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Iraqi Kurdistan Nears Breaking Point – Analysis

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By Cathy Otten

The pressure of hosting more than 1 million people displaced by militants from the group calling itself Islamic State (IS) on top of the 225,000 refugees from Syria is taking a devastating economic and social toll on Iraqi Kurdistan and increasing risks for the most vulnerable.

The population of the semi-autonomous region has grown by 28 percent in the space of 12 months, piling pressure on education and health services. Poverty in the region has more than doubled, according to the World Bank. With further military offensives planned against IS, there are fears that yet more people will seek safety in the region.

The scale of the influx has created significant competition for jobs, pushing down wages and household incomes across the board, while demand for water, electricity and waste management is outstripping supply.

Meanwhile, the falling price of oil has hit government revenues and a long-running budget row with the Federal authorities in Baghdad has halted fiscal transfers to the Kurdish capital Erbil – meaning public salaries have gone unpaid for months.

“The Kurdish Regional Government [KRG] does not have enough cash to pay its own staff, so how can it then pay to look after IDPs [internally displaced people] and refugees?” asked Hayder Mustafa, director general of Development and Coordination and Cooperation in Kurdistan’s Ministry of Planning.

Avoidable tragedies

The majority of the displaced in Kurdistan live in grim conditions, without family or friends to host them or money for accommodation. Despite efforts to transfer the displaced into tented camps, many still live in informal settlements and on construction sites.

The washing lines strung between naked concrete pillars of half-built hotels and shopping malls serve as a poignant reminder of the economic confidence Kurdistan once had.

The Khero family are Yazidis who fled their village of Giruzer near Sinjar, in Nineveh province, when it was seized by IS militants. IS believes members of the minority Yazidi religion are devil worshippers and have singled them out for brutal treatment including killings, slavery and kidnap.

Seeking refuge in Erbil, they ended up in a shack settlement on a patch of land next to the luxurious five-star Divan Hotel, once popular with the overseas business delegations that used to flood to Kurdistan.

During a rainstorm last December, three-year-old Rana Khero went missing. After a frantic search the police drained a manhole and found her body. Today the little girl’s tiny brightly coloured shoes are still visible at the bottom of the hole. Her mother Zeitoun Hussein, 30, who is pregnant and has four other children, told IRIN: “I am very sad but what can I do?”

“A lot of these places are so dire but we don’t have resources to fix these problems,” sighed Peter Joshi, Senior Emergency Response Advisor at the Erbil Refugee Council (ERC), a government department also responsible for IDPs.

“If we had the money we wouldn’t have people living here: it is an unliveable space,” he said, adding that the government’s financial issues meant services were being reduced across the board. “We have cut down on security and fire fighters in all IDP and refugee camps in Erbil governorate – to the level where it becomes hazardous.”

“In some camps we have 50 people sharing one latrine, this is not acceptable,” Mustafa said.

The scaling back of refuse collections and water supplies is already having an impact, with a number of camps reporting scabies outbreaks in recent weeks. The cold and snow of winter was hard enough for families, but as the heat of summer looms, so do new threats of water-borne diseases.

Economic collapse

As the pressure on host communities to share dwindling resources grows, there are fears of social unrest and tensions, such as those witnessed in Lebanon and Jordan, which both host hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees.

A new World Bank report assessing the impact of the influx of Syrian refugees and internally-displaced Iraqis on Kurdistan notes: “The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is facing a multifaceted and complex crisis compounding concurrent and mutually aggravating security, political, economic, and social risks.”

“The combination of the Islamic State crisis and the budget freeze has had a chilling effect on all investment, which has declined by two thirds so far in 2014,” the report adds, explaining that the once-booming construction sector had been particularly hard hit and that the presence of IS militants along Kurdistan’s borders had affected the country’s ability to be a safe base for and a trade route to the wider Southern Iraq market.

“The Kurdistan Regional Government has been particularly generous in hosting a major proportion of the IDPs,” Abdul Haq Amiri, head of office for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Iraq told IRIN. “(But)…their resources are limited and they cannot shoulder the burden alone. They will need additional international support.”

The UN is struggling to raise money for the Iraq crisis response. Apart from a one-off donation last July of US$500 million from Saudi Arabia, it has received only piecemeal amounts from other donors. In February it announced that unless more cash came through this month up to 60 percent of its programming would be cut or curtailed.

As of 19 March the Strategic Response Plan (SRP) – a document setting out what money is needed for which sector – was only 38 percent funded, leaving a US$1.4bn shortfall.

“Things are really very bad,” explained Jane Pearce, World Food Programme (WFP) representative. “We are looking at how we can cut back to make what we have go further but we have already been operating on a shoestring so it’s not like there is a lot of room for manoeuvre.”

Lise Grande, the deputy special representative of the UN Secretary General and Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, told IRIN that with military offensives on IS territory such as Mosul being openly planned, more displacement was likely.

“We need to be ready for it with stocks pre-positioned and in order for us to do that, we need money, and that’s money we don’t have right now,” she said.

According to Sibel Kulaksiz, a senior country economist for the World Bank in Iraq, there are several scenarios for how the crisis will develop; the worst-case forecasts an influx of 100,000 more Syrian refugees and 500,000 IDPs, for which the KRG will need an additional US$2.5 billion to cope.

“Efforts are needed at the national and international levels to stabilize the situation [in the KRG] by delivering much needed services to the displaced people and host communities.” She told IRIN.

Ahmed Ali, a senior fellow and director of Iraq security and Humanitarian Monitor at US NGO EPIC, said he believed the says the financial challenges facing Kurdistan – particularly the non-payment of wages – could be as much of a driver of instability in the region as the security situation.

“We have seen some protests in Sulaymaniyah and Erbil due to the lack of salary payment,” he said. “The government already has to deal with security challenges and it will also have to find a way to address public grievance and then you have to take into account refugees and IDPs…. We have seen in Jordan with Syrian refugees, that there were some protests and discontent among populations in the camps, so it is a challenging situation for the government.”

The post Iraqi Kurdistan Nears Breaking Point – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.


Sri Lanka To Strengthen Laws Against Terrorist Financing, Money Laundering

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Sri Lanka Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera presenting amendments to strengthen the laws to combat terrorist financing and money laundering combat in parliament on Wednesday said the government will review the proscription of 16 Tamil organizations and over 400 individuals by the previous government.

Minister Samaraweera drawing the attention of the House to the ban said previous Mahinda Rajapaksa government banned Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora groups and individuals under the UN Security Council resolution 1373 for their alleged links to the LTTE.

He said the government took that measure to “build up the hysteria about the LTTE regrouping” in the run up to the presidential election.

“However, most of the organisations listed may have merely been vocal proponents of Tamil rights. There was hardly any tangible evidence to link them to the LTTE. Some of the individuals listed had even been dead for some time,” Minister Samaraweera told the parliament.

Sri Lanka on 01 April 2014 signed the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1373, which sets out strategies to combat terrorism and to control terrorist financing.

With the signing of the Resolution 1373, the previous government banned the Tamil Tiger terrorist organization, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and 15 other Tamil diaspora groups that are alleged of having terror links and involved in reviving the terrorist movement in the country.

“Reviewing this list of individuals and entities is an important exercise at this juncture when the Government of President Maithripala Sirisena is seriously committed to expedite the reconciliation process,” the Minister pointed out.

“In doing so, the Sri Lankan diaspora whether it be Sinhala, Tamil or Muslim, has am extremely important role to play not only in taking the reconciliation process forward but they have an important role to play in taking Sri Lanka forward as a nation. Some of the best world class doctors, scientists, lawyers and other professionals who our nation can be proud of as Sri Lankans make up this diaspora and we must enable them to take part in our journey to make Sri Lanka a truly multi-racial, multi-cultural, multi-religious and multi-lingual democracy,” Mr. Samaraweera said.

The Minister presented to parliament two amendments, in line with Sri Lanka’s international obligations to United Nations Regulations, seeking to ensure that Sri Lanka’s legal framework to tackle money laundering and financing of terrorism is in harmony with internationally accepted standards.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which is an inter-governmental body, has developed a series of recommendations that are recognized as the international standard for combating money laundering, financing of terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and it has suggested for the Government’s consideration, several recommendations to be incorporated as amendments to the regulations promulgated in 2012, as the standards set by the Task Force had changed after Sri Lanka enacted its regulations.

“What we seek to do today is to adopt amendments to these regulations in keeping with the recommendations made by the Financial Action Task Force and the Asia Pacific Group on Money Laundering to ensure that Sri Lanka’s legal framework in this important area is in harmony with internationally accepted standards against money laundering and the financing of terrorism,” the Minister explained.

The amendments are expected to strengthen the capacity of the law enforcement and judicial authorities responsible for investigating money laundering and terrorist financing in keeping with Sri Lanka’s tradition of cooperation with the UN and its resolve to fulfill international obligations and act responsibly towards its citizens in cooperation with other countries in the international community.

The post Sri Lanka To Strengthen Laws Against Terrorist Financing, Money Laundering appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Countering The Islamic State Scourge – Analysis

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Sunni and Shia nations must unite to battle oppression and the Islamic State violence.

By Riaz Hassan*

Opinions abound on the sudden rise of the Islamic State of Iraq Al-Sham, or ISIS, the barbarous extremist militia which has swept aside hapless Iraqi and Syrian armies and succeeded in controlling a vast swath of territory in northern and western Iraq and eastern Syria.

The group has announced the establishment of an Islamic caliphate based on Salafism, a puritanical form of Sunni Islam with close theological links to Saudi Arabian Wahhabism. Salafism seeks to idealize and emulate the piety and practices that characterized the formative years of the foundation of Islam. The Islamic State also seeks to expand its control to neighboring Arab States and eventually all Muslim lands.

If unchecked, the Islamic State poses a security threat not only to Iraq and the Middle East countries but also to the West because of its ability to recruit hundreds of foreign jihadists who may pose threats on their return. Media narratives suggest that the conquests are about religion, militancy and territory. But the goal is mainly to advance political goals with religion co-opted.

The genesis of ISIS has its roots in the Al Qaeda–inspired Sunni insurgency called the Islamic State in Iraq, or ISI, that rose to fight the American occupation of Iraq and disempowerment of Iraqi Sunnis under the leadership of Jordanian jihadi abu Musab al-Zarqawi who was killed in a US-targeted attack in 2006. ISI was an umbrella network of several jihadi groups waging a terrorist-guerrilla campaign against the United States, coalition allies and Iraqi Shias. In 2006 the group had around 20,000, mostly Iraqi insurgents with about 2000 non-Iraqi. The foreign jihadis were the main arsenal of suicide bombers in Iraq.

ISI was weakened towards the end of the US occupation, due to the 2007 surge in US forces with the co-option of the Sunni tribes of Anbar Province known as the Sunni Awakening Movement, mobilized and funded by the US military army to fight insurgents . By 2011, the Sunni tribal fighters numbered close to 100,000. Weakened ISI then found the Syrian civil war a fertile ground and moved its main operations to eastern Syria.

The creation of the Sunni Awakening movement was instrumental in reducing violence in Iraq, paving the way for the American administration to embark on political reconciliation among the Sunnis, Kurds and Shias in Iraq and withdrawal of US forces.

The reconciliation agreement included equitable distribution of oil revenues, absorption of fighters from the Sunni Awakening Movement into the Iraq army and reversing the purge of Baathists from government. Iraqi Prime Minster Nuri Al-Maliki’s authoritarian and Shia-dominated government then reneged on provisions of the reconciliation agreement.

Sunnis were denied government resources, subjected to arbitrary arrest and torture on the grounds that the government was fighting terrorists. Shia militias terrorized the Sunnis. Massive alienation of Iraqi Sunnis, the failure of ethnic reconciliation, paved the way for the rise of ISIS.

ISIS is one of the several Sunni insurgents groups fighting the Iraqi state. It succeeds in areas like Mosul, Tikrit and Fallujah not because of its extremism and brutality but despite it. The Sunni majority fears their government more than ISIS. Now that Iranians are involved in a big way that would further strengthen their resolve.

After being subjected to years of political and economic marginalization, state-sanctioned repression, lawlessness and corruption in the hands of Iraq’s Shia-led government, Sunni Iraqis rebelled by joining militant groups that pledged allegiance to ISIS. Many ISIS fighters are from the Sunni Awakening Movement which helped the United States to counter the insurgency of 2008 to 2011. Official US reports suggest the Islamic State ranks number no more than 30,000.

The Iraqi government promised to absorb the Sunni fighters into the security forces but later reneged, claiming they were supporters of Al Qaeda. US President Barack Obama observed at a February conference on countering violent extremism, “When governments oppress their people, deny human rights, stifle dissent or marginalize ethnic and religious groups, or favor certain religious groups over other, it sows the seeds of extremism and violence.”

Iraqi Sunnis are angry and disillusioned. And similar alienation and marginalization may explain the appeal of ISIS among the foreign jihadis flocking by the hundreds to Iraq and Syria. Large segments of Muslim minorities in Europe and elsewhere endure discrimination, joblessness and poverty

Prison statistics are dire: 3 percent of the British population is Muslim but 11 percent of prisoners are Muslim. In the Netherlands, 6 percent of the population is Muslim, but 20 percent of adults and 26 percent of juvenile prisoners are Muslim. Around 9 percent of the French population is Muslim but at least half of its prisoners are Muslims.

Most French prisons contain a majority of Muslims who continue to feel victimized by prison officials who confuse religious observance to extremism. Radical preaching in prison catches on, offering young Muslims prisoners an excuse for their predicaments and a fantasy of omnipotence by declaring death to their oppressors. Many suggest the radicalization of Charlie Hebdo killers Cherif and Said Kouachi began in prison. The largest contingent of Islamic State foreign fighters is from France.

According to French sociologist Farhad Khosrokhavar, a typical trajectory for Islamist terrorists includes alienation from the dominant culture due to discrimination and joblessness followed by petty crimes leading to prison, more crime and prison,  religious awakening and radicalization, followed by journeys to Yemen, Syria, Pakistan or Afghanistan to train for jihad.

Other pathways for radicalization and recruitment for jihadi missions are social media and radical Muslim internet websites. A few, including the more educated who feel alienated from their parents’ culture, seek a life of thrill and the opportunity to fight oppression in Muslim countries.

The most pressing task for governments is to devise public policies for successful integration of marginalized Muslim minorities into mainstream society. The unemployment rates of Muslim minorities in most western countries tend to be three to four times higher compared to the majority population. If appropriate steps are not taken, a large segment of Muslim minorities could become a permanent underclass seriously fracturing social cohesion.

Some politicians in western countries exaggerate extremist tendencies among Muslim minorities to feed prejudices and bolster their own political fortunes. In Australia, for example, some 150 mostly unemployed Muslims have either travelled to Syria to join ISIS or are accused of supporting the cause – a  small fraction of the nation’s half million Muslims. Australia has broad counterterrorism laws, and yet the government is introducing more. One can never draft enough laws to prevent the 100 or 200 drawn to extremism, not without crossing human rights. And such laws can become counterproductive.

Western countries must recognise that, unlike Al Qaeda, whose animosity was directed against a distant enemy, the Islamic State war is against the near enemy – a war within Islam with Sunni extremists pitted against Shias, moderate Muslims and non-Muslim minorities. The war is between those who accept hybridity and pluralism in the Muslim world and those who envision a Muslim world dominated by a single strand of Wahabbism and its extremist offshoots. The United States and its allies must pursue a new strategy by forging stronger military and political  alliance between all neighboring countries to counter and defeat the scourge of ISIS.

*Riaz Hassan is director of the International Centre for Muslim and Non-Muslim Understanding, University of South Australia, and visiting research professor at the Institute of South Asian Studies National University of Singapore. He is the author of Inside Muslim Minds and Life as a Weapon: The Global Rise of Suicide Bombings and co-author of Afghanistan: The Next Phasewhich will be launched at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC, on 25 March 2015.

The post Countering The Islamic State Scourge – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The Oldest Old Are Changing Canada

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In 1971 there were 139,000 Canadians aged 85 and over. By 2013 their numbers had risen to 702,000. The Oldest Old as they have become known today represent 2% of the total Canadian population.

“They are a demographic reality which has to be taken into account in formulating public policy”, according to Jacques Légaré, a demographer at the University of Montreal, who is presenting a report on this phenomenon this week to more than a hundred experts meeting at the Population Change and Lifecourse Strategic Knowledge Cluster in Ottawa.

Mr. Légaré, a specialist in the study of population ageing, and his team have collated the most recent studies showing that “oldest old” Canadians are on track to occupy an increasingly important place in the population.

“We need to distinguish these “over 85s” from today’s ‘over 65s’, because they will have distinct characteristics in terms of education, socio-economic status and state of health”, he said.

In the years to come, this new demographic category will begin to include the baby-boomers, who will bring with them a new set of social issues.

“They are more highly educated, wealthier and in better health, as a group, than those who are currently the oldest people in Canada, and they will need new kinds of services”, said Yann Décarie, searcher at the National Institute of Scientific Research, the report’s second author.

The authors argue that Canada should set up a multidisciplinary panel of researchers and policy makers with a common interest in confronting the repercussions of the ageing of the population. Such a structure already exists in Britain, where the New Dynamics of Ageing programme has established Modeling Ageing Population to 2030, focused on the consequences of population ageing. It would be highly desirable for this type of research programme to be mirrored in Canada, the authors conclude.

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How Conflict In The Islamic World Is Driving International Organized Crime – Analysis

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Why have so many Muslim states become hotbeds of organized crime? Neil Thompson’s answer looks beyond depressed economies, faltering dictatorships and human rights abuses. Indeed, he sees too many individuals that have become corrupted by the countless opportunities that conflict provides.

By Neil Thompson

Whenever a state collapses into civil war or economic anarchy, its organized crime groups find plenty of opportunities to grow in influence. This was the case in Albania in 1996-1997 when a series of pyramid schemes collapsed the economy. In the ensuing riots the government collapsed, the army and police disbanded and the mounting unrest allowed protesters to storm government arms depots. One crowd looted up to 500,000 rifles and other pieces of military equipment from the southern city of Lushnje. The stolen arms were promptly sold on the black market and the availability of plentiful supplies of cheap weapons and ammunition was a major spark for the start of war in neighboring Kosovo the following year. By 1999 transnational organized criminal gangs had helped change the supposedly sacrosanct lines of European borders. It was a seminal moment for a still under-appreciated non-state actor – globalized transnational criminal networks. The next might be provided by the Islamic world.

On Western Doorsteps

Westerners living in developed countries are often insulated from the reality of modern organized crime’s strength because the hubs of transnational criminal operations tend to be located in countries with weak economies and fragile state institutions. Consequently, too many Western analysts continue to see transnational criminal groups as a second tier threat, and focus instead on more obvious dangers such as militant Islamist networks or state-backed rebels fighting ‘proxy wars. Yet, wherever state structures are unable to contain them, criminal groups have found spaces to expand and to diversify. This is as true in the globalized offline world as it is in the virtual spaces of the internet.

From the emergence of Eurasian mafias as ‘ mid-wives of capitalism’ in the post-Soviet space to the rise of Somalia’s pirate bands, organized criminal networks have an insidious ability to surprise the West with their arrival, the forms they assume and the unique challenges they pose to democracy and peace. Take the case of Mexico, a democratic middle-income country on the border of the world’s strongest military power. The US-backed war against its drug cartels has raged for almost a decade now and claimed the lives of over one hundred thousand people.

Currently the depressed economies and faltering dictatorships of the greater Middle East are primarily seen as a serious threat to international and regional security because they have created self-funding networks of violent religious extremists such as the so-called Islamic State. Another familiar consideration is the gross human rights abuses carried out by the security services of many regional governments. Yet, this analysis misses a potential third source of destabilization – networks of mafia-like groups whose roots lie inside state security services and/or the Islamist groups opposing them.

Many already-powerful Middle Eastern state agents have become thoroughly criminalized by the opportunities the chaos of war affords, in a region notorious for impunity. For instance, Egypt’s ex-President Hosni Mubarak and his sons were released from prison in January 2015, four years after their convictions on a variety of serious criminal charges, including conspiracy to murder, while in office. Meanwhile much of the revenue for Islamist groups like Islamic State is generated by proceeds from criminal activities or from taxing criminal groups. Consequently, the consolidation of war economies mean that criminal networks currently created or sponsored by the state or Islamist groups might well outgrow their origins and original purposes. The danger here is that these groups will not disappear when a conflict ends. Indeed, historical experience from conflicts in places like Colombia suggests that they adapt and persist in new forms.

Further Fallout

In a globalizing world, the networking impulses that have created transnational supply chains stretching thousands of miles for contraband goods are sure to blur the distinctions between state and non-state actor, law enforcer, rebel and criminal. Moreover, the unsettled end periods of military conflicts are often marked with a crime wave as individuals turn skills learned during war to private use. With poor economic prospects, a large black market economy and large numbers of guerrillas, paramilitaries, soldiers and secret policemen looking for new opportunities, the chances of an explosion in organized crime across the Middle East are high, to say the least. The overall failure of the Arab Spring will also play its part. So will the region’s youthful population, persistent high unemployment and geographical proximity to the European market. And let’s not forget about pre-establishment of human-trafficking involving countries like Libya, as well as high levels of corruption and impunity in the region’s state structures.

