A World Turned Upside Down

While everyone here is pleased that Yahya Sinwar, the architect of both the massacre of October 7^th and the resistance of Hamas during the year since, a Canadian professor of international law is claiming that the killing of the leader of the Hamas terror organization was illegal under international law, that it constitutes murder, and is a war crime.  She is pushing the Canadian government to demand an investigation of the incident.

Assistant Professor at the Osgood School of Law, Heidi Matthews, who studies the laws of war at Toronto’s York University argues that Sinwar could no longer be considered a combatant as he was killed presumably after he was wounded and, therefore, was legally just another innocent civilian at the time he was killed. Seriously?

The argument is, of course, specious in that Sinwar himself when asked how his troops could have killed so many innocent civilians in Israel a year ago, made the claim that because of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians three was no difference between those in uniform and innocent civilians.  In his mind all Israelis are combatants and subject to being killed by Hamas’ forces.  For Matthews to now claim that Sinwar was already wounded when killed and, therefore, not a combatant is simply beyond the pale. And for sure it is not a distinction that his minions who invaded Gaza a year ago ever made.  On the contrary they happily killed anyone they could, wounded or not, and publicly bragged about it as well.

Matthews is, of course, a long-standing critic of Israel and its relationship with the Palestinian people under its control.  Below you can see a recent interview on “X”  to get a better picture of her politics:

https://x.com/heidi__matthews?lang=en

But we live in a topsy-turvy world where Israel, which just today was the recipient of over 200 rockets lobbed from Lebanon into Northern Israel along with continued fighting on the ground in both Lebanon and Gaza, 381 days into the war.  This, in a war we did not want but which was forced upon us at both ends of the country.  We dare not forget that the Gaza war was started after 1,200+ Israeli citizens and foreign nationals were killed on October 7^th of last year and over 250 taken hostage, of whom 101 remain in captivity as the world continues to do nothing.

The war with Lebanon came about because Hezbollah started launching missiles at Israel on October 8^th, in sympathy with the Gazans, but before Israel began to retaliate after being attacked.  But no surprise there…..protests against Israel, with preprinted banners, posters and a stock of uniforms, began within hours of the October 7^th attack even before it was quelched by the IDF and for sure before any retaliation on Israel’s part.

Here in Israel in just over 48 hours we will, once again, begin the holiday/holy day of Shmini Atzeret/Simchat Torah a year to the day on the Hebrew calendar since the attack a year ago.   We are enjoined to be happy, to celebrate the completion of another holiday season as well as the end of the annual cycle of the reading of the Torah, the Five Books of Moses.  It will be a tough day on which to celebrate as it is also the first anniversary of the death of over 1,200 of our citizens and brethren.  Nevertheless, our resilience will win out, we will complete the reading of the last verses of Deuteronomy, and, as tradition dictates, immediately begin re-reading the opening passages of Genesis dealing with creation and the beginnings of our history.

Air raid sirens may sound in different parts of the country, it may be a challenge to be fully joyous, but the tradition will win as it always does, and we will successfully conclude our existential fight for survival, as we always have and always will the Heide Matthews of the world be damned.  Am Yisrael Chai…..The People of Israel live.