- Its web site (thelawfareproject.org) calls Lawfare:
-
- "The use of the law as a weapon of war."
-
- Fact Check
-
- Provided they contradict no others, laws are sacrosanct,
especially fundamental international ones like the UN Charter, Four Geneva
Conventions, their Common Article 3, the Rome Statute, Nuremberg Tribunal
and judgment, Genocide Convention, Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
and many others - ones Israel and America are sworn to uphold but consistently
violate with impunity.
-
- Lawfare Project (LP) claim: "The abuse of the law
and legal systems (is used) for strategic or military ends."
-
- Fact Check
-
- International law is clear and unequivocal. The UN Charter
explains under what conditions violence and coercion by one state against
another are justified. Article 2(3) and Article 33(1) require peaceful
settlement of international disputes. Article 2(4) prohibits force or its
threatened use, and Article 51 allows the "right of individual or
collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member....until
the Security Council has taken measures to maintain international peace
and security."
-
- In other words, justifiable self-defense is permitted,
and Articles 2(3), 2(4), and 33(1) absolutely prohibit all unilateral threats
or use of force not allowed under Article 51 or authorized by the Security
Council. Even then, under Fourth Geneva, civilians are "protected
persons" off-limits to attack. Doing it is a war crime.
-
- Claim: Law is used to "thwart free speech about
issues of national security and public concern."
-
- Fact Check
-
- Free expression is recognized as a human right under
Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 19 of
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), among
other international laws.
-
- Yet Israel has no constitution or specific laws guaranteeing
equality or free expression. However, its Basic Laws protect human dignity
and liberty as fundamental values in "a Jewish and democratic state,"
including:
-
- -- "no violation of the life, body or dignity or
any person;"
-
- -- their property;
-
- -- their liberty, neither by imprisonment, arrest, extradition
or otherwise;
- -- the right to privacy; and
-
- -- much more, including a traditionally mostly free and
open media within certain limits most states impose.
-
- Nonetheless, Israel violates its own law and international
ones by imposing censorship as it sees fit. For example, during Operation
Cast Lead when it restricted on-the-scene coverage to suppress its crimes
of war and against humanity, now revealed in detail but ruthlessly assailed
as untrue.
-
- Despite America's First Amendment, the dominant US media
self-censor, and in war zones, the Pentagon allows no independent coverage,
instead using "embedded" journalists of its choosing.
-
- Claim: "Law (is) used to de-legitimize the sovereignty
of democratic states."
-
- Fact Check
-
- No state, democratic of otherwise, has the right to violate
fundamental international laws nor remain unaccountable when they do. Israel
and America are serial offenders.
-
- Claim: The law is used to "frustrate the ability
of democracies to defend themselves against terrorism."
-
- Fact Check
-
- Israel and America are democracies in name only, granting
rights to the privileged, not the majority, and in Israel solely to Jews.
-
- International law permits self-defense against violence
or armed attacks. Terrorism is committed by the perpetrators.
-
- Lawfare's anti-democratic issues include:
-
- Claim: The illegitimacy of "legal limits" in
fighting "terrorism."
-
- Fact Check
-
- Most serious is institutionalized state terrorism, including
premeditated wars and targeted assassinations, criminal acts under international
law, permitting self-defense against them.
-
- Claim: No international law restricts nations from acting
within or outside their territory.
-
- Fact Check
-
- Universally accepted international laws place clear and
unequivocal limits, calling violations crimes of war and against humanity.
-
- Claim: An international tribunal has no authority to
hold sovereign states accountable.
-
- Fact Check
-
- International law created a tribunal as a legal entity
to prosecute individuals for crimes of war, against humanity, and genocide
in cases when guilty states fail to do so.
-
- Claim: There are legitimate and illegitimate criticisms
of religion.
-
- Fact Check
-
- Criticism is one thing. Vilifying one religion in defense
of another is clearly indefensible. Further, international laws strictly
prohibit persecuting, killing, or otherwise harming persons of other faiths,
practices Israel and America repeatedly commit.
-
- Claim: Lawfare uses its own definition of inciting violence.
-
- Fact Check
-
- LP calls self-defense violence and terrorism, premeditated
aggression self-defense, including against innocent civilians.
-
- Claim: Undefined hate speech should be banned.
-
- Fact Check
-
- International law protects free expression. Only when
it crosses the line egregiously can it be questioned. Banning it is another
matter, and without defining it, what is hate speech? Clearly, LP means
any criticism of Israeli and American policies.
-
- Claim: LP calls Universal Jurisdiction (UJ) illegitimate
when it conflicts with "national security interests."
-
- Fact Check
-
- UJ is a well-established principle, used by America (against
Liberia's Chuckie Taylor), Israel (against Adolph Eichmann) and other nations
as a legitimate law enforcement tool for crimes of war and against humanity.
All nations may use it.
-
- Claim: LP advocates denying "terrorists" and
"unlawful combatants" their rights.
