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What the UN Report on Gaza Left Out

(The Hill) Laurie R. Blank - The UN Human Rights Council's report on the 2014 Gaza conflict is replete with faulty legal analysis, unjustified presumptions and an astounding willingness to take Hamas' claims at face value coupled with an unrelenting skepticism about Israeli efforts to comply with the law of war. The law of war prohibits perfidy (disguising oneself as a civilian in order to benefit from the law's protections while launching an attack); using protected objects, such as hospitals or religious buildings, for military purposes; and using civilians as human shields. Yet the commission made no recommendations at all with regard to the use of civilians as human shields, comingling with the civilian population and using civilian objects and infrastructure for military purposes (such as launching rockets from hospitals, mosques or UN schools), or fighting while disguised as civilians. Thus the report hands Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups a free pass to continue their modus operandi. The report's glaring omissions of foundational legal principles emasculate the law, weakening the essential tools for the protection of civilians and emboldening those who use civilians as pawns for their own strategic gain. The writer is clinical professor of law and director of the International Humanitarian Law Clinic at Emory University School of Law.
2015-07-09 00:00:00
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