Extrajudicial Killings
Introduction
The high Palestinian death toll that characterizes the last several years of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is no surprise when considering the permissive open fire regulations adopted by the Israeli army at the beginning of the second intifada. As the Palestinian human rights organization Al-Haq explains, "the regulations enable firing in situations where there is no clear and present danger to life, or even in situations where there is no life-threatening danger at all" (Al-Haq's Waiting for Justice, 2004). (Added 20 October 2003)

The lack of accountability for Palestinian deaths at the hands of the Israeli military has further encouraged a culture of shoot first, don't ask questions later. In the words of an Israeli soldier who quit his reserve duty at a West Bank checkpoint, "We sat there as the company's commanders and made up the procedures ... we decided what constituted the red line, when to fire and when not" (Ha'aretz newspaper, as quoted in Waiting for Justice).

Furthermore, as a matter of policy, Israel employs excessive use of force with "wanted" Palestinians -- assassinating them rather than employing due process of law. As Don Oberdorfer notes in the book Crimes of War (Ed. Gutman and Reiff, 1999), "It is, of course, unlawful to execute an accused person without giving him a fair trial first." Yet Israel routinely extrajudicially executes "wanted" Palestinians through air raids on densely populated refugee camps and undercover death squads, without serious protest from the international community.


In the case of extrajudicial executions, Gutman notes, "Two bodies of law apply -- humanitarian law, which applies in an armed conflict, and human rights law, which applies even where the laws of war do not. The requirements for fair trials of military personnel and civilians are similar. Each accused person has rights: against self-incrimination, against being convicted on the basis of an ex post facto law, for being advised of his or her rights, of having the right to counsel, to be told the particulars of the charge, to prepare a defense, to call witnesses, to have an interpreter, and to appeal."

EI co-founder Ali Abunimah points out the hypocritical pattern that surfaces when armed Palestinians commit deadly violence: "Condemnation will rain down on Palestinians from all those who are now silent and sitting on their hands" when it comes to Israeli violence. "Meanwhile," Abunimah adds, "those who call for Palestinians to disarm and 'reform,' will continue to supply Israel with its weapons of death and to profit from the enterprise."




©2000-2007 electronicIntifada.net unless otherwise noted. Content may represent personal view of author. This page was printed from the Electronic Intifada website at electronicIntifada.net. You may freely e-mail, print out, copy, and redistribute this page for informational purposes on a non-commercial basis. To republish content credited to the Electronic Intifada in online or print publications, please get in touch via electronicIntifada.net/contact