I don't know whether Israel did or did not assassinate the leader of the Hamas military wing, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. But assuming for argument's sake that the Mossad made the hit, did it have the right to engage in this "extrajudicial assassination?"
Not all extrajudicial killings are unlawful. Every soldier who kills an enemy combatant engages in an extrajudicial killing, as does every policeman who shoots a fleeing felon. There are several complex legal questions involved in assessing these situations.
First, was the person who was killed a combatant, in relation to those killed him? If Israel killed Mabhouh, there can be absolutely no doubt that he was a combatant. He was actively participating in an ongoing war by Hamas against Israeli civilians. Indeed, it is likely that he was killed while on a military mission to Iran in order to secure unlawful, anti-personnel rockets that target Israeli civilians. Both the United States and Great Britain routinely killed such combatants during the Second World War, whether they were in uniform or not. Moreover, Hamas combatants deliberately remove their uniforms while engaged in combat.
So if the Israeli Air Force had killed Mabhouh while he was in Gaza, there would be absolutely no doubt that their action would be lawful. It does not violate international law to kill a combatant, regardless of where the combatant is found, whether he is awake or asleep and whether or not he is engaged in active combat at the moment of his demise.
But Mabhouh was not killed in Gaza. He was killed in Dubai. It is against the law of Dubai for an Israeli agent to kill a combatant against Israel while he is in Dubai. So the people who engaged in the killing presumptively violated the domestic law of Dubai, unless there is a defense to such a killing based on international principles regarding enemy combatants. It is unlikely that any defense would be available to an Israeli or someone working on behalf of Israel, since Dubai does not recognize Israel's right to kill enemy combatants on its territory.
If it could be proved that Israel was responsible for the hit--an extremely unlikely situation--then only Dubai could lawfully bring Israelis to trial. They would not be properly subjected to prosecution before an international tribunal. But what if a suspect was arrested in England, the United States or some other western country and Dubai sought his extradition? That would pose an interesting legal, diplomatic, political and moral dilemma. Traditional extradition treaties do not explicitly cover situations of this kind. This was not an ordinary murder. It was carried out as a matter of state policy as part of an ongoing war. A western democracy would certainly have the right and the power to refuse to extradite. But they might decide, for political or diplomatic reasons, to turn the person over to Dubai.
Turning now to the moral considerations, which might influence a decision whether to extradite, the situation is even murkier. The Goldstone report suggests that Israel cannot lawfully fight Hamas rockets by wholesale air attacks. Richard Goldstone, in his interviews, has suggested that Israel should protect itself from these unlawful attacks by more proportionate retail measures, such as commando raids and targeted killing of terrorists engaged in the firing of rockets. Well, there could be no better example of a proportionate, retail and focused attack on a combatant who was deeply involved in the rocket attacks on Israel, than the killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. Not only was Mabhouh the commander in charge of Hamas' unlawful military actions at the time of his death, he was also personally responsible for the kidnapping and coldblooded murder of two Israeli soldiers several years earlier.
Obviously it would have been better if he could have been captured and subjected to judicial justice. But it was impossible to capture him, especially when he was in Dubai. If Israel was responsible for the killing, it had only two options: to let him go on his way and continue to endanger Israeli civilian lives by transferring unlawful anti-personnel weapons from Iran to Gaza, or to kill him. There was no third alternative. Given those two options, killing seems like the least tragic choice available.
I leave to others, more expert in these matters, whether if Israel ordered the killing, it was strategically the right thing, or whether they carried it off in an intelligent manner. But as to the legal and moral right to end the threat posed by this mass murderer, the least bad alternative would seem to be his extrajudicial killing.
(E. Kant in ‘Perpetual Peace’ Article 6)
If I may add to the list of 'dishonorable stratagems': stealing and/or forging passports...but that's another issue.
action was in support of an illegal occupation.
More on the order of a bank robber killing a guard in the commission of a robbery.
"If Israel killed Mabhouh.."
So the Israeli soldiers were murdered but Mabhouh was merely killed.
Pure sophistry as usual. Your argument is utilitarian and reminds me very much of others who have used the same rational to commit acts best left in history books. I will remember your comments when reviewing WWII history.
So, in other words, all the Israeli commanders and soldiers who have engaged in bulldozing and murdering Palestinian civilians are fair game for covert assassination?
Good to know.
Time to take a new track.
You are asking us to view this event as 'one less terrorist' based on the fact that this fellow took up arms to fight against the occupation and has blood on his hands. Similarly, the occupier has blood and the further burden of being the occupier, therefore should get less sympathy. Correct?
So if Hamas turns around and shoots Shalit in the head, the west should shrug its shoulders and say "C'est La Vie' in ME.
Mr. Dershowitz just provided a justification for Hamas to carry out assassinations of Israeli military leaders.
Too bad anything he says about Israel is not actually based on the letter of international law, just his ongoing attempts to justify all illegal Israeli activities.
"after we become a strong force, as the result of the creation of a state, we shall abolish partition and expand to the whole of Palestine." (Ben-Gurion)
the Palestinians were f**ked whether they accepted 181 or not.
If one holds to your argument that the UN has no power over a nation or people unless they accept it there has been no legal basis for a large number of actions taken by the UN. For example, the actions taken against Zimbabwe are certainly n9ot doe with the permission or acceptance of the people of that nation. UN actions inside Somalia are also not legal under your argument. Thank gfoodness your argument is wrong.