Conflicts also lead to the development of lawless zones that shelter criminal networks – as well as insurgent groups – from law enforcement activities. According to the Fund for Peace’s (FFP) Fragile States Index 2014, Syria, Libya, Yemen and several other countries with significant Muslim populations fall into the worst categories, indicating that the state no longer controls all its territory. In others, such as Egypt and Algeria, central authority is either compromised or very weak. A good example of this is Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, long a source of marijuana to European markets. There are nearly 40,000 outstanding warrants hanging over the heads of Bekaa residents. Yet, by retreating to the northern reaches of the valley local clans involved in drug farming have managed to defy Lebanon’s ineffective central authorities. In addition, the Hezbollah leadership has distanced itself from direct leadership of the clans but continues to demand a political, rather than legal, solution to the problem.

Wars also strengthen indigenous criminal organizations and weaken the state institutions charged with combating them, as resources are diverted into fighting insurgencies. Criminal growth can be partly be tracked by the increase of corruption, an inevitable side-effect of an increase in black market opportunities. Out of 174 nations, Transparency International’s 2014 corruption ratings rank Yemen at 161, Iraq at 170, Libya at 166 and Syria at 159. Scores in all four countries have fallen since 2012 and all four are still the scene of armed conflict and political instability.

Indeed, the effects of corruption and insecurity do not remain limited cleanly by borders but spill into neighboring states. NATO member Turkey has had a long history of oil-fuelled corruption dating back to the 1990s ‘Oil for Food’ UN program. Today Islamic State middlemen sell oil to smugglers, who bribe their way past Turkish gendarmes at the border and sell it to Turkish businessmen. The black market fuel is then sold onto the Turkish consumer at a fraction of its true worth. These transactions fuel attacks like the one that killed Saudi General Oudah al-Belawi, commander of border operations in Saudi Arabia’s northern zone in January. Organized crime in Turkey has therefore facilitated Islamist terrorism on the Saudi border, while Islamic State has helped corrupt to Turkey’s nascent democracy.

From East to West

Yet, unlike their European and Latin American, Italian counterparts, Islamic criminal enterprises have so far attracted little Western attention as an issue separate from terrorism. Nonetheless organized crime is an entrenched part of the political economy of many Muslim states. For example, an Afghan narcotics boom has already occurred according to the BBC as last year’s opium harvest reached a record high. The UN valued the 2013 crop at nearly $3bn (£1.86bn), up 50% from 2012. Indeed, cultivation has been rising since 2010, a reflection of the fact that Afghanistan currently produces more than 80% of the world’s opium.

At the opposite end of the Islamic world are West Africa’s cigarette and cocaine smuggling operations – a very lucrative trade that is dominated by criminalized Islamist networks. These have grown out of the defeated remnants of Algerian jihadist groups, much as leftist insurgent groups have come to play an important in the drugs trade in Latin America. Interestingly, the jihadist considered to be at the forefront of these activities, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, was once considered a minor threat and a pragmatist because his criminal business interests seemed more pressing to him. However, these same interests gave him the means to launch a devastating attack on the In Amenas gas plant in 2013.

It could also be claimed that the persistence of tribal or clan-based identities in parts of the Islamic world can geographically limit some present criminal operations. For example, as mentioned above, the farming families involved in the marijuana trade in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley rarely leave it due to many active warrants for their arrest outside the valley. Yet, just as the Middle East has already produced several multinational global terrorist networks there might also come a time when its criminal elements are clearly capable of reaching the same level of development. Meanwhile, the wars affecting the area have ironically given Middle Eastern criminal groups a larger global diaspora to blend in with and recruit from, facilitating a growth of operations outside their home countries.

This does not just include Western states, some of whom have been criticized for accepting few regional refugees, but also neighboring Muslim nations. Displaced Syrians now make up a quarter of Lebanon’s population for example. As far back as 2013, a UNHCR report found organized crime networks operating easily in the biggest Syrian refugee camp, Za’atari in Jordan. From Slow Boil to Breaking Point also described how Syrian refugees were paying up to $500 to middlemen to be ‘sponsored’ by Jordanian citizens. This entitled them to live outside of the lawless and overcrowded sites they found themselves in – it also represented another revenue stream for criminal groups. Criminal networks have also begun exploiting Syrian refugees by using them as drug mules. There has been a large spike in seizures of narcotics in neighboring countries according to the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime network.

A Grim Outlook

Four years after the start (and apparent collapse) of the Arab Spring, Western headlines still focus on the security threat of revolutionary Islamist militant groups. But there is no reason to suppose the emergence of factors favorable to the growth of mafia-type groups in the Islamic world will not also impact upon the West (and the rest) in the future. The toxic combination of broken economic and political systems, geographical proximity to lucrative European black markets, and a youthful and often traumatized population is an open invitation to criminal groups already operating in a vacuum of state authority. Similar circumstances produced generational crime waves of extraordinary virulence in the former Soviet Union and Latin America, which those areas are still coping with today. It’s entirely possible the Middle East is poised to follow in their footsteps.

*Neil Thompson is researcher for the Institute for Strategic Dialogue and an Editor and contributor to the Future Foreign Policy Group. He holds an MA in International Relations of East Asia from the University of Durham.

The post How Conflict In The Islamic World Is Driving International Organized Crime – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Sutorina Crisis: Bosnia Losing Its Closest Neighbour, Montenegro – Analysis

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By Hamdi Fırat Büyük

The border crisis between Bosnia and Montenegro is deepening. After the Montenegrin President’s refusal to send a new ambassador to Sarajevo amid Bosnia’s territorial claims over the Sutorina region, which currently falls within the borders of Montenegro, the agreement which delineated the border between Bosnia and Montenegro has still yet to be ratified by the Bosnian Parliament.

Sutorina region and the border dispute

It has taken a Bosnian-Montenegrin commission over 6 years to draft the border agreement. Nonetheless, despite of the long-term absence of any opposition to the agreement within Bosnia, when Bosnia’s presidency finally sent the bill to the parliament, Bosnian politicians, academics and intellectuals entered harsh debate over the status of the disputed Sutorina region.

The dispute comes as a group of Bosnian academics, intellectuals and NGOs published a report a few months ago which claims that a short stretch of the Montenegrin coast and its surrounding areas, called Sutorina, legally belongs to Bosnia. The group argues there is strong evidence that the territory had been a part of Bosnia until World War II and that Sutorina is now a “de jure” Bosnian territory.

Denis Becirovic, the MP who proposed a resolution on Sutorina to the Bosnian Parliament in January, said that the facts about this issue needed to be determined. “The task of the elected officials of this country is to take care of the interests of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” he said.

He claimed that the Parliament will stand up for the country and its borders – albeit only in a peaceful and democratic manner, using legal instruments.

The disputed area of Sutorina and its surrounding territories includes five villages as well as the region’s namesake, the river Sutorina.

Most importantly, the disputed lands lie a few kilometres from the Montenegrin coastal town of Herceg Novi. If the territory were to be granted to Bosnia, it would give the country a second access point to the Adriatic Sea, thus supplementing the county’s 24-kilometre span of coastline seen in the area of Neum.

Good relations of Bosnia and Montenegro

Now, the dispute is discussed within a wider spectrum and it is assumed that the border dispute can easily trigger a new crisis in the Balkans, a region in which many already live under a fragile peace. Furthermore, amid the border dispute, Bosnia seems set to lose its closest neighbouring country, Montenegro, which extends its full support to Bosnia in almost all platforms, whether they be in relation to the EU, NATO, human rights violations of the Bosnian War or bilateral and multilateral relations in the region. Moreover, up until now, Montenegro was the only country in the region with which Bosnia had no problem.

Yesterday in Ankara, Montenegro’s first post-independence minister of foreign affairs Miodrag Vlahovic, who is also president of the newly established opposition party the Montenegrin Democratic Union (CDU), delivered a speech entitled “Montenegro and the Balkans” at a conference jointly organized by the Ankara-based think-tank the Centre for Eurasian Studies (AVIM) and the Faculty of Political Sciences at the University of Ankara. Inevitably, Vlahovic expressed his opinions on Sutorina in parallel with Montenegro’s state policies.

“Sutorina is Montenegrin and Sutorina belongs to Montenegro”, he said at the beginning of his speech. “I do not and cannot understand why Bosnia behaves like this despite having had no problem within the commission that prepared the agreement which delineated the border between Bosnia and Montenegro”, he continued.

According to Vlahovic, Bosnia issued no written or spoken reservations on the border between Montenegro and Bosnia during the 6 years commission process. Considering this, he claims that the failure of the Bosnian Parliament to ratify the agreement based on claims to Sutorina is unexplainable and unacceptable.

“Montenegro always supported Bosnia and Bosnia is a friend of Montenegro. I have personally visited Potocari Cemetary, Srebrenica on Nov 12, 2004, before travelling to Sarajevo for an official visit. I did not feel the need to wait for an organized commemoration ceremony to be held there and I am very proud I went in this way. Bosnia should ratify the agreement and abandon its claims on Sutorina”, he said, concluding his remarks on the issue.

Importance of Montenegrin support to Bosnia

Aside from Montenegro’s reaction to the Sutorina dispute, academics and researchers seem to have reached a consensus that the current crisis only works to worsen Bosnian-Montenegrin relations and will not work to the favour of Bosnia.

Florian Bieber, a prominent scholar on the Balkans and director of the Centre for South East European Studies at the University of Graz, said that it does not make any sense why Bosnia is purposefully working to worsen its relations with Montenegro, the only neighbour with which it shares good relations. He further states that Bosnia’s claims to Sutorina are illusionary.

Additionally, if Bosnia stands by its claims to Sutorina, the country may come to face new border disputes, not only with Montenegro, but also with other neighbouring countries. It could be predicted that Bosnia’s policy on the issue will actually backfire as the Sutorina dispute could ignite a fire that thaws the many frozen border disputes and overlapping territorial claims that already exist between Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia.

Bosnia, which is a country that has experienced the worst types of crises and conflicts throughout the period of unrest and war in the Balkans, should avoid inciting a new crisis in the region, especially with its closest neighbour Montenegro. Beyond this, the country has been struggling with many internal problems since gaining independence. In this way, considering that the country is already having enough difficulties in simply holding itself together, there is no doubt that Bosnia has neither the energy nor the capacity to face the regional backlash that may arise as a consequence of its imprudent dealings with Montenegro.

The Bosnian Parliament should immediately ratify the border delineation agreement, turn its attention to its own domestic issues and work to heal its damaged relations with Montenegro, which is a country that is simultaneously on good track with the EU and expectant to become a NATO member at the next NATO Summit in Poland. Bosnia should not and cannot put its good relations with Montenegro on the line, as doing so could also entail the loss of a vital partner that supports Bosnia’s future in the EU and NATO.

The post Sutorina Crisis: Bosnia Losing Its Closest Neighbour, Montenegro – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Maldives: Nasheed’s Sham Trial Comes To An End – Analysis

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By Dr. S. Chandrasekharan

On 13th night (trial was always held after sunset), former President Nasheed was sentenced to 13 years in prison for the detention of criminal court judge Abdulla Mohamed in January 2012.

Soon after sentencing, President Yameen was quick to release a statement calling on people to respect the criminal court verdict. The statement was more for the international community as he called on its “international partners to engage constructively based on mutual respect, dialogue in consolidating and strengthening democratic values and institutions in the country.”

Strange that Yameen should call outsiders to strengthen democracy in his country while he himself has slowly and cunningly taken all the three pillars of democracy the legislative, the judiciary and the executive under his wing.

What an irony that a person who should have been jailed for swindling millions of dollars in the oil scam of Singapore in now the President and a person who should have been the President is jailed- of all charges- for terrorism?

Nowhere in the world is a mere ordering of an arrest of a judge whose misconduct was well known even if it is wrong can be termed as a “terrorist act” and people who indulge in terrorist acts freely roam about in the capital city of Male without let or hindrance. The International community should note this. Maldives should not be allowed to get away with what the Conservative Party’s (UK) Human rights division called it a “grotesque travesty of justice.”

The Human Rights wing of Maldives said that the former President Nasheed was denied fundamental rights that guarantee a fair trial and in line on the Maldives obligations under the International Covenant on civil and political rights.

India, USA and the UK have expressed concern over the unfortunate developments in Maldives. Only China which has no respect for the human rights of its citizens could claim that it is an internal affair of Maldives. China is doing it for two reasons- Maldives is too far away and it does not matter while it took notice of even minor disturbances in its border regions of Myanmar when the Kokangs were bombed. Secondly, here is an opportunity to enter Maldives in a big way just as it did in Myanmar since international sanctions could be expected.

Nasheed has called on all supporters to confront Yameen’s “dictatorial regime” and to take their lives in their hands to go out into the streets to protest.

There have been peaceful protests in Male and this may extend to other populations centres like Adu. The police are arbitrarily arresting people and releasing them after they give an undertaking that they will not join the protests. There is no law by which the Police could use such tactics. One person who refused to sign was given an additional fifteen days in jail!

Nasheed has been temporarily kept at Dhoonidhoo prison and the Home Minister made a statement that a separate structure is being erected at the notorious Maafushi Jail for long term detention of Nasheed.

Nasheed’s legal team recused themselves from the trial as they were not given adequate time to prepare the defence. In a statement they said that has requested for adequate time for the preparation of the case to not only defend President Nasheed but also uphold the name, pride and the integrity of the Maldivian security forces as the latter was in a sense also the accused as the arrest was effected by the security forces.

We have in this site said enough of the weak judiciary in the Maldives and how it is affecting the democratic credentials of the country. What has happened over time is that present President Yameen has successfully manipulated to ensure that really good ones are eliminated and only those poorly trained and those with a bad personal record for corruption and other misconduct are retained in the judiciary.

The JSC (Judicial Service Commission) has also been manipulated and President Yameen is unmistakably moving towards despotism a situation that was obtained before 2008 under Gayoom.( See my recent paper in this site)

The trial had many flaws but I do not think the Judiciary- here the appellate authority will take cognizance of these draw backs. ( Pl. read the comment titled ‘Get up, Stand up’ by Azra Naseem in Minivan News of March 11 written before the sentence was given.)

The enthusiasm shown by the three judges in the trial of whom two should not have been there as they were witnesses, is unheard of in judicial history!

It all now depends on President Yameen whether to set Nasheed free or brave the international wrath that will inevitably follow. From the way he very enthusiastically endorsed the proposal of Maritime Silk Route of China, it looks that Yameen will be looking upon China to save him.

For India the stakes are high. It is good that Prime Minister Modi cancelled his visit to Maldives. This was done even before the sentence on Nasheed was delivered. It has also publicly expressed its concern. India has had a long term security relationship with Maldives. It cannot let the Chinese or Pakistan enter and disturb the strategic balance that has been evolved over the years. A way can be found to ensure that peace returns to Maldives.

The mistake that India made in enthusiastically endorsing a regime that came in place after Nasheed was coerced to resign should not be repeated. There is no need to make statements but other ways could be found.

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New Neighbourliness In India-Sri Lanka Ties – Analysis

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By P S Suryanarayana*

Neighbourhood diplomacy can be tricky even at the best of times, because any two neighbours will have common but differening expectations of a good bilateral relationship. Viewed in this light, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s latest visit to Sri Lanka has gone off well, without setting the Palk Strait on fire. This sums up the outcome, in a positive turn of the Thames-metaphor for the narrow waterway that bridges (or segregates) the two countries. To be sure, no diplomatic breakthroughs were announced during the two-day visit hat concluded on 14 March 2015. By all accounts, however, the diplomatic mood and political atmospherics toned up the quotient of Indo-Sri Lankan neighbourliness.

Apart from holding talks with Sri Lanka’s relatively new executive President, Maithripala Sirisena, Modi met a number of leaders, including those out of office, across the political spectrum in the island-republic. For a variety of reasons in the complex and often-chequered Indo-Lankan relations, Modi was the first Indian Prime Minister to pay a purely-bilateral visit to Sri Lanka since July 1987. In that year, India’s then-Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, had visited Colombo for signing a bilateral accord.

The Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement to Establish Peace and Normalcy in Sri Lanka, contrary to its positive objectives, widened the ethno- political fault-lines in the island-republic and embittered the relations between the two neighbours. Despite being designed to preserve Sri Lanka’s territorial integrity through an agreed intervention by the Indian Peace-Keeping Force (IPKF) to roll back a secessionist movement, the accord led to unintended consequences.

The most notable of those consequences was the fierce war that ensued between the IPKF and the Sri Lankan separatist guerrilla-terrorist force, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). In the mid-1980s, when that accord came into force, India was generally seen across Sri Lanka as a South Asian ‘bully’ bracing for regional hegemony.

China Factor, With a Difference

In the mid-2010s now, it is China which is generally seen, in the wider international circles, as the ascendant power determined to stamp its will across Asia and beyond. Two of the several recent examples of this perception in South Asia about China are (1) Beijing’s desire to build, albeit with the Sri Lankan Government’s consent in 2014, a strategic “port city” near the island-republic’s capital Colombo, and (2) the strategic access that China has gained at the Hambantota commercial port in southern Sri Lanka, more precisely at a vantage location along the vast Indian Ocean. Modi’s March-2015 visit to Sri Lanka, therefore, gets assessed in the light of two inter-related aspects of the island-republic’s recent foreign policy. These two aspects are Beijing’s strategic calculations, as well as the multi-ethnic Sri Lankan electorate’s recent choice of a new ‘nationalist’ President in the place of a political leader, Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was perceived to have been China-friendly in his overall political calculus.

Significant in this context is that, addressing Sri Lanka’s Parliament in Colombo on 13 March 2015, Modi said: “I often say that the course of the 21st Century would be determined by the currents of the Indian Ocean. Shaping its direction is a responsibility for the countries in the region”.2 (Emphasis is added). Although Modi eschewed mentioning China by name, strategic-affairs experts need no clairvoyance to recognise where he was coming from (as in the commonplace American phrase). His focus on the Indian Ocean as a theatre for human destiny in the current Century and his call for collective multi-national responsibility in this regard should be seen against a more-recent development in China-Sri Lanka relations.

In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi made some revealing remarks in his talks with his (visiting) Sri Lankan counterpart, Mangala Samaraweera, on 27 February 2015. Mindful of the recent exit of a perceivably pro-China president from the portals of power in Sri Lanka, Wang Yi said Beijing “holds an open attitude towards China-Sri Lanka-India trilateral cooperation and stands ready to actively discuss [this]”.3 In particular, Wang Yi noted that “China and India can discuss exerting their respective advantages to jointly play a positive role in Sri Lanka’s economic and social development”.4

China’s proposal of a Sino-Indian role in promoting Colombo’s development agenda is patently an answer to the growing suspicion in some quarters that Beijing has been seeking to take the Sri Lankans under its own wings, until very recently, at least. Such an extraordinary idea of Sino-Indian collaboration was floated even as Wang Yi told Samaraweera that China “expect[s] Sri Lanka to become a dazzling pearl on the ‘Maritime Silk Road of the 21st Century’”.5 Cynics and sceptics may tend to dismiss such poetic pronouncements as diplomatic extravaganza of empty words with little or no practical implications. However, the memory of the Mao-era polemics in China’s foreign policy cannot negate today’s reality that Chinese President Xi Jinping, with visions of “Asia for Asians” and a “new model of major- power relations with the United States”, has a sure strategic game-plan.

Xi’s China is keen to co-opt Sri Lanka as a key partner in his plans for a “21st Century Maritime Silk Road” and to access Hambantota for this purpose. Wu Jianmin, a top former Chinese diplomat with evident influence in Xi’s Establishment, has said that the “21st Century Maritime Silk Road” is a major initiative to provide “public goods”, like infrastructure projects, in the global commons. The objective, according to him, is to demonstrate “facts” about China’s policy of “win-win cooperation”6 with the wider international community in the present era of globalisation. In other words, China is keen to erase the perception that its initiative is but a smokescreen for leadership and hegemony.

This needs to be compared and contrasted with Modi’s latest pronouncements in Sri Lanka. He has spoken of the “responsibility” of “the countries of the [Indian Ocean] region” to shape its future in the 21st Century. This will, in effect, imply a subtle exclusion of China from the Indian Ocean Rim. Simply put, China is not a state along the Indian Ocean Rim. However, China will be central to the emerging concept of the Indo-Pacific as a vast geopolitical and geo-economic zone. For India, it might, therefore, be too early to jettison the idea of trilateral China-India-Sri Lanka cooperation. But the sparks and fumes of ideas are not the only story of high diplomacy.

Subtle Hint, Straight Message

So, while Modi has not waded into Sri Lanka’s China-related choices, he articulated, through subtle hints and open comments, his views regarding the island-republic’s internal situation and ties with India.

On the complex issue of a fair deal for Sri Lanka’s minorities, especially the island’s Tamil population, Modi’s hint, by way of an explicit reference to India, would not have been lost on his hosts. Modi’s subtle remark was as follows: “You can call this my bias. I have been a Chief Minister [of India’s Gujarat state, i.e. province] for 13 years, a Prime Minister [of India] for less than a year! Today, my top priority is to make the states in India stronger. I am a firm believer in cooperative federalism”.7 (Emphasis is added). However, it is elementary knowledge that Sri Lanka fights shy of classical federalism. Aware of this, and commenting on the delicate balance between Sri Lanka’s Sinhala-majority and the minorities including Muslims and others, Modi said: “The path ahead is a choice that Sri Lanka has to make. … But, I can assure you of this: For India, the unity and integrity of Sri Lanka are paramount. It is rooted in our interest. It stems from our own fundamental belief in this principle”.8 (Emphasis is added). In effect, this assurance overarches India’s long- standing preference for devolution of powers in Sri Lanka through the so-called process of ‘13th Amendment-Plus’. The process of devolution in Sri Lanka is a well-chronicled spin-off from the Indo-Sri Lankan diplomacy of the period when India got directly involved in the island’s affairs. What Modi has now done is to press for a fair politico-ethnic settlement by encouraging Sirisena to go the extra mile in his “inclusive” politics.

