No control over the trigger finger

[Englander]

By Uzi Benziman

On August 27, 2001, the Israel Defense Forces was faced with the opportunity to assassinate Abu Ali Mustafa, secretary general of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and it acted upon it. In response, members of the organization murdered minister Rehavam Ze'evi.

On January 14, 2002, Israel liquidated Raed Karmi, a Tanzim leader in the Tul Karm area. Three days later, an Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades activist murdered six people at a bat mitzvah celebration in Hadera, thereby marking Fatah's adoption of the tactic of carrying out suicide attacks within Israel, previously employed only by Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

The time that has passed has yet to impress on the captains of the defense establishment that the use of brute force against the Palestinians elicits a painful response - as shown once again three days ago, in the terror attacks at the Gush Etzion junction and near Eli.

When three young Israelis are laid to rest, and seven wounded individuals are writhing in agony as a result of terror attacks perpetrated by Palestinians, one's heart goes out to the bereaved and affected families, and anger over the murderous Palestinian violence rises anew. Nevertheless, identifying with the pain of the victims does not negate the need to point out shortcomings in the thought processes among the professional ranks of the defense establishment and the political echelon in charge of them.

Since the completion of the disengagement, Israeli security forces have killed at least 24 Palestinians, including a 13-year-old resident of the Askar refugee camp near Nablus, and two youths, aged 16 and 17, in Tul Karm (B'Tselem figures as of September 30, 2005). Over the past two months, Israel has arrested some 700 Palestinians defined as "wanted men." On a daily basis, the public is informed of raids by IDF units and undercover Border Police forces on targets throughout the West Bank, with the results being more arrests, sometimes several dozen a day; and the confrontations sometimes end in the killing of wanted Palestinians.

More at;
Haaretz

[eyl]

1. Uzi Benziman assumes

that the attacks would not have happened if not for Israeli actions. That is unsupported by the facts.

A lot of the time, the "responses" to Israeli actions are nothing of the sort. Instead, the first successful attack following the action is pronounced to be the response, even if it was planend well before the action. Take, for example, the "response" to Raed Karmi's assassination that Benziman cites as proof of his contention - an attack inside Israel (even a shooting attack like this one, IIRC, much less a suicide bombing) generally takes considerably more than three days to plan and carry out.

[Colorado Blue]

2. It gets even wierder if one considers the recent "retaliatory"

rocket attacks on Israel, which were launched in "retaliation" for an accidental explosion at a Hamas parade in Gaza - AFTER the withdrawal from Gaza.

[Englander]

10. You're right - that is weird.

Which is why I'm surprised that they merit a mention, or why incidents
that seem unrelated to the specific cases the author of the article
had mentioned, have appeared in this thread. He wasn't writing an
article about Gaza, he was writing about the policy of the idf, and
his final point is revealed at the end of article, in the final
paragraph, which explains the title of the piece, that Peres & the
Labour ministers should try to influence the PM & defense minister,
and end the 'collective punishment'.

[Englander]

11. Also-

thanks for posting in one of my threads!! :)

[Englander]

6. 'Carry on regardless', eh?

Ignore the point the author was making, ignore those *other*
fatalities, the killed teenagers, ignore the 'collective punishment',
ignore the punitive measures, & above all, ignore the Occupation.

[eyl]

8. "ignoring the point?"

The author's point was that Israeli attacks cause violent Palestinian responses and are therefore counterproductive, and he cites two cases as evidence. How is pointing out that his basic assumption is incorrect (at least some of the time) "ignoring the point he was making"?

Mind you, there are cases which I agree with him - that assassinations were carried out when they shouldn't have been (at least apparently; since none of us has access to the intelligence on which the decision was based, we're handicapped in judging whether it wqas justified or not). But the conclusion to be drawn from the article is that the IDF should refrain from action - is as wrong, especially so long as the Palestinians are not doing so.

