Virtually the Entire Dem-Controlled Congress Supports Israel's War Crimes in Gaza

By Stephen Zunes, AlterNet. Posted January 13, 2009.

Congress, however, went on record in the resolutions praising Israel for having "facilitated humanitarian aid to Gaza."

Both resolutions "hold Hamas responsible for breaking the cease-fire," despite the fact that there had been scores of minor violations during the months of the cease-fire by both sides and that Israel had launched a major incursion into the Gaza Strip on Nov. 4, 2008, assassinating several Hamas leaders, an action the Israeli press speculated was designed to provoke Hamas into not renewing the cease-fire when it expired the following month. Israel then tightened its siege on Nov. 5, banning even humanitarian aid from coming through. Hamas appeared willing to renew the cease-fire in return for Israel renouncing further such incursions and lifting the siege, but Israel refused.

While these Israeli provocations do not justify Hamas' failure to renew the cease-fire and certainly not Hamas' decision to once again begin firing rockets into civilian-populated areas of Israel -- which is a war crime -- the language of the resolutions gives a very misleading understanding of the events leading up to the war. Ironically, despite blaming Hamas exclusively for not renewing the cease-fire, the resolutions also claim that returning to the terms of that cease-fire agreement "is unacceptable."

Yet these were by no means the most egregious misrepresentations in these Democratic-led congressional initiatives.

Redefining International Humanitarian Law

In perhaps the most dangerous clause of the resolution, the House called "on all nations … to condemn Hamas for deliberately embedding its fighters, leaders and weapons in private homes, schools, mosques, hospitals and otherwise using Palestinian civilians as human shields."

According to international humanitarian law, however, "human shields" require the deliberate use of civilians as a deterrent to avoid attack on one's troops or military objects. Despite repeated calls to the offices of the resolutions' principal Democratic sponsors, not one of them could provide a single example of this actually occurring during the current wave of fighting. Similar accusations in a 2006 resolution supported by Pelosi, Reid and other Democratic leaders during the five weeks of devastating Israeli attacks on Lebanon that summer were later systematically rebuked in a detailed and meticulously researched 249-page report by Human Rights Watch. (See my article "The Democrats and the "Human Shields" Myth").

In this resolution, the Democrats appear to be attempting to redefine just what constitutes human shields. Despite this desperate effort to rationalize the large-scale killing of Palestinian civilians by Israeli forces, the fact that a Hamas leader lives in his own private home, attends a neighborhood mosque and seeks admittance in a local hospital does not constitute the use of human shields. Indeed, the vast majority of leaders of most governments and political parties live in private homes in civilian neighborhoods, go to local houses of worship and check in to hospitals when sick or injured, along with ordinary civilians. Furthermore, given that the armed wing of Hamas is a militia rather than a standing army, virtually all of their fighters live in private homes and go to neighborhood mosques and local hospitals, as well.

In short, Pelosi and other congressional leaders appear to be advancing a radical and dangerous reinterpretation of international humanitarian law that would allow virtually any country with superior air power or long-range artillery to get away with war crimes.

Hamas is certainly guilty of less-severe violations of international humanitarian law, such as not taking all necessary steps it should to prevent civilian casualties when it positions fighters and armaments too close to concentrations of civilians. However, this is not the same thing as deliberately using civilians as shields. And, as Human Rights Watch noted, even the presence of armed personnel and weapons near civilian areas "does not release Israel from its obligations to take all feasible precautions to minimize harm to civilians and civilian property during military operations." Furthermore, the nature of urban warfare, particularly in a territory as densely populated as the Gaza Strip, makes the proximity of retreating fighters and their equipment to civilians unavoidable in many cases.

It is also important to note that, even if Hamas were using human shields in the legal definition of the term, it still does not absolve Israel from its obligation to avoid civilian casualties. Amnesty International has noted that the Geneva Conventions make it clear that even if one side is shielding itself behind civilians, such a violation "shall not release the Parties to the conflict from their legal obligations with respect to the civilian population and civilians." Despite claims by some members of Congress to the contrary, Israel's Jan. 6 attack on the U.N. school in Gaza, which killed more than 40 civilians, was still a war crime, even if Israeli forces were being fired upon from the vicinity. (The argument by those defending this atrocity is comparable to claiming that it would be legitimate for a SWAT team, in order to kill some bank robbers shooting at them, to also kill the bank employees and customers being held hostage since the bad guys were using "human shields.")

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Stephen Zunes is a professor of politics and chairman of Middle Eastern studies at the University of San Francisco and serves as a senior policy analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus.

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