Sirisena noted that his recent visit to India and Modi’s latest reciprocal visit to Sri Lanka “have turned a new page in cooperation between [the] two countries”.9 The Sri Lankan side has noted further that Modi “appreciated Sirisena’s actions towards building unity in Sri Lanka, [and Sirisena’s] achieving a high level of confidence [among the Lankan people] in a very short time”.10 Of utmost importance to the Sri Lankan establishment, though, is its perception that Modi has guaranteed India’s non-interference in Colombo’s search for national unity and politico-ethnic settlement. For Colombo, this is the essence of good neighbourliness, given India’s track record of ‘softness’ towards the Sri Lankan Tamil separatists at one stage and ‘benign’ big-brotherliness towards the island-republic at a later stage.11 Colombo has now quoted Modi as having told Sirisena that “India will never allow any activities against Sri Lanka to be done in our territory”.12 No less important, Modi is quoted as having assured Sirisena that India would be willing to “share information” if Colombo were to inform New Delhi of anti-Lanka activities on Indian soil.13 Significantly, too, Modi is said to have “readily agreed” to Sirisena’s “request” for a greater intake of Sri Lankan defence personnel at the relevant Indian institutions. As for the sharing of military intelligence and the provision of defence-related “technological services”, Modi is reported to have “agreed”,14 as well.

Economic and Cultural Links

On economic relations, Modi promised “balanced growth in [Indo-Sri Lankan] trade” by assuring Colombo that he would “address” its “concerns … about the huge trade imbalance”.15 An additional tranche of US$ 318 million towards Sri Lanka’s railway sector has also been announced to augment the previous commitments of development assistance of the order of US$ 1.6 billion. A swap arrangement to help stabilise Sri Lankan currency in times of crisis has now been raised to US$ 1.5 billion from US$ 400 million. India has evinced deep interest in scaling-up the existing free trade accord so that a pact on comprehensive economic partnership could be signed with Sri Lanka.

New Delhi’s scaled-up operational presence at the Trincomalee Oil Tank Farm, highlighted during Modi’s visit to the island, opens the possibility of India gaining strategic access to this eastern port city in ways that could match China’s access to Hambantota. However, no such issues have been aired in the public domain, and India does not underestimate China’s capacity to retain considerable strategic access to Sri Lanka into the future.

Given the deep Indo-Lankan ethno-political linkages, Modi’s visit was also marked by the symbolic launching of India-aided connectivity- and rehabilitation-projects in the Jaffna region that was much ravaged during the Colombo-LTTE civil war in the recent past. India’s own concerns over the fishing “rights” of its fishermen in the general area of the Palk Strait were discussed as a “humanitarian” challenge, with an accord to continue the talks at appropriate levels.

On the overarching theme of an enduring Indo-Lankan cultural mosaic, Modi not only visited a Hindu temple in Jaffna, the cultural bastion of the Tamil-speaking Hindu-minority, but also paid homage at the holy-Buddhist ‘Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi’ in Anuradhapura. Interestingly, Anuradhapura, sacred to Sri Lanka’s Sinhala-majority Buddhists, has had links with the grand ancient Buddhist centre of Amaravati in the Telugu-speaking Andhra Pradesh state, as well as with several other states, in India. This and other aspects of the Indo-Lankan Buddhist connection may now be rediscovered and re-created in some ways, as Modi has promised to re-develop his birthplace of Vadnagar in Gujarat state as a Buddhist centre. During his visit to Sri Lanka now, he specifically mentioned that Vadnagar was an international centre of Buddhist learning in ancient times, with excavations revealing the once-upon-a-time existence of a hostel for 2,000 students.

Unsurprisingly, Modi has today given a new connectivity call by promising to develop a Buddhist Circuit in India and seeking Colombo’s cooperation in developing a Ramayana Trail in Sri Lanka. Ramayana is an ancient Indian epic, with the revered story spanning the two countries. However, the unfolding Indo-Lankan story in the 21st Century can have a post-modern setting, as well, if Colombo accepts Modi’s invitation and utilises the satellite that India would launch into Space by the end of 2016 for the exclusive socio-economic benefit of South Asia. There is some positive sign that Colombo might do so. Sirisena publicly said, after his talks with Modi that “the Indian state and the Indian people are at a high level of knowledge, achievement and resources in modern technology”. For a country like Sri Lanka, in his view, it would be “valuable” to gain “understandings” in modern technology from a country like India.16

About the author:
1. *Mr P S Suryanarayana is Editor (Current Affairs) at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS), an autonomous research institute at the National University of Singapore (NUS). He can be contacted at isaspss@nus.edu.sg. Opinions expressed in this paper, based on research by the author, do not necessarily reflect the views of ISAS.

Source:
This article was published by ISAS as ISAS Insights No. 278 – 20 March 2015 (PDF).

Notes:
2. Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, Prime Minister’s address to Parliament of Sri Lanka (March 13, 2015), www.mea.gov.in/Speeches-Statements.htm?dtl/24938/Prime_Ministers_address_to_ Parliament_of_Sri_Lanka_March_13_2015 (Accessed on 14 March 2015)
3. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, People’s Republic of China, WangYi: China Stands Ready to Actively Discuss China-Sri Lanka-India Trilateral Cooperation, 2015/02/27, www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/zxxx_662805/t1 241671.shtml (Accessed on 2 March 2015)
4. Ibid
5. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, People’s Republic of China, Wang Yi: Expect Sri Lanka to Become Pearl on “Maritime Silk Road of the 21st Century”, 2015/02/28, www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng_/zxxx_662805/t1241 672.shtml (Accessed on 2 March 2015)
6. S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, RSIS Distinguished Public Lecture on ‘One Belt and One Road, Asia’s Stability and Prosperity’ by Ambassador Wu Jianmin in Singapore on 12 March 2015
7. Same source as in Note 2
8. Ibid
9. President of Sri Lanka, A New Page in Indo-Lanka Cooperation – President Sirisena, www.president.gov.lk/news/a-new-page-in-indo-lanka-cooperation-president-sirisena/ (Accessed on 15 March 2015)
10. President of Sri Lanka, On Arrival Visas for Sri Lankans Visiting India – Prime Minister Modi, www.president.gov.lk/news/on-arrival-visas-for-sri-lankans-visiting-india-prime-minister-modi/ (Accessed on 15 March 2015)
11. For an exploration of a critical phase in New Delhi-Colombo relations, read The Peace Trap: An Indo-Sri Lankan Political Crisis, by P. S. Suryanarayana, East-West Affiliated Press, Chennai, 1988
12. Same source as in Note 10
13. Ibid
14. Ibid
15. Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, Prime Minister’s remarks to Business Community in Colombo (March 13, 2015), www.mea.gov.in/Speeches- Statements.htm?dtl/24939/Prime_Ministers_remarks_to_Business_Community_in_Colombo_March_13_20 15 (Accessed on 14 March 2015)
16. Same source as in Note 9

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Ralph Nader: Going Along With The Donkey As Long As The Elephants Are Worse – OpEd

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When the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) has its annual howling convention in the Washington, DC area, the mainstream mass media expands its coverage like an accordion from the weeks leading up to the gathering to the analysis of the aftermath. Why? Because a demanding CPAC summons all the Republican contenders for the presidential nomination and woe be the potential candidates who excuse themselves.

What is the counterpart for the Democrats? The nearest is Robert Borosage’s smaller convention (this year it is called Populism2015), which is easily ignored by the Democratic incumbents in the White House and the current frontrunner Hillary Clinton. Borosage has given up even inviting President Obama to come down Connecticut Avenue and speak to the faithful at the Washington Hilton or other venues.

Turn on C-SPAN and the “Road to the White House” is complete with speeches at events and convocations where the Republican contenders for the presidency brandish their ambitions. Where is the C-SPAN coverage of the Democratic counterparts? Well, Hillary hasn’t announced yet and only Martin O’Malley (former governor of Maryland), Jim Webb (former Senator from Virginia) and Senator Bernie Sanders (VT) are stirring the waters, but none of these “candidates in waiting” have announced. No contest. The Republicans dominate C-SPAN’s “Road to the White House” and will until the end of the primary season next year with their repetitious fact-starved fulminations.

Tethered to the Party’s militarist and corporatist Democrats like the Clintons, Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers, liberals and those on the Left rarely escape these ties, which means that their demands for progressive change are often shrugged off. Democratic candidates know progressives think they have no choice but to support the Democratic nominee. At the same time, the radical Right at CPAC summons the Republican candidates and issues them an ultimatum: give attention to the right-wing agenda or else. Senator John McCain found this out in the 2008 presidential campaign.

Look at the competition within the Republican Party, including Florida Senator Marco Rubio who has no problem criticizing the dynastic Jeb Bush. Compare this with the absence of any Democrat challenging the dynastic Hillary Clinton. The latter’s march to the coronation leaves the press with little more than commenting on her inevitability, the riches of the Clinton Foundation, and her prowess in raising money. (The recent self-inflicted email hot seat is an exception.) In fact, one report said that the only opponent to Hillary may be the media itself as a surrogate for the moribund party.

Bill Curry, a life-long Democrat, has observed in the columns he writes how ideologically active and challenging the Republicans are compared to the Democrats.

It is not as if the Democrats could not have their own robust primary with competing platforms, reflecting majoritarian American support. Such exercises are not currently on the table. The very idea of such a competitive presidential primary is seen as undermining the prospects of the anointed Hillary.

Just as in 2004, the anti-Iraq War movement suspended its massive rallies against that military sociocide because John Kerry said he would manage our military adventures better with even more soldiers. The Democratic Left certainly did not want to embarrass Kerry (“I am not a redistributionist Democrat”) because he was the Democrats’ hope to defeat Bush. The fact that the Iraq War was unpopular, even without the Democratic Party emphasizing any opposition to it, escaped the timid, cowering and calculating operatives. The cautious Kerry lost.

The organized labor unions are on the ropes with shrinking membership, uninspired leadership (with a few exceptions such RoseAnn DeMoro of the fast growing National Nurses United) and unable even to stop more so-called right-to-work drives by the anti-union politicians such as Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin.

So should the AFL-CIO and its member unions follow the lead of the moribund Democratic Party? Hell no, if you look at their roaring website and emails. Hell yes, if you look at the anemic organizing budgets, the barren streets and the unwillingness to challenge the White House or the Democratic Party head-on.

Labor unions rarely hold mass rallies and targeted demonstrations anymore (again with the exception of the nurses fighting the hospital chains or pressing for a tax on Wall Street stock and derivative trades). Union bureaucracies are not connecting with their own rank and file because they offer little to connect with and much to avoid answering for.

The once vibrant union newspapers and magazines and the nationally syndicated “Voice of Labor” radio show are either gone or shells of what they could be.

The unions have moved into virtual reality; often, their idea of mobilizing for or against some legislation is to send out emails!!

Is there any more indicative sign of their own self-regarding complacency than the AFL-CIO having so few people pushing OSHA to work on the preventable loss of about sixty thousand laborers from workplace-related trauma and disease every year?

For the liberal intelligentsia and their pundits and funders, the “least-worst mindset” doesn’t just kick in around election time as their chosen attitude to the two-party tyranny; it’s in their DNA from the outset. So long as they are generically supine, the least-worst approach destroys bargaining power and makes the Democratic Party worse every cycle because of the 24/7 influence of monetizing corporatists.

So, here we tediously go again for 2016 unless the progressives stop demoralizing themselves with political resignation and begin applying the dicta of the great abolitionist, Frederick Douglass: “Power concedes nothing without a demand; it never did and it never will.”

So start with a progressive counterpart for CPAC this autumn and summon the candidates—presidential, senatorial and congressional to the stage. Can Democrats at least do that to awaken themselves and their party from their stupor?

Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post in (2001) titled “The Democratic Party is Dead.” What is it now? Is it just a pile of gangrene that can only be resuscitated out of fear of how much worse the Republican Party is for the people, for the country and for the world?

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Everything You Need To Know About Your Company’s Numbers – Book Review

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There are many finance manuals out there and some of them are very good. But most approach corporate finance from a shareholder or investor’s point of view. And when the companies themselves are included, there’s only cursory attention paid to the people who work for them and their circumstances.

The company is envisioned as a mere investment tool, with the goal of maximizing shareholder profits. This is a limiting and reductionist approach and should be shunned, explain IESE’s Javier Aguirreamalloa and Pedro Larios in their 2014 book.

The result is a finance manual whose breadth, scope and conceptual clarity make it a must-read for executives, financially focused or not, who seek a clear and thorough understanding of their company’s numbers.

Content is divided into four sections:

1. Operational Finance

The first chapters focus on analysis, diagnosis and forecasting of operational finance — that is to say, the financial considerations stemming from the day-to-day running of the company.

The reader is introduced to key concepts for properly preparing and interpreting an income statement and balance sheet, as well as to the main operational and financial ratios used to analyze a company’s performance and profitability.

Next, the book addresses two concepts that are fundamental to anticipating and diagnosing liquidity problems: working capital requirements (WCR) — i.e., the financing an organization needs for its day-to-day operations — and working capital, which, in the novel approach of these authors, is considered a liability.

The relationship between the two variables is crucial because it determines whether or not a company will encounter liquidity problems.

2. Long-Term Finance

Once operational issues have been addressed, it’s time to introduce a more strategic and long-term vision of corporate finance, one that involves looking years into the future for decision-making. Decisions such as whether or not to build a new factory or acquire a competitor are two examples.

These long-range decisions require the application of qualitative and quantitative criteria, such as net present value (NPV) or internal rate of return (IRR). What’s more, the criteria are selected by people — the company’s executives — and, therefore, are not “automatic.”

Examples and practical exercises help explain decision-making criteria and the variables that influence them (e.g., cash flow, free cash flow and the cost of capital) in a reader-friendly way.

3. Company Valuations

Two chapters are dedicated to explaining the various methods to value or price a company. The first, more general, chapter discusses valuation by discounted cash flows, by the multiples approach (calculated via sales, EBITDA, net profit and more) and by balance-sheet-based methods.

The second chapter analyzes more specific cases and the valuation methods that suit them — such as the assessment of companies in the context of mergers and acquisitions, of start-ups, of listed vs. non-listed companies and when companies go bankrupt.

4. Financing Decisions

The final chapters of the book focus on analyzing the various sources of financing available to companies, and the operational and strategic implications of turning to outside money as opposed to financing with resources generated by the company itself.

The book assesses the pros and cons of various dividend policies, as well as leverage and capital structure policies. It also looks at the benefits of going public and remaining private. In addition, the authors present a detailed analysis of the products and tools offered by banks and the financial markets to help companies maximize their return on capital or provide them with the resources needed to boost growth.

The net result is a complete manual on finance that unites the practical reality of a company’s financial life with the rigor of financial concepts — concepts which are often confusing but here are presented in a straightforward manner, to be easily understood and applied.

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US Resumes Embassy Operations In Saudi Arabia

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The US embassy in Riyadh, as well as consular offices in Dhahran and Jeddah, resumed operations Sunday after being closed since March 15 due to “heightened security concerns,” reported AFP.

Westerners have been targeted and attacked in the Kingdom in four incidents since October 2014.

The U.S. embassy urged American citizens within Saudi Arabia to “be aware of their surroundings and take extra precautions when traveling throughout the kingdom,” according to the mission’s website.

Since September 2014, Saudi Arabia has been involved in U.S.-led air strikes against Daesh militants, raising fears of backlash within the Kingdom.

Original article

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In China: ‘A Peaceful Democratic Transition?’– Analysis

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By Arthur Waldron*

Nothing appears by accident in the Global Times, Beijing’s mass-circulation tabloid owned by the People’s Daily and run by the Communist Party. So I was astonished to read there, in an editorial feature this past March 9, the following sentence:  “The West has never thought that China will have a ‘peaceful democratic transition,” [西方從未想過中國將有’和平的民主過度]. Even a year ago such words would have been grounds for firing or worse. Yet there they were; they had passed through layers of editors and censors, and their meaning was unmistakable.

How to explain them? I think this sentence is one of the now regular but inconspicuous clues scattered in the media as to where China’s new and energetic President Xi Jinping 習近平 (1953-) seeks to take his country.

The article appeared in response to a piece by an American China specialist long known for his highly favorable views of Chinese communism but now suddenly turned pessimistic, foreseeing chaos ahead [David Shambaugh, “The Coming Chinese Crackup, Wall Street Journal, March 6]. The essay seems deeply to have insulted the Chinese authorities.

Why? As the Chinese author sees it, by insisting that the his people cannot rule themselves, but instead require the strong hand of dictatorship, with chaos as the only alternative, the regime’s most reliable American apologists are in fact suggesting that somehow, by nature or culture, the Chinese are simply unfit for or incapable of the sort of peaceful change that in 1994, for instance, saw Nelson Mandela (1918-2013) elected president in previously apartheid South Africa.

“No,” the newspaper is saying: “Americans, please realize that Chinese are not natural slaves and that we can and will change if necessary as many other countries have done.”

An unprecedentedly fierce attack on corruption even at the highest levels has so far been the hallmark of President Xi’s administration: He has put one corrupt official after another behind bars—“tigers” they are called in Chinese, laohu 老虎.  An example is Zhou Yongkang 周永康 (1942-), who among other things, is the controller of the whole national secret police and security apparatus. All have been so long in office as to have seemed permanent fixtures of the regime, having limitless power—and also fortunes, some in the billions of US dollars—at least partly secreted outside China.

Attacking such “tigers” head-on as Xi is doing is an enormous risk. He understands better than anyone that if they should somehow band together, they can easily topple him. Rumor has it that Xi has already survived six assassination attempts.

Nothing, however, unifies these “tigers” except individual greed. They have no ideology; if anything they are rivals. Furthermore, ordinary Chinese people are thrilled to see notorious criminal officials brought down. This writer’s observation is that the general Chinese community has not been so interested in politics since the 1980s, before their dreams of democracy drowned in the blood of the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen massacre. That Xi is playing a very dangerous high-stakes game cannot be denied. If it breaks against him and he is deposed, then China will almost certainly face chaos and internal conflict.

Suppose Xi succeeds, however? Some of his statements about rule of law, following the constitution, and so forth suggest that at a minimum he is aiming to make China what the Germans call a Rechtsstaat—not a democracy, but a polity ruled fairly, by laws. That is certainly conceivable.

Like Mikhail Gorbachev (1931-) Xi perhaps also believes that Communism can work if purified. Should he reach the rule of law stage, however, he will discover that is not the case, as Gorbachev did. Without intending to, the last Soviet ruler built the legal and constitutional fire-escape that allowed the Soviet people not to rebuild communism, but rather to file safely out before it collapsed on them. If things break his way, and the rule of the “tigers” is ended, Xi could well do the same for China.

Or even more. Perhaps it is as a signal of the ultimate goal that we should read that phrase, in an official communist newspaper, about China having “a peaceful democratic transition.”  Certainly the words were printed intentionally and chosen to convey some meaning. What else, realistically, could that meaning be?

About the author:
*Arthur Waldron, Senior Fellow with FPRI’s Asia Program, is the Lauder Professor of International Relations at the University of Pennsylvania and Vice President and co-founder of the International Assessment and Strategy Center in Washington, D.C. (www.strategycenter.net), a 501(c)3 research organization. At Penn he has begun a program on strategy; he also directs the Indo-US forum in cooperation with two Indian research groups. Dr. Waldron is the author of three major books, From War to Nationalism: China’s Turning Point, 1924–1925 (Cambridge University Press, 1995), How The Peace Was Lost (Stanford University Press, 1992) and The Great Wall of China: From History to Myth (Cambridge University Press, 1990). He has edited, or contributed chapters or introductions to, more than twenty books. His articles have appeared in Foreign Affairs, Orbis, China Quarterly, Commentary, World Politics, and American Historical Review. Prof. Waldron is also a member of the boards of the Jamestown Foundation and Freedom House. He is currently writing a history of the Chinese civil war 1945-49.

Source:
This article was published by FPRI.

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Fresh Cross-Border Bombs Reported In China-Myanmar Border War

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Authorities in the southwestern Chinese province of Yunnan are investigating a group of unexploded bombs that fell on the
mountainous and rugged border with Myanmar, where fighting between government troops and Kokang rebels has intensified in the past week.

As the conflict in Shan State passed the 40-day mark On Myanmar’s side of the border relief volunteers said unidentified attackers had thrown five grenades in an attack on the refugee camp, where unarmed civilians are sheltering from the conflict. There were no injuries.

Photos from the Chinese side of the border showed white, unexploded bombs–or parts of bombs–with fins, some with parachutes still attached.

Local residents said they were dropped by a Myanmar government plane at around 4.00 p.m. local time outside Mengdui township near Yunnan’s Lincang city.

