By Alan Dershowitz The UN Human Rights Council is a scandal. It's a successor to the defunct UN Human Rights Commission. Both organizations have a long history of singling out Israel for condemnation and of ignoring real human rights abusers by the world's worst offenders, several of which dominate the Human Rights Council and it predecessor. As Hudson Institute scholar Anne Bayefsky recently noted: "The Council has adopted more resolutions and decisions condemning Israel than all the other 191 UN member states combined. The more time the Council spends demonizing Israel, the less likely it becomes that it will ever get around to condemning genocide in Sudan, female slavery in Saudi Arabia, or torture in Egypt." The very mandate that authorized the Gaza investigation reveals its bias against Israel. The council has already concluded, without any pretense an investigation, that Israel is guilty of "grave violations of human rights.due to its military attacks." It has also concluded that the Gaza Strip "remains occupied," despite Israel having ended its occupation and having removed every single soldier and settler in 2005. Moreover, the Council's current president has limited the scope of the investigation to "violations committed in the context of the conflict that took place between 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009." Those are the dates of the Israeli response to more than seven years of rocket attacks by terrorists operating behind human shields in Gaza. During the period prior to 27 December 2008, Hamas and its terrorist allies fired thousands of rockets and mortar shells into civilian areas of Israel, killing, maiming and traumatizing Israeli women, men and children. But these attacks that provoked Israel's self-defense military actions, are excluded from the investigation, according to the mandate and its interpretation by the president of the council. It would be as if they UN convened an investigation of the United States and terrorism but limited the investigation only to actions taken after September 12, 2001. The very idea of the UN Council conducting an "independent" or objective investigation Israel is preposterous. It would be as if an all-white Mississippi court were investigating a black man's self-defense in response to years of lynchings by whites and limiting its investigation to the event following the lynchings. There is simply no way of an investigation conducted under the auspices of the UN Human Rights Council and be fair. Its history of bias should not be legitimated by men and women of decency who care about real human rights. That is why it was so surprising and disturbing to see a good man like Richard Goldstone agree to head the investigation team appointed by the UN Human Rights Council. Goldstone is a South African who fought against Apartheid and led an important investigation into the causes of violence there, ultimately blaming the government itself for instigating violence through a "third force." Read the rest here... Source: JP Blogs United Nations
Latest recipient of The Dhimmi Award
 Alan M. Dershowitz, Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Last week I came face to face with evil, as I stood just a few feet away from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. We were both staying in the same hotel in Geneva. He was there to be the opening speaker at Durban II, a review and reprise of Durban I, the United Nations sponsored conference on racism that had turned into a racist hate fest against the Jewish people and the Jewish state. I was there - along with Elie Wiesel, Irwin Cotler and others who have devoted their lives to combating bigotry - to try to prevent a recurrence of Durban I. I first set eyes on Ahmadinejad when he walked into the hotel and waved in the general direction of where my wife and I were standing. We looked back contemptuously as my wife let out an audible hiss. He was about to be welcomed to Geneva by the Swiss President who made a special visit to the hotel in order to greet a man who denies the Holocaust while threatening another one, this time with nuclear weapons. When the Swiss President was widely criticized for his warm and uncritical embrace of one of the worlds most evil and dangerous tyrants, he offered two justifications. First, ... More »
By Daniel Pipes | 24 Apr Does terrorism work, meaning, does it achieve its perpetrators' objectives? With terror attacks having become a routine and nearly daily occurrence, especially in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, the conventional wisdom holds that terrorism works very well. For example, the late Ehud Sprinzak of the Hebrew University ascribed the prevalence of suicide terrorism to its "gruesome effectiveness." Robert Pape of the University of Chicago argues that suicide terrorism is growing "because terrorists have learned that it pays." Harvard law professor Alan M. Dershowitz titled one of his books, Why Terrorism Works. But Max Abrahms, a fellow at Stanford University, disputes this conclusion, noting that they focus narrowly on the well-known but rare terrorist victories – while ignoring the much broader, if more obscure, pattern of terrorism's failures. To remedy this deficiency, Abrahms took a close look at each of the 28 terrorist groups so designated by the U.S. Department of State since 2001 and tallied how many of them achieved its objectives. His study, "Why Terrorism Does Not Work," finds that those 28 groups had 42 different political goals and that they achieved only 3 of those goals, for a measly 7 percent success rate. Those three victories would be: (1) Hezbollah's success at expelling the multinational peacekeepers from Lebanon in 1984, (2) Hezbollah's success at driving Israeli forces out of Lebanon in 1985 and 2000, and (3) the Tamil Tiger's partial success at winning control over areas of Sri Lanka after 1990. That's it. The other 26 groups, from the Abu Nidal Organization and Al-Qaeda and Hamas to Aum Shinriko and Kach and the Shining Path, occasionally achieved limited success but mostly failed completely. Abrahms draws three policy implications from the data. -
Guerrilla groups that mainly attack military targets succeed more often than terrorist groups that mainly attack civilian targets. (Terrorists got lucky in the Madrid attack of 2004.) -
Terrorists find it "extremely difficult to transform or annihilate a country's political system"; those with limited objectives (such as acquiring territory) do better than those with maximalist objectives (such as seeking regime change). -
Not only is terrorism "an ineffective instrument of coercion, but … its poor success rate is inherent to the tactic of terrorism itself." This lack of success should "ultimately dissuade potential jihadists" from blowing up civilians.
