Will International Law Survive Hamas?
Last month, as Israel weighed launching a final attack on what remains of Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group announced to the world that it would tag every remaining Israeli hostage, use each as a human shield and then announce exactly when and how each hostage was killed.
The response of the international community to this outrage against international law, of course, was silence.
None of Britain, France, Canada or Australia, each of whom now has pledged to recognize a mythical Palestinian state, said anything about the elected representative of the Palestinians in Gaza declaring that international law was meaningless, that it would be completely disregarded and that Hamas would continue to massacre captive Israelis.
South Africa, which initiated a legal case in 2023 against Israel in the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide, suddenly was tongue tied. International law apparently means little to South Africa when it can’t be used for political purposes.
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who has lashed out at Israel constantly during his tenure, could not be bothered by the Hamas threat to even issue a statement.
At some point in the near future the Gaza War will end, but when it ends the world will enter a new and dangerous phase – one in which the concept of international law is entirely relative, and simply a function of the politically powerful and/or the politics of the time.
In the aftermath of World War II, when the concepts of international law were fully developed, the goal was to develop a basic set of rules as to what constitutes the law of nations regardless of political or military power or economic strength. Over the last twenty years, however, that concept has been stood on its head. In the wake of Gaza, words and legal concepts can mean practically anything, so long as the party being accused is politically unpopular.
Start with the concept of “genocide”. In just a few generations, the international community has lowered the concept of “genocide” down from a systemic mass murder of an entire population to one in which, according to some calling themselves legal scholars, one can commit genocide even if nobody gets killed.
Imagine the consequences of that? Under these new proposed definitions, what country defending itself against attack cannot be accused of committing genocide?
Another example is “collective punishment.” According to the modern left, the consequences of war that befall the Palestinian people of Gaza constitute collective punishment. Yet it was those very same people who literally voted Hamas into power. They knew exactly who Hamas was and what they planned to do. They also knew exactly what Hamas was doing as Hamas built its vast terror tunnel network underneath Gaza. Somehow though, according to modern leftist thought, these same people cannot be held accountable for the atrocities they themselves precipitated.
Next is the concept of feeding the enemy. In the Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 23 specifically enunciates exceptions to the requirement that a conquering army feed the local population. The conquering army has no such obligation where the enemy is stealing the food and/or where doing so is to the advantage of the enemy.
By the UN’s own figures that is exactly the situation in Gaza. According to the UN’s own analysis, since mid-May 86% of the food sent to Gaza has been expropriated by Hamas. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/un-reveals-86-of-aid-sent-to-gaza-is-stolen-before-it-can-reach-those-most-in-need/ar-AA1JUyAwThat does not faze the leftists, who continue to accuse Israel of deliberately starving the Gazan population. According to such modern leftist stalwarts as Irish President Michael Higgins, Israel refusing to deliver food to Hamas constitutes a war crime, for which Israel must be punished.
