INSCT-- New Battlefields, Old Laws

My own view is it is a mistake to condemn a group of academics just for taking the questions raised by INSCT because the world is not now as it ought to be. Academic institutions, including INSCT, have a role to play in delegitimating the underpinnings of the administration's notion of 'the long war.' And reaction to what INSCT and others in the University are doing should certainly be honest. It should not be based on poor or distorted information. [All added emphases are mine.]

The commercial arm of the ICT
If you have a soft underbelly, our retired Israel Defense Forces personnel can help.

There is nothing wrong, I think, in talking to any group--CIA, ICT,
PeaceAction--just so long as one does so ... transparently. For my part
that means delivering the same messages and research that I do to my
academic colleagues, and all of those messages are contrary to the
hegemonic cant offered by our administration. INSCT and the Maxwell School could
make a real contribution to changing the discourse.

Robert Rubenstein,
Professor of Anthropology and International Relations at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University, member of the INSCT faculty
Peace-list Digest, August 6-7, 2007

[responding to Ford, Linda and Glunts, Ira, "Maxwell's Silver Hammer: Syracuse University Enlists In the Global War On Terror," CounterPunch, August 3, 2007]

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Your article [Maxwell's Silver Hammer...] responding to the recent piece that appeared in Maxwell Perspective about our Institute for National Security and Counter Terrorism (INSCT) has stirred considerable interest within the Maxwell School and across campus. You made a number of thoughtful and interesting points about various issues raised in the Perspective piece, which, unfortunately, may have conveyed to some the wrong impression about INSCT and its “mission.”

Michael Wasylenko
Senior Associate Dean, Maxwell School
Personal email communication, writing as an official spokesman for the Maxwell School

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Many who follow INSCT and its activities know that the Institute has been engaged for nearly one year now in what promises to be an important research project that is examining the applicability of the long-standing laws of armed conflict to situations of asymmetric warfare (i.e. conflicts between parties of unequal power). While it is always good to learn that our work is being recognized by others, some recent commentary about INSCT and its Maxwell School and College of Law sponsors suggests that there may be some misunderstanding concerning the role and mission of INSCT, and about the nature of the research project that we are pursuing.

William C. Banks
Director of the Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism (INSCT), Maxwell School, Syracuse University
"A Statement From The Director...," INSCT web site.

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During the hostilities in southern Lebanon,...the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF)...[were left]...with little alternative than to attack these [Lebanese] villages, both from the air and on the ground. But these IDF tactics received serious criticism from some in the international community regarding their proportionality and whether the resulting civilian casualties and damage were justifiable. This...begs the question whether existing international law...is adequate....

Mitchel B. Wallerstein
Dean of The Maxwell School of Citizenship & Public Affairs, Syracuse University
"Our Unofficial Motto," Maxwell Perspective, Spring 2007, inside cover.

The article entitled "Changing the Laws of War: Conference Seeks To Legitimize Civilian Casualties," by Howard Friel, appeared in the National Catholic Reporter (Oct 5, 2007) and on the web at NCRonline. It considers the project to rewrite the laws of war which is a major undertaking of the Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism at Syracuse University. This article was written to draw attention to the "Old Battlefields, New Laws Conference," which is being held today in Washington, DC. It also addresses the continuing controversy surrounding the goals and mission of the INSCT.

Ira Glunts
Oct 8, 2007

The Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism in the United States and the Institute for Counter Terrorism in Israel are sponsoring a conference Oct. 8 in Washington to argue for changes in international humanitarian law -- also called the “laws of war” -- that protects civilians in armed conflict.

The conference, titled “New Battlefields, Old Laws,” developed from a meeting between Mitchel Wallerstein, dean of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, to which the Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism belongs, and Boaz Ganor, director of the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel, home of the Institute for Counter Terrorism, during the Lebanon War between Israel and Hezbollah in summer 2006. What it amounts to is a public diplomacy exercise to conceal war crimes.

Dr. Ganor told The Jerusalem Post, “We talked about the frustration we had over how the world was relating to the war, mainly the claim that Israel wasn’t responding with ‘proportionality.’ ” Dr. Wallerstein told Yediot Ahronot, Israel’s largest-circulation newspaper: “Last summer, the IDF [Israel Defense Force] faced the issue of human shields, and the storing of weapons in civilian areas. We’ve seen this in other places such as Somalia and the Balkans. We are likely to see this again. International law does not adequately deal with this issue.” Dr. Wallerstein also said that Israel had “little alternative than to attack these [Lebanese] villages, both from the air and on the ground.”

The concerns of Dr. Wallerstein and Dr. Ganor were not that Israel had in fact responded disproportionately to an armed raid by Hezbollah, and that Israel had bombed villages in Lebanon, but that Israel was criticized for its response and that international law did not validate these Israeli actions.

According to the conference Web site, “asymmetric warfare mounted by non-state terrorist groups … leave the defending state with little choice but to respond in ways that inflict heavy casualties.” An in-house publication of the Maxwell School also stated, “Terrorism often leaves the defending state with little choice but to respond in ways that inflict heavy civilian casualties.”

The institutional assumption of the Maxwell School is that the infliction of heavy civilian casualties by the United States and Israel may be occasionally necessary, is inherently legitimate as the response of a “defending state” against “non-state terrorist groups,” and thus requires validation under international humanitarian law. The goal of the U.S.-Israeli conference is to propose modifications to that body of law.

Before considering a new protocol to the Geneva Conventions, as the conference sponsors propose, it might be prudent to consider the nature of the heavy civilian casualties inflicted by the presumptive “defending states” -- Israel and the United States -- in three areas of recent and current conflict.