“We are still confirming what happened, and we have no conclusion at this stage,” an official who answered the phone at the Mengdui township government offices said on Saturday.

“We are acting on the basis of tip-offs from the local people.”

Bombs located

He said the position of the bombs had already been established, however.

“We determined the exact position [on Friday] but the details aren’t clear yet,” the official said.

“They will inform the command center and the county government leaders, who will be able to answer your questions,” he said.

He said local officials are “still confirming” whether or not there were casualties. “We still don’t know,” he said.

However, one local resident told RFA that the bombs hadn’t exploded.

Myanmar’s military resumed air strikes against ethnic Kokang rebels in the country’s remote Shan state on Friday, a week after a bomb killed five Chinese nationals across the border, further straining ties between the two Asian neighbors.

After a few days’ pause after the bombing incident, the army on Thursday resumed its offensive against the MNDAA, which is trying to retake the Kokang self-administered zone it had controlled until 2009, supported by its aircraft.

Further incursions, this time involving artillery bombardment, were reported by a volunteer at the Maidihe refugee camp, which straddles the border.

“The Myanmar army fired two shells over here [on Friday],” a volunteer surnamed Li at the nearby Maidihe refugee camp told RFA on Saturday.

“They came down two kilometers inside the Chinese side of the border, in the jungle,” he said. “[Chinese officials] went to inspect the site today.”

He said that no deaths or injuries had so far been reported in connection with the shelling.

Five grenades

On the Myanmar side, a volunteer at a refugee camp near the No. 125 border marker described the attack on a camp sheltering thousands of refugees.

“They lobbed five grenades in the attack, and one exploded [in the camp],” a missionary surnamed Ke told RFA. “Nobody was hurt, and we didn’t catch them, so we don’t know who did this.”

One grenade fell at the door of the camp offices, but didn’t explode, although the pin had been pulled, aid workers said. The second exploded near some makeshift tents set up by civilians as temporary homes in the camp, sending shrapnel into their homes.

“If the grenade thrown at the offices had detonated, it would have been terrible,” Ke said.The attackers ran away before they could be identified.

Twenty meters away in the jungle, aid workers found two more unexploded grenades, while the location of a fifth grenade explosion had yet to be pinpointed in the jungle.

Evacuation considered

Ke said camp authorities are considering dispersing the refugees in the wake of the attack.

“There are 4,000 people here, so we will have to think about how to evacuate them all,” Ke said.

“We don’t want the responsibility of deaths on our hands if there is a second attack.”

He said nobody understood what could have motivated the attack.

“Nobody thought they would start attacking refugees,” Ke said. “It’s bewildering.”

A second volunteer at the same camp said he was “extremely angry” and strongly condemned the attack.

The No. 125 Border Marker camp is run by charitable organizations based in Kokang for humanitarian purposes, with the aim of helping civilians in the war-torn region meet their daily needs, the aid worker said.

For many who haven’t enough money or papers to get across the border into China, it is the last option they have to find shelter and protection, he said.

“It is extremely chilling to think that people could be so shameless as to launch a grenade attack on refugees and the aid workers who are helping them,” the volunteer said.

Fighting began on Feb. 9 in Laukkai between Myanmar government troops and the MNDAA, which is allied with other armed groups in the region.

The MNDAA is allied with three other ethnic minority armies: the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), and part of the Shan State Army (SSA), although the KIA has remained in the region it controls, rather than fighting alongside MNDAA troops.

Reported by Qiao Long for RFA’s Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.

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Islamic State Posts Target Watch List Of American Counterterrorists – OpEd

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The deadly and cruel Islamic State of Iraq and Syria allegedly unveiled their own watch list on the Internet naming and describing 100 members of the U.S. military and encouraging homegrown Islamists or those who’ve illegally entered the U.S. to assassinate them, according to reports on Saturday and Sunday.

ISIS posted the names, addresses and photographs of the targeted American warriors encouraging their “brothers living in America” to execute them for crimes against Allah’s people. U.S. Department of Defense claims a full investigation is being conducted by it’s Criminal Investigation Division (CID).

As per the military’s SOP (standard operating procedures) military members and their families are advised to take adequate precautions even while living or being posted stateside. “The more involved a military member is in fighting Islamic terrorists, the more precautions and security measures are recommended,” former U.S. Marine intelligence operative and former New York police detective, Sid Franes, told Examiner.

Although ISIS isn’t taking credit for this latest Internet posting, a group calling themselves the Islamic State Hacking Division posted in English that its hackers illegally breached the security of some military computer servers, classified databases and interagency or intra-agency emails.

Reporters from the New York Times assert that it didn’t appear that the posted information on the 100 targets had been stolen from U.S. government servers. The Times news story claims the information published online could have been gathered from public records web sites that charge a fee for information or from social media such as Facebook or LinkedIn.

“In January, the social media accounts of the U.S. Central Command was compromised by Islamic State sympathizers. Hackers used Twitter to publish a list of military members and their addresses. At the time, the Pentagon contacted affected individuals and local law enforcement,” according to an Oliver Darcy report at The Blaze.

“I can’t confirm the validity of the information, but we are looking into it,” an Israeli official said on Saturday. “[W]e always encourage our personnel to exercise appropriate OPSEC (operations security) and force protection procedures.”

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New Study Finds Isolation Risk Factor For All Ages, Incomes

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Ask people what it takes to live a long life, and they’ll say things like exercise, take Omega-3s, and see your doctor regularly.

Now research from Brigham Young University shows that loneliness and social isolation are just as much a threat to longevity as obesity.

“The effect of this is comparable to obesity, something that public health takes very seriously,” said Julianne Holt-Lunstad, the lead study author. “We need to start taking our social relationships more seriously.”

Loneliness and social isolation can look very different. For example, someone may be surrounded by many people but still feel alone. Other people may isolate themselves because they prefer to be alone. The effect on longevity, however, is much the same for those two scenarios.

The association between loneliness and risk for mortality among young populations is actually greater than among older populations. Although older people are more likely to be lonely and face a higher mortality risk, loneliness and social isolation better predict premature death among populations younger than 65 years.

“Not only are we at the highest recorded rate of living alone across the entire century, but we’re at the highest recorded rates ever on the planet,” said Tim Smith, co-author of the study. “With loneliness on the rise, we are predicting a possible loneliness epidemic in the future.”

The study analyzed data from a variety of health studies. Altogether, the sample included more than 3 million participants from studies that included data for loneliness, social isolation, and living alone.

Controlling for variables such as socioeconomic status, age, gender, and pre-existing health conditions, they found that the effect goes both ways. The lack of social connections presents an added risk, and the existence of relationships provides a positive health effect. The new study appears in Perspectives on Psychological Science.

Previous research from Holt-Lunstad and Smith puts the heightened risk of mortality from loneliness in the same category as smoking 15 cigarettes a day and being an alcoholic. This current study suggests that not only is the risk for mortality in the same category as these well-known risk factors, it also surpasses health risks associated with obesity.

“In essence, the study is saying the more positive psychology we have in our world, the better we’re able to function not just emotionally but physically,” Smith said.

There are many things that help to subdue the effects of loneliness. With the evolution of the internet, people can keep in contact over distances that they couldn’t before. However, the superficiality of some online experiences may miss emotional context and depth. Too much texting with each other can actually hurt a romantic relationship, for example. The authors of that texting study note, however, that saying something sweet or kind in a text is universally beneficial.

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Iran: Khamenei Says Removal Of Sanctions Should Be Part Of Nuclear Deal

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Iran’s Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei says removal of anti-Iran sanctions should be part and parcel of any possible nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1 countries, and should not come as a late result of those talks.

The Leader touched on the ongoing nuclear talks between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries, mentioning a few points on the negotiations.

Ayatollah Khamenei said the first point is that the United States government is in dire need of nuclear talks.

The Leader noted that apparent differences in US do not mean that the American statesmen do not need nuclear negotiations, but there are political factions in the US that do not want a government run by their Democrat rivals to pull off nuclear talks with Iran to a final outcome.

“Obama’s Nowrouz message included dishonest assertions and his claim of friendship for Iranian people was not sincere,” the Leader said, noting that Obama’s claim that there are people in Iran who do not want nuclear case to be resolved through diplomacy is a lie.

What the Iranian nation is resisting against is bullying approach of the United States, Ayatollah Khamenei noted.

“They say to Iranian negotiators ‘you come here and listen to what we say and implement them word for word’. But our nation will resist against it and will never accept this.”

The Leader went on to note that neither the negotiating team, nor the Iranian nation that supports the team, will ever give in to such bullying.

The second point, Ayatollah Khamenei said negotiations with the United States are just about the nuclear case and do not cover regional issues or issues related to Iran’s internal affairs, including defense matters.

“Iran and the US have opposite views on regional issues. We want security and calm in the region, but the arrogant powers led by the America pursue the policy of sowing insecurity in the region, which is quite the opposite of our goals.”

The third point, as put by the Leader, was removal of anti-Iran sanctions, which should be discussed as a part of nuclear negotiations and should not be considered a result of those talks.

Ayatollah Khamenei added, “America says ‘we sign the agreement and monitor Iran’s behavior and then remove the sanctions’. This is erroneous and unacceptable and Iran will never accept this. This is the Americans’ ploy. Removal of sanctions should be part of any agreement.”

Another point mentioned by the Leader was that Americans expect Iran to take irreversible decisions pursuant to a possible nuclear deal which is not acceptable to the Islamic Republic.

If the opposite side would be able to reestablish sanctions on any grounds, there is no reason for our negotiators to accept an irreversible condition, the Leader added.

Ayatollah Khamenei emphasized Iran’s nuclear industry is indigenous, belongs to people, and should progress.

In another part of his speech, the Leader said marking Nowrouz is not in conflict with religious values as the Iranian nation uses Nowrouz as a framework for promoting Islamic values.

Reflecting on the true meaning of promoting good and prohibiting evil as an Islamic principle, the Leader said establishment and protection of the Islamic government is the most important of goods from the viewpoint of Islam.

Ayatollah Khamenei noted that, therefore, protecting the dignity of the Iranian nation, paving the way for progress of the Islamic society and promotion of judicial and economic justice are among the greatest of goods in an Islamic society.

The Leader noted that supporting the Islamic government in its efforts to run the country’s affairs is imperative for all people.

Ayatollah Khamenei stated that every government has its own supporters and critics and there is no problem if people criticize the government, provided that their criticism is limited within logical bounds.

The Leader specified that such criticism should not be done in a way as to strip incumbent officials of public trust.

The Leader also advised state officials to allow critics give voice to their viewpoints, noting that stifling criticism by the government is a mistake.

Ayatollah Khamenei stated that as the Leader, he has never closed eyes on mistakes committed by various governments, but has communicated them to state officials in a suitable manner, including by sending messages or in one-on-one meetings.

The Leader emphasized that his support for every government has been proportionate to that government’s performance in various fields.

Islam expects to see synergism and solidarity among people, Ayatollah Khamenei said, adding that the best manifestation of solidarity is that governments in an Islamic Establishment should be supported by all people even those who have not voted for them.

The Leader of the Islamic Revolution has also called on the Iranian nation and government to develop closer ties in a bid to promote advances in the country.

“If this friendly cooperation takes place on both sides, our wishes will certainly come true and our dear people will see the effects,” the Leader stated.

To achieve that goal, Ayatollah Khamenei added, the new Iranian year will be designated as “Government and Nation; Solidarity and Harmony.”

“The government is meant to serve the nation and the nation demands services from the government. The more cordial the nation-government ties, the more cooperation and solidarity between them, the better jobs will go ahead,” Ayatollah Khamenei said.

The Leader of the Islamic Revolution also urged the Iranian nation and government “to trust one another.”

“The government should recognize the nation in the proper sense of the word and acknowledge the value, significance and capabilities of the nation. Reciprocally, the nation should trust the government… in the proper sense of the word,” the Leader added.

“We hope that… the blessed name of this great figure and her memory will leave a profound and lasting impression on the lives of our people” in the new year, the Leader added.

Ayatollah Khamenei also hailed the Iranian nation’s firm determination during the previous Iranian year, saying the nation manifested the determination by attending massive rallies in commemoration of the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution’s victory, the International Quds Day and the Arba’een, the 40th day after the martyrdom anniversary of Imam Hussain (PBUH), the third Shia Imam.

The Leader also expressed hope that Iran will experience “economic development, regional and international might and dignity, scientific breakthroughs in the real sense of the word, judicial and economic justice as well as faith and spirituality” in the new year.

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2015 Budget: Too Little Too Late For South Africa’s Public Debt? – Analysis

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By Mark Schoeman*

After a ‘gloom and doom’ Mid-Term Budget Policy Statement in October last year, it was hoped that Finance Minister Nene’s recent Budget Speech would allay concerns that South Africa’s public finances are in dire straits.

The Minister presented a plan for fiscal consolidation, proposing austerity measures such as a more progressive personal income and corporate tax structure, increased sin taxes on alcohol and tobacco, a rise in the fuel levy, curtailing expenditure within set targets, and eliminating government waste and inefficiency.

However, the revised budget has not provided markets with the confidence they were hoping for. Ahead of a review of South Africa’s sovereign credit rating in June this year, global ratings company Fitch has expressed concern that South Africa won’t be able to stick to its targeted consolidation goals, implying a possible downgrading. This comes after Standard & Poor’s downgraded South Africa’s rating to BBB- in 2014, one notch above the ‘junk’ status most investors avoid.

South Africa’s debt burden

Much of this story has to do with the impact of the global financial crisis on South Africa’s economy: negative GDP growth, job losses and sustained unemployment, and an increasing strain on public finances. Emerging from a period of prudent fiscal policy management before the crisis, South Africa was able to use the fiscal space it had created to execute a significant fiscal policy response.

The result was for government spending to quickly outstrip revenue, with the difference financed by the accumulation of public debt. From a public debt stock of 26% of GDP in 2009, South Africa’s debt-to-GDP ratio rapidly increased by almost 70% to a level of 43.9% by 2014.

Growth has remained sluggish since South Africa’s gradual recovery from the recession. This seems unlikely to change in the near future, with Treasury downgrading its 2.5% growth estimate in October 2014 to just 2% for 2015, rising to 3% by 2017. While interest rates on public debt have remained modest, this is a natural post-recession feature and there is no guarantee that they will stay supressed in the future. Interest rates tend to rise once economies begin to recover and move into the next phase of the business cycle.

Austerity measures

This environment of very low growth and modest-to-high interest rates presents an unsustainable debt dynamic which can only be controlled by running a sufficiently large primary surplus. This requires government revenue to exceed spending, and explains why Minister Nene has prioritised austerity measures in the 2015 budget.

Critics of implementing austerity measures before growth and employment has resumed argue that the level of the debt stock is not important, as long as the government is able to service the debt and use the funding productively. However, high levels of debt are associated with larger debt servicing costs.

Unfortunately, the rise in South Africa’s interest payments has crowded out other types of government spending. Interest payments on public debt are now the fastest growing item of government spending, and the rise in interest expenditure by almost 70% since 2009 has caused the share of interest payments in total expenditure to grow for the first time since 1998. This situation where growing interest payments on a large stock of public debt consume an increasing portion of government spending is dangerous. The opportunity cost of crowding out government spending on factors known to contribute to long-term growth, such as infrastructure or human capital development, is enormous.

Will the 2015 Budget plan work?

Given the need for fiscal consolidation, how likely is it that the 2015 Budget plan will achieve its consolidation targets?

On the expenditure side, Treasury has set strict spending targets and is focusing on reducing waste and improving efficiency – a mantra for much of the past decade which has not seen results. Public-sector wage negotiations are still underway, and the budgeted 6.6% increase is far below the 15% organised labour is currently demanding. If the negotiations do not go to plan, government will either be saddled with more spending than they anticipated, or labour strikes will further undermine growth prospects. State-owned enterprises (SOEs) remain a drain on fiscal resources, and if poorly performing SOEs like Eskom, SAA, and the Post Office continue along their current trajectory, it is likely that they will drain more from the fiscus than has been planned.

On the revenue side, a more progressive tax structure makes sense in terms of contributing to wealth redistribution, but may not be very effective at boosting the revenue base – the wealthy are endowed with the resources to discover and exploit tax loopholes and avoid paying the increased tax burden. Sin taxes and fuel levies are a sure way of increasing the revenue base, but there has been concern that ignoring some of the other low-hanging fruit, such as estate duties and VAT, will jeopardise the budget’s revenue collection target – especially if growth is lower than forecasted.

Even if government is able to reign in its spending and expand the revenue base as planned, Treasury’s target for stabilising public debt seems ambitious. The 2015 Budget forecasts that South Africa’s debt-to-GDP ratio will stabilise at 43.7% by 2017/2018. Using a simple calculation, even if we assume that the moderate interest rates on public debt persist and that growth is not lower than Treasury’s forecast, the primary surplus required to stabilise debt at the targeted level is greater than the budgeted balance.

Looking to 2016

It is likely that Minister Nene will have to deliver a similar speech in a year’s time, pressing the need for fiscal consolidation and introducing heavier tax obligations. But this time it will be harder to get people to believe that the plan will be followed through. Unfortunately, external perceptions do matter as credit rating agencies fuel perceptions of risk and investors demand higher premiums on South African bonds – making the interest burden on public debt even greater.

If the Minister retakes the podium in a year and doesn’t have any fiscal consolidation to show, he will be forced to execute stricter austerity measures – or run the risk of South Africa’s public debt spiralling out of control.

About the author:
*Mark Schoeman is a researcher in SAIIA’s Economic Diplomacy Programme.

Source:
This article was published by SAIIA, which may be found here.

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Israel And The Gaza Strip: Why Economic Sanctions Are Not Collective Punishment – Analysis

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By Justus Reid Weiner*

Israel’s policy of economic sanctions has been condemned by numerous UN bodies6 and NGOs7 as the imposition of ‘collective punishment,’ a term that carries very serious implications under international law, particularly within International Humanitarian Law (IHL). Among the negative ramifications this accusation creates, labeling Israel’s conduct as ‘collective punishment’ opens a Pandora’s Box that can lead to unjustified accusations of war crimes, distract from true cases of collective punishment, and undermine the legitimacy of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Israel’s supporters, notably human rights lawyer Anne Herzberg,8 have argued that these charges represent abuses of the legal system for use as a weapon against Israel.9

Within the framework of the laws of war, collective punishment is never tolerable. When such charges are repeatedly laid against Israel, the country is placed in the difficult position of having to constantly explain that its conduct is justified. At the same time, governments around the world use similar tactics to put pressure on other countries, but under the label of ‘economic sanctions,’ an accepted tool of diplomacy. Despite any spin that governments use to justify their actions or to castigate other governments, the two terms have distinct meanings. With an apt understanding of precisely what constitutes collective punishment, it will be much easier to explore and understand the concept of economic sanctions.10

Most of the controversial economic actions that Israel has taken focus on the Gaza Strip and its administering authority, Hamas, which is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas won the majority of seats in Gaza’s 2006 election, then forcibly evicted the rival Fatah faction, and has since remained in sole control of the Strip. It is designated as a terrorist organization by the United States State Department,11 the European Union (EU),12 Israel,13 and many others.

Collective Punishment and Economic Sanctions in International Law

Collective Punishment in International Law

Collective punishment is prohibited by various norms of IHL and has been proscribed by a large variety of international conventions since 1899.14 Article 50 of the 1899 Hague Regulations provides that “[n]o general penalty, pecuniary or otherwise, can be inflicted on the population on account of the acts of individuals for which it cannot be regarded as collectively responsible.”15 This prohibition was later incorporated in Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention (of 1949)16 and then expanded by Article 75(2)(d) of Additional Protocol I and Article 4(2)(b) of Additional Protocol II to the Geneva Conventions (both of 1977).17

In addition to these instruments of treaty law, the prohibition on collective punishment has been recognized as reflecting international customary law.18 Rule 103 of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) study on Customary International Humanitarian Law provides that the prohibition constitutes a customary rule applicable in both international and noninternational conflicts.19 While not listed among the “grave breaches” of the Geneva Conventions20 or in the Rome Statute of the ICC,21 this customary rule has been affirmed in court cases dealing with war crimes, particularly the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) in the Brima case22 and the Military Tribunal of Rome in the Priebke case, which recognized the rule as having been applicable during World War II.23 It has been explicitly recognized as a serious violation of Article 3 common to the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocol II24 that is prosecutable under the Statute of the International Tribunal for Rwanda and the Statute of the Special Court for Sierra Leone.25

The opposition to collective punishment is rooted in one of the most fundamental concepts of criminal law, the principle of individual responsibility.26 As articulated by Hugo Grotius, “the father of international law,”27 this basic principle provides that “no one who is innocent of wrong may be punished for the wrong done by another.”28 The scope of the prohibition has since been interpreted as including not only criminal sanctions but also a greater variety of sanctions imposed by forces in armed conflicts. Jean Pictet’s29 Commentary on the Fourth Geneva Convention30 provides that the prohibition does not “refer to punishments inflicted under penal law, i.e. sentences pronounced by a court after due process of law, but penalties of any kind inflicted on persons or entire groups of persons, in defiance of the most elementary principles of humanity, for acts that these persons have not [individually] committed.”31 Similarly, the Commentary on Protocol I states that the scope of the prohibition should be interpreted broadly so as to cover “not only legal sentences but sanctions and harassment of any sort, administrative, by police action or otherwise.”32 This interpretation has been affirmed by the SCSL,33 and is also supported by the ICRC Study.34 It is demonstrated in the ruling in the case of Prosecutor v. Fofana and Kondewa, in which the SCSL Appeals Chamber emphasized that the prohibition “must be understood in its broadest sense so as to include not only penalties imposed during normal judicial processes, such as sentences rendered after due process of law, but also any other kind of sanction such as a fine, confinement or a loss of property or rights.”35

The employment of collective punishment within a military action is determined by whether or not the action can be considered indiscriminate. For this purpose, Article 51 of the First Additional Protocol to the Fourth Geneva Convention defined an indiscriminate attack as “an attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.”36 Article 57 of the same Protocol then demands that the military take care not to harm the civilian population more than is necessary in order to achieve the military objective.37 Both of these Articles express clearly that there are circumstances in which civilians are unavoidably harmed.

