July 21, 2006

The Beauty of the U.N. is Precisely That It is So Good at Accomplishing Nothing

From Victor Davis Hanson:

What should the United States do? If it really cares about human life and future peace, then we should talk ad nauseam about "restraint" and "proportionality" while privately assuring Israel the leeway to smash both Hamas and Hezbollah - and humiliate Syria and Iran, who may well come off very poorly from their longed-for but bizarre war.

Only then will Israel restore some semblance of deterrence and strengthen nascent democratic movements in both Lebanon and even the West Bank. This is the truth that everyone from London to Cairo knows, but dares not speak.

...In this regard, it is time to stop the silly slurs that American policy in the Middle East is either in shambles or culpable for the present war. In fact, if we keep our cool, the Bush doctrine is working. Both Afghans and Iraqis each day fight and kill Islamist terrorists; neither was doing so before 9/11. Syria and Iran have never been more isolated; neither was isolated when Bill Clinton praised the "democracy" in Tehran or when an American secretary of State sat on the tarmac in Damascus for hours to pay homage to Syria's gangsters. Israel is at last being given an opportunity to unload on jihadists; that was impossible during the Arafat fraud that grew out of the Oslo debacle. Europe is waking up to the dangers of radical Islamism; in the past, it bragged of its aid and arms sales to terrorist governments from the West Bank to Baghdad.

The U.N. is the perfect forum for such meaningless talking. Let everyone in the U.N. say anything they want. It just gives cover to everyone in the world for not supporting the Hezbollah terrorists. Nations can go to the U.N. and complain about Israel, or pretend to complain, all they want, and look like they're trying to do something. Meanwhile Israel goes on blowing the hell out of Hezbollah.

So after 9/11, the London bombings, the Madrid murders, the French riots, the Beslan atrocities, the killings in India, the Danish cartoon debacle, Theo Van Gogh, and the daily arrests of Islamic terrorists trying to blow up, behead, or shoot innocent people around the globe, the world is sick of the jihadist ilk. And for all the efforts of the BBC, Reuters, Western academics, and the horde of appeasers and apologists that usually bail these terrorist killers out when their rhetoric finally outruns their muscle, this time they can't.

Instead, a disgusted world secretly wants these terrorists to get what they deserve. And who knows: This time they just might.

The world is getting sick of the terrorists' phony excuses and their use of human shields.  The rules of the game are changing.

“This misuse of civilians as shields and swords requires a reassessment of the laws of war.”

From Alan Dershowitz in the Wall Street Journal (no link):

While Israel does everything reasonable to minimize civilian  casualties -- not always with success -- Hezbollah and Hamas want to maximize civilian  casualties on both sides. Islamic terrorists, a diplomat commented years  ago, "have mastered the harsh arithmetic of pain. . . . Palestinian  casualties play in their favor and Israeli casualties play in their  favor." These are groups that send children to die as suicide bombers, sometimes  without the child knowing that he is being sacrificed. Two years ago, an  11-year-old was paid to take a parcel through Israeli security.  Unbeknownst to him, it contained a bomb that was to be detonated remotely.  (Fortunately the plot was foiled.)

This misuse of civilians as shields and swords requires a reassessment of  the laws of war. The distinction between combatants and civilians -- easy  when combatants were uniformed members of armies that fought on  battlefields distant from civilian centers -- is more difficult in the present  context. Now, there is a continuum of "civilianality": Near the most civilian end  of this continuum are the pure innocents -- babies, hostages and others  completely uninvolved; at the more combatant end are civilians who  willingly  harbor terrorists, provide material resources and serve as human shields;  in the middle are those who support the terrorists politically, or  spiritually.

The laws of war and the rules of morality must adapt to these realities.  An analogy to domestic criminal law is instructive: A bank robber who takes  a teller hostage and fires at police from behind his human shield is guilty  of murder if they, in an effort to stop the robber from shooting,  accidentally kill the hostage. The same should be true of terrorists who use civilians  as shields from behind whom they fire their rockets. The terrorists must be  held legally and morally responsible for the deaths of the civilians,  even if the direct physical cause was an Israeli rocket aimed at those targeting Israeli citizens.

...Israel left Lebanon in 2000 and Gaza in 2005. These are not "occupied"  territories. Yet they serve as launching pads for attacks on Israeli  civilians. Occupation does not cause terrorism, then, but terrorism seems  to cause occupation. If Israel is not to reoccupy to prevent terrorism, the  Lebanese government and the Palestinian Authority must ensure that these regions cease to be terrorist safe havens.

Preposterously Biased Treatment by the U.N. of the Israel-Hezbollah War

From commenter Olah Chadasha, of the Greetings from the French Hill weblog:

The UN has not even offered their help to Israel even-though there are over 2 million refugees as a result of the rocketing on the north of Israel. No, instead, the entire and south of Israel has opened its doors to these people. No refugee or DP camps for them. Regardless, not one peep from the UN Human Rights Commission about the Israeli refugee problem. Nope, it's all happening in Lebanon. It's a picnic in Israel right now. The only peep heard from the Human Rights Commission is that Israel might be brought up on war crimes for its actions in Lebanon. Not one peep about charging Hezbollah with the same charges.

Yes, the UN is a very useful and just organization…

This is a powerful example of the unjustness of the dictator-driven U.N.