On July 12, 2006, Hezbollah militants conducted an armed raid into northern Israel, killing three Israeli soldiers and capturing two others. The raid was apparently intended to capture Israeli soldiers to trade for Hezbollah and Lebanese prisoners held in Israel. While hostage-taking is a violation of the laws of war, both Israel and Hezbollah have done it and have subsequently negotiated prisoner exchanges in 1985, 1998, 2000 and 2004. While the Hezbollah raid was deplorable, it was limited.

As such, the Hezbollah incursion did not constitute an “armed attack” under international law, whereby, in the generally accepted formulation, military forces cross an international boundary in visible, massive and sustained form, when the necessity for action is instant, overwhelming, and leaves no choice of means and no moment for deliberation. Since the right of “self-defense” under the U.N. Charter arises only if an “armed attack” has occurred, Israel’s decision to bomb Lebanon in response to the Hezbollah provocation did not constitute self-defense under the U.N. Charter. Without a self-defense justification and without an authorizing Security Council resolution, Israel’s decision to bomb Lebanon was an illegal military reprisal under international law.

Armed reprisals are prohibited in part because they perpetuate the cycle of violence. Thus, Hezbollah initiated its armed raid into northern Israel, Israel responded with extensive air strikes throughout Lebanon, and Hezbollah responded with missiles fired into Israel. The harm to human life, civilian property and the environment went well beyond the original Hezbollah raid and Israel’s military casualties on July 12.

Lebanon’s Higher Relief Council reported that the overall death toll in Lebanon due to the war was 1,191, one-third of whom were children and the majority civilians. Human Rights Watch reported: “Out of the 499 Lebanese civilian casualties of whom Human Rights Watch was able to confirm the age and gender, 302 were women or children. The organization concluded, “In critical respects, Israel conducted the war with reckless indifference to the fate of Lebanese civilians and violated the laws of war.”

Human Rights Watch also reported that “Israeli air strikes destroyed or damaged tens of thousands of homes.”

Corroborating the Human Rights Watch report, Amnesty International reported: “The Lebanese government estimates that 31 ‘vital points’ (such as airports, ports, water and sewage treatment plants, electrical facilities) have been completely or partially destroyed, as have around 80 bridges and 94 roads. More than 25 fuel stations and around 900 commercial enterprises were hit. The number of residential properties, offices and shops completely destroyed exceeds 30,000.” This included “two government hospitals-- in Bint Jbeil and Meis al-Jebel -- that were completely destroyed in Israeli attacks.”

In two investigations -- the findings of which were issued on Aug. 3, 2006, and Sept. 6 of this year -- Human Rights Watch found little evidence that Hezbollah used human shields to lure Israel into targeting and killing Lebanese civilians: “We found strong evidence that Hezbollah stored most of its rockets in bunkers and weapon storage facilities located in uninhabited fields and valleys, that in the vast majority of cases Hezbollah fighters left populated areas as soon as the fighting started, and that Hezbollah fired the vast majority of its rockets from pre-prepared positions outside villages.”

While the Israeli soldiers who were attacked by Hezbollah militants in northern Israel on July 12, 2006, had a right to defend themselves, the state of Israel had no right under international law to bomb Lebanon in response to the Hezbollah raid.

International humanitarian law also applies to the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. The Fourth Geneva Convention is the main source of such law that applies to the occupation. Article 49(6) of the convention states: “The occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territories it occupies.” Every established international legal authority and major human rights organization has stated that the convention applies to Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories and thus outlaws Israel’s settlements.

Is Israel “the defending state” in the Palestinian territories? Under international humanitarian law, Israel has been engaged in the “belligerent occupation” of the territories for over 40 years. The occupation has been condemned by U.N. resolutions spanning these four decades. And according to B’Tselem, the highly regarded Israeli human rights organization, from December 1987 when the first Palestinian intifada began to August 2007, Palestinian fatalities have exceeded Israeli fatalities by a ratio of 5 to 1.

Notwithstanding all this, the conference sponsors are inexplicably silent about Israel’s extensive violations of international humanitarian law in the occupied territories.

Because Iraq did not engage in an “armed attack” against the United States and the U.N. Security Council did not authorize a use of force against Iraq, the U.S. invasion of Iraq violated the most basic and important rule of the U.N. Charter -- the prohibition against the threat and use of force. As such, the Iraq invasion was a “crime against peace,” which is “the supreme international crime” in international law under the Nuremberg precedent. One could hardly argue that the United States was “the defending state” in the course of its invasion of Iraq.

A credible estimate published last year in the medical journal The Lancet estimated the number of civilian deaths since the invasion at 601,027. Last month, the British polling agency Opinion Research Business estimated that civilian fatalities since the invasion have probably exceeded 1 million.

While Israel cannot be expected to tolerate armed incursions into its territory by an armed militia in southern Lebanon (Hezbollah) that operates outside the authority of the Lebanese government and also cannot tolerate terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians by armed Palestinian groups such as Hamas, it’s worth noting that Hezbollah did not exist until the illegal Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, and Hamas did not exist until the illegal Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. Likewise, the Iraqi terrorist attacks against Iraqi civilians, as the main tactic of insurrection against the U.S. invasion and occupation, obviously would not have arisen without the U.S. invasion itself.

A conference organized by U.S. and Israeli academics would do better to focus on the major violations of the most basic rules of international law by their own governments, for which they are ultimately responsible as citizens, rather than propose ill-advised modifications to international law in order to sanction civilian casualties by the two “defending states.”

Howard Friel is a graduate of St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, and coauthor, with Richard Falk, of The Record of the Paper: How The New York Times Misreports U.S. Foreign Policy and Israel-Palestine on Record: How The New York Times Misreports Conflict in the Middle East.

The Counterterrorists Among Us