementary Hezbollah militiamen who have definitively ceased to terrorize and humiliate my country.
Like the overwhelming majority of Lebanese, I pray that no one puts an end to the Israeli attack before it finishes shattering the terrorists. I pray that the Hebrew soldiers will penetrate all the hidden recesses of southern Lebanon and will hunt out, in our stead, the vermin that has taken root there. Like the overwhelming majority of Lebanese, I have put the champagne ready in the refrigerator to celebrate the Israeli victory.
But contrary to them--and to paraphrase [French singer] Michel Sardou--I recognize that they are also fighting for our liberty, another battle "where you were not present"! And in the name of my people, I wish to express my infinite gratitude to the relatives of the Israeli victims--civilian and military--whose loved ones have fallen so that I can live standing upright in my identity. They should know that I weep with them.
As for the pathetic clique that thrives at the head of my country, it is time for them to understand that after this war, after our natural allies have rid us of those who are hindering us from rebuilding a nation, a cease-fire or an armistice will not suffice. To ensure the future of Lebanon, it is time to make peace with those we have no reason to go to war against. In fact, only peace will ensure peace. Someone must tell them because in this country we have not learnt what a truism is.
Michael Béhé is a writer for the Metula News Agency.
Wow. Ruud, can you confirm at least the part who deals with the city of Beirut? What do you think about what this Lebanese reporter has to say?
I don't know why you accuse me of not being open minded. I disagree with you in this instance. It is very possible that on other issues we might agree. Being open-minded doesn't mean that you don't have an opinion, or that you only have a left-wing opinion. By the way, have you read the articles?
Video Made the Terrorist Star
Hezbollah has a chillingly effective media strategy.
By Noah Pollak
It’s not clear which of my experiences last week was more educational: Sitting on a hilltop on Israel's northern border, watching Bint Jbiel getting pummeled by artillery, bombs, and missiles — or meeting the Western television reporters who were covering the war, and seeing firsthand how they made theater out of bloodshed.
NBC’s Ann Curry was on the scene. She was taken to a meadow from which a half-dozen 155mm artillery pieces were pounding away at Hezbollah. Curry approached a resting crew of artillery reservists, put a camera and microphone in the face of one pony-tailed young man, and asked (I quote from memory): “How does it make you feel to be firing artillery into Lebanon that is killing innocent civilians?” Curry, in her other interviews for NBC, has been similarly incredulous at the existence of civilian casualties in war.
Later, Curry interviewed Israeli Defense Forces spokesman Maj. Michael Oren, who in his civilian life is one of the world’s most highly respected historians of the Middle East, and author of the New York Times bestseller Six Days of War (disclosure: he’s a senior fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem, where I work). Oren’s analytical offerings were treated with a normal level of interest and courtesy, but upon gingerly broaching his family's story — Oren's son might soon fight in the same Lebanese town he did in 1982 — Curry became totally engrossed. So much so that the next morning NBC arrived at Oren’s home in Jerusalem and spent three hours filming his family’s story for The Today Show. All of this was extraordinarily good p.r. for Israel and its war effort.
The bizarre combination of Curry’s hostility towards the soldiers and her overt sympathy for Oren left me puzzled. What I realized, from watching her and other journalists like her, was that contrary to popular belief, most of these journalists are neither “pro” nor “anti” Israel. In fact, they are not exactly journalists at all, at least not in the sense that we have been taught to believe. They do not seem interested in reporting what is traditionally understood as news — that is, information that attempts to convey as complete and realistic an accounting of events as possible.
They can be more accurately described as entertainers, who stimulate their audiences with that which is factual and passing. The most striking thing about the producers and on-air reporters who show up in Israel is how deeply ignorant they are of the conflict and its history. This is not exactly their fault: It is the product of their job, which is to entertain rather than inform. The skills required of them are technical and theatrical, not historic or intellectual, and thus they do not approach their task with much in the way of rigor; they are looking for interesting personal stories and manufactured mini-dramas, whose correlation to reality is only occasionally discernable. It is just more interesting to expose the tortured consciences of IDF artillerymen than to report on their achievements in battle.
There is another problem that makes serious journalism here unlikely. Because it is impossible for television reporters to obtain hard, reliable information from terrorist organizations, journalists are structurally forced to do almost all their interviewing on the Israeli side. But television news thrives on the contentious interview: The reporter barrages the interview subject with tough and impertinent questions, hoping to produce high-quality drama for the audience. Here, for example, are three questions Curry asked during one brief interview of the Israeli government spokeswoman, Miri Eisen, on July 30:
“Some people ask, while Israel is trying to root out Hezbollah, how it is justified in killing large numbers of civilians. Your answer?”
