January 30th, 2008 by Gerald Steinberg | Category: Human Rights, Human Rights Watch, Ethics

Kenneth Roth, who runs HRW, asks: Is Israel’s Blockade of Gaza the Right Way to Respond to Palestinian Rocket Attacks?

Roth and HRW ask whether Israel’s response to the hundreds of Hamas rocket attacks is “the right way”. Roth runs a human rights organization, and has no experience or specialized knowledge in security and anti-terror measures. (But he might find a fact checker for HRW – the NY Times showed that instead of rushing to buy “food, fuel, medicine and other essential supplies that Israel has denied”, suffering Gazans were moving truckloads of televisions.)

Regarding human rights norms, Roth and HRW should explore the “right” and morally correct (not politically correct) response. For this, we need to consider entirely different questions:

1)     Does Israel have the right of self-defense to respond to the hundreds of rocket attacks from Gaza that strike Sderot, Ashkelon, and surroundings? The answer is obviously “yes”.

2)     What are more moral and humane means available to do this?

In response to the aggression from Gaza, a full-scale Israeli military operation is consistent with international law. But this would create many more civilian casualties and a real humanitarian crisis. Morally, policies designed to pressure the Gaza population to pressure Hamas to end the attacks appear to be the least bad option.  If Roth and HRW really cared about human rights and morality, they would back the Israeli policies. If these fail, the military response to end the rocket attacks against Israelis will surely follow.
See also: HRW’s Gaza Statement: Moral Muddle and False Allegations