Recommended reading for anyone interested in the settlement and creation of Israel: "The Claim of Dispossession" by Arieh Avneri:
http://books.google.com/books?id=ud1xBeZZRDsC&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+claim+of+dispossession&source=bl&ots=eLPytKLQU9&sig=quX5n6RG63sW24leqPnuKwEgGgM&hl=en&ei=cEmAS_GXOJT-M9WK1agE&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CBcQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=&f=false
This is a superb work of scholarship that puts everything into perspective, from just how empty Palestine was under Ottoman rule to exactly how the Jews (legally) acquired their lands there. A must-read for anyone interested in the actual history of the region.
The shocking issue is the incompetence of it all, which has even stunned many Arabs, so used to Israeli superiority in military and espionage matters (with the exception of Hezbollah). Then there is the UAE, which is not a battleground, and the several European states whose passports may have been forged, if not stolen. Then there is the embarrassment to the Palestinian Authority as at least two of its agents were involved........
And, don't they know that all hotels have cameras these days? As do all airports? And why did it take eleven people (or was it thirteen) to off one man? Was it partly a shopping junket for some of them?
What happened before, during and afterward is irrelevant, except of course to Israeli haters.
Dershowtiz with the above has just provided legitimacy for Hamas killing Gilad Shalit. Who after all was a combatant manning an siege fence, which was in contravention of International law and also an act of war, which as Dershowitz admits, is ongoing.
Terrorists that are captured by Israel are trialed and put in jail, there is no death penalty in Israel except for Nazi war criminals, but there are no many of those left these days.
Oh and care to explain why many Palestinians whom Israel kidnaps in the OPT end up in jails in Israel proper? (Which contravenes international law) and also care to explain why many do not get to see their loved ones, as their loved ones are incapable of crossing into Israel proper in mny cases, because of the system Israel imposes. And nevermind the 'municipaltiy citizenship' which Israel imposes on Arabs in annexed East Jerusalem, which means if they wish to see their loved ones in jail, Israel can prevent them from returning home.
So Israel 'arrests' palestinian peace activists from their bed in the dead of night, yet the palestinians 'kidnap' a soldier manning a siege fence which is not only in contravention of international law, but also an act of war. It seems that israel whilst denying the palestinians their own state also think they can dictate the lexicon of the debate by demanding any israeli held by palestinians is kidnapped, after all, the Palestinians don't have a state legal to try him with, so its 'kidnapping'. One person who most defintely is not kidnapped, is a soldier who is manning a siege fence, and who is thentaken by the very people he has under siege. Prisoner of war would be more apt.
Just fanned you. :-) As a lefty liberal I have a policy of not fanning hard-core conservatives (especially on the Israel threads) but you make a lot of sense!
Lies, i suggest you read the diaries of Ahad ha'am and HB trsitram. lay off the Joan Peters. Claiming Palestine was virtually empty both factually wrong and long debunked lies.
Or do you think that the zionists had some innate "right" to appropriate those lands from the arabs/Palestinians/whatever-you-want-to-call-the-native-inhabitants since the Bible claims that there was a 'kingdom' of Israel there several thousand years ago (though historians and archaeologists can find evidence for little beyond a few transient and loosely connected city states).
Does that mean you are OK with the killing of the natives of North Ameria just because they are not called "Americans" , or those of Australia because they are not called "Australians" ?
The fact of the matter is, which I'm sure you know but won't admit, that Palestine was then part of the Ottoman Empire, and as everyone knows, the population was referred to by the name of the Empire. I believe everyone outside the US refers to the Californians as AMERICANS! Only other Americans make the distinction and call them Californians!
What a preposterous argument to deny people the right to live in their country!
And comparing Gilad who never killed anyone but manned a "Legitimate" fence which has saved many lives (Israelis, Christian's and Arabs) from suicide terrorists, to a Mass Murderer shows how ludicrous your logic is!
Dershowtiz used Joan Peters fraudulent work 'From Time Imemmorial' which Finkelstein demolished in an earlier. Finkelstein demonstrated quite clearly how Peters manipulated the figures and cherry picked. And this was published before Dershowitz used Perters work for his 'The Case for Israel'. Which Finkelstein then annihalated with his 'Beyond Chutzpah'. Please do a bit more reading before claiming palestine was virtually empty, its a long debunked falsehood and is a fraud claim just like the Protocols is.
“We abroad are used to believe the Eretz Yisrael is now almost totally desolate, a desert that is not sowed ….. But in truth that is not the case. Throughout the country it is difficult to find fields that are not sowed. Only sand dunes and stony mountains …. are not cultivated.”
Why didn’t anyone let HB Tristram know Palestine was barren and uninhabitied before he wrote about the ‘imaginary’ Jabul Nablus..
‘Its beauty can hardly be exaggerated…Clusters of white-roofed houses nestling in the bosom of a mass of trees, olive,palm, orange, apricot, and many another varying the carpet with every shade of gree…Everything fresh, green, soft, and picturesque, with verdure, shade, and water everywhere…a rich blue haze from the many springs and steamlets, which mellows every hard ouline..’
And these guys were writing in the 19th century. So please stop spreading long debunked nonsense, you only make a fool of yourself.