[Coastie for Truth]

3. Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades activist murdered six people at a bat mitzvah

Let's look at the case of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades activist who murdered six people at a bat mitzvah. According to the cited Uzi Benziman article:

On January 14, 2002, Israel liquidated Raed Karmi, a Tanzim leader in the Tul Karm area. Three days later, an Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades activist murdered six people at a bat mitzvah celebration in Hadera, thereby marking Fatah's adoption of the tactic of carrying out suicide attacks within Israel, previously employed only by Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

© Copyright 2005 Haaretz. All rights reserved

Taking the facts as stated, six Israeli civilians are killed at a civilian religious celebration in retaliation (reprisal) for the killing of one guerrilla leader, Raed Karmi, a Tanzim leader.

No further embellishment of the facts aliunde the stipulated record.

Evidence of the governing law is Hackworth's Digest of International Law, Vol. 6, pages 154-158, (1943), requiring "proportionality" in an act of reprisal.

See a further discussion at United Nations Reports of International Arbitration Awards, Volume 2, page 1011 (1949).

For evidence of the state of International Law, and not as a source of International Law per se, I would commend to your attention United States Army Field Manual 27-10, The Law of Land Warfare, paragraph 497(e)., where it is recited

Form of Reprisal The acts resorted to by way of reprisal need not conform to those complained of by the injured party, but should not be excessive or exceed the degree of violence committed by the enemy.

where the operative phrase, as applied to the stipulated facts are "but should not be excessive or exceed the degree of violence committed by the enemy."

It would appear that an honest, non-frivolous argument can be made that the attack on the bat mitzvah was a WAR CRIME.

[eyl]

4. A note

under the laws of war, a reprisal and retaliation are not the same thing (well, reprisal is a form of retaliation, but not necessarily vice versa)

Retaliation is an attack against someone in response to an attack against you. In the case of a reprisal, that retaliation takes the form of something which would normally violate the laws of war; this is done in response to a violation of those laws by the initial attacker*, and some actions (e.g. deliberate attacks against civilians) are specifically and explicitly prohibited from being done as reprisals.

*Or the military, orgnization, nation, etc he belonged to - you don't have to focus retaliation on the specific soldiers who attacked you.

[Jim Sagle]

5. Kill Fatah.

[Englander]

7. Vote Fatah. n/t

[Coastie for Truth]

9. Nick Cohen's New Statesman article

I'm not going to edit it or parse it for you --- you can read the whole thing and nit pick the article instead of nit picking my parsing. Besides, I have already parsed it at

[Violet_Crumble]

12. He claimed Fatah adopted the tactic of suicide-bombings...

That's not correct. He seems to be thinking that the Al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigades operated under orders from Fatah. The reality is that while Al-Aqsa Brigades tend to claim affiliation with Fatah, there are no direct links between them and Fatah. They operate under no-one's orders but their own...

Violet....

[Englander]

13. The author is unclear on that, Violet.

He doesn't actually say 'suicide-bombings', he says suicide-attacks,
which could give the impression that's what he meant. The incident
he refers to, the attack at the party at Hadera, was an attack by
a gun-man, & wasn't an actual 'suicide-attack'. The killer, Abed
Hassouna, was shot by police, it's clear that he wasn't going to be
arrested, so in that respect, it's a 'suicide-attack' but the author
is being misleading, there.

'Six shot dead at bat mitzvah

Israel vows revenge after Palestinian runs amok

Graham Usher and agencies in Jerusalem
Friday January 18, 2002
The Guardian

Israel vowed last night that it would teach Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority "a lesson it would not forget", after a Palestinian militant killed six Israelis and wounded 30 in a packed party hall in the northern Israeli town of Hadera.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,635449,00.html

[Violet_Crumble]

14. Yeah, it did give me that impression...

..though my point was that he was incorrect in saying that Fatah adopted any tactics like that, whether it be suicide-attacks or suicide-bombings, and that Fatah do not and never have given orders to Al-Aqsa Brigades...

Violet...

[bemildred]

15. Yeah, he gets a bit imaginative in places. nt