Israeli strategy: Kill the enemy; American strategy: Support Israel as it kills the enemy

Note to Readers

We, like many others, appear to have underestimated Vice President Kamala Harris and her potential to lead the Democrats to victories in November. She should not be discounted as a vote-getter. During the last three and a half years, she needed to get only one vote and she was spectacularly successful in doing so.

In any world where voters were guided by reason, she would trounce Donald Trump , J.D. Vance, and their MAGA supporters. Unfortunately, we don’t live in such a world. The challenge Kamala Harris must now face is how to reach and persuade those Trump supporters and potential supporters who are not guided by reason, but rather by mass political emotions.

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Israeli strategy: Kill the enemy; American strategy: Support Israel as it kills the enemy

BACKGROUND

See,

1)Steven Erlanger, “Netanyahu, Defiant, Appears to Have Gone Rogue, Risking a Regional War; Ignoring the efforts of President Biden and the condemnation of many allies, the Israeli prime minister is forcing the pace of the war and feeding the revolt of the far right, New York Times, August 2, 2024 (Updated 12:32 p.m. ET).

Steven Erlanger, a former bureau chief in Israel, has spent many weeks there and in the West Bank since Oct. 7. Based in Berlin, he is the chief diplomatic correspondent of the New York Times.

2)Le Monde avec AFP, “Deux journalistes d’Al-Jazira tués dans une frappe israélienne à Gaza; Depuis le début de la guerre entre Israël et le Hamas palestinien dans la bande de Gaza, le 7 octobre 2023, le bureau de la chaîne à Gaza a déjà été bombardé et deux autres de ses correspondants tués, “Le Monde, le 31 juillet, 2024 (modifié à 20h28);

3)Le Monde with AFP, “Two Al-Jazira journalists killed in an Israeli strike in Gaza; Since the beginning of the war between Israel and Palestinian Hamas in the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, the chain's office in Gaza has already been bombed and two other of its correspondents killed,” Le Monde, July 31, 2024 (updated at 8:28 pm).

4) Louisa Loveluck, Meg Kelly, Hajar Harb, and Anika Arora Seth,”Al Jazeera journalist and cameraman killed in Gaza strike; Al Jazeera journalist Ismail al-Ghoul and cameraman Rami al-Rifi were killed in an attack after reporting near the house of slain Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh,” Washington Post, August 1, 2024 (3:58 a.m. EDT).

Steven Erlanger, the chief diplomatic correspondent of the New York Times, reports that Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu appear to have gone rogue. Erlanger writes,

The assassinations of senior Hezbollah and Hamas figures abroad have now sharply raised the risks of a larger regional war as Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah prepare retaliation, analysts say.

But the deaths of Fuad Shukr, a senior Hezbollah commander, and Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas, will not change the strategic quandary Israel faces over how to end the war, govern Gaza or care for the civilians there. They are more likely to intensify the conflict than diminish it, making progress on a Gaza cease-fire even more difficult. On July 26, 2024, British Prime Minister Kent Starmer announced that his government would be dropping U.K. objections to issuance of the warrants.

Erlanger also provides an excellent overview of the forces represented in Netanyahu’s cabinet, at what appears to be a turning point in Israeli history. The dominant forces in that cabinet appear to favor the use of force against Israel’s enemies, including detained Palestinians, and to have disdain for international law and diplomacy. Netanyahu disbanded his war cabinet several days ago. including Defense Minister Yoav Gallant who has opposed Netanyahu’s judicial reform package. Gallant remains a member of the regular cabinet.

On May 20, 2024, Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal (ICC), requested authorization from the Pre-Trial Chamber for the issuance of international arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant for alleged war crimes. That request has been under review for what seems to be a very long period of time. The judges and the ICC are have been under tremendous political pressure from the U.S. and Israel’s European allies not to authorize the issuance of the warrants.

On July 22, in response to these pressures, the ICC announced that it would accept briefs on the warrants until August 8, 2024, a step which will probably delay issuance of the warrants for at least several months. Shortly thereafter, on July 26, Labour Prime Minister Kent Starmer announced that the U.K. would be dropping its objections (made by the previous Conservative government) to issuance of the arrest warrants. ¹

Such extrajudicial efforts to pressure the ICC to take or not take a particular action, of course, undercut the International Humanitarian Law or Law of War which the ICC was established in 1991 to enforce, as well as the enforcement machinery of the ICC itself. These actions reveal a shameful disregard for international law by the U.S. and other countries which are pressuring the Court. By requesting states to put their objections in written legal form, the Court appears to have found an elegant way to deflect such pressures.

Israeli disregard for International Humanitarian Law was apparently revealed again by what seems to have been the targeted killing of an Al Jazeera reporter and an Al Jazeera cameraman on July 31, as reported in the Background articles cited above.

In the meantime, the strategy of Netanyahu and Israel appears to remain simply to kill the enemy, and that of the United States—judged not by words but by actions—to remain that of supporting Israel as it executes its strategy of simply killing the enemy.

James Rowles is a former Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School and professor of international law at other universities.

He is the author of The Rape of American Democracy: Republican Actions and Democratic Failures, 2016-2021. What We Knew and When We Knew It (forthcoming in August, 2024).

1. Muhammad Jamil, “Arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Galant will undoubtedly be issued soon,”Middle East Monitor, Augusr 1, 2024 (6:00 am).

Muhammad Jamil is director of the Arab Organisation for Human Rights in the UK.

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