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Hamas, Not Israel, Should Be Tried for War Crimes

[Jerusalem Post] Alan Dershowitz - There are efforts now underway to try to bring Israel before the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague on charges of alleged war crimes. Neither Israel nor the U.S. has signed on to this court, primarily out of fear that its power would be used against democracies that try their best to avoid war crimes, rather than against dictatorships and terrorist nations that routinely engage in them. Were it now to open an investigation of Israel, the ICC would be violating its own rules which mandate that the court will not become a substitute for domestic courts. There is no country in the world that has a judicial system that is more open to charges against its own government. Moreover, Israel has a completely open and very critical free press, which is constantly exposing Israeli imperfections and editorializing against them. In addition, the IDF has legal teams that must approve every military action taken by the armed forces. There is no country in the world that goes to greater lengths in its efforts to conform its military actions to international law. As retired British Colonel Richard Kemp recently noted, there has been "no time in the history of warfare when an Army has made more efforts to reduce civilian casualties...than [the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza]." The same Rome Statute that established the ICC also describes many of Hamas' actions during the war, such as attacking Israeli civilians and using Palestinian civilians as human shields, as war crimes. Any fair investigation by the ICC would have to conclude that Israel's efforts to prevent civilian casualties, while seeking to protect its civilians from Hamas war crimes, rank it at the very top of nations in compliance with the rule of law. If anything, Hamas belongs in the dock, not Israel.
2009-02-12 06:00:00
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