Wednesday, January 21, 2009
This is just a quick link to follow -- an "aside." These are links to interesting things that, for one reason or another, I didn't place into a full posting. Click the link to visit the full article. Go to the blog index for a regular listing of posts.
NGO Monitor: The NGO Front in the Gaza War: Exploitation of International Law - 'The exploitation of international legal rhetoric is a major weapon in the political war to delegitmize Israeli anti-terror operations. Under this strategy, crystallized at the NGO Forum of the UN's 2001 Durban Conference, the terminology of international humanitarian (IHL) and human rights law is selectively applied to charge Israel with "violations of law," "crimes against humanity," "war crimes," "disproportionate force" and "indiscriminate attacks." In contrast, the violation of Gilad Shalit's human rights and Hamas' use of human shields are ignored. NGOs use the legal language to increase the credibility and seriousness of the charges, and in the Gaza conflict, many are already calling for international "investigations" and "lawfare" (i.e. filing lawsuits against Israeli officials in different countries) based on these accusations. Hamas, Hezbollah, and the PLO have reaped significant political benefits from this strategy in their conflicts with Israel. This NGO Monitor report analyzes common NGO legal claims...'
