For HRW, every Israeli defense against terror is a crime
The Israeli government, in a September 19, 2007 statement determined that since Hamas has turned Gaza into a “hostile territory” from which Israeli citizens are shelled with rockets on an almost daily basis, it “bears the responsibility” for Israel’s “additional sanctions.” This decision’s practical and legal ramifications are unclear: international law does not include the term “hostile territory”, and the Israeli statement is written in vague terminology. Possible additional measures, according to the statement, include “a restriction of various goods,” reduction of the “supply of fuel and electricity”, and “restrictions . . . on movement of people to and from Gaza.” The statement states that the measures “will be enacted following a legal examination, while taking into account both the humanitarian aspects relevant to the Gaza Strip and the intention to avoid a humanitarian crisis.”
On September 20, 2007, HRW (which has a long history of responding immediately, before the facts are in), condemned the Israeli move, declaring that “Israel’s threat to impose additional sanctions on the Gaza Strip would constitute unlawful collective punishment of Gaza’s civilian population.” HRW issued a similar press release on June 29, 2006, condemning Israel for attacking Gaza’s power plant in response to the kidnapping of Corporal Gilad Shalit.
In the latest statement, Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW’s Middle East Director, claimed that “as a result of Israel’s closure policies already in place, Gaza has long been in humanitarian crisis,” ignoring her proclamation in the same statement that “Israel has the responsibility to protect its citizens.” According to Whitson, “it stretches the imagination that any honest legal review of the proposed additional restrictions would allow them to go forward.”
According to HRW, then, Israel cannot attack Hamas in any significant military way, as that would “violate the laws of war.” Israel cannot even attempt to inhibit Hamas’s military capabilities by restricting the supply of fuel and electricity. The only issue HRW fails to address is how Israel is supposed to carry out its “responsibility to protect its citizens”, when every action is immediately condemned by HRW. Perhaps HRW simply doesn’t care about Israelis.