“But what is the—but it [Israel] doesn't target, but civilians were hit. What is to prevent this from happening again?”
“What—why won't Israel agree to an immediate cease-fire, as now is being called for by the pope today, as well as the European Union?”
Curry and her colleagues would probably ask similarly tough questions of Hezbollah officials, if they gave interviews. So the institutionalized result is that Israel must always operate with its feet held to the fire while Hezbollah enjoys a permanent holiday from media scrutiny. This massive imbalance is of course never remarked upon by American journalists — has Curry, in all of her inquisitions of Israelis, ever bothered to note that she never gets to give the other side an equal grilling?
This imbalance of scrutiny is not terribly bothersome to television journalists, because it does not undermine their ability to create gripping theater. News segments, for the most part, require simple, compelling human dramas that can be delivered to the home audience in extremely small packages. The camera demands emotion and plot, not fairness, context, or intellectual rigor. To the camera, there is no right and wrong, no terrorist and victim.
This kind of reportage has created a relationship of co-dependency between terrorists and the media: The fetishization of suffering results in a morally obtuse emphasis on civilian casualties, and the ensuing outcry from world organizations and opinionated foreign governments intimidates and hamstrings Western militaries attempting to defeat terrorists. And the more that Western forces are undermined by oppositional coverage, the greater the incentive for terrorists to maximize civilian casualties and thereby keep the media pressure on their enemies. Operating without moral restrictions, Hezbollah has endeavored to do exactly that — and with magnificent, arguably unprecedented, success. Because democratic governments cannot endure in conflicts that the public believes to be immoral, the task of groups such as Hezbollah is to undermine the Western public’s sense of moral clarity in the fight. And, in too many cases, in the television news media Hezbollah has found a willing partner — as have other terror groups like Hamas and Fatah.
As a means of physically damaging Israel, Hezbollah’s military capabilities are almost laughable. But as a means to demoralize, isolate, and promote the ridicule of Israel, Katyushas and mortars aimed at civilian populations are the perfect weapon: Sufficiently ineffective to exculpate Israel’s legions of scrutinizers from apprehension about Israeli deaths, they invite a predictable military response from Israel that Hezbollah can use to cause maximum political and media damage to the Jewish state. Hezbollah does not waste valuable media capital by launching its rockets from rural hillsides; it launches them from crowded neighborhoods, apartment buildings, and schools, while its operatives aggressively promote the civilian-casualties deception to credulous Western journalists, fully confident that scenes of death and destruction will make westerners recoil from what is allegedly being done in their names. What follows is a translation of a letter to the editor written by a Lebanese Shia attesting to this tactic:
Received as successful resistance fighters, [Hezbollah terrorists] appeared armed to the teeth and dug rocket depots in bunkers in our town as well. The social work of the Party of God consisted in building a school and a residence over these bunkers! A local sheikh explained to me laughing that the Jews would lose in any event because the rockets would either be fired at them or if they attacked the rocket depots, they would be condemned by world opinion on account of the dead civilians.
In other words, Hezbollah does not have a military strategy; it has a media strategy that so far has been chillingly effective. In Lebanon, most civilian casualties are not the product of Israeli overzealousness — they are the most vital, important, and intentional victories in Hezbollah’s campaign. We are witnessing what is perhaps the most successful manipulation of civilian deaths by a terrorist organization to date, and while the reality of the situation is apparent to some observers, most members of the media are either oblivious to their own culpability in spreading propaganda for Hezbollah, or simply don’t mind doing so. Over to you, Ann.
— Noah Pollak is an assistant editor at Azure, the journal of the Shalem Center.
Why Is Everything Such a Surprise?
By CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
August 3, 2006; Page A6
A thinking person, having to consider the horrible recent events on the Israeli-Lebanon border, has to bear a number of considerations in mind simultaneously. The most salient of these include:
(1) The right of Israeli citizens, Jewish and Arab and Druze, to be free of random attacks from Katyusha missiles fired across an internationally recognized border that is further supposedly guaranteed by U.N. forces; (2) the right of Lebanese civilians, Maronite, Druze, Armenian, Sunni and Shiite, to be protected under the customary laws of war from any retaliation directed at these missiles and those who fire them; (3) the continuing negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority on the demarcation of Israel's borders and the right of Palestinians to self-determination; (4) the emerging alliance between Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas and certain Shiite forces engaged in sectarian warfare in Iraq; (5) the interest of Tehran in providing a "sideshow" to distract attention from its acquisition of WMD; (6) the state of domestic opinion in Iran; (7) the state of domestic opinion in Syria; and (8) the encouragement of pluralism in a now quasi-independent Lebanon.
