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Eliminating Yassin Was Legal

(National Review) Lee A. Casey & David B. Rivkin Jr. - Yassin may well have been a spiritual man, but he was no Francis of Assisi - he was the founder of Hamas. Hamas's stated goal is the destruction of the Israeli state and its replacement with an Islamic theocracy from the Jordan River to the Sea. It purposely targets civilians and has taken scores of innocent lives, including those of at least three Americans. Because of its irregular organization and illegal tactics, Hamas members are in fact unprivileged or unlawful combatants. Under the traditional laws of war, based on centuries of state practice, such individuals are fully subject to attack, just like lawful combatants. Leaving aside the Old World's growing consensus that the war on terror should be treated as a criminal law-enforcement matter - a recipe for disaster and defeat - most European states have accepted the 1977 Protocol I Additional to the Geneva Conventions. Under one of Protocol I's provisions, irregular or guerilla fighters can arguably be attacked only when they are themselves attacking. This absurd rule disadvantages the lawful armed forces of sovereign states (as it was designed to do), by giving the practitioners of asymmetric warfare incalculable advantages. Protocol I was relentlessly promoted by third-world governments - not a few of which had started out as guerilla movements - and was embraced (whether from guilt, fatigue, or absentmindedness) by the former imperialists of Western Europe. Fortunately for the American people, Ronald Reagan was paying attention, and rejected Protocol I outright, making clear that the advantages it provided to irregular and unlawful combatants were entirely unacceptable to the U.S. Jerusalem also refused to ratify Protocol I. Thus while European states may not be permitted to target a known terrorist in the context of an armed conflict, it remains entirely lawful for both Israel and the U.S. to do so. The writers served in the Justice Department during the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations.
2004-03-26 00:00:00
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