The SCSL has played a particularly important role in developing the concept of collective punishment as a war crime.38 In all but one of the Court’s cases the accused have been charged with collective punishment, and three of its most prominent cases (Prosecutor v. Fofana and Kondewa, Prosecutor v. Sesay, Kallon and Gbao, and Prosecutor v. Brima, Kamara and Kanu) have incorporated convictions for collective punishment.39 The SCSL has established and defined the crime of collective punishment as being composed of two elements: (i) “the indiscriminate punishment imposed collectively on persons for omissions or acts for which some or none of them may or may not have been responsible,” and (ii) “the specific intent of the perpetrator to punish collectively.”40

Definition and Different Types of Economic Sanctions

While collective punishment is uniformly forbidden, economic sanctions are considered a legitimate use of political influence. In Economic Sanctions Reconsidered, one of the most significant studies of the subject, the authors describe sanctions as “part and parcel of international diplomacy, a tool for coercing target governments into particular avenues of response.”41 Sanctions have been used since ancient Greece, though they rose to greater prominence following World War I.42 In the early 20th century they were primarily used to discourage military ventures, such as when the League of Nations used sanctions to coax Greece into withdrawing from Bulgaria in 1925 and the League’s unsuccessful attempt to make Italy withdraw from Abyssinia in the 1930s.43 They have, at times, even had the desired effect on major powers. Thus, England and France removed their troops from Egypt in 1956 due to threats of sanctions.44

Sanctions have also been used to sway internal matters in other countries. The United States’ sanctions on the Dominican Republic, Brazil, Chile, and Nicaragua led, in part, to regime changes in each of the countries in the 1960s and 1970s.45 At other times, sanctions have been declared in order to pressure a country to change its policies. The Jackson-Vanik Amendment to the Trade Act of 1974 applied limited sanctions to countries that restrict their citizens’ human rights, particularly the right to emigrate.46 The Amendment was an effort to punish the Soviet Union for refusing to allow its citizens, particularly Jewish refuseniks,47 to emigrate. It ultimately played a large part in causing the USSR to free refuseniks and allow them to leave.48 Possibly the most widely appreciated sanctions were those imposed on apartheid South Africa in the 1980s, when the European Community and the United States demanded that the country end its racially discriminatory legislation.49

Sanctions have also been used either as a precursor to, or in addition to, military action. In 1990 the United Nations imposed sanctions on Iraq after the latter invaded Kuwait. This did not induce Iraq’s self-appointed president, Saddam Hussein, to withdraw. Unlike with Italy’s invasion of Abyssinia, a coalition of thirty-four countries followed up by attacking and driving back the Iraqi forces in occupied Kuwait. The sanctions remained in place during and after the fighting, and most were not lifted until after Hussein was overthrown in 2003.50 Similarly, the NATO-led attack on Libya in 2011 was accompanied by a UN Security Council resolution that sanctioned arms sales and flights to Libya.51 These examples illustrate the utility of economic sanctions.

IHL Norms Governing the Use of Economic Sanctions

While IHL is clear on its prohibition of collective punishment, it is less so on permissible uses of economic sanctions. Instead it restricts itself to enforcing measures to protect the civilian population and to prevent the sanctioning power from overstepping its bounds. Articles 54,52 69,53 and 7054 of the Fourth Geneva Convention along with its Protocol Additional (I) of 1977, forbid intentionally starving the civilian population. Article 23 also requires states to allow the passage of humanitarian goods, but only if there is no danger of them being misappropriated for military purposes.55 Article 59, which deals with the responsibilities of an Occupying Power in allowing free passage of relief consignments, also allows the Occupying Power to ensure that the goods will not be used for military purposes.56

Armed Conflict According to the UN Charter

The United Nations cannot suggest a blanket ban on economic sanctions, as Article 41 of its own charter permits the use of economic and diplomatic pressure to influence countries. The first example given in the Charter is, “include complete or partial interruption of economic relations.”57 There have been attempts, most notably by the Soviet and Third World countries, to equate economic pressure with the use of force. This not only contradicts the explicit arguments of the UN Charter’s drafters, it would deny a key tool that enables countries to use diplomatic measures rather than going to war.58 According to Economic Sanctions Reconsidered, the matter was finally resolved at the United Nations with the General Assembly Resolution 3314, “Definition of Aggression.” The resolution specified what is considered aggression and, significantly, did not include economic measures.59

The UN Security Council has passed several resolutions that require member states to take measures against terrorism. Resolution 1373, passed in late September 2001, requires that all states shall “Refrain from providing any form of support, active or passive, to entities or persons involved in terrorist acts, including by suppressing recruitment of members of terrorist groups and eliminating the supply of weapons to terrorists.”60 This was further clarified in Resolution 1456, which reaffirmed the demand for states to fight terrorism but also included language requiring them to remain within the limits of IHL.61 Resolution 1566 then gave a clear definition of ‘terrorism’: criminal acts, including against civilians, committed with the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury, or taking of hostages, with the purpose to provoke a state of terror in the general public or in a group of persons or particular persons, intimidate a population or compel a government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act.62

Hamas openly admits that it attacks civilians and takes hostages in order to intimidate the Israeli population.63 As a designated terror group,64 the United Nations’ own resolutions require Israel to prevent Hamas from obtaining funding and weapons. It was with this background that Israel instituted its 2007 naval blockade targeting Gaza.65 A naval blockade allows a belligerent to prevent the passage of all vessels, both enemy and neutral, to and from the ports and coastal areas of the enemy, irrespective of the cargo on board.66 The San Remo Manual on International Law contains a widely accepted, though not legally binding, rubric of international law as it pertains to armed conflicts at sea. The Manual defines the proper and legitimate way to declare a blockade on an “other party to an armed conflict.” According to Articles 93 and 94 a notice to mariners should be delivered, informing them of the beginning date, the end date, and the geographical borders of the blockade.67

The Israeli Ministry of Transport did so by announcing that “All mariners are advised that as of 03 January 2009, 1700 UTC,68 Gaza maritime area is closed to all maritime trafic [sic] and is under blockade imposed by Israeli Navy [sic] until further notice,” along with the precise boundaries of the blockade.69 States have used even stricter equivalents than would be practiced according to the terms of the San Remo Manual. Thus, when Britain blockaded Germany during World War I, it even declared food products to be contraband.70 This Allied blockade led to almost 763,000 German deaths from starvation.71

Israeli ‘Occupation’ under Article 43 of the Hague Convention of 1907

Article 43 of the 1907 Hague Convention forms the basis for the concept of a belligerent occupation, and, given the passing of time and its widespread adoption, is recognized as customary international law. In brief, it demands that the Occupying Power ensure that daily life continues with as little interference as possible. As it has always been interpreted, though, it gives the Occupying Power complete legislative authority.72 As the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office pointed out in November 2003, during the occupation of Iraq, “[t]here is no legal requirement under the law of occupation for UN authorization to enable an Occupying Power to exercise its functions. UN authority is only required to enable an Occupying Power to take actions that are not otherwise authorised by the law of occupation.”73 Paragraph 2 of Article 64 of the same Hague Convention allows the Occupying Power to “subject the population of the occupied territory to provisions which are essential to enable the Occupying Power…to ensure the security of the Occupying Power, of the members and property of the occupying forces or administration, and likewise of the establishments and lines of communication used by them.”74 In the case of Haw Pia v. The China Banking Corporation, the Philippine Supreme Court ruled that the state was justified in liquidating enemy banks in the occupied territory.75 Nevertheless, legal changes that were not based on security needs have been deemed incompatible with Article 43, such as when the British forces set up their own appeals court in Asmara, Italy, during World War II.76

Ensuring the continuity of daily life naturally necessitates some form of participation. Just as an Occupying Power is not allowed to disrupt the local pattern of life, neither can it refuse to take any action. The same Article 43 requires the Occupying Power to “take all measures in his power…to ensure, as far as possible, public order and safety.”77 In order to ensure public order and safety, it is accepted unquestioningly that occupying powers would provide additional legislation. Within the West Bank and Gaza, new laws put in place by the Ottoman Turks, British, Jordanians, Egyptians, and Israelis are all recognized as valid. As an important distinction, though, Israel has not imposed Israeli law on either the West Bank or Gaza, because to do so would imply that it has annexed the two regions.78

Do Israeli Economic Sanctions Constitute Collective Punishment?

With a clear differentiation between collective punishment and economic sanctions, one can determine into which category Israel’s policies fall. As stated above, the Geneva Conventions require a sanctioning power to permit the transfer of humanitarian goods. The official Commentary on the Protocols defines this as “(1) consignments of medical and hospital stores and objects necessary for religious worship; (2) consignments of essential foodstuffs, clothing, and tonics.”79 It further explains the reasoning as “The former cannot be a means of reinforcing the war economy and can therefore be sent to the civilian population as a whole. On the other hand, consignments which fell into the second category are only entitled to free passage when they are to be used solely by children under fifteen, expectant mothers and maternity case.”80

Israel has not only upheld these standards set forth in the previous paragraph, but has far surpassed them. Even during the fifty-day Operation Protective Edge,81 as rockets were falling near the border crossings, Israel allowed 997 tons of medical supplies to enter Gaza, and 268 ambulances to transport patients into Israel for urgent treatment.82 In the first twenty-nine days of the fighting alone Israel allowed in 37,178 tons of food.83 No one has claimed that Israel prevents religious supplies from reaching Gazans. In fact, the commonly protested restrictions, such as steel and concrete, do not fall under either of the above categories and, even if they did, there would be no certainty that they would be used solely by children and new or expectant mothers rather than militants in Gaza. In just the first week of Operation Protective Edge Israel discovered eighteen tunnels crossing from Gaza into Israel, the construction of which used about eight hundred thousand tons of concrete.84 Khalid Mishal, the leader of Hamas, and Moussa Abu Marzouk, the deputy head of the organization’s political bureau, have admitted that they were built for the purpose of kidnapping Israelis.85 As shown above, by the United Nations’ own requirements Israel is not allowed to assist Hamas in building more tunnels, and must do what it can to deny Hamas the necessary supplies. Despite this, after the fighting quieted down, Israel once again loosened its restrictions on building materials in order to help the civilian population of Gaza rebuild.86

The difference between collective punishment and Israel’s policy of economic sanctions is made clear when one is reminded of some of the well-known cases of collective punishment. One of the most straightforward examples is the Lidice Massacre committed by the Nazis during World War II. On May 27, 1942, Czech resistance fighters assassinated Reinhard Heydrich, the second in command of the SS and the Protector of Bohemia and Moravia.87 As punishment, Hitler ordered that any village implicated in the assassination be destroyed.88 The Gestapo intercepted a letter of a Lidice family who had a son in the Czech brigade of the British forces89 and, on this basis, the German forces destroyed the village of Lidice in retaliation.90 All of the village’s 172 men over the age of sixteen and seven women were executed.91 The remaining 195 women were deported to the Ravensbruck concentration camp.92 Among the village’s children, ninety were sent to the Gneisenau concentration camp and seven, each under a year old, were sent to be raised in Germany after examination by “racial experts.”93

Aside from the brutality of the means employed, what distinguishes the Lidice Massacre from the Israeli economic sanctions is the element of individual responsibility. The people of Lidice were being punished for the assassination of Heydrich, an act in which they had no involvement. By contrast, the Israeli sanctions are targeting Hamas for the very acts the organization has committed. In this context a distinction must be made between the punishment of innocent individuals and the punishment of a guilty individual that unintentionally and unavoidably causes harm to innocent third parties.94 The latter is permitted by IHL as long as the effect is proportionate to the expected military advantage.95

These allegations of collective punishment also fail to take note of a basic characteristic of the prohibition on collective punishment. As established in the Lotus case,96 it is a basic tenet of international law that “Restrictions upon the independence of States cannot…be presumed.”97 This principle is reflected in Pictet’s Commentary. In explaining Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, Pictet specified that it refers to acts of reprisal, a state’s actions that are contrary to international law and are employed in response to the wrongful act of another state.98 By contrast, the prohibition on collective punishment does not apply to acts of retorsion, internationally lawful acts whose validity does not require a prior wrongful act by another state.99 Thus, Pictet states, “It would obviously be desirable for no retorsion to take place. What is most important, however, is respect for the rules of the Convention which embody the rights of protected persons, and it must be admitted that a belligerent never agrees to accord privileges over and above the rights laid down in the Convention, except on condition of reciprocity.”100 Consequently, the proscription of collective punishment does not apply to any action that is not supported by an independent injunction or requirement under international law.

The Legal Framework for the Imposition of Israeli Economic Sanctions

A review of the Israeli sanctions shows that they were in response to rocket, missile, and mortar attacks and that they are directed at those materials used by Hamas for the purpose of its terrorist onslaught against Israel. The blockade has always held to sensible limits and its purpose has never been based on the assumption that people within Gaza should starve, or otherwise to deny them any essential object for their survival.101 Israel has provided the option to deliver goods into Gaza through land to humanitarian missions, whether they are states or nongovernmental organizations – in accordance with Israel checking that no arms have been hidden on “neutral ships.”102

The necessity of this practice has been proven by ships such as the Santorini,103 the Karine A,104 and the Klos-C,105 all of which attempted to smuggle large amounts of weaponry to Gaza. It is important to note that the blockade has not caused damage to the civilian population that is “excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage.”106

The History of Israeli Economic Sanctions

The Israeli economic sanctions are comprised of the land-crossings policy implemented in June 2007 following the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip, pursuant to which Israel reduced the amount of supplies it provided to Gaza and restricted movement to and from the Strip. This policy was supplemented with the imposition of a naval blockade in January 2009. The origins of the sanctions are found in the actions taken by Israel following its 2005 disengagement from Gaza.

September 2005 – June 2007

On September 12, 2005, following the implementation of the disengagement plan, involving the eviction of some 8,500 Israeli civilians and the destruction of twenty-one villages from the Gaza Strip,107 the commander of IDF Forces in Gaza terminated Israeli military rule over the region.108 The following week, on September 20, the Israeli interior minister declared five crossings and land terminals between Israel and Gaza as “border stations.”109 That November, Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA)110 signed the Movement and Access Agreement and Agreed Principles for Rafah Crossing. In this agreement Israel undertook various commitments with regard to the movement of persons and export of goods from Gaza. It also arranged the operation of the Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings for the movement of persons and goods at the Egyptian border under the supervision of the EU.111 In December 2005 the Ministerial Committee on National Security authorized the defense minister to decide on the opening and closing of the border crossings.112 However, no formal policy was established before the Palestinian elections the following April.

Following Hamas’s victory at the polls, the Israeli government declared that “Subject to security considerations, the Gaza Strip crossings will be open in order to allow the entry of humanitarian assistance into the Gaza Strip.”113 This policy was challenged in the Supreme Court of Israel sitting as the High Court of Justice (HCJ)114 in the case of The Association for Civil Rights v. Defense Minister, after the activity at the crossings was restricted and at times temporarily closed. The High Court found that in the circumstances of the hostilities between Israel and the terrorist organizations in Gaza, there was indeed a “military-security” justification for imposing certain restrictions on the movement of goods and persons through the border crossings.115

On June 25, 2006, two IDF soldiers were killed, four were injured and another, Gilad Shalit, was abducted after a Hamas cell penetrated Israel through an underground tunnel.116 This attack was accompanied by the continued firing of missiles, rockets, and mortars at Israeli towns and attacks on the land crossings between Israel and Gaza.117 In response to these attacks, Israel carried out combat operations against the terrorist organizations in the Strip.118

Despite the attacks on Israel and the subsequent border closures, Israel prioritized the entry of certain basic goods and products into Gaza.119 During this period the entry of raw materials for construction, industry, and agriculture was generally permitted, but the amount of goods exported from Gaza was restricted.120 In the same case of The Association for Civil Rights v. Defense Minister, the Court upheld the restrictions and stated that Israel’s policy of closing the crossings would be subject to serious and immediate security threats, and that giving preference to the entry of certain basic products is balanced, reasonable, and consistent with Israeli and international law.121 The Court further noted that the state does not limit the passage of goods merely to essential basic products and acts in consideration of the humanitarian needs of Gaza’s civilian population.122 The state’s general policy was to allow the entry of as much goods as required, subject to security requirements.123 Thus, for example, the State allowed the entry of goods and equipment needed for various long-term infrastructure projects.124

June 2007 – June 2010

Even though it had prevailed in the previous year’s election, in June 2007 Hamas seized total control of the Gaza Strip. This was soon followed by an escalation in rocket and mortar attacks targeting Israeli civilians, as well as attempted and ‘successful’ terror attacks on Israeli civilians and IDF forces at the border crossings, the border fence, and within Israeli territory.125 In the year following Hamas’s takeover 3,307 rockets and mortars were fired from Gaza,126 compared to 1,777 in 2006.127 In response to these attacks and the Hamas takeover, on September 19, 2007, Israel’s Ministerial National Security Committee designated Gaza a “hostile territory” and decided to impose sanctions on the Hamas regime in the civilian sphere “in order to restrict the passage of various goods to the Gaza Strip and reduce the supply of fuel and electricity” and impose restrictions “upon the movement of persons to and from the Gaza Strip.”128 According to the Court ruling, these sanctions were to be implemented after a legal examination of their humanitarian ramifications and with “the intention to avoid a humanitarian crisis.”129 In light of Hamas’s continued aggression, restrictions were placed on the passage of goods and fuel between Israel and Gaza, and trade with Gaza was prohibited.130

This new land-crossings policy was reviewed by the HCJ in Al Bassiouni v. Prime Minister, after the restrictions imposed on the supply of fuel and electricity were challenged. The Court held that, in accordance with its obligations under IHL, Israel is obligated to allow the passage of those goods required for the maintenance of the essential humanitarian needs of Gaza’s civilian population.131 At the same time, Israel is not required to allow the passage of nonessential items or quantities in excess of what is required for Gaza’s basic humanitarian needs.132 The HCJ found that the state had acted and was committed to continue acting in conformity with this standard.133 The Court ruled that, while reducing the fuel and electricity supplies to Gaza did not harm the residents’ “essential humanitarian needs,” Israel had the legal obligation to facilitate the transfer of supplies to Gaza as well as to provide a portion of those supplies itself.

During the period from 2007 to 2010, the variety of goods allowed into Gaza was restricted to a “list of humanitarian products.”134 The inclusion of a product on this list was based on the following parameters: its “necessity for humanitarian needs”; the luxury status of the product; the legal/judicial obligation to permit the entrance of the product; implications of the product’s use (would it be used for conservation, rebuilding, or development) while stressing the influence of its entrance on the status of the Hamas regime; security implications (can the product be used for military purposes); sensitivity to the needs of the international community; [and] the existence of alternatives.135

Prohibited items included cement, iron, and plaster.136 The order of priorities for the entry of goods was set in the following manner: (1) medical supplies and medicine; (2) requests by international organizations for humanitarian aid and supplies for approved public projects; (3) agricultural materials; (4) goods for the private market in accordance with the order of priorities determined by the Gaza Strip Economic Committee, a representative of the Palestinian Authority.137 It is important to make clear that with the exception of restrictions arising from the capacity of the crossings there was no limit on the amount of food entering Gaza.138 There were, however, quotas on the entry of fuel and agricultural products.139 The quota on fuel was approved by the Israeli Supreme Court in its ruling on the Al Bassiouni case.140 The entry of agricultural products was restricted to twenty-six trucks per day, though this was not a strict limit and did not include agricultural produce transferred from the West Bank to Gaza in coordination with the Gaza Strip Economic Committee.141 It should be noted, however, that a significant amount of Gaza’s consumption is based on the supply of crops grown in the Strip.142 In addition to the restrictions on fuel and agricultural products, for certain periods of time there were also restrictions imposed on the entry of other products, such as a quantitative limit on the number of trucks carrying shoes and clothing.

At other times the land crossings were also closed temporarily due to Palestinian rocket attacks targeting the crossings.144 The first Israeli death during Operation Protective Edge occurred when a rocket struck the Erez Crossing and killed a civilian.145 In such circumstances the activity at the crossings would typically decrease for several days before returning to the previous level.146

The movement of persons between Gaza and Israel was restricted to “exceptional humanitarian cases, with an emphasis on urgent medical cases.”147 According to the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), four out of every five requests for permits to receive medical treatment in Israel are accepted.148 Requests are typically rejected when an applicant has a security background that prohibits him from entering Israel or when the PA prefers that the applicant receive treatment in Egypt or Gaza.149 Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas prime minister, has had no qualms about letting his mother-in-law,150 sister,151 brother-in-law,152 daughter,153 and granddaughter be treated in Israeli hospitals under this policy.154 Even terrorists are treated in the same hospitals as their victims.155 Ironically, their lives are saved by the very people they would happily murder.