It is only when one has reviewed these interlocking elements that one fully appreciates the extreme unwisdom of the Bush administration in having allowed if not encouraged the Olmert government to pursue a policy of wide retaliation across Lebanon. Much criticism has been focused on the second-order question of whether there was an Israeli (and American) "intelligence failure" which both over- and underestimated Hezbollah, and which therefore allowed a military and a moral trap to be sprung. But this is describable as "second order" only because it raises the question of whether Israel's campaign -- no doubt useful for the internal requirements of the untried Kadima coalition -- meshes with America's responsibility for taking all the above points into account.
Regarding those points, Israel is principally concerned only with the first, and to a lesser extent with the third and fifth. The northern border has been an issue for some time; the current phase of Israeli-Palestinian estrangement began when an Iranian ship loaded with weapons was intercepted off Gaza; and it has been a mantra of Israeli rhetoric for some time that "terror" has a return address in Tehran. Moreover, though it may well be doubted that the Iranian mullahs want to blow away the Dome of the Rock and the Palestinian population in a thermonuclear mist (a consideration invariably ignored in febrile discussions of "the Islamic bomb"), nobody can quite overlook the latent connection between Iran's weapons program and the apocalyptic ravings of its leadership.
But all of this was, or ought to have been, well understood in Washington long before the predictable recent provocations. Was there even a contingency plan for what to do when that looming moment arrived? The astonishing answer appears to be no. No call for the U.N. to live up to its resolutions and responsibilities was made until the fighting had begun. No estimate of the effect of a clash with Hezbollah on the internal affairs of Iraq appears to have been made. No care for the balance of forces in Lebanon, or the fraught question of Beirut's relationship with Damascus, seems to have been taken.
The outcome is so astoundingly awful that it has taken weeks to sink in. Iran hands out missiles to a theocratic gang that was until recently mounting pro-Syrian demonstrations in Beirut, all the while spitting in the face of the U.N., the U.S. and the EU on the nuclear issue -- and is subjected to precisely no consequences. Syria openly parades the leader of Hamas in a Damascus hotel, while accepting Iranian largesse (and incidentally proving once again that "secular" Baathists can indeed collude full-time with religious fundamentalists), sends its death-squads to murder Lebanese politicians and journalists -- and is subjected to precisely no consequences. Syria and Iran send sophisticated explosives for the use of Shiite sectarians in Iraq, who employ them to murder American soldiers and Sunni civilians -- and are subjected to precisely no consequences. While all the time, because of its arming and encouraging of Israel, the otherwise passive United States is regarded with as much hatred and fury as if it had in fact tried to remove Assad and Ahmadinejad from power!
To suffer all the consequences of being imperialistic, while acting with all the resolution and consistency and authority of, say, Belgium, is to have failed rather badly. Fortunately, the U.S. has a secret weapon in all this. Iran's Arab neighbors do not relish its bid for regional and nuclear hegemony. Iran's population, to judge from many samplings of its opinion, wants improved relations with the U.S. and not the projection of a dead-handed theocracy through fanatical foreign militias and wasteful nuclear expenditure. Many Lebanese, including many Shiites, are openly resentful of Hezbollah for the impasse into which it has brought them. Democratic and secular forces exist in Syria and are fighting extremism in Iraq. Had the Palestinians been asked (as President Abbas was planning to ask them in a referendum before the Hamas/Hezbollah sabotage) they would very probably have voted to recognize Israel as a negotiating partner.
But what use is being made of this civil and democratic element in the equation? Opinion is curdling, in many instances, into a simple revulsion against the incompetence and cruelty of Israel's highly visible actions. Has Karen Hughes been heard from lately, or at all? Who decided that the president should ignore the eccentric recent letter from Ahmadinejad, and thus miss the chance of addressing the Iranian people over the heads of their self-selected leaders? Whose job is it to consider the whole intricate web of which Tehran constitutes the center? John Wayne, a hero to many "stand tall" conservatives, used to say modestly that he didn't really "act," he just "reacted." That seems a regrettably apt description of the administration over the past three weeks, as it appears to find absolutely everything coming to it as a surprise.
Mr. Hitchens, a columnist for Vanity Fair, is author of "Thomas Jefferson: Author of America" (HarperCollins, 2006).
Council on Foreign Relations. Membership Roster. 2004
pages cited this search: 1
Council on Foreign Relations, The Harold Pratt House, 58 East 68th Street, New York NY 10021, Tel: 212-434-9400, Fax: 212-861-1789.
Membership Roster. 2004.
The Council on Foreign Relations has been the most powerful private organization in U.S. foreign policy since it began in 1921. While priding itself on non-partisanship and on recent efforts to recruit minorities, women, and youth (under 35), CFR's 4,200 members mainly reflect the resources needed by the ruling class to maintain their power. Don't call them if you want to join; they call you. And don't wait for a call unless you have big money, national security expertise, CIA experience, a political constituency, or clout with the media. CFR publishes the prestigious journal "Foreign Affairs" as well as a number of books and reports. Another major activity is to organize closed meetings for their members with assorted world leaders. Everyone feels free to share views and information about current world events, primarily because CFR has strict confidentiality rules and keeps its records locked up for 25 years.
To save disk space, the several membership rosters in NameBase were entered to avoid redundancy. Citations to membership rosters prior to 2004 (1985, 1992, 1995, 1997 and 2001) were deleted if the name also appears on the 2004 roster.
Compile a name index for this source
Orde F. Kittrie is a professor of law at Arizona State University (ASU), where he teaches international law, homeland security law, and criminal law. Prior to joining the ASU law faculty in 2004, Professor Kittrie served for eleven years at the United States Department of State.
In January 2005, Kittrie was named one of six members of a blue ribbon National Academies of Science (NAS) committee tasked with issuing a report on “Strengthening Cooperative Nuclear Nonproliferation Programs of the U.S. and Russia.” The report will be a cooperative project of the NAS committee and a recently named Russian Academy of Sciences committee.
Just prior to joining the ASU law faculty, Kittrie served as the State Department's Director of International Anti-Crime Programs, overseeing United States policy and technical assistance programs for promoting the rule of law and combating transnational crime, including corruption, money laundering, intellectual property piracy, cyber-crime, and alien smuggling. Key projects he launched in that capacity include an anti-corruption initiative in Iraq and an Arab regional anticorruption initiative in cooperation with the World Bank and the United Nations. Prior to that assignment, Kittrie served as a Senior Attorney and Adviser to the Under Secretary of State for Public Affairs and Public Diplomacy, assisting with efforts to improve America's image and promote human rights and democracy in the Arab world.
Kittrie earlier served as Special Assistant to the Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business & Agricultural Affairs. In that capacity, he worked on economic aid for Pakistan following September 11 and assisted with planning for the reconstruction of Afghanistan. Kittrie also worked on U.S.-Mexico border issues, the reform of Jordanian business law, and negotiation of the world's first multilateral agreement to combat computer crime. Prior to that, Kittrie served as the State Department's Senior Attorney for Nuclear Affairs. In that capacity, he negotiated five nuclear non-proliferation agreements between the United States and Russia and served as counsel for the U.S. Government's sanctions and other responses to the 1998 Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests. Earlier in his State Department career, Kittrie specialized in trade controls governing arms and dual-use items, in which capacity he was a principal drafter of U.N. Security Council Resolutions, U.S. Executive Orders, and U.S. regulations imposing and implementing arms embargoes on terrorism-supporting and other outlaw regimes, including Rwanda during the genocide.
Immediately following his graduation from the University of Michigan Law School, Kittrie spent a year as a Ford Foundation Fellow in Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Syria. Between his graduation from Yale University with a B.A. in History and his matriculation at the University of Michigan Law School, Kittrie served as Press Spokesman and Legislative Assistant to U.S. Congresswoman Connie Morella.
Kittrie is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. As a Mexican-American, he is active in U.S.-Mexico issues and Latino causes, including as a member of the Arizona-Mexico Commission and as a member of the Board of Directors of the Hispanic Bar Association of D.C. from 2002 to 2004.
Recon in Afghanistan, spreading Democracy in Arab world...mmm, wonder which side he's on.
Irrelevant. Move along.
You know, you're just sad. First, the description you've provided actually makes this guy an exceptionally qualified source of information on international law. If anything you've increased the weight of his argument by giving his credentials. Thanks. Second, you just stopped whining about people not responding to the points of the article you put up in your thread, and now you come over here and attempt to attack the source of one of the articles rather than dealing with the contents of it. Maybe because you have no good response? And are you saying that you're opposed to Democracy in the Arab world? Are you actually using this to attack this guy? He has one of the most impressive CVs I've ever seen. Come on, enough with the crazy talk. No one's buying it (except for your crazy buddies on this forum).