| Hamas rockets
"Hamas' use of unguided missiles fired at Israel would also be a war crime under the Conventions." That's right, Mr. Hallinan, that's what the Conventions say. But you named the wrong law. The Geneva Conventions do not apply to Hamas rockets.
Instead, a different law applies, which says, Hamas rockets are lawful, targeting innocent civilians in Israel, the law of belligerent reprisals.
We're talking about the Hamas rockets we hear endlessly about, launched from Gaza, targeting Sderot, a town in Israel about a mile away and, from 2008, towns further away, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Beer-Sheva, and others. Mostly homemade Qassam rockets (Israeli spelling: Kassam), some few Grad rockets, Israelis say, also launched as singles.
And we're talking about Israel, illegally killing, wounding, Palestinians, violating the laws of war, the blockade, siege, of Gaza, for example, much unlawful targeting, sadistic, criminal, destruction, Caterpillar bulldozing orange groves, destroying agricultural wells, irrigation networks, farm buildings, livestock.
Undisputed law, belligerent reprisals, the 1949 Geneva Conventions outlawed them, but only against "protected persons" (e.g., civilians in occupied territory). They do not outlaw targeting civilians not in occupied territory, belligerent reprisals targeting them. Hamas does not occupy Israel (destination of its rockets), nor Israeli settlements in the 1967 oPt (Israeli occupied Palestinian territory).
The 1977 Protocol-I does purport to outlaw them (from December 7 1979, its entry into force), but that protocol does not apply. The U.S. and Israel are not parties to it, not entitled to its protections. Even countries who did ratify it, they reject it, some of them, that particular provision, the U.K., for example, France, Germany, Italy, Egypt. They won't have it, further restricting civilian belligerent reprisals, beyond the 1949 Geneva Conventions. These countries -- and the U.S. too -- they all say, belligerent reprisals, targeting civilians, not in occupied territory, that's an essential law enforcement tool, they say. These countries, they formally reserve the right to do it themselves, under the long standing, undisputed, existing, customary law of war (non treaty law) which, they say, the protocol (treaty law) does not abolish.
So we have a journalism question, Mr. Hallinan, and you're an ideal person to answer it, because you ran the journalism program at UCSC for 23 years (University of California, Santa Cruz). How should a journalist report this conflict, between consensus and the law. What you said, yes, it's consensus, in the U.S., and other Anglo countries (U.K., Canada, Australia), everybody says it, in those countries, the media, political elites, Hamas rockets are war crimes, few of them cite any authority, and so your report is superior, on that account. But it's not consensus, in much of the rest of the world, and for good reason, it's nonsense. You don't have to be an international lawyer to know that belligerent reprisals are legal, it's natural.
It's not news, that the rockets are legal, because no public figure is saying it. But then again it's wrong to write a news report, which says Hamas rockets are war crimes, terrorism, or to report it, that somebody else said it. I imagine you would agree about that, as a journalism lecturer, that's very wrong. News or not, it must be reported, as you instruct your students, because the consequences are extreme, if they don't report it, they conceal, prevent, a very different public analysis of events, in the middle east, lives depend on this, and huge sums of money. In a news report, I guess you would say, they must include a sentence, to caveat it, each time a public figure throws that charge at Hamas.
But that caveat needs authority, because it's contrary to consensus, the notion that Hamas rockets are legal, indeed, in the U.S. and allied media, that consensus puts that notion in the "sphere of deviance," a graveyard of journalists, they suppose. Jay Rosen (Columbia), endorsing Daniel C. Hallin (UCSD), The Uncensored War (1986) ("easily the most useful diagram I've found for understanding the practice of journalism in the United States, and the hidden politics of that practice").
So a lengthy analysis piece, maybe that's what you would suggest to them, a foundation for future reference, reporting international law professors, their opinions about it. The journalist phones them up, puts the questions, reports what they say, about the law of belligerent reprisals, and Hamas rockets. Law professors, I guess most of them will say, they're not experts about it, and can't express an opinion, but they assume Hamas rockets are war crimes, and terrorism, because government officials, they have said that for years, and those officials would commit very serious crimes, if they lied about it, if they concealed a contrary law, which says the very opposite. Law professors, some of them might say, that it's no longer valid law, belligerent reprisals, that protecting innocent people from targeting, that's the trend in the law, that Hamas are criminals and terrorists, that the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Egypt, and others, these countries are simply wrong, for agreeing with Hamas.
Law professors, saying they disagree with these governments -- big hitters in military matters, their official, formal, written, declared, positions -- I guess we need an opinion about that too, about that difference of opinion, from criminal law professors. Can Hamas have criminal intent, if what they do, all those governments say it's legal. Hundreds of millions of people, voters, have been ignoranted, by a determined conspiracy of liars, government officials, political elites, because journalists don't do their job, or their editors, their publishers, won't let them.
That's the way I see it, Mr. Hallinan, but you're a journalism expert, and I'm not, so I'd be glad to hear your opinion about it, and what to do about it. |
