Why Israeli Strikes against Hizballah in Syria Are Legal

In April 2016, Benjamin Netanyahu admitted publicly, for the first time, that Israel had routinely attacked arms shipments in Syria in order to prevent Hizballah from obtaining advanced weapons—a policy that continues to be in force. While these attacks on foreign soil in the midst of a complex civil war might at first seem to fall into a legal gray area, there is a straightforward case for their legality, as Louis René Beres writes:

Legally, there is nothing complicated about the issues surrounding Israel’s counter-terrorist raids within Syria. By willfully allowing its territory to be used as a source for weapons that Hizballah terrorists can use against Israel, and as an expanding base for anti-Israel terrorist operations in general, Bashar al-Assad has placed Syria in unambiguous violation of both the UN Charter and the wider body of international rules identified in Article 38 of the UN’s Statute of the International Court of Justice.

There is more. Because Syria, entirely at its own insistence, maintains a formal condition of belligerency with Israel (that is, a legal “state of war”), [the] charges levied by Damascus or Tehran of “Israeli aggression” make no jurisprudential sense. . . . [Furthermore], express prohibitions against pro-terrorist behavior by any state can be found in Articles 3(f) and 3(g) of the 1974 UN General Assembly Definition of Aggression. These prohibitions are part of customary international law, identified in Article 38 of the International Court of Justice statute as “the general principles of law recognized by civilized nations.” . . .

Under international law, every use of force by states must be judged twice: once with regard to the justness of the cause, and once with regard to the justness of the means. This second standard concerns core issues of humanitarian international law. . . . In defending itself against Hizballah terror, Israel’s actions have always been consistent with humanitarian international law. In stark contrast to the Shiite terrorist militias operating in Lebanon and southern Syria, and similarly unlike the Syrian-supported Islamic Jihad forces, who intentionally target noncombatants, Israel has been meticulous about exclusively striking hard military targets in raids on Syria. . . .

[Above all], the obligation of a sovereign to protect its citizens or subjects is . . . utterly beyond question. Israel need make no apologies for choosing to defend itself against Syrian-sponsored Hizballah aggression. International law is never a suicide pact.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Hizballah, International Law, Israel & Zionism, Israeli Security, Syria

Why South Africa Has Led the Legal War against Israel

South Africa filed suit with the International Court of Justice in December accusing Israel of genocide. More recently, it requested that the court order the Jewish state to allow humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip—something which, of course, Israel has been doing since the war began. Indeed, the country’s ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC) has had a long history of support for the Palestinian cause, but Orde Kittrie suggests that the current government, which is plagued by massive corruption, has more sinister motives for its fixation on accusing Israel of imagined crimes:

ANC-led South Africa has . . . repeatedly supported Hamas. In 2015 and 2018, the ANC and Hamas signed memoranda of understanding pledging cooperation against Israel. The Daily Maverick, a South African newspaper that previously won an international award for exposing ANC corruption, has reported claims that Iran “essentially paid the ANC to litigate against Israel in the ICJ.”

The ANC-led government says it is motivated by humanitarian principle. That’s contradicted by its support for Russia, and by [President Cyril] Ramaphosa’s warmly welcoming a visit in January by Mohamed Dagalo, the leader of the Sudanese-Arab Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia. Ramaphosa’s smiling, hand-holding welcome of Dagalo occurred two months after the RSF’s systematic massacre of hundreds of non-Arab Sudanese refugees in Darfur.

While the ANC has looted its own country and aided America’s enemies, the U.S. is insulating the party from the consequences of its corruption and mismanagement.

In Kittrie’s view, it is “time for Congress and the Biden administration to start helping South Africa’s people hold Ramaphosa accountable.”

Read more at The Hill

More about: International Law, Iran, South Africa