Reacting to an International War Against Israel

Prof. Paul Eidelberg

Caroline Glick reports:

Ever since the outgoing Kadima government ended Operation Cast Lead in Gaza on January 20, the Palestinians have steadily stepped-up their missile war against Israel. Over the weekend the IDF acknowledged that six weeks later, daily Palestinian missile barrages against Israel have returned to pre-Operation Cast Lead levels. Moreover, the IDF warned that over the past six weeks, Hamas and its sister terror groups have rebuilt their missile arsenals both through imports of Iranian arms from Egypt and through local production lines. They have also brought in fairly advanced anti-aircraft missiles capable of shooting down IAF helicopters. [Nevertheless,] representatives from 80 countries and international organizations convened in Sharm el-Sheikh to pledge billions of dollars in aid to Hamas-controlled Gaza (Jerusalem Post, March 3, 2009).

Donor nations, including the United States, Europe, and Saudi Arabia, agreed to give a total of $4.481 billion to Gaza, that is, to Hamas via the Palestinian Authority, collaborators in the terrorist war against Israel.

Even if much of this money helps rebuild Gaza, any candid person knows that much of it will be used by these terrorist organizations to purchase weapons to be employed against Israel. Indeed, the donation of this money to the Palestinian Authority—the umbrella organization for various terrorist groups, including Fatah and Tanzim— constitutes an additional incentive on the part of these terrorists to wage further war against Israel. Terrorism pays!

It follows that the donor nations in question have become covert if not overt allies of Israel’s enemies. They must therefore be treated as belligerents in the terrorist war against Israel.

There is only one way to respond to these enemies, and that is to employ a principle repeatedly advocated by Benjamin Netanyahu, namely, “reciprocity,” which, in the present case, requires Israel to wage war these nations. Of course, Israel will do nothing of the kind.

Let me nonetheless convey some critical information from Robert Baer, Sleeping with the Devil:

If [some power] were to simultaneously hit only five of the many sensitive points in Saudi Arabia’s downstream oil system, they could put the Saudis out of the oil-producing business for about two years. A commando boat attack could do the job. Simply blowing of Abqaiq’s up the East-West pipeline’s Pump Station One to smithereens—or a single jumbo jet with a suicide bomber at the controls, hijacked during takeoff from Dubai and crashed into the heart of Ras Tanura, would be enough to bring the world’s oil-addicted economies to their knees, America’s along with them.
Consider America. By giving a reported $900 million to the terrorist organizations called the Palestinian Authority, the United States is violating international law. Let me state the issue with the help of Louis Rene Beres, a professor of international law:

There is a long-standing rule in international law known as NULLUM CRIMEN SINE POENA, "No crime without a punishment." It is codified directly in many different authoritative sources, and is also deducible from the binding Nuremberg Principles (1950) [that were applied to Nazi war criminals]. According to Principle 1: "Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefore and liable to punishment."

Terrorism is an established crime under international law; one of the very worst. The precise offenses that comprise this crime can be found at THE EUROPEAN CONVENTION ON THE SUPPRESSION OF TERRORISM. Palestinian terrorists are guilty of crimes of war and crimes against humanity — crimes so egregious that the perpetrators are known in law as HOSTES HUMANI GENERIS, "Common enemies of humankind."
International law presumes solidarity between states in the fight against all crime, including the crime of terrorism. This presumption is mentioned as early as the seventeenth century in Hugo Grotius' THE LAW OF WAR AND PEACE.
Although Israel has clear jurisdiction to punish crimes committed on its territory (the primary basis of jurisdiction under international law is determined by territorial location of the offense), it also has the right to act under broader principles of "universal jurisdiction." Its case for such universal jurisdiction, which derives from an expectation of interstate solidarity, is found at the four Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949.
These Conventions unambiguously impose upon the High Contracting Parties the obligation to punish "Grave Breaches" of their settled rules.
Instead of punishing “Grave Breaches” of international law, the United States and other nations are rewarding terrorists under the facade of humanitarian aid to the Palestinian Authority—to repeat, an aggregation of terrorist organizations.

Even if I were not an American tax-payer—besides, I don’t like my money going to terrorists, i.e., my potential murderers—I would strongly oppose this violation of international law by the Government of the United States. Although the U.S. Congress has in the past allocated hundreds of millions of dollars to the Palestinian Authority, I invite experts in American law to investigate more thoroughly the legality and constitutionality of such allocations.

The overriding issue, however, is that United States is aiding Israel’s Arab enemies and may thus be deemed a belligerent under the laws of war. I believe that such action on the part of the United States is contrary to the interests of the American people, that such action contradicts America’s war against international terrorism, and that such action constitutes a betrayal of America’s only reliable ally in the Middle East, Israel.