This final implication, of frequent failure leading to demoralization, suggests an eventual reduction of terrorism in favor of less violent tactics. Indeed, signs of change are already apparent. Sayyid Imam al-Sharif At the elite level, for example the former jihad theorist, Sayyid Imam al-Sharif (a.k.a. Dr. Fadl), now denounces violence: "We are prohibited from committing aggression," he writes, "even if the enemies of Islam do that." On the popular level, the Pew Research Center's 2005 Global Attitudes Project found that "support for suicide bombings and other terrorist acts has fallen in most Muslim-majority nations surveyed" and "so too has confidence in Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden." Likewise, a 2007 Program on International Policy Attitudes study found that "Large majorities in all countries oppose attacks against civilians for political purposes and see them as contrary to Islam. … Most respondents … believe that politically-motivated attacks on civilians, such as bombings or assassinations, cannot be justified." On the practical level, terrorist groups are evolving. Several of them – specifically in Algeria, Egypt, and Syria – have dropped violence and now work within the political system. Others have taken on non-violent functions – Hezbollah delivers medical services and Hamas won an election. If Ayatollah Khomeini and Osama bin Laden represent Islamism's first iteration, Hezbollah and Hamas represent a transitional stage, and Turkey's prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, arguably the world's most influential Islamist, shows the benefits of going legitimate. But if going the political route works so well, why does Islamist violence continue and even expand? Because they are not always practical. Rita Katz of the SITE Intelligence Group explains: "Engaged in a divine struggle, jihadists measure success not by tangible victories in this life but by God's eternal benediction and by rewards received in the hereafter." In the long term, however, Islamists will likely recognize the limits of violence and increasingly pursue their repugnant goals through legitimate ways. Radical Islam's best chance to defeat us lies not in bombings and beheadings but in classrooms, law courts, computer games, television studios, and electoral campaigns. We are on notice. Source: Islam Watch
 By Alan M. Dershowitz
Don't play into the deadly, cynical ploy of Hamas and blame Israel.
As Israel persists in its military efforts -- by ground, air and sea -- to protect its citizens from deadly Hamas rockets, and as protests against Israel increase around the world, the success of the abominable Hamas double war crime strategy becomes evident. The strategy is as simple as it is cynical: provoke Israel by playing Russian roulette with its children, firing rockets at kindergartens, playgrounds and hospitals; hide behind its own civilians when firing at Israeli civilians; refuse to build bunkers for its own civilians; have the TV cameras ready to transmit every image of dead Palestinians, especially children; exaggerate the number of civilians killed by including as "children" Hamas fighters who are 16 or 17 years old and as "women," female terrorists.
Hamas itself has a name for this. They call it "the CNN strategy" (this is not to criticize CNN or any other objective news source for doing its job; it is to criticize Hamas for exploiting the freedom of press which it forbids in Gaza).
The CNN strategy is working because decent people all over the world are naturally sickened by images of dead and injured children. When they see such images repeatedly flashed across TV screens, they tend to react emotionally. Rather than asking why these children are dying and who is to blame for putting them in harms way, the average viewer, regardless of their political or ideological perspective, wants to see the killing stopped. They blame those whose weapons directly caused the deaths, rather than those who provoked the violence by deliberately targeting civilians. They forget the usual rules of morality and law.
For example, when a murderer takes a hostage and fires from behind his human shield, and a policeman, in an effort to stop the shooting accidentally kills the hostage, the law of every country holds the hostage taker guilty of murder even though the policeman fired the fatal shot. The same is true of the law of war. The use of human shields, in the way Hamas uses the civilian population of Gaza, is a war crime -- as is its firing of rockets at Israeli civilians. Every human shield that is killed by Israeli self defense measures is the responsibility of Hamas, but you wouldn't know that from watching the media coverage.
