Key figures in Israel's government apparently believe that the grand scale of planned attacks on Lebanese civilians and civilian infrastructure will result in so much destruction and death that it will help to ensure an Israeli victory.
© Lefteris Pitarakis | AP
Ali, last name not given, stands amongst torn family photographs damaged by Israeli soldiers at their family home in the southern village of Maroun el-Ras, Lebanon, Aug. 23, 2006. The house which was occupied for several days by Israeli forces was littered with soldiers' belongings, empty food cans and water bottles.
During a conference hosted on Tuesday by the
Mossad-linked Shurat HaDin or Israel Law Center (ILC), Israel's Public Security and Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan
demanded that international laws on warfare be amended because current international law pertaining to warfare "serves terrorists."
Erdan claimed that groups like Lebanon's Hezbollah use existing international laws of war "to destabilize the ability of democracies to defend their citizens" and "force [democracies] to fight against terrorists with their hand chained behind their backs." The ILC's director, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner,
seconded Erdan's claim but argued that changing international law is difficult, thus making it more practical to change how existing laws of war are interpreted, a task she suggested be performed by military prosecutors.
According to
the Jerusalem Post, the laws currently governing international warfare are aimed specifically at reducing the suffering of civilians and, as the Post article suggested, Erdan wanted to change these measures aimed at protecting civilians prior to the "next war" between Israel and Lebanon because in that war "Israel will have no choice but to harm Hezbollah rocket sites and Lebanese infrastructure." Erdan's argument hinges on the commonly repeated accusation by Israeli officials that Hezbollah uses civilians as cover for military operations, but a
comprehensive 249-page study by Human Rights Watch found that not to be the case. In fact, the study found that even
"a simple movement of vehicles or persons - such as attempting to buy bread or moving about private homes - could be enough to cause a deadly Israeli airstrike that would kill civilians."
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