-
- Fact Check
-
- By law, everyone is innocent unless or until proved guilty
with substantive facts to prove it. The term "unlawful combatant"
is unrecognized in international law and has no standing.
-
- Claim: LP wants lawyers denied "classified material"
to prosecute persons accused of torture.
-
- Fact Check
-
- No relevant information should ever be withheld for any
reason to protect alleged torturers or other criminals.
-
- Claim: LP wants a majority bloc of UN states denied their
right to enforce human rights policy.
-
- Fact Check
-
- International laws protect human rights. Nations and
individuals in violation should be held fully accountable.
-
- Claim: LP wants to suppress legitimate human rights reports
critical of Israel and America.
-
- Fact Check
-
- It objects to Goldstone Commission and other human rights
groups' revelations of Israeli crimes of war and against humanity during
Operation Cast Lead to absolve its perpetrator's and America's (as a co-conspirator)
of any culpability for their lawlessness.
-
- Claim: LP calls Israel's Separation Wall legitimate.
-
- Fact Check
-
- Israel's Separation Wall is being built on 12% of confiscated
Palestinian land. In 2004, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled
it illegal, and ordered it dismantled.
-
- Claim: Like America and Israel, LP calls Hamas a terrorist
entity.
-
- Fact Check
-
- In January 2006, Hamas was democratically elected as
Palestine's legitimate government, what it remains today despite Israel
and Washington's recognition of Fatah's coup d'etat regime under a president
whose term expired 14 months ago.
-
- Claim: LP calls hate speech legitimate for "radical"
Islam and "terrorism."
-
- Fact Check
-
- Hate or any other type speech is never legitimate when
it lies about or vilifies one religion in defense of another.
-
- Claim: LP opposes applying the rule of law, due process,
equal justice, civil and human rights, and fundamental democratic principles
for governments or groups it opposes.
-
- Fact Check
-
- Advocating lawlessness is never legitimate under any
circumstances, ever, for any reason.
-
- The Lawfare Project's First Conference
-
- Sponsored by the Committee on Foreign and International
Law of NYCLA (NY Collegiate Learning Assessment) and the Conference of
Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations on March 11, its first
US conference was held in New York, co-chaired by:
-
- -- Irwin Cotler - law professor, Canadian MP, and former
Minister of Justice and Attorney General from 2003 - 2006;
-
- -- Robert Morgenthau - former District Attorney for New
York County, borough of Manhattan, and US Attorney for the Southern District
of New York; and
-
- -- David Schizer - Dean, Columbia University School of
Law.
-
- Invited speakers included:
-
- John Bolton
-
- He's a Project for the New American Century (PNAC) member,
senior fellow at the right-wing American Enterprise Institute, and Bush
administration's recess-appointed UN Ambassador, a man Law Professor, author,
activist, and former President of the National Lawyers Guild, Marjorie
Cohn, accused of "cooking intelligence to whip up US aggression against
other countries," including, of course, Iraq based on bogus WMD claims.
-
- In his UN post, he was also notorious for "hyping
threats posed by Cuba and Syria, and taking a dangerously combative stance
toward North Korea." He now advocates war against Iran, getting op-ed
space in publications like the Wall Street Journal, again to hype fear.
-
- Dore Gold
-
- He's a former Israeli UN Ambassador, President of the
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, and served in Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu's first administration as Foreign Policy Advisor. He was also
an advisor to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and a member of Israel's delegation
at the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference and 1998 Wye River negotiations with
the Palestinian National Authority (PA). He's a notorious right-wing extremist,
hostile to democratic principles and Palestinian rights.
-
- David Scharia
-
- He's a former First Senior Deputy at the Supreme Court
Division of Israel's Attorney General's office, a position in which he
was the lead attorney in major counterterrorism cases before Israel's High
Court (HCJ). He also headed the CT Internal Investigations Unit, was Chair
of the Inter-Ministerial Counterterrorism Committee, and was a member of
the experts' forum on
- "Democracy and Terrorism," established by the
Israel Democratic Institute. Most recently, he's been Legal Officer at
the Security Council's Counter Terrorism Executive Directorate (CTED).
-
- Gabriela Shalev
-
- She's currently Israeli UN Ambassador, former Hebrew
University of Jerusalem law professor, president of the Academic Council,
and Rector of Ono Academic College in Israel. She's an expert in contract
law and procurement contracts, and was chief legal editor of the Judgments
of Israel's HCJ and Hebrew Encyclopedia.
-
- Francois-Henri Briard
-
- He's a longtime litigator before France's Supreme Court,
has represented US companies in France, and is active in arbitration. He
also worked on economic intelligence, is a member of the Historical Society
of the US Supreme Court, and is president of the Vergennes Institute, that
he co-founded with Justice Antonin Scalia to foster cooperation between
the US and French Supreme Courts. Briard now belongs to France's Institute
for National Defense Studies.
