Not only has Israel prepared a defense of its conduct during Cast Lead in response to the Goldstone Report, so, too, has Hamas. Jonathan Dahohah Halevi writes:
Hamas’ line of defence vis-Ã -vis the Goldstone report has been shaped by a group of Palestinian jurists headed by Diya Al-Din Muhsin Al-Madhoun, former legal adviser to Ismail Haniyeh (Hamas Prime Minister) and today chairman of the Tawtheeq (documentation) organization that was the key factor assigned by Hamas’ government, on which the Goldstone committee relied for sources of information in its fact finding mission. In series of interviews to the media, Madhoun elaborated as follows Hamas’ main legal arguments of its would be response to the Goldstone report assumed to be delivered in the near future to the UN secretary general.
Israel Matzav observes:
The bottom line is that Hamas claims – without accepting the 1947 UN partition resolution – that Israel has no right to be anywhere not designated for the Jewish state by the 1947 UN partition resolution, and that therefore it has no right of self defense.
Elder of Ziyon noted earlier on that this necessarily skewed the Goldstone report as the commission was taking testimony from Hamas itself.
The following two items from Jonathan Halevi though are worth noting.
The armed struggle is legitimate
Madhoun asserts that all historic Palestine is an occupied land and that the international law legitimizes the right of self defence and resistance of the Palestinian people, who are living under 61 years of occupation. Therefore, Madhoun argues that “resistance operations conducted by the Palestinian resistance organizations, including launching rockets and mortar shells at the occupying Zionist forces, and all other military operations, are legitimate according the international law under the principle of defending our people and liberating our occupied land.”
Israel has no right for self defence
Madhoun entirely rebuts Israel’s claim for self defence arguing that it constitutes a grave violation of the Palestinian people’s right for self defence as reflected in its armed struggle to liberate the land of Palestine. And in his words (translated from Arabic): “the war against Gaza was illegitimate… as the international law rules that there isn’t legitimate defence [of the occupier] against the legitimate defence [of the occupied] embodied in the defence through struggle.”
This unfortunately is the result of decades of corruption in the UN. The late Jeane Kirkpatrick noted 20 years ago in How the PLO was legitimized:
NOT long after Khrushchev articulated these distinctions, the United Nations General Assembly formally adopted them. Where the Charter permitted force by member states only to defend themselves against attack, GA Resolution 2708 XX (1970) created a new category of “legitimate” force which could be used against member states. This new right was confirmed in subsequent resolutions approving the struggle of “liberation” groups against “colonialism” by “all necessary means at their disposal.” Step by step the new doctrine was codified in the General Assembly. In 1970, with U.S. and Western support, the General Assembly adopted the “Declaration on Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Nations” which further expanded the rights of “peoples” and restricted those of states by providing, inter alia, that “all peoples have the right freely to determine without external influences their political status and pursue their economic, social, and cultural development, and every state has the duty to respect this right in accordance with the provisions of the Charter.”
Moreover: “Every state has the duty to refrain from any forcible action which deprives peopIe … of their right to self-determination and freedom and independence. In their actions against resistance to such forcible action in pursuit of the exercise of self-determination, such peoples are entitled to seek and receive support, in accordance with the purposes and principles of the Charter” (emphasis added).
With this declaration, the General Assembly, more clearly and unambiguously than ever, took the position not only that “peoples” had rights superior to those of member states, but that states resisting the rights of “peoples” could themselves become a “threat to peace.” The General Assembly thus subordinated the principle of the “sovereign inviolability” of states to the struggle of “peoples” against “colonialism” and put important new restrictions on the right of states to selfdefense.
The UN – at the time recalled above, under the influence of the Soviet Union – has been twisting international law to empower terrorists. The Goldstone report is the product of this perversion of law and order orchestrated by the very organization that was supposed to build the foundations of world peace.
What should international law look like? Prof. Asa Kasher:
•We in Israel are in a key position in the development of customary international law in this field because we are on the front lines in the fight against terrorism. The more often Western states apply principles that originated in Israel to their own non-traditional conflicts in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, then the greater the chance these principles have of becoming a valuable part of international law.
Will the West realize that its success in dealing with continued threats means taking a stand and defending Israel against international organizations dedicated to its destruction?
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
