Anees writes from Jerusalem:
Eyal Weizman is an Israeli architect and scholar of the spatial
aspects of Israel's Occupation and military operations. His many
excellent essays/books/interviews are worth checking out. In this recent article on 'lawfare' (law+warfare) in Gaza,
he expounds upon his other area of research: the paradox of
humanitarian intervention/law– the paradox being that humanitarian aid
often enables an injustice to keep on going by making it more
'tolerable'; and in the case of Israel's military ops of the last few
years, humanitarian law has in some respects become the IDF's handbook
of allowances for even more devastation.
Here are some quotes (it's still definitely worth reading the whole thing):
The ability to communicate a warning [by the IDF
to Palestinian civilians prior to bombarding their homes, ostensibly to
save innocent lives] during a battle is technologically complicated.
Battle-spaces are messy, violent and confusing environments. To
communicating [sic] a "warning" can be to save a life; but it can also
in principle have the advantage of rendering "legitimate" targets whose
destruction would have been otherwise in contravention of the law.
There can thus be a direct relationship between the proliferation of
warning and the proliferation of destruction. [Weizman then mentions
such IDF warning techniques as phone calls, leaflet drops, and
so-called 'knock on the roof' teaser-bombs]
…
An officer at the international-law division [of the IDF] explained to [Ha'aretz
correspondant] Yotam Feldman the logic of these warnings: "The people
who go into a house despite a warning do not have to be taken into
account in terms of injury to civilians, because they are voluntary human shields.
From the legal point of view, [once warned] I do not have to show
consideration for them. In the case of people who return to their home
in order to protect it, they are taking part in the fighting." By
giving residents the choice between death and expulsion, this military
interpretation of international humanitarian law
shifted people between legal designations – one phone-call turns
"non-combatants" into "human shields", who can thus be defined as
"taking direct part in hostilities" and shot as "legitimate targets".
…
The
Israeli military's ability to warn people in Gaza about the impending
destruction of their homes has also allowed it to define most buildings
in Gaza as legitimate targets. The purported military ability to warn
and perform "controlled" and "discriminate" destruction might even have
created more devastation than do "traditional" strategies, in part
because the manipulative and euphoric rhetoric used to promulgate them
induce officers and politicians to authorise their frequent and
extended use. In this case, the "technologies of (mass) warning"
contribute both to the proliferation and the retrospective
justification of mass destruction.
…
The former legal adviser
to the Israeli military, Daniel Reisner, told Yotam Feldman that his
job was about finding "untapped potential in international law" that
would allow military actions in the grey zone: "International law
develops through its violation… an act that is forbidden today
becomes permissible if executed by enough countries […] If the same
process occurred in private law, the legal speed limit would be 115 kilometers an hour and we would pay income tax of 4 percent."
…
The elastic nature of the law and the power of military
action to extend it in the age of lawfare combine to make the people of
Gaza objects of an experiment – in two senses. First, all sorts of new
munitions and warfare techniques are applied and marketed. Second,
certain limits are tested and explored: the limits of the legal, the
limits of the ethical, the limits of the tolerable, the limits of what
can be done to people in the name of "war on terror".
The logic of this realisation may be the need for those concerned
with the interests and rights of people affected by war to employ a
double, even paradoxical strategy: one that uses international
humanitarian law, while highlighting the dangers implied in it and
challenging its truth claims and thus also the basis of its authority.
In any event, international law should not be the only language of
protest and resistance to Israeli violence. The attack on Gaza should
be opposed not because it is "illegal", but because it serves the logic
of Israeli control of Palestinians.
Rather than moderation or restraint, the violence and destruction of Gaza might be the true face of international law.
One comment by Weiss: the Irgun called ahead to the King David Hotel in 1946. Then they went ahead and blew it up, killing 91 people. The phone calls are always adduced by the Israel lobbyists as somehow justifying what followed.