The CNN strategy seems to work better, at least in some parts of the world, against Israel that it would against other nations.
There are many more protests -- and fury -- directed against Israel when it inadvertently kills fewer than 100 civilians in a just war of self defense, than against Arab and Muslim nations and groups that deliberately kill far more civilians for no legitimate reason.
It isn't the nature of the victims, since more Arabs and Muslim civilians are killed every day in Africa and the Mid East by Arab and Muslim governments and groups with little or no protests. (For example, on the first day of Israel's ground attack, approximately 30 Palestinians, almost all Hamas combatants, were killed. On the same day an Islamic suicide bomber blew herself up in a mosque in Iraq, killing 40 innocent Muslims. No protests. Little media coverage.)
It isn't the nature of the killings, since Israel goes to extraordinary lengths to avoid killing civilians -- if for no other reason than that it hurts their cause -- while Hamas does everything in its power to force Israel to kill Palestinian civilians by firing its missiles from densely populated civilian areas and refusing to build shelters for its civilians. It isn't the nature of the conflict, because Israel is fighting a limited war of self defense designed to protect its own civilians from rocket attacks, while most of those killed by Arabs and Muslims are killed in genocidal and tribal warfare with no legitimate aim.
The world simply doesn't seem to care when Arabs and Muslims kill large numbers of other Arabs and Muslims, but a qualitatively different standard seems to apply when the Jewish state kills even a relatively small number of Muslims and Arabs in a war of self defense.
The international community doesn't even seem to care when Palestinian children are killed by rocket fire -- unless it is from Israeli rockets.
The day before the recent outbreak, Hamas fired an anti-personnel rocket at Israeli civilians but the rocket fell short of its target and killed two Palestinian girls. Yet there was virtually no coverage and absolutely no protests against these "collateral" civilian deaths. Hamas refused to allow TV cameras to show these dead Palestinian children, who were killed by their own rockets. Nor have there been protests against the cold blooded murders by Hamas and its supporters of dozens of Palestinian civilians who allegedly "collaborated" with Israel.
Indeed Hamas and Fatah have killed far more Palestinian civilians over the past several years than have the Israeli, but you wouldn't know that from the media, the United Nations or protesters who focus selectively on only those deaths caused by Israeli military actions.
The protestors who fill the streets of London, Paris and San Francisco were nowhere to be seen when hundreds of Jewish children were murdered by Palestinian terrorists over the years.
Moreover, the number of civilians killed by Israel is almost always exaggerated. First, it widely assumed that if a victim is a "child" or a "woman", he or she is necessarily a civilian.
Consider the following report in Thursday's NY Times: "Hospital officials in Gaza said that of the more than 390 people killed by Israeli fighter planes since Saturday, 38 were children and 25 women." Some of these children and women were certainly civilians but others were equally certainly combatants: Hamas often uses 14, 15, 16 and 17 year olds as well as women as terrorists.
Israel is entitled, under international law, to treat these children and women as the combatants they have become. Hamas cannot, out of one side of its mouth, boast that it recruits children and women to become terrorists, and then, out of the other side of its mouth, complain when Israel takes them at their word. The media should look closely and critically at the number of claimed civilian victims before accepting self-serving and self-contradictory exaggerations.
By any objective count, the number of genuinely innocent civilians killed by the Israeli Air Force in Gaza is lower than the collateral deaths caused by any nation in a comparable situation.
Hamas does everything in its power to provoke Israel into killing as many Palestinian civilians as possible, in order to generate condemnation against the Jewish state. They have gone so far as firing rockets from Palestinian schoolyards and hiding their terrorists in Palestinian maternity wards. Lest there be any doubt about the willingness of Hamas to expose their families to martyrdom, remember that the Hamas terrorist leader recently killed in an Israeli air attack sent his own son to be a suicide bomber and then refused to allow his family to leave their house even after learning that he and his house had been placed on the list of military targets.
Nor is this double standard -- applied to Israel on the one hand, and Arab and Muslim nations and groups on the other hand -- limited to the current situation in Gaza. It has provided an excuse for the international community to remain silent in the face of massive human rights violations including genocides perpetrated by Arabs and Muslims around the world for years. Many of those who protest Israeli self-defense actions remain silent in the face of real genocides -- such as that in Darfur.
The reality is that the elected and de facto government of Gaza has declared war against Israel. Under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, they have committed an "armed attack" against the Jewish state.
The Hamas charter calls for Israel's total destruction. Under international law, Israel is entitled to take whatever military action is necessary to repel that attack and stop the rockets. It must seek to minimize civilian deaths consistent with the legitimate military goal, and it is doing precisely that, despite Hamas efforts to maximize civilian deaths on both sides.