With regard to monetary activity, due to the concern that money entering Gaza would be used to fund terrorist activities, all Israeli banks have suspended their working relationships with banks in the Strip.156 Israel allowed into Gaza a fixed amount of money each month in order to pay the salaries of PA employees and the expenses and salaries of international organizations, at their request.157 Israel also allowed money to leave Gaza at the request of the PA to replace worn-out bills.158<

This land-crossings policy was supplemented with the imposition of a naval blockade, which Israel declared on January 3, 2009, during Operation Cast Lead.159 All vessels attempting to transport humanitarian supplies to Gaza have since been directed to the Ashdod port and, after inspection, humanitarian supplies are sent to Gaza through the appropriate land crossings:160 the Karni Crossing for goods; the Erez Crossing for the movement of persons between Israel and Gaza; the Sufa Crossing for construction aggregate; the Kerem Shalom Crossing for the movement of goods between Egypt and Gaza through Israel; or the Nahal Oz terminal for the transfer of fuel.161

June 2010 – Present

On June 20, 2010, the Israeli government altered its land-crossings policy by deciding to implement a number of measures intended to liberalize the entry of civilian goods into the Gaza Strip, while at the same time preventing the entry of weaponry and combat materials.162 As part of the measures, Israel published a list of items that would not be allowed through. These were limited to “weapons and war material,” including dual-use items, which could be used for either civilian or military purposes.163 Anything not on the list would be permitted to enter Gaza.164 It was further decided to allow the entry of dual-use construction materials for PA-approved projects, such as schools, health facilities, housing, and sanitation, under international supervision.165 The international supervision is intended to ensure that Hamas conforms to the restrictions imposed on these materials under international law, though their presence does not always guarantee that the local authorities will act responsibly; in December 2005, about one hundred PA security offers at Rafah “[forced] the unarmed European monitors to flee to a nearby IDF base.”166 The land-crossings policy was further altered on December 8, 2010, when it was decided that, subject to certain restrictions, the export of goods to the West Bank and outside of Israel would be permitted.167

Since June 2010 the items that may not be imported into Gaza have been restricted to arms, munitions, and dual-use items specified in the Defense Export Control Order of 2008168 and an additional list of dual-use items.169 Those dual-use items for projects under international supervision that may be imported are also listed.170 Israel’s Defense Export Control Order (Controlled Dual-Use Equipment), which regulates a portion of the dual-use items, incorporates the Wassenaar Arrangement on Export Controls for Conventional Arms and Dual-Use Goods and Technologies.171 Other restricted dual-use items include: various chemical substances (inter alia, sulfur, ammonium nitrate, chlorate salts); communications equipment; communications disruption equipment; diving equipment; telescopes;172 drilling equipment; glass fiber based raw materials; carbon fibers or graphite fibers; vessels; and epoxy resins.173

Following the 2012 ceasefire that ended Operation Pillar of Defense,174 Israel also allowed gravel and other building materials to enter Gaza for the first time since 2007.175 However, the following October Israel again suspended the transfer of building supplies to Gaza for eight weeks, after discovering a tunnel leading into Israel that had been built with cement designated for civilian construction.176 The transfer policy has remained consistent since then, even during the latest round of fighting in Operation Protective Edge.177 The only pause came when Israel temporarily closed the Kerem Shalom Crossing after a rocket was aimed at the site.178

Occupation

Laws of Occupation

Israel’s rights and responsibilities toward Gaza are largely based on the viewpoint that it is an ‘occupying power.’ Like many other charged terms that are associated with Israel, ‘occupation’ must be based on legal definitions, rather than emotive rhetoric. According to both the Hague Regulations of 1899 and the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, Israel cannot be considered an occupier.

Article 42 of the Hague Regulations of 1899 states that “territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army” and that “[t]he occupation extends only to the territory where such authority has been established and can be exercised.”179 After Israel’s 2005 disengagement from Gaza, there have been no permanent IDF forces inside the Strip. The Fourth Geneva Convention refers to territory as occupied where the territory belongs to another “High Contracting Party”180 (i.e., a state party to the convention) and the occupier “exercises the functions of government” in the occupied territory,181 meaning that Israel must exercise effective control over Gaza in order to be an occupier. To clarify, it is important to note that the elected Hamas government is the de facto sovereign governor of the Gaza Strip and does not take direction from Israel, Egypt, or any other state or proto-state.182 Therefore, there is no effective Israeli control in Gaza, as Israel does not have any functionality of government in Gaza, nor any authority or relation to the Hamas government. Mahmoud Zahar, one of Hamas’s founders and a former foreign minister for the Gazan government, has even confirmed that Israel does not occupy the Strip. While organizers in the West Bank were preparing large demonstrations against Israel, Zahar was asked if Hamas would stage similar protests in Gaza. He responded that the Strip is no longer occupied, so there would be no reason to protest.183

Israel’s opponents argue that Israel still has control over most of Gaza’s borders and, at times, has sent in troops. As mentioned above, this ignores the true meaning of occupation in favor of its popular use as a charged term with which to vilify Israel. In a similar circumstance a decade ago, the International Committee of the Red Cross rightly declared in 2004 that Iraq was no longer occupied, even though there were hundreds of thousands of foreign troops still in the country.184 Should the definition of ‘occupied’ be expanded to cover any situation in which one country has complete control over another’s borders, then states like Lesotho, San Marino, and the Vatican would also be under permanent occupation.

The concept of occupation is also murky in the West Bank. Since 1994 the Palestinian Authority has governed the area, with Israel retaining some responsibilities. Palestinian leaders themselves do little to clarify the situation, as they simultaneously insist that Israel both occupies the West Bank and Gaza as well as invades Palestinian territories, which implies they are a separate entity.185 This odd situation was recognized in a 2012 report by former Israeli Supreme Court Justice Edmond Levy. In a ruling on an illegally built Jewish house, Levy pointed out that, prior to 1967, no country held internationally recognized sovereignty over the area, which makes the Fourth Geneva Convention inapplicable.186

Although the report was heavily criticized around the world for “wish[ing] away [Israel’s] obligations under the law of occupation,”187 it accords with other similar situations, such as Northern Cyprus, Western Sahara, and the Kuril Islands, none of which are regularly referred to as ‘occupations.’188

Since September 12, 2005, there has been no permanent Israeli security presence, no Israeli residents, and not even Israeli tourism anywhere in the Gaza Strip. At the time of its withdrawal, in an effort to encourage Gaza to thrive, Israel announced that it would establish bus and truck convoys between Gaza and the West Bank, and approved of building a Gazan seaport while also acknowledging the importance of an airport.189 However, the following year the Palestinian Authority held elections in which Hamas won 74 of the 132 parliamentary seats.190 Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister at the time, said that he could not prevent Hamas from running or cancel the elections as he had no control over the voting.191 If Israel had participated in the elections, perhaps then it would have been in a position to influence the results.

Even if Israel was still occupying Gaza, that would not prevent it from being within its rights to act as it does. In a landmark case of the Supreme Court of Israel discussing the legality of targeted killing in Gaza (in 2003), the High Court of Justice decided that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an “international armed conflict” that is beyond the borders of Israel. In the words of then-Supreme Court President Aharon Barak, “This law applies in any case of an armed conflict of international character – in other words, one that crosses the borders of the state – whether or not the place in which the armed conflict occurs is subject to belligerent occupation. This law constitutes a part of jus in bello. From the humanitarian perspective, it is part of international humanitarian law.”192

This decision makes it obvious that Israeli control of Gaza’s airspace and waters is also legal under international law. States have the right to sovereign control over their territorial air and coastal waters, and naval blockades are legal acts of war.193 However, as previously argued, if Gaza is a separate sovereignty, then whenever it attacks Israel, it provides Israel the right to engage in acts of armed conflict as self-defense under Chapter 51 of the UN Charter.194 This also means that Israel has the right to blockade Gaza and to establish economic sanctions against it.

One of the most often criticized aspects of Israel’s actions toward Gaza is its imposition of a naval blockade. This is frequently described as turning Gaza into “the world’s largest outdoor prison” 195 and even the United Nations has called it a “violation of international law.”196 Like the larger question of collective punishment, these arguments are based on emotionally driven rhetoric rather than legal definitions.

Despite its complaints of being strangled, Hamas has not found Israeli conduct to be an obstacle in continuing to commit widespread terror. On a daily basis Hamas and its cooperators in Egypt use smuggling tunnels from Egypt to transfer fuel and arms into the Strip. Furthermore, Hamas, in cooperation with Iran, produces “creative opportunities” to deliver missiles, rockets, mortars, and a wide range of other weapons by ship, from Iranian ports to Gaza, as discussed above.197 Only Israeli countermeasures have significantly limited the widespread importation of both homemade and Iranian weapon-delivery systems. The most high-profile example of this occurred in 2004 when the IDF declared that it had intercepted the cargo ship Klos-C before it reached the Sinai Peninsula.198 This seizure is evidence that Hamas is the governor of Gaza: it prepares the military infrastructure within Gaza; it develops international relations with other countries (Iran in this instance); and it controls the tunnels to Egypt and the border with it. It is hard to estimate just how many tunnels Hamas has constructed, as Israel and Egypt regularly announce that they have found up to hundreds of new ones.199 So many tunnels are regularly dug that the suppliers of the Klos-C made space to include over two million kilograms of Iranian cement in one hundred shipping containers, each twenty feet long. 200

Egypt

There is a twelve-kilometer-long border between Gaza and Egypt with a large crossing point at Rafah. After the 2005 disengagement, Israel handed control of Rafah over to the Palestinian Authority.201 Since then, Israel has not controlled either side of the crossing. Despite the argument that Israel oppresses Gazans, Israel and Egypt, the two countries that are physically closest to Gaza, both enact similar measures against Hamas. Like Israel, Egypt sees the terrorist group as a danger and closed its borders with Gaza following Hamas’s takeover in 2007.202 Relations between the two warmed briefly in 2012 and 2013, while the Muslim Brotherhood was in charge in Egypt, but sharply cooled again after Mohamed Morsi203 was ousted from power. Last March Egyptian courts officially designated Hamas a terrorist group.204

Recently, Egypt has taken extreme measures to reduce smuggling and attacks by Gazans on Egyptians. After one incident in which an attack killed thirty Egyptian soldiers, Cairo ordered border towns demolished and displaced thousands of residents in order to create a five-hundred-meter buffer zone.205 This move has largely been met with silence from the international community, unlike the widespread denunciations that follow Israel’s temporary border closings.206

The Situation in Gaza

The current situation in Gaza is far better than the news reports imply. Per capita the Palestinians have received more foreign aid than almost any other group in the world.207 The Palestinian Authority alone received over $1.25 billion from international donors in 2013.208 In addition, UNRWA’s209 planned budget for 2015 is nearly a billion dollars.210 Neither of these figures includes the electricity, food, medicine, and fuel that Israel supplies to Gaza.211

Thanks to all this support, Hamas is financially very successful. Forbes lists it as the second-richest terror group in the world, with a billion dollars at its disposal.212 That is half the wealth of ISIS, despite Gaza constituting less than a half of one percent of the area under ISIS’s control213 and not providing any petroleum. Very little of this money, however, reaches the man in the street. Instead Hamas leaders enjoy large mansions while Gaza as a whole was recently ranked as the third poorest section of the Arab region, only standing above Sudan and Yemen.214 Even when attractions have opened for Gazans, Hamas has often shut them down for offenses such as allowing “men and women [to be] seen mixing together.” 215 A similar fate befell what was to be the first UNRWA Gaza Marathon in 2013, which was canceled after Hamas banned women from running.216

Despite the poverty that Hamas imposes on its citizens, the population of Gaza is comparatively healthy and well educated. In fact, according to the CIA Factbook’s statistics for 2014, Gaza is a reasonably healthy place to live. Life expectancy in the Strip is 74.64 years, higher than Jordan (74.10 years), Russia (70.16 years), India (67.80 years), Iran (70.89 years), and Brazil (73.28 years).217 Gaza also has a maternal death rate that is surprisingly low for an area that claims to be undergoing a humanitarian crisis (64 deaths per 100,000 live births). This is better than Egypt (66 deaths/100,000 live births), India (200 deaths/100,000 live births), Cuba (73 deaths/100,000 live births), and the Dominican Republic (150 deaths/100,000 live births).218

Likewise, contrary to common mythology that Gaza is “the most densely populated territory in the world,”219 Gaza is less densely populated than an array of other locales, including a number of economic success stories. The population per square kilometer in Gaza at the end of 2012 was 4,583;220 Hong Kong had 6,866 people per square kilometer, Singapore had 7,589, Monaco had 18,790, and Macao had 19,885.221 Even a number of Israeli locations are comparable to ones in Gaza. Gaza City contains about 16,500 people per square kilometer.222 Only 70 kilometers away, the Israeli city of Bnai Brak has over 21,000 people per square kilometer. Other nearby cities of Givatayim and Bat Yam have 16,329 and 15,913 people per square kilometer, respectively.223

Perhaps the most astonishing fact, in light of the sensationalist media coverage damning Gaza’s prospects for a better future, is that Gaza’s literacy rate stands at a staggering 95.3 percent.224 This is far higher than India (62.8 percent), Egypt (73.9 percent), Iran (85 percent), and even wealthy oil states such as Saudi Arabia (87.2 percent) and the United Arab Emirates (90 percent). Even Israel has only a marginally higher rate at 97.1 percent.225

These discrepancies lead to two conclusions. The first is that the people of Gaza do not suffer from a ‘humanitarian crisis’ as the international media and human rights groups claim. Second, Gaza has the proper means, and receives the vital and essential goods it should, for survival and even more. Within this framework, the statistics clearly show that Gaza functions as an independent entity that does not depend on Israel.

Economic Perspectives regarding the Situation in Gaza

Hamas

The responsibility for the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, to the extent it exists, ultimately rests on the shoulders of the local governing power, Hamas. As shown, the organization cynically exploits its people’s turmoil to gain sympathy and material support. Then, instead of using donated resources to improve the situation in Gaza, it expropriates them, thus leaving the general population worse off and in need of even more assistance.226 This cruel cycle is further exacerbated by Hamas’s refusal to show any interest in improving relations with Israel.

Gaza has the potential to evolve into a totally independent economic entity, if it were not for Hamas’s self-destructive practices and its struggles with the PA and Israel. Notably, Hamas discovered a gas reserve, named Marine, three hundred meters from the shores of Gaza in February 2014.

However, it still has not even started to expose or examine the site.227 Gaza’s offshore gas deposits (confirmed by British Gas) are worth an estimated $6-7 billion.228 If the Hamas government could stabilize the political situation long enough to install platforms to bring the gas to the surface, it would reap the benefits of these offshore gas deposits. Israel even offered an alternative option to purchase the gas, in order to provide the Palestinians an opportunity to dramatically revive their economy.229 However, the core conflict regarding the gas production derives from the dissociation between the Hamas government, which controls Gaza and thus its offshore gas, and the Fatah-ruled government that rules the West Bank. Hamas ultimately refused to develop the potential gas because they did not want the PA or Israel to take any role in the project.230 Comparatively, in 2007, Israel also found natural-gas reserves and a few months later it set up the Leviathan and Tamar gas fields off the coast of Haifa, as it understands the profitability of establishing these fields and their impact on its economy.231

Hamas has shown that it values its hatred of Israel over the wellbeing of its civilians. Recently, a charity group organized a trip for children from Gaza who had lost parents in the summer 2014 fighting. The orphans would visit Israeli communities that have suffered under rocket attacks, Arab villages within Israel, a school for both Jewish and Arab students, and ultimately meet with PA President Mahmoud Abbas. The Israeli security service gave its permission for the children to enter and travel around Israel, but the bus was stopped at the border leaving Gaza. Hamas officials declared that the children would not be allowed to cross into Israel and that it would prevent similar trips from ever happening again.232 According to Eyad al-Bozom, the spokesman for the Interior Ministry in Gaza, the children must not be allowed to set foot in Israel in order “to preserve the culture and tradition of our people.”233 Further statements from Hamas explained that they believed the trip was “aimed to [sic] normalize our children with the Zionist occupation.”234 Aside from visiting Abbas, all the locations on the trip’s itinerary were located within the pre-1967 armistice lines. By its statements, Hamas continues to demonstrate that it does not seek coexistence but rather to destroy the State of Israel completely.

Beyond encouraging the faulty narrative of a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Hamas abuses the support that Israel and the international community provide in order to alleviate the effects of such a crisis. Fatah representatives have claimed that Hamas confiscated humanitarian goods that were sent to Gaza during Protective Edge, which it shared among its own members while selling the remainder on the black market.235 This behavior did not begin over the past summer. In January 2009, during Operation Cast Lead, reports showed that Hamas seized portions of all the aid provided, even flour and medicine.236

Similar incidents occurred in early 2008 237 and in 2010.238 The latter specifically involved the goods sent on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla,239 which gathered headlines for the naval raid on the Turkish merchant vessel Mavi Marmara. News media around the world carried stories about the Israeli raid, but there was little fanfare when Israel honored its word to let the permissible goods into Gaza, yet Hamas withheld the aid from people who disagreed with the organization. As one Gaza resident explained, “People who are not in with Hamas don’t see any of the relief goods or the gifts of money…Hamas supporters get prefabricated housing, furnishings and paid work. We get nothing.”240 The problem of Hamas’s theft became so blatant that the United Nations suspended all shipments to Gaza following the 2009 incident.241 Despite the UN’s using the same tactics as Israel, no one accused the international organization of imposing collective punishment.
<h4″>Palestinian Authority

Hamas and Fatah have struggled against each other for years. In the first five months of 2007, Hamas’s first year of rule in Gaza, 271 Palestinians were killed in internecine violence.242 For comparison, 373 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in the entire year, the vast majority of whom were terrorists.243 Conditions only became worse that June, when a civil war broke out over which group would control Gaza. During this fighting, all rules of war were ignored. Both sides threw prisoners off rooftops,244 fought in hospitals, executed political prisoners, and Fatah-associated fighters used a press vehicle to attack Israeli soldiers.245 Despite all this, neither the UN Security Council nor the General Assembly passed a single resolution about the widespread fighting and human rights violations.246

On April 23, 2014, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority announced that they would form a unity government.247 A similar enterprise had been attempted in early 2011, but broke down during negotiations.248 Once again, friction soon arose between the two groups in 2014 when the PA refused to pay salaries to the forty thousand people on Hamas’s payroll.249 Qatar, Hamas’s largest financial supporter, offered to supply $20 million but the banks in Gaza refused to take the money, possibly due to American pressure.250 At other times, Hamas and Fatah have worked together to attack Israel. During Operation Protective Edge, Fatah-associated groups took credit for launching rockets at Israel.251

International Opinion: UN, U.S., EU, Arab League, Turkey

Despite the condemnations Israel receives, it is far from unique in utilizing economic sanctions. The United Nations, United States, European Union, Arab League, and Turkey, all of which regularly condemn Israel’s economic actions directed at Hamas, also take similar or, at times, harsher measures than Israel has.

At one time or another during the 1990s alone, the United States imposed sanctions on 68 percent of the world’s population.252 During the same period the United Nations imposed sanctions on Libya, Afghanistan, Rwanda, Angola, Somalia, Liberia, Burundi, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Haiti, and Serbia and Montenegro.253 The UN justified these actions by invoking Articles 41 and 42 of its Charter.

In addition, in 1990 the UN Security Council passed Resolution 661, which forbade all trade and payments with Iraq or occupied Kuwait. The only exceptions permitted were medicine and tightly regulated food provisions in order to relieve humanitarian emergencies.254 These restrictions remained in place until Saddam Hussein’s regime was toppled in 2003.255

Both the U.S. and the UN have imposed sanctions on Iran with the goal of stopping or limiting its nuclear program, though America has been sanctioning Iran at some level since the latter’s 1979 revolution. The sanctions have primarily targeted organizations that assist Iran’s missile and nuclear programs, as well as those that market its oil.256

Sanctions are even used between major powers. The U.S. and the European Union are currently sanctioning Russia for its actions in Ukraine257 and, in response, Russia has sanctioned food products from the countries that are boycotting it.258 Despite the suffering inflicted, neither side has been accused of perpetrating collective punishment.

