For International Diplomats, Suicide Bombing Is Evil Unless Used against Jews

The recent terrorist attack in Manchester has been greeted with outrage throughout the West. But fifteen years ago, similar attacks were deemed justifiable by the UN Human Rights Commission (UNHRC). Michael Rubin writes:

In an April 15, 2002 vote, 40 countries—including Austria, Belgium, France, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden—agreed that Palestinians could engage “all available means, including armed struggle” to establish a Palestinian state. That UNHRC resolution enshrined the right to conduct suicide bombing in international humanitarian law. After all, many academics, diplomats, and human-rights activists argue that the UN and its human-rights wings set the precedent that becomes the foundation for international humanitarian and human-rights law.

When the Human Rights Commission voted, Israel was weathering a months-long suicide bombing campaign that, at its height, saw multiple bombings of buses, cafes, and other public areas every week. . . . European diplomats and many academics may hold their noses and sneer at Israel and attacks on its citizens. A German court recently even ruled that the firebombing of a local synagogue was not anti-Semitic but rather an expression of anti-Israel protest. But they should recognize that Israel is not a pariah to isolate and condemn but rather the canary in the coal mine for the civilized world.

Violence that they legitimize inside Israel or against Jews will not be limited to Israel. Legitimacy is easy to grant, but once granted, it . . . is hard to take away.

Read more at Washington Examiner

More about: Europe and Israel, International Law, Politics & Current Affairs, Terrorism, UNHRC, United Nations

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF