ideological criminal

The Israeli Supreme Court ruled in October of 2005 (after 3 years of deferments) that the IDF’s use of human shields was illegal (LA Times, Oct 7, 2005).  Despite the ruling, incidents of abuse have been reported since (The Guardian, March 9, 2007).  Now Amnesty International is charging the IDF with again using human shields (BBC, Jan 8, 2009).

Whether you agree with the Amnesty charge or not, the BBC article is remarkable for its framing of the issue, which has its basis in international law.  The article appeals to the Geneva Conventions, even citing the relevant portion by article.

Compare this with the so-called US “paper of record”, The New York Times.  A LexisNexis search for the terms “Geneva Conventions” turns up exactly 2 occurrences dealing with Gaza: one is Rashid Khalidi’s Op-Ed contribution, “What You Don’t Know About Gaza” (Jan 8, 2009), the other is a letter to the editor by Phyllis Bennis (Dec 30, 2008).  In other words, The New York Times itself has never used international law as a basis for evaluating the conflict in Gaza.  The same was true of The Times during the run-up to and immediate aftermath of the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions (for a detailed account, see Richard Falk’s book on the matter).

The tide of opinion in the US may be changing toward Israel’s siege of Gaza, but this is based largely on a realpolitik-analysis—what is better for Israel’s “national interests”.  Until our media starts to use international law in its analysis of current affairs, irrespective of government interests, we are doomed to act unlawfully.

Since revelations about Abu Ghraib and the 2006 Supreme Court ruling on Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the discourse on Iraq has changed to one, at least when it comes to torture, grounded in international law.  We now have a president-elect who says “We will abide by the Geneva Conventions” because of it.  That’s positive change, but we must make the president-elect understand the full import of his words.