The best outcome for purposes of producing peace would be the destruction or substantial weakening of Hamas, which rejects the two-state solution. Israel and the Palestinian Authority could then agree on a peace that would end both the Israeli occupation and the rocketing of Israeli civilians. Source: AISH CNN
Latest recipient of the Yellow Rag Award
 January 03, 2009
ISRAEL's actions in Gaza are justified under international law, and Israel should be commended for its self-defence against terrorism. Article 51 of the United Nations Charter reserves to every nation the right to engage in self-defence against armed attacks. The only limitation international law places on a democracy is that its actions must satisfy the principle of proportionality.
Since Israel ended its occupation of Gaza, Hamas has fired thousands of rockets designed to kill civilians into southern Israel. The residents of Sderot - who have borne the brunt of the attacks - have approximately 15 seconds from launch time to run into a shelter. Although deliberately targeting civilians is a war crime, terrorists firing at Sderot are so proud of their actions that they sign theirweapons.
When Barack Obama visited Sderot last year and saw the remnants of these rockets, he reacted by saying that if his two daughters were exposed to rocket attacks in their home, he would do everything in his power to stop such attacks. He understands how the terrorists exploit the morality of democracies.
In a recent incident related to me by the former head of the Israeli air force, Israeli intelligence learned that a family's house in Gaza was being used to manufacture rockets. The Israeli military gave the residents 30 minutes to leave. Instead, the owner called Hamas, which sent mothers carrying babies to the house.
Hamas knew Israel would never fire at a home with civilians in it. They also knew that if Israeli authorities did not learn there were civilians in the house and fired on it, Hamas would win a public relations victory by displaying the dead. Israel held its fire. The Hamas rockets that were protected by the human shields were then used against Israeli civilians.
These despicable tactics - targeting Israeli civilians while hiding behind Palestinian civilians - can only work against moral democracies that care deeply about minimising civilian casualties. They never work against amoral nations such as Russia, whose military has few inhibitions against killing civilians among whom enemy combatants are hiding.
The claim that Israel has violated the principle of proportionality - by killing more Hamas terrorists than the number of Israeli civilians killed by Hamas rockets - is absurd. First, there is no legal equivalence between the deliberate killing of innocent civilians and the deliberate killings of Hamas combatants. Under the laws of war, any number of combatants can be killed to prevent the killing of even one innocent civilian.
Second, proportionality is not measured by the number of civilians actually killed, but rather by the risk posed. This is illustrated by what happened on Tuesday, when a Hamas rocket hit a kindergarten in Beersheba, though no students were there at the time. Under international law, Israel is not required to allow Hamas to play Russian roulette with its children's lives.
While Israel installs warning systems and builds shelters, Hamas refuses to do so, precisely because it wants to maximise the number of Palestinian civilians inadvertently killed by Israel's military actions. Hamas knows from experience that even a small number of innocent Palestinian civilians killed inadvertently will result in bitter condemnation of Israel by many in the international community.
Israel understands this as well. It goes to great lengths to reduce the number of civilian casualties - even to the point of foregoing legitimate targets that are too close to civilians. Until the world recognises that Hamas is committing three war crimes - targeting Israeli civilians, using Palestinian civilians as human shields, and seeking the destruction of a member-state of the UN - and that Israel is acting in self-defence and out of military necessity, the conflict will continue.
Alan M. Dershowitz is a law professor at Harvard University. His latest book is The Case Against Israel's Enemies (Wiley). Source: The Australian
Alan M. Dershowitz If Imad Mugniyeh - the Hezbollah terrorist mastermind who was responsible for hundreds if not thousands of murders - was indeed successfully targeted for assassination, his untimely death should be cause for celebration. I say untimely, because if he had been killed years ago, many innocent lives would have been saved. At the time of this writing, no one can be sure whether Imad Mugniyeh is really dead, whether if he is dead he was killed by a car bomb, and who is responsible for his killing. But his targeting makes the strongest case for the appropriateness of targeted killing of terrorists who are being harbored by states that support terrorism. Mugniyeh has been indicted by the FBI for the murder of hundreds of Americans. Syria, where he made his home, was unwilling to turn him over to the United States for justice. He continued to engage in terrorism. Read more ...Source: FrontPage MagazineMore on this story: U.S. partner praises Hezbollah terroristMore on this story: Gotcha!Imad Mugniyeh
Posthumous recipient of the Distinguished Islamofascist Award
 Muslims Against Sharia congratulate the organization responsible for elimination of terrorist Imad Mugniyeh on a job well done!
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