-
- Daniel Huff
-
- He's Director of the Legal Project, an organization involved
in "protect(ing) researchers and analysts who work on the topics of
terrorism, terrorist funding, and radical Islam from lawsuits designed
to silence their exercise of free speech."
-
- He's a former Senate Judiciary Committee counsel on matters
of national security, civil, and criminal matters, and once was a management
consultant for McKinsey & Co.
-
- Douglas Murray
-
- He's Director of the Center for Social Cohesion, a UK
right-wing think tank, specializing in studying radicalism and extremism
in Britain. He's also a freelance journalist and author of books including,
"Neoconservatism: Why We Need It."
-
- Pierre Prosper
-
- He's US Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues, and
was formerly special counsel and policy advisor in the Office of War Crimes
Issues, a special assistant to the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal
Division, an Assistant US Attorney for the Central District of California,
and Deputy District Attorney for Los Angeles County.
-
- Jeremy Rabkin
-
- He's a George Mason University School of Law Professor
of Law and member of the US Institute of Peace, congressionally funded
to promote US interests in "resolving" international conflicts.
He also has a particular interest in matters of national security law and
early constitutional history.
-
- Joshua Rozenberg
-
- His bio calls him "Britain's best-known commentator
on the law," having been BBC's legal correspondent for 15 years, and
since 2000 in the same capacity for The Daily Telegraph. He also writes
for the London Evening Standard and the Law Society's Gazette.
-
- Mark Shurtleff
-
- He's Utah Attorney General, former Assistant Attorney
General, and once served as Deputy County Attorney and Commissioner of
Salt Lake County.
-
- Notable by Their Exclusion
-
- Notably absent were academics, scholars, human rights
activists, and other critics of US and Israeli policies, the rule of law,
and accountability for states that break it. In framing issues, Conference
participants told attendees that international law doesn't apply when it
conflicts with powerful state interests, the rights of their victims thereby
unaddressed, silenced, and of no interest.
-
- George Mason University's Jeremy Rabkin called "taking
international law too seriously" dangerous, saying "It's not
like the tax code." Audaciously, he claimed its principles are unclear
with no court to enforce them, when he knows laws are clear and unequivocal
and the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague is a permanent
tribunal established to prosecute individuals for crimes of war, against
humanity, and genocide.
-
- John Bolton told attendees:
-
- "It is a big mistake for us to grant any validity
to international law even when it may seem in our short-term interest to
do so - because over the long-term, those who think that international
law really means anything are those who want to constrict the United States."
-
- In other words, we're boss. What we say goes, and dissidents
are legitimate enemies, an idea dominant in Nazi Germany and other past
and current despotic states.
-
- Hitler justified exterminating Jews for destroying the
German nation through culture and democracy. He started WW II blaming Poland
for a Nazi-staged incident. He declared war on Britain claiming its prime
minister spurned his 1940 peace offer saying:
-
- "If the Providence has so willed that the German
people cannot be spared this fight, then I can only be grateful that it
entrusted me with the leadership in this historic struggle which, for the
next 500 or 1,000 years, will be described as decisive, not only for....Germany,
but for the whole of Europe and indeed the whole world."
-
- When he invaded Russia, he said "I sought no war.
On the contrary, I did everything to avoid it (but) in view of the mortal
danger from the Soviet Union (to all Europe)" he gave "the signal
to attack myself (for) this moral struggle."
-
- And when he declared war on America, he blamed it on
Roosevelt and his coterie of Jews and WW I on Wilson, both men he considered
mad.
-
- He accused Roosevelt of inciting war, falsifying the
causes, "then odiously wrap(ping) himself in a cloak of Christian
hypocrisy...." and policies "aimed at unrestricted world domination
and dictatorship (together) with England (against) the rights of the German,
Italian and Japanese nations...."
-
- When tyrants or extremists try justifying illegal actions,
there's no dearth of excuses, including tried and true fear mongering and
blaming victims.
-
- Propagandizing for Israel
-
- The Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor disseminates propaganda,
debases the legitimate human rights community, and promotes a pro-Israeli
agenda defending the indefensible, Anne Herzberg its legal advisor. At
the conference, she assailed notable human rights organizations for promoting
a "radical agenda" and "anti-state, anti-democracy, (and)
anti-American" ideology.
-
- For revealing Israeli crimes of war and against humanity,
Justice Richard Goldstone was particularly assailed, David Schizer saying
he:
-
- "created standards of morality in war that leave
a state without the means of legitimate self-protection," ignoring
Israeli premeditated aggression and victimized Gazans, a matter clearly
and unequivocally covered under international law principles.
-
- Schizer and others didn't go there, instead focusing
on ways to discredit US and Israeli critics to delegitimize them, notably
human rights organizations like B'Tselem, Al-Haq, the Palestinian Centre
for Human Rights (PCHR), and, of course, the UN Human Rights Council (HRC)
Goldstone Commission.
-
- Israel's Lawfare Forum
|
