Sunday, January 4, 2009

Israel, Gaza, International Law and Proportionality

I came upon a sensible take on the common argument used against Israel that it’s response in Gaza has not been proportionate. Mary Ellen O'Connell of Notre Dame Law School writes about international law and has this to say about the Gaza situation: “It seems most accurate to continue to treat Gaza as an area of occupation. Palestine as a whole is not yet a sovereign state, in part because Israel is still in occupation of the West Bank. Israel pulled its settlements from Gaza but seemed to continue to exercise a sort of quasi-occupation of Gaza. Israel has the legal obligation to end its occupation, but, while the occupation continues it has the right to keep order. Thus, Israel may have had a lawful basis for responding to Hamas that included sending forces into Gaza. The forces needed to respect the principle of proportionality in using force to respond to Hamas.”

Hat Tip/Flopping Aces

2 comments:

Jameel @ The Muqata said...

Israel pulled its settlements from Gaza but seemed to continue to exercise a sort of quasi-occupation of Gaza.

That is BS and an outright lie.

KGS said...

Well this is certainly not the case. Israel may have a moral obligation, but certainly not a legal obligation since it no longer has any governmental control over the area, which is the sole definition of what "occupation" stands for.

While Israel may control the air space and the coastline, it does not /before the ground war started, control the lives on the ground.

O'Connell errors greatly, there is no such thing as a qausi occupation, she is making up defintions all her own that are not recognized in international law.

Israel is under no legal obligation to supply even water or electricty or food, but as I said earlier, there is of course a moral consideration, but it has no legal bearing on Israel whatsoever.