Anne Bayefsky of the Columbia Law School notes the double-standard of the UN’s condemnation of Israel in regards to the assassination of Abdel Rantisi. As Bayefsky notes:
Rantissi was a combatant in a war. His killing was not “extrajudicial” because the legal term, by definition, applies only to individuals entitled to judicial process before being targeted. Combatants — including the unlawful combatants of Hamas who seek to make themselves indistinguishable from the civilian population — are not entitled to such prior judicial process. Furthermore, the manual on the laws of armed conflict of the International Committee of the Red Cross, states that civilians who take a direct part in hostilities forfeit their immunity from attack. Even beyond that, judicial process in these instances is not an option, since it would place both IDF and Palestinian civilians at much greater risk of harm.
Hamas is not a street gang, it’s a terrorist organization. Assassinating leaders of Hamas is no different that assassination an Osama bin Laden or an Adolph Hitler. Hamas has declared war aganist Israel time and time again – and yet they wish to argue that they are not a military force. Hamas exercises no proportionality – they deliberately and wontonly target Israeli civilians, while Israel’s retaliations are as targeted as they can be under the circumstances.
Hamas is a terrorist group whose purpose is nothing less than the complete and total destruction of Israel and eradication of the Jews. They do not neither deserve nor have a legal right to claim protection under international law. The fact that the UN spends more time accusing Israel of “war crimes” than Hamas shows how dangerously skewed the UN has become on this issue.
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