Who is Responsible under International Law for the New Gaza Wars?

By Louis René Beres

• Recurrent Hamas rocket attacks upon Israeli noncombatants are terrorism. Such terrorism -- all terrorism, irrespective of so-called "just cause" -- represents a distinct crime under international law.
• When Palestinian terrorism reflects populations that enthusiastically support terror attacks, and where the terrorists can find hospitable refuge among local populations, the legal responsibility for all ensuing counterterrorist harms lies with the perpetrators.
• Under international law, which also happens to be part of the law of the United States, all Palestinian terrorists are hostes humani generis: "Common enemies of humankind."
• Hamas' lack of distinction between "Jews" and "Israelis" is intentional. For Hamas, the true enemy is identifiable by religion, not territory, and is therefore irremediable. For "the Jews," this means that the only way to avoid Arab terror is to disappear, or submit to Islamic control -- to become persecuted, second-class dhimmicitizens in their own country, just as the indigenous Christians are now in Egypt and much of the Middle East.

In the words of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh (left), the terror attack tunnels that Hamas digs from Gaza into Israel (right) are not only to "defend the Gaza Strip, but to serve as a launching pad to reach all of Palestine."

"The safety of the People Shall be the highest law." — Cicero, The Laws.

It is beginning again. As Hamas terrorists are attacking Israeli civilians with indiscriminate rocket fire, most recently in the southern city of Sderot, Israeli self-defense reactions are already being labeled "excessive" and "disproportionate." As usual, international public opinion is quickly, if bizarrely, mobilizing against Israel's underlying supposed "occupation" of Jews living in their own Biblical land.

But what of the facts? In Gaza, since 2005 at least, when every last Jew left, there has been no "occupation." There are no Israelis in Gaza.

Systematic Hamas misrepresentations get progressively worse.

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