Israeli and foreign NGOs have already jumped onto its bandwagon. The two issues are linked: a cash-starved UN increasingly turning to independent NGOs to carry out its own work, and the growing power and influence of these groups, many of which are at the forefront of the anti-Israel campaign.
Goldstone in Gaza.
Photo: AP [file]
The mix is not promising from Israel's perspective.
Operation Keep It in Geneva #1
The day after Yom Kippur, the Goldstone Report will come up for discussion at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. The best-case scenario as far as Israel is concerned is that the issue stays in Geneva, with stern condemnations of the IDF and perhaps other slaps on the wrist, and does not move to New York (the UN Security Council) or The Hague.
Israel and its friends will be lobbying the members of the council to keep the issue there, but the odds of that happening are not so good.
Operation Keep It in Geneva #2
Israel is not signed on to the first and second Geneva Protocols, drawn up in 1977. Israeli military officials perceive the Geneva Protocols as meant to protect so-called "freedom fighters," including Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hizbullah and al-Qaida.
If Israel were signed on to these protocols, it would be much more limited in its ability to fight asymmetric wars. The reality is that Israel's close-circle enemies don't fight with tanks and planes - they fight guerrilla warfare using Palestinian and Lebanese civilians as cover.
Looking ahead, there is ample evidence of Hizbullah building a massive network of underground bunkers and weapons silos under a very large number of south Lebanese villages. Syria is doing the same on its side of the Golan Heights.
If and when the expected next round of violence comes, the IDF will have to fight in these villages, and there will be civilian casualties. Israeli legal officials say they would prefer to stick with the Geneva Conventions, but also want to make changes to the accepted laws of war.
Israel is currently fighting under, and being judged by, the laws of World War II, which are suitable for conventional wars between two or more armies in open fields, where it is easier to define proportionality.
But what do you do when terrorists hide under homes, or when they don't wear uniforms? What do you do when the enemy high command runs its operations from under a hospital located in a crowded neighborhood, as Hamas did during Cast Lead, using the basement of Shifa Hospital as a command and control center? It is clear that the existing laws of war are incompatible with the current and evolving nature of war.
For more of Amir's articles and posts, visit his personal blog Forecast Highs
