© Israeli Defense ForceIsraeli snipers seen on the border with Gaza during the Great March of Return, March 30, 2018
Israel's High Court of Justice heard on Monday a major challenge to the IDF's rules of engagement, which permit the use of live fire against demonstrators who pose no danger to human life.
Monday's session saw opening arguments in two petitions submitted by several prominent human rights organizations - one by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), Yesh Din, Gisha, and HaMoked: Center for the Defence of the Individual and one by Adalah and Al Mezan Center for Human Rights - in the wake of deadly violence against mostly unarmed Palestinian demonstrators in Gaza over the past month.
While the IDF's open-fire regulations are not publicly available - the army refused to disclose the rules of engagement in response to the petition, claiming that they are classified - the army's actions at the border and statements made by top commanded formed the legal basis for the petition.
© Oren Ziv / Activestills.orgIsraeli soldiers face Palestinian protesters in Gaza during the Return March protests. April 13, 2018.
"The state is referring to passages that turn international law on its head," said attorney Michael Sfard, representing Israeli NGO Yesh Din, during Monday's hearing. Sfard charged that the government had fabricated a new legal category to justify using deadly force against individuals who present no immediate danger to human life, but who are part of a mass or large group that could pose a danger in the future.
"The use of deadly force against a civilian is only permitted if that civilian poses an immediate danger, these are the rules of international law," Sfard stated. "We are dealing with the most dramatic power the state has - to injure, to wound, to kill. This isn't the place for legal games."
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Joshua Leifer is an associate editor at +972 Magazine. His writing has also appeared in Dissent, Jacobin, and n+1. He is currently based in Jerusalem.
Nope. Just the stench of dead bodies of those who were victims of IsraHell's 'version' of 'Justice.'*
If you think that this 'case' will make a difference, then I'd bet that you believe that the countless cases of police murders of innocents nowadays found at least DAILY on these pages,** will result in the cops losing their jobs, being prosecuted for perjury and murder, and doing hard time and/or facing the death penalty, as would happen in the shooter was you, me, or anyone you consider a friend.
R.C.
* As to the similarity with events in the US, (and given IsraHell's/UK's and USA's Joint PTB's control of all three places, with their sycophantic flunky countries and NATO, et al) , AND the similarity and concurrency of the fascistic and Orwellian changes in all of those places, this gives rise to that eternal question: 'which came first? The chicken or the egg?' (E.g., Is Israel copying the US, or vice versa?)
**(Often from 'The Free Thought Project', but also from countless other sources, as there's simply no way that one source could completely cover the number of these type events, which we only lately have been provided annual totals of folks killed by US 'Law Enforcement' [via voluntary internet efforts, and specifically NOT from our (sic) government.] As I recall, the US agency (the ever trustworthy (sarcasm) FBI? I forget) which has kept the records reporting deaths and which has helped ensure that such reporting is and remains WHOLLY VOLUNTARY! (It may have changed...I grant.)
Per my recollections from my efforts of about 15? 20? years ago:
While I forget the questions, it was clear that the requested results had two painfully obvious aims,
(1) to help institute gun control, and
(2) to bury murders by cop by lumping them in with suicides, felony murders, et al.
(Of course, it would have been easier to ask questions that would tell folks what percent of firearm deaths in USA are caused by cops, as it's almost certainly the majority, once suicides are removed, and the questionnaire went to absurd lengths to avoid even the voluntary reporting of helpful, accurate information. E.g., I seem to recall that the only way cops could list when they shot someone was that it was that dead 'felon's fault,' etc.)
For your (sad) entertainment, I provide a simile of the reporting form I saw all those years ago, which seemed to be something like this. I imagine that same setup has changed little, if at all.
R.C.