The Arab League may be the most hypocritical in its attitudes toward sanctions. Building on previous anti-Jewish boycotts, the League responded to Israel’s founding in 1948 with a complete boycott of Israeli products and services, non-Arab businesses that work with Israel, and planes or ships headed to Israel.259 The implications of this boycott drew the most attention after the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when the major oil-producing Arab states declared an embargo on the U.S. During the five months that the embargo lasted, the price of oil shot up from $3 per barrel to $12. This led to drastic measures across the country, including gas stations restricting their sales and some towns even banning Christmas lights.260 These actions stood out as particularly hypocritical, because for decades the same countries regularly lobbied to have the UN treat aggressive economic measures as equivalent to the use of armed force, which is forbidden by the UN.261

Israel is not alone in sanctioning Gaza. After Hamas won the 2006 elections, the Quartet on the Middle East, consisting of the United States, Russia, the European Union, and the United Nations, announced that it would not provide aid to the PA unless Hamas renounced violence and recognized Israel.262 The sanctions ended after Hamas threw Fatah out of Gaza, at which point the restrictions on the West Bank were eased and Israel began its blockade of Gaza.263

NGOs: Amnesty International, B’Tselem, Human Rights Watch, BDS

The harshest criticism of Israel usually comes from NGOs such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and B’Tselem.264 Amnesty International has charged that “This humanitarian crisis [in Gaza] is a direct result of on-going collective punishment of ordinary men, women and children and is illegal under international law” and blamed Hamas’s violence on Israel’s blockade, despite the fact that the rockets preceded the blockade by six years.265 NGO Monitor266 has responded that when Amnesty International uses expressions like “unlawful attacks” or “disproportionate attacks and collective punishment,” they apply the terms “arbitrarily, with no explanation of how they are appropriate to this situation under international law.”267

B’Tselem describes its purpose as “[acting] primarily to change Israeli policy in the Occupied Territories and ensure that its government, which rules the Occupied Territories, protects the human rights of residents there and complies with its obligations under international law.”268 Following this model, the organization criticizes Israel while ignoring similar Palestinian actions, even if they are much more severe. For example, B’Tselem’s website has a section for “Human shields,”269 which focuses on

the misdeeds of Israeli soldiers during the Second Intifada, with no mention of Palestinian terrorists hiding among monks in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem during the same time, 270 nor of the consistent and well-documented cases of firing rockets from crowded civilian areas.271 In fact, B’Tselem sent a petition to the High Court of Justice on May 5, 2002, the thirty-third day of the Church of the Nativity siege, claiming that Israel uses civilians as human shields, without including a word about the trapped monks.272

B’Tselem levels frequent accusations to the effect that Israel is perpetrating collective punishment against Palestinians. They have argued that destroying buildings from which attacks were carried out273 and blocking roads while people throw Molotov cocktails274 are both forms of collective punishment under Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Even when Israel insisted on continuing to allow humanitarian goods through the Kerem Shalom Crossing despite rockets striking nearby,275 B’Tselem claimed Israel was collectively punishing Gazans by not running the crossing at full capacity.276

The organization has claimed that Gazans are being unfairly punished by not being able to freely enter Israel, despite the fact that they are not Israeli citizens.277 The implication that a noncitizen should have the right to enter and work in a country has no precedent, even under occupation. Germans following World War II and Iraqis after 2003 did not receive full access to the United States despite being under American occupation. Furthermore, if all countries must allow free passage to neighboring states then this would apply equally to Egypt (which only opened its border with Israel in 1982), Jordan (which opened its border with Israel in 1994), and Lebanon, Syria, and Saudi Arabia (all of whose borders with Israel are still closed).

Like B’Tselem, Human Rights Watch (HRW) clearly demonstrates a double standard between the way it treats Israel and the way it treats other countries or entities. Its 2014 World Report on Israel/Palestine criticized “Israel’s punitive closure of the Gaza Strip” while acknowledging that Israel admitted a monthly average of 78,810 tons of construction material into Gaza. The organization mentioned more objectively in Egypt’s report that the North African country “also blocked all regular movement of goods at the crossing it controls.”278 In the same 2014 Report, HRW did not mention the U.S. and the EU’s sanctions on Iran in those countries’ respective reports, though its report on Iran described accounts of how “unilateral financial and banking sanctions imposed against Iran by the United States and European Union had an adverse effect on access to specialized medicines and medical equipment.”279 The organization only seems to oppose sanctions when Israel is enforcing them. In its most recent World Report, the organization highlighted an EU sanction against Israel as “One positive development in 2013.”280

HRW also condemned Israel for not responding strongly enough against private Israeli citizens who attacked Palestinians or Palestinian property, yet made no similar demand on Hamas, the controlling power in Gaza, to prevent rocket fire. In fact, the only time the report did criticize Hamas for not cracking down was for not arresting gunmen who killed accused collaborators, despite HRW itself admitting that Hamas proudly took credit for the killings.281

Aside from holding a double standard when it comes to Israel, HRW selects facts in order to fit its narrative of collective punishment. Thus, in the 2014 World Report, it criticized Israel for destroying illegally built Bedouin houses while never mentioning that the country did the same to illegally built Jewish houses.282 Despite admitting that the demolished houses are built illegally, HRW regularly claims that it is Israel that breaks the law in demolishing the houses. According to the group, there is no possible reason for Palestinians in the West Bank or East Jerusalem to be evicted from their homes unless there is a military need.283 Would they consider it a war crime to evict a Palestinian who does not pay his rent? In contrast to this tacit endorsement of illegal Palestinian construction, HRW considers permitting building in the West Bank by Jews to be a war crime, implicitly on the same level as Hamas shooting rockets at civilians.284 Ken Roth, the head of HRW, seems to view Jewish Israelis living in the West Bank as so vile that he refused to condemn the kidnapping and murder of three teenagers this past summer without also stating that they were “attending school at [an] illegal settlement.”285 Roth’s inappropriate equivalence appeared again two months later, when he tweeted a picture of a Hamas tunnel into Israel and suggested that it is impossible to know “if Hamas tunnel used to attack/capture combatant (IHL allows) or take hostage/attack civilian (illegal)? [sic]”286

HRW has admitted that Hamas uses building materials to dig military tunnels into Israel, yet still insists that Israel should allow concrete, steel, and other materials to enter Gaza without limits. They quickly dismissed any objections by stating that “Israel’s security concerns could be met by a monitoring regime rather than a blanket prohibition on imports.”287 Presumably, this monitoring regime would be under the auspices of the United Nations, whose forces in and around Israel have helped terrorists hide in UNIFIL uniforms.288 Within Gaza itself, UNRWA regularly allows Hamas to dictate their actions289 and, in the recent round of fighting, Hamas used UNRWA schools to store rockets on multiple occasions.290 In light of these problems, it is unlikely that Israel would trust the United Nations or other NGOs to protect its citizens.

Human Rights Watch’s biased treatment of Israel has become so pervasive that Robert Bernstein, the organization’s founder, published an op-ed in the New York Times in 2009 that criticized the group he had created. He also pointed to the unreliability of their sources, whose “[r]eporting often relies on witnesses whose stories cannot be verified and who may testify for political advantage or because they fear retaliation from their own rulers.291 Even activists have also spoken out against HRW and other ‘human rights’ groups. David Trimble, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1988, stated in 2004 that “One of the great curses of this world is the human rights industry” and that “They justify terrorist acts and end up being complicit in the murder of innocent victims.”292

When it helps its cause, HRW is upfront about its biases. In 2009 a delegation from HRW made a fundraising trip to Saudi Arabia. Sarah Leah Whitson, director of the Middle East and North Africa Division, was the top HRW representative for the trip. At the same time that HRW itself acknowledged that Saudi Arabia executed juvenile offenders293 and required women to have a man’s permission in order to undergo surgery,294 Whitson explained to her audience how HRW is fighting against “pro-Israel pressure groups.” 295 As part of her presentation, she showed a documentary explaining how the organization reports on Israel’s actions in Gaza and claimed that it is running out of money, partially because of its work on Israel.296

Jeffrey Goldberg of the intellectual magazine The Atlantic then contacted Ken Roth for HRW’s side of the story. Roth did not take part in the trip but was informed of what had occurred. He refused to deny that Whitson had focused on HRW’s actions against Israel and added that a representative of the Shura Council, Saudi Arabia’s official religious leadership assembly, was present.297 HRW did not disclose how much money it raised for future attacks on Israel. Given the unlimited wealth of Saudi Arabia, a theocracy that requires all of its citizens to be Muslim,298 HRW should be carefully examined regarding the funds furnished by Arab countries. The same organization that urges others to be honest and open is, at the same time, known for holding its own secrets and encouraging a “culture of duplicity.” 299 When will HRW send a delegation to North Korea to solicit sympathetic ears and positive first impressions? Transparency, anyone?

Whitson has often been accused of bias, particularly when it comes to Israel.300 Before joining HRW she served on the board of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee’s (ADC) New York chapter. While at the ADC, she met with then-UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to encourage him to investigate Israel’s actions in Jenin.301 After former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon died, she published a scathing obituary on the HRW website in which she claimed that “Israeli justice authorities never conducted a criminal investigation to determine whether Sharon and other Israeli military officials bore criminal responsibility [for Sabra and Shatila]”302 even though the Kahan Commission, headed by a Supreme Court justice (which she quoted in her previous paragraph), specifically ruled that the Lebanese Christian Phalangists were directly responsible for the massacre and “[n]o Israeli was directly responsible for the events which occurred in the camps.”303 Not only were Whitson’s charges against Sharon inaccurate, she also applied her standards inconsistently. She was in the same position at HRW in 2004 when Yasser Arafat died, yet published no similar report on the man known as “the father of modern terrorism.”304

The most ubiquitous group calling for economic warfare on Israel today is BDS, which stands for ‘Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions.’ The movement focuses solely on Israel and encourages governments, universities, businesses, and individuals to refuse to engage with the country. While lobbying for economic pressure against Israel they simultaneously decry Israel’s sanctions on Gaza as “collective punishment.”305 These boycotts have been calculated as causing a hundred million shekels (over $25 million) of damage in agriculture alone last year.306 Even the PA president, Abbas, has spoken out against BDS.307 Indeed, BDS applies a blanket standard against any Israeli groups, both in the West Bank and within the pre-1967 armistice lines, as shown in their high-profile campaign against the company SodaStream. After SodaStream announced that it would move its factory out of the West Bank, BDS continued attacking the company for building its new plant in a city that is near a town currently subject to controversy.308

International Criminal Court

The International Criminal Court in The Hague was established by the Rome Statue of 1998 to be a central court for trying crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and crimes of aggression.309 Article 17 of the Rome Statute limits the Court’s jurisdiction to cases in which the state that would initially have jurisdiction is unable or unwilling to honestly prosecute.310 If the state provides a genuine investigation and finds that there is no reason to prosecute, then the ICC cannot intervene.

Israel has shown a willingness to investigate accusations of illegal activities committed in its name. Ten days after the final ceasefire ended Operation Protective Edge, Israel announced that it would begin criminal investigations into a number of alleged crimes committed during the fighting.311 About three months later, the IDF advocate-general announced that eight more cases would be opened over events that had occurred during Protective Edge and that there remained one hundred more cases to be reviewed.312

Even if Israel did not pursue these claims on its own, the ICC would not be available. The ICC cannot prosecute individuals or territories that are not signatories to the Rome Statute unless the UN Security Council refers the cases to the Court.313 Israel is not a signatory and, as ‘Palestine’ only has ‘non-member observer state’ status at the UN General Assembly, it cannot take an active part in the ICC.314 In order for a court case dealing with Israel, the West Bank, or Gaza to come before the ICC, it would have to be raised by the Security Council. Amnesty International and others have pushed for the Court to act despite its restrictions, arguing that the ICC should be willing to overstep its boundaries in order to investigate Israel.315 Fatou Bensouda, the current ICC prosecutor, responded that the Court could not and should not do so, adding, “This is neither good law nor does it make for responsible judicial action.”316

Effectiveness of Economic Sanctions

Even with the best intentions, there is no way to impose economic sanctions without harming the civilian population. Sanctions are generally intended to punish dangerous and corrupt leaders, who are willing to inflict the hardships on their people while continuing their own opulent lifestyles. Despite the international sanctions on Iraq, Saddam Hussein spent smuggled money to build seventy-five palaces and luxury complexes for himself while ignoring his people’s needs and even neglected necessary sewage repairs in order to build moats for the palaces.317 When the United Nations introduced the Oil-for-Food Programme to provide medicine and food for suffering Iraqi children, Hussein conspired with international business leaders and politicians to further enrich himself.318

The sanctions had a devastating effect on Iraq. Oil alone comprised 61 percent of the country’s GNP in 1989.319 Professor Richard Garfield320 estimated that, between 1991 and 1998, “a minimum of 100,000 and a more likely estimate of 227,000 excess deaths among young children” resulted from the sanctions.321 Denis Halliday, appointed the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Baghdad in 1997, resigned the follow year over the sanctions policy, declaring, “I don’t want to administer a programme that satisfies the definition of genocide.”322

L. Paul Bremer III, who served as the civilian administrator of Iraq after the United States’ 2003 invasion, commented, “While his people were starving – literally, in many cases, starving – while he was killing tens of thousands of people, Saddam and his cronies were taking money, stealing it, really, from the Iraqi people.”323 Although it is impossible to completely protect civilians from any and all harm, the important question is whether the sanctions achieve their desired goal without causing undue damage. This, understandably, is the same demand made in Article 57 of the First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Convention, to “take all feasible precautions…with a view to avoiding, and in any event to minimizing, incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects.”324

Conclusion and Outlook

International law provides a clear distinction between permissible uses of economic sanctions and forbidden forms of collective punishment. Israel’s actions, both during active conflicts and relatively quieter periods, are clearly carried out in order to punish Hamas and limit its ability to harm Israeli civilians in what truly are indiscriminate acts of violence. By targeting materials that are used for weapons while providing necessary services and aid for the citizens of Gaza, Israel fulfills both the letter and the spirit of IHL. Israel even makes an effort to err on the side of being too lenient, at times violating UN Security Council resolutions in order to allow dangerous cargo into Gaza in the hope that it will benefit the people more than it will be used to harm Israelis.

There is no question that people living in Gaza suffer constant hardships and deprivations. Their conditions, though, are the fault of Hamas rather than Israel. The international community, including Israel, provides billions of dollars of support to the Palestinians each year, little of which reaches the hands of its intended recipients. Instead Hamas uses the money and supplies to further its ‘struggle.’ It then portrays the people that it oppresses as victims of Israel’s malevolence in order to gain sympathy and further pecuniary assistance.

The people and organizations that accuse Israel of committing collective punishment enable Hamas to continue its duplicitous methods. It is impossible to know for certain whether the accusations are born of ignorance or malice, but the one-sided incriminations, while overlooking more egregious violations by the Palestinian leadership, create the appearance that a number of governments and NGOs are actively campaigning against Israel rather than for justice. To paraphrase Clausewitz, these critics treat law as a continuation of war by other means.

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About the Author:
Justus Reid Weiner is an international human rights lawyer and a member of the Israel and New York Bar Associations. He received his Juris Doctor degree from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley. Weiner’s professional publications have appeared in prominent law journals, monographs, and intellectual magazines. He is currently a scholar in residence at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and an adjunct lecturer at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Weiner was formerly a visiting assistant professor at the School of Law, Boston University. He also practiced law as an associate in the international law firm White & Case and served as the director of American Law and External Relations at the Ministry of Justice specializing in human rights and other facets of public international law. The author wishes to express his appreciation to Mason Barnard and Mollie Adatto for their research assistance.

Source:
This article was published by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, which may be found here.
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Notes

