Who is going to enforce 'international law'?
Why Israel (probably) doesn't have to worry about it.
Good and interesting statement from Congressman Jamie Raskin:
America is Israel’s steadfast ally, and I strongly support President Biden’s pledge to stand “shoulder to shoulder” with Israel in combating Hamas in a just war of self-defense undertaken pursuant to the requirements of international law and the “rules of war.” Hamas’ murderous terrorism must never be allowed to happen again—against the Israeli people or any people on earth.
A just war undertaken in self-defense must be prosecuted justly, according to international and humanitarian law, the central purpose of which is the protection of civilian life from military violence. The more than two million Palestinians essentially trapped in miserable and vulnerable conditions in the densely packed Gaza Strip, nearly half of them children, have a right to be kept safe from the terrorist violence of Hamas and from the Israeli military campaign launched in response to it. The Palestinian people are not responsible for the criminal actions of Hamas terrorists, but there have already been more than 2,200 lives lost in Gaza in this first week of aerial attacks, and Israel’s anticipated ground invasion has not even begun.
These things are all true and wise as far as they go. But who is going to enforce “international law” against Israel?
I’m reminded that after 9/11, the United States did its utmost to create ideas and physical spaces that existed outside the law, both domestic and international.
For example, the Bush Administration determined that Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters weren’t covered by the Geneva Convention dictating humane treatment of wartime prisoners.
Similarly, the U.S. decided to hold those detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba because it wanted a place that was controlled by the American government but — arguably — beyond the reach of the law. Vox:
In 2002, the US opened a prison at its naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The 9/11 attacks had occurred just months before, and the US was capturing hundreds of men in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It wanted a place to hold and question them. So the Bush administration opened Guantánamo and claimed that it existed outside of US and international law.
The detainees didn’t have to be charged with a crime to be imprisoned, and the US could hold them as long as they liked. By 2003, there were nearly 700 men imprisoned in Guantánamo, but there was backlash from around the world.
Even now, the United States doesn’t recognize the International Criminal Court, a tribunal set up to enforce … violations of international law. Why? Because it worries that American officials and military personnel could be prosecuted under the court’s jurisdiction. The Trump Administration went so far as to impose sanctions on the ICC to bully the court out of any possible prosecutions.
The United States most likely committed a number of war crimes while prosecuting the War on Terror. But it stands beyond the reach of international law.
The truth is, it’s hard to imagine any scenario that unfolds over the next few weeks and months that would bring a prosecution against Israel for violations of international law. The U.S. probably would use its muscle to prevent that. The only restraint here is Israeli leaders’ own sense of morality, and perhaps a desire not to go so far that the country becomes a pariah state. But righteous outrage — and the Hamas attack on Israel was outrageous and murderous — has a way of dissolving those restraints. We saw that two decades ago.
It is probably good to remind the everybody that targeting civilians is against international law. Sadly, that law exists more as an ideal and aspiration than as an actual boundary likely to be enforced by the courts.