  1. Justus Reid Weiner is an international human rights lawyer and a member of the Israel and New York Bar Associations. He received his Juris Doctor degree from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley. Weiner’s professional publications have appeared in prominent law journals, monographs, and intellectual magazines. He is currently a scholar in residence at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and an adjunct lecturer at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Weiner was formerly a visiting assistant professor at the School of Law, Boston University. He also practiced law as an associate in the international law firm White & Case and served as the director of American Law and External Relations at the Ministry of Justice specializing in human rights and other facets of public international law. The author wishes to express his appreciation to Mason Barnard and Mollie Adatto for their research assistance.
  2. Gilad Lindenfeld is a second-year law student at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
  3. Ilia Binyamin is a fourth-year student in law and government at the IDC Herzliya. He served in the IDF, first as an intelligence analyst and decipherer during the Second Lebanon War and later as a team leader in Naval Intelligence during Operation Cast Lead.
  4. Matityahu Wanderman is completing his MA in history at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
  5. Jennifer Lang graduated from the University of Illinois – Urbana-Champaign in 2013 with a BA in global studies with a focus on conflict resolution through tolerance, policy, and social action.
  6. U.N. GAOR, 64th Sess., 4th C. Mtg. at 32, U.N. Doc A/RES/64/91 (Dec. 10, 2009); U.N. GAOR, 66th Sess., 4th C. Mtg. at 53, U.N. Doc. A/RES/66/76 (Dec. 9, 2011); Human Rights Council, A/HRC/RES/S-12/1 (2009); Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories Occupied Since 1967, A/68/376, para. 5 (2013); Human Rights Council, Human Rights Situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Including East Jerusalem – Report by the Secretary-General, A/HRC/24/30, para. 22 (2013).
  7. Amnesty International, Israel Blind to Violations, Deaf to Obligations: Israel’s Human Rights Record (Nov. 18, 2014, 12:27 PM), http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE15/015/2013/en/c88f325d-74ba-434e-9db0-44b544eb732b/mde150152013en.pdf; Amnesty International, Trapped – Collective Punishment in Gaza (Nov. 18, 2014, 12:26 PM), http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/feature-stories/trapped-collective-punishment-gaza-20080827; International Committee of the Red Cross, Gaza Closure: Not Another Year! (Nov. 18, 2014, 12:25 PM), https://www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/update/palestine-update-140610.htm.
  8. Anne Herzberg is the legal adviser for NGO Monitor and has written much on human rights organizations and international law.
  9. Anne Herzberg, NGO “Lawfare,” NGO Monitor (Nov. 19, 12:29 PM), http://www.ngo-monitor.org/data/images/File/lawfare-monograph.pdf.
  10. It is beyond the scope of this article to evaluate the legalities of interrogation techniques, as revealed in the recent Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Detention and Interrogation Program. Instead the author has focused on the legal impact of modern warfare and diplomacy on civilian populations.
  11. Foreign Terrorist Organizations, U.S. Department of State (Nov. 18, 2:27 PM), http://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/other/des/123085.htm.
  12. Freezing Funds: List of Terrorists and Terrorist Groups, Europa (Nov. 18, 2014 2:29 PM), http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/justice_freedom_security/fight_against_terrorism/l33208_en.htm.
  13. Bryony Jones, Q&A: What is Hamas?, CNN, Nov. 24, 2012, http://edition.cnn.com/2012/11/16/world/meast/hamas-explainer.
  14. Convention (II) with Respect to the Laws and Customs of War on Land and its Annex: Regulations Concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land, The Hague, July 29, 1899, Art. 50 (hereinafter 1899 Hague Regulations); Convention (IV), Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, and its annex: Regulations Concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land, The Hague, 18 October 1907, Art. 50 (hereinafter 1907 Hague Regulations); Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, Geneva, July 27, 1929, Art. 46 (hereinafter 1929 Geneva Convention); Art. 33 of Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, Geneva, Aug. 12, 1949, Art. 33 (hereinafter Geneva Convention (IV)); Third Geneva Convention, Geneva, Aug. 12, 1949, Art. 87 (hereinafter Third Geneva Convention); Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I), 8 June 1977, Art. 75(2)(d) (hereinafter Additional Protocol (I)); Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of Non-International Armed Conflicts (Protocol II), 8 June 1977, Art. 4(2)(b) (hereinafter Additional Protocol (II)).
  15. 1899 Hague Regulations, supra note 14.
  16. Geneva Convention (IV), supra note 14, Art. 33, which states: “No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not committed. Collective penalties and likewise, all measures of intimidation or terrorism, are prohibited.” It should be noted that Article 33 relates to armed conflicts of an international character.
  17. Additional Protocol I, supra note 14, Art 75. In addition to Protocol I, which relates to international armed conflicts, Art. 4(2)(b) of Protocol II applies the prohibition to noninternational armed conflicts.
  18. Jean-Marie Henckaerts and Louise Doswald-Beck, ICRC Customary International Humanitarian Law Volume I at 374 (Cambridge University Press 2009) (hereinafter ICRC Customary International Humanitarian Law).
  19. Id.
  20. Convention (I) for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field, Geneva, August 12, 1949, Art. 50 (hereinafter Geneva Convention (I)); Geneva Convention (II), supra note 14 Art. 51, Geneva Convention (III), supra note 14, Art. 130, Geneva Convention (IV), supra note 14, Art. 147, Additional Protocol (I), supra note 14, Articles 11 & 85.
  21. Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, Rome, July 17, 1998 (hereinafter Rome Statute).
  22. SCSL, Prosecutor v. Brima, Kamara and Kanu, Case No. SCSL-04-16-T, T. Ch., Mar. 31, 2006, par. 674-75 (hereinafter Prosecutor v. Brima, Kamara and Kanu).
  23. International Committee of the Red Cross, Rule 103. Collective Punishments, https://www.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/v1_rul_rule103#refFn_12_5; ICRC Customary International Humanitarian Law, supra note 18 at 374.
  24. Additional Protocol (II), supra note 14; SCSL, Prosecutor v. Sesay, Kallon & Gbao, Case No. SCSL-04-15-A, T. Ch., Oct. 26, 2009, par. 123 (hereinafter Prosecutor v. Sesay, Kallon & Gbao).
  25. U.N. SCOR, 49th Sess., 3453rd mtg, U.N. Doc. S/RES/955 (Nov. 8, 1994), Art. 3(b) & 4(b).
  26. Geneva Convention (IV), supra note 14 at 225.
  27. Hugo Grotius, Encyclopedia Britannica (Nov. 18, 2014, 3:06 PM), http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/246809/Hugo-Grotius.
  28. Hugo Grotius, De Jure Belli Ac Pacis Libri Tres 537-39 (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Division of International Law 1925).
  29. Jean Pictet was a Swiss jurist and vice-president of the ICRC, and the main architect of the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols.
  30. The Fourth Geneva Convention was an agreement on humanitarian considerations for civilians in war zones, adopted in 1949. The primary Conventions were followed by a number of Additional Protocols, two in 1977 and one in 2005, which added in new considerations that arose in the intervening decades. These additional protocols are not considered as forceful as the original convention because they have not been adopted as universally. Iran, Pakistan, and the United States have signed but not ratified either set, and thus are not bound by them.
  31. Oscar Uhler & Henri Coursier, Commentary on Geneva Convention IV at 225 (1958) (hereinafter Commentary on Geneva Convention IV).
  32. International Committee of the Red Cross, Commentary on Protocol I at 3054-55 (1987) (hereinafter Commentary on Protocol I).
  33. Prosecutor v. Brima, Kamara and Kanu, supra note 22, par. 681; Prosecutor v. Brima, Kamara and Kanu, supra note 22, par. 222.
  34. ICRC Customary International Humanitarian Law, supra note 18 at 374.
  35. SCSL, Prosecutor v. Fofana and Kondewa, Case No. SCSL-04-14-A, App. Ct., May 28, 2008, para. 222 (hereinafter Prosecutor v. Fofana and Kondewa).
  36. Protocol Additional (I), supra note 14.
  37. Id.
  38. Shane Darcy, Prosecuting the War Crime of Collective Punishment, 8 J. Int’l Crim. Just. 29, 29 (2010).
  39. Prosecutor v. Fofana and Kondewa, supra note 35; Prosecutor v. Sesay, Kallon & Gbao, supra note 24; Prosecutor v. Brima, Kamara and Kanu, supra note 22.
  40. Prosecutor v. Fofana and Kondewa, supra note 35, para. 224; Prosecutor v. Sesay, Kallon & Gbao, supra note 24, par. 126.
  41. Gary Clyde Hufbauer, Jeffrey J. Schott, & Kimberly Ann Elliott, Economic Sanctions Reconsidered 5 (Peterson Institute for International Economics 1sted. 1985) (hereinafter Economic Sanctions Reconsidered).
  42. Id. at 10.
  43. Id. Abyssinia was located in modern-day Ethiopia.
  44. Id.
  45. Id. at 13.
  46. Trade Relations with Countries Not Receiving Nondiscriminatory Treatment, 19 U.S.C. § 2432-34 (1975).
  47. ‘Refusenik’ was the unofficial term for people in the Soviet Union who wanted to leave the country, particularly referring to Jews wishing to emigrate to Israel. Many were arrested on charges of treason and even sentenced to death. The Helsinki Watch organization, which later evolved into Human Rights Watch, was largely dedicated to observing the Soviet Union’s treatment of refusenik prisoners.
  48. Natan Sharansky and Ron Dermer, The Case for Democracy at xiv (Public Affairs 2006).
  49. European Community Approves Sanctions on S. Africa, Times Wire Service; Sept. 11, 1985, http://articles.latimes.com/1985-09-11/news/mn-7171_1_south-africa; Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986, 22 U.S.C. § 5001 (1986).
  50. U.N. SCOR, 58th Sess., 4761st mtg, U.N. Doc. S/RES/1483 (May 22, 2003).
  51. U.N. SCOR, 66th Sess., 6498th mtg., U.N. Doc. S/Res/1973 (Mar. 17, 2011).
  52. Protocol (I), supra note 14.
  53. Id.
  54. Id.
  55. Commentary on Geneva Convention IV supra note 31 at 182.
  56. Id. at 322.
  57. Charter of the United Nations, San Francisco, June 26, 1945, Art. 41 (hereinafter UN Charter).
  58. David Allen Baldwin, Economic Statecraft 353 (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1985) (hereinafter Economic Statecraft).
  59. See Economic Statecraft, supra note 58 at 339; U.N. GAOR, 29th Sess., 6th C. Mtg. at 86, U.N. Doc. A/RES/3314 (Dec. 14, 1974).
  60. U.N. SCOR, 56th Sess., 4385th mtg., U.N. Doc. S/RES/1373 (Sept. 28, 2001).
  61. U.N. SCOR, 58th Sess., 4688th mtg., U.N. Doc. S/RES/1456 (Jan. 20, 2003).
  62. U.N. SCOR, 60th Sess., 5053rd mtg., U.N. Doc. S/RES/1566 (Oct. 8, 2004).
  63. Jack Khoury, Hamas Claims Responsibility for Three Israeli Teens’ Kidnapping and Murder, Haaretz, Aug. 21, 2014, http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.611676.
  64. Bryony Jones, Q&A: What is Hamas?, CNN, Nov. 24, 2012, http://edition.cnn.com/2012/11/16/world/meast/hamas-explainer.
  65. Justus Reid Weiner, International Law and the Fighting in Gaza (2008), available at http://www.jcpa.org/text/puzzle1.pdf.
  66. U.S. Navy, The Commander’s Handbook on the Law of Naval Operations 7-9, July 2007 ed. 2007.
  67. San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea, June 12, 1994, Art. 93-94 (hereinafter San Remo Manual).
  68. ‘UTC’ refers to ‘Coordinated Universal Time,’ a successor to Greenwich Mean Time that is carefully regulated and used around the world for precision.
  69. File No. 1/2009, Ministry of Transport (Jan. 6, 2009), available at http://asp.mot.gov.il/en/shipping/notice2mariners (hereinafter Naval Blockade Notice).
  70. UK War Cabinet, Memorandum to War Cabinet on Trade Blockade (Jan. 1, 1917), available at http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/firstworldwar/spotlights/p_memo_blockade.htm.
  71. UK National Archives, The Blockade of Germany, available at http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/firstworldwar/spotlights/blockade.htm (last visited Dec. 14, 2014).
  72. Edmund H. Schwenk, Legislative Power of the Military Under Article 43, 54 Yale L.J. 393, 395 (1945).
  73. Spelling follows the original British English. Response to Questions from the Committee, Memorandum from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (May 13 and 22, 2003) (http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm200203/cmselect/cmfaff/405/405we04.htm).
  74. Commentary on Geneva Convention IV supra note 31 at 334.
  75. Kaiyan Homi Kaikobad, Problems of Belligerent Occupation: The Scope of Powers Exercised by the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, April/May 2003-June 2004, 54 Int’l & Comp. L.Q 253, 257 (2005).
  76. Id. at 258.
  77. Annex to Hague Convention (IV) Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, Oct. 18, 1907, art 43, 36 Stat. 2277, T.S. No. 539.
  78. Justus Weiner, Human Rights in the Israeli Administered Areas During the Intifada: 1987-1990, 10 Wis. Int’l L.J. 185, 199-200 (Spring 1992).
  79. ‘Tonic’ refers to medicinal cures.
  80. Commentary on Geneva Convention IV supra note 31 at 180.
  81. Operation Protective Edge was a conflict between Israel and Gaza fought from July 8 to August 26, 2014. Israel sent large numbers of ground forces into Gaza for the first time since 2009.
  82. State of Isr. Ministry of Def., Daily Report: Civilian Assistance to Gaza, Operation “Protective Edge” (Aug. 27, 2014), available at http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/ForeignPolicy/Peace/Humanitarian/Documents/ProtectiveEdgeAid.pdf.
  83. Operation Protective Edge by the Numbers, Isr. Def. Forces (Aug. 5, 2014), http://www.idfblog.com/blog/2014/08/05/operation-protective-edge-numbers.
  84. Liel Leibovitz, Some Concrete Facts About Hamas, Tablet Magazine, July 23, 2014, http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/180007/concrete-facts-about-hamas.
  85. Adam Ciralsky, Did Israel Avert a Hamas Massacre?, Vanity Fair, Oct. 21, 2014,http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2014/10/gaza-tunnel-plot-israeli-intelligence; Elhanan Miller, Hamas Leader: Tunnels are Our Only Way to Free Prisoners, The Times of Israel, Oct. 14, 2013, http://www.timesofisrael.com/hamas-leader-tunnels-are-our-only-way-to-free-prisoners.
  86. Mohammed Daraghmeh, Palestinian Official: Israel to Allow Import of Building Materials to Gaza Next Week, US News & World Report, Oct. 10, 2014, http://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2014/10/10/gaza-reconstruction-shipments-to-begin-next-week.
  87. The Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was set up by Nazi Germany in the modern-day Czech Republic. Despite the rhetoric of autonomy, the true executive power was held by the German-appointed Protector.
  88. The Massacre at Lidice, Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team (2008), http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/nazioccupation/lidice.html
  89. Id.
  90. Yale Law School, Nuremberg Trial Proceedings Vol. 7 Sixty-First Day, The Avalon Project, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/02-18-46.asp.
  91. Id. at 531.
  92. Id. at 531.
  93. Id. at 531.
  94. The Turkel Commission, The Public Commission to Examine the Maritime Incident of 31 May 2010, Part I at 107, available at http://www.turkel-committee.gov.il/files/wordocs//8707200211english.pdf (hereinafter Turkel).
  95. Id.
  96. The Lotus case was a 1926 criminal trial resulting from a collision between the French S.S. Lotus and the Turkish S.S. Boz-Kourt.
  97. PCIJ, France v. Turkey, Series A. No. 10, Sept. 7, 1927, 18 (hereinafter Lotus Case).
  98. In the usage of Article 22 of the Draft Articles on State Responsibility for Internationally Wrongful Acts, reprisals constitute “Countermeasures in respect of an internationally wrongful act.”
  99. Commentary on Geneva Convention IV, supra note 31 at 229.
  100. Id.
  101. Isr. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Gaza Flotilla: Statement by PM Netanyahu (May 31, 2010), available at http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/PressRoom/2010/Pages/Gaza_flotilla-Statement_PM_Netanyahu_31-May-2010.aspx.
  102. San Remo Manual, supra note 67 Art. 13(d): “neutral means any State not party to the conflict.”
  103. Amos Harel and Haaretz Correspondent, Military Tribunal Convicts Three ‘Santorini’ Crew Members, Haaretz, Dec. 12, 2002, http://www.haaretz.com/news/military-tribunal-convicts-three-santorini-crew-members-1.25671.
  104. Isr. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Seizing of the Palestinian Weapons Ship Karine A (Jan. 4, 2002), available at http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/pressroom/2002/pages/seizing%20of%20the%20palestinian%20weapons%20ship%20karine%20a%20-.aspx.
  105. Yaakov Lappin, Iranian Arms Vessel Captured by IDF Docks in Eilat, The Jerusalem Post, Mar. 8, 2014, http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Iranian-arms-vessel-captured-by-IDF-to-dock-in-Eilat-344702.
  106. San Remo Manual, supra note 67 Art. 102(b). The Article declares that the declaration of blockade is prohibited in case: “the damage to the civilian population is, or may be expected to be, excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated from the blockade.”
  107. In Defense of Disengagement, The Wall Street Journal, July 11, 2006, http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB115258526159203046.
  108. See Law Implementing Disengagement Plan, 5765-2005, LB 1982; Manifest Regarding Termination of Military Rule (manifest no. 6) (Gaza Region) 5765-2005; HCJ, The Association for Civil Rights in Israel et al. v. The Minister of Defense et al., HCJ 5841/06, Feb. 25, 2007, para 3 (hereinafter HCJ 5841/06).
  109. Order Regarding Entrance to Israel (border crossings) (amendment), 5765-2005.
  110. Following the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) was recognized as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, and renamed the Palestinian Authority (sometimes the Palestinian National Authority). It is made up of a number of different parties, the largest of which is Fatah. From 1993 until 2006 the PA presided over both the West Bank and Gaza, but following the 2006 Palestinian election and the 2007 Gazan civil war, the PA and Hamas function as separate and rival entities, with the PA ruling the West Bank and Hamas ruling Gaza. Throughout this article ‘Palestinian Authority’ is used to refer to the government in the West Bank and ‘Fatah’ for associated groups or individuals.
  111. Agreement on Movement and Access & Agreed Principles for Rafah Crossing, available at http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/foreignpolicy/peace/mfadocuments/pages/agreed%20documents%20on%20movement%20
    and%20access%20from%20and%20to%20gaza%2015-nov-2005.aspx
    .
  112. HCJ 5841/06, supra note 108 para 3.
  113. Isr. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Cabinet Communique (Special Session) (Apr. 11, 2006), available at http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/pressroom/2006/pages/cabinet%20communique%2011-apr-2006.aspx.
  114. The HCJ’s role is to protect human rights and the rule of law. Recently there have been a number of activist judges serving on the Israeli Supreme Court who have used their authority to interpret the Court’s jurisdiction broadly, including over actions that took place outside of the pre-1967 armistice lines.
  115. HCJ 5841/06, supra note 108 para 7.
  116. Turkel, supra note 94 at 29.
  117. Id. at 30.
  118. HCJ 5841/06, supra note 108 para 1.
  119. Id. at para 1, 8-9.
  120. Turkel, supra note 94 at 30.
  121. Id. at para 9.
  122. Id. at para 6.
  123. Id.
  124. Id. at para 6 & 9.
  125. HCJ, Jaber Al-Bassiouni Ahmed et al v Prime Minister and Minister of Defence, HCJ 9132/07, Jan. 27, 2008, §2 (hereinafter Al-Bassiouni).
  126. Isr. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Terror in Gaza: Twelve Months Since the Hamas Takeover (June 16, 2008), available at http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/foreignpolicy/terrorism/palestinian/pages/terror%20in%20gaza-%20two%20months%20since%20the%20hamas%20takeover%2016-aug-2007.aspx.
  127. Israeli Security Agency, Palestinian Terrorism in 2007: Statistics and Trends (2007) available at http://www.shabak.gov.il/SiteCollectionImages/english/TerrorInfo/Terrorism2007report-ENGLISH.pdf.
  128. Isr. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Security Cabinet Declares Gaza Hostile Territory (Sept. 19, 2007), available at http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/pressroom/2007/pages/security%20cabinet%20declares%20gaza%20hostile%20territory%2019-sep-2007.aspx.
  129. Id.
  130. Turkel, supra note 94 at 30.
  131. Al-Bassiouni, supra note 125 at §11.
  132. Id. at §15.
  133. Al-Bassiouni, supra note 125 at §21.
  134. Turkel, supra note 94 at 77.
  135. Id. at note 255.
  136. Gisha, Partial List of Items Prohibited/Permitted into the Gaza Strip (June 2010), available at http://www.gisha.org/UserFiles/File/publications/Products060610_Eng%281%29.pdf.
  137. Turkel, supra note 94 at 76.
  138. Id. at 77.
  139. Id.
  140. Al-Bassiouni, supra note 125 at §17-21.
  141. Turkel, supra note 94 at 77.
  142. Id.
  143. Id.
  144. Id.
  145. Robert Tait, Israel to Escalate Gaza Military Offensive After First Citizen Killed, Telegraph, Jul 15, 2014, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/10969563/Israel-to-escalate-Gaza-military-offensive-after-first-citizen-killed.html.
  146. Turkel, supra note 94 at 77.
  147. Id.
  148. COGAT is the military unit responsible for coordinating civilian matters in the West Bank between Israel and outside organizations, including the Palestinian Authority and foreign diplomats; Turkel, supra note 94 at 79.
  149. Id.
  150. Haniyeh’s Mother-in-Law Treated in Israel, Associated Press, June 3, 2014, available at http://www.timesofisrael.com/haniyehs-mother-in-law-treated-in-israel.
  151. The Times of Israel Staff, Hamas Chief’s Sister Treated in Israeli Hospital, The Times of Israel, Nov. 3, 2014, available at http://www.timesofisrael.com/hamas-spokesmans-sister-treated-in-israeli-hospital.
  152. Elior Levy, Haniyeh’s Brother-in-Law was Treated at Israeli Hospital, Ynet News, Aug. 7, 2012, available at http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4265787,00.html.
  153. Hamas Leader’s Daughter Received Medical Treatment in Israel, Reuters, Oct. 19, 2014, available at http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/19/us-mideast-gaza-hamas-daughter-idUSKCN0I80LO20141019.
  154. JTA, Haniyeh’s Granddaughter Treated at Israeli Hospital, Haaretz, Nov. 20, 2013, available at http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.559083.
  155. The Times of Israel Staff, 16-Year-Old Gaza Terrorist Treated in Israeli Hospital, The Times of Israel, July 22, 2014, http://www.timesofisrael.com/16-year-old-gaza-terrorist-treated-in-israeli-hospital.
  156. Turkel, supra note 94 at 81.
  157. Id.
  158. Id.
  159. Operation Cast Lead took place from December 27, 2008 to January 18, 2009, following a sharp increase in rocket and missile attacks from Gaza. Isr. Ministry of Transport, NO. 1/2009 Blockade of Gaza Strip (Jan. 6, 2009), available at http://asp.mot.gov.il/en/shipping/notice2mariners/547-no12009.
  160. Turkel, supra note 94 at 36.
  161. HCJ 5841/06, supra note 108 para 3.
  162. Isr. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Prime Minister’s Office Statement Following the Israeli Security Cabinet Meeting (June 20, 2010), available at http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/PressRoom/2010/Pages/Prime_Minister_Office_statement_20-Jun-2010.aspx.
  163. HCJ 5841/06, supra note 108.
  164. Id.
  165. Id.
  166. Justus Reid Weiner and Diane Morrison, Linking the Gaza Strip with the West Bank (2007), http://www.jcpa.org/text/TheSafePassage.pdf.
  167. See Turkel, supra note 94 at 32.
  168. Defense Export Control Law, 5766-2007, SH No. 2105 p. 398; Defense Export Control Order (Missile Technology), 2008, KT 6640; Defense Export Control Order (Controlled Dual-Use Equipment), 2008, KT 6640; Defense Export Control Order (Controlled Dual-use Equipment Transferred to Areas Under Palestinian Civilian Control), 2008, KT 6719 (hereinafter Defense Export Control Order: Controlled Dual-use Equipment Transferred to Areas Under Palestinian Civilian Control).
  169. State of Isr. Ministry of Def. Coordinator of Gov’t Activities in the Territories, The Civilian Policy Towards the Gaza Strip: The Implementation of the Cabinet decision 8 (June 2010), available at http://www.accesscoordination.org/Doc/COGATCivilianPolicyGazaStrip.pdf; State of Isr. Ministry of Def. Coordinator of Gov’t Activities in the Territories, Update Concerning the List of Controlled Items to the Gaza Strip 2(Oct. 2012), available at http://www.cogat.idf.il/Sip_Storage/FILES/8/3558.pdf; State of Isr. Ministry of Def. Coordinator of Gov’t Activities in the Territories, Restricted Import List: Gaza Strip at app. A (2013), available at http://www.cogat.idf.il/Sip_Storage/FILES/4/4014.pdf.
  170. See Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, Restricted Import List: Gaza Strip 2013 (2013), available at http://www.cogat.idf.il/Sip_Storage/FILES/4/4014.pdf (hereinafter Restricted Import List).
  171. The Wassenaar Arrangement is a multilateral treaty signed by forty-one states including the UK, the US, Russia, and Germany.
  172. Defense Export Control Order: Controlled Dual-use Equipment Transferred to Areas Under Palestinian Civilian Control, supra note 168.
  173. See Restricted Import List, supra note 170.
  174. Operation Pillar of Defense was an eight-day operation in November 2012, primarily carried out by the Israeli air force, following a dramatic increase in attacks from Gaza.
  175. Israel Eases Ban on Gaza Building Material, Al Jazeera, Dec. 30, 2012, http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/12/20121230111016471213.html.
  176. Jodi Rudoren, Israel to Allow Building Materials Into Gaza, New York Times, December 9 2013, www.nytimes.com/2013/12/10/world/middleeast/israel-building-materials-gaza.html.
  177. Isr. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Humanitarian Aid to Gaza Continues (Aug. 27, 2014), available at http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/ForeignPolicy/Peace/Humanitarian/Pages/Israeli-humanitarian-aid-continues-10-Jul-2014.aspx.
  178. Jpost.com Staff, Israel Closes Kerem Shalom Crossing Due to Rocket Fire, The Jerusalem Post, August 10, 2014, http://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/Israel-closes-Kerem-Shalom-crossing-due-to-rocket-fire-370660.
  179. 1899 Hague Regulations, supra note 14, Arts. 42-43.
  180. Geneva Convention (IV), supra note 14, Art. 2
  181. Geneva Convention (IV), supra note 14, Art. 6.
  182. See Elizabeth Samson, Is Gaza Occupied?: Redefining the Status of Gaza Under International Law 25 Am. U. Int’l L. Rev. 958 (2010).
  183. Hillel C. Neuer, Hamas Says Gaza ‘Not Occupied’; UN Disagrees, The Jerusalem Post, January 4, 2012, http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/Hamas-says-Gaza-not-occupied-UN-disagrees.
  184. Daniel Thürer, International Committee of the Red Cross, 6th Bruges Colloquium: Current Challenges to the Law of Occupation (October 20-21, 2005), available at https://www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/statement/occupation-statement-211105.htm; Amy Belasco, Troop Levels in the Afghan and Iraq Wars, FY2001-FY2012 9 (Washington: Congressional Research Service, 2009).
  185. Occupied Territories or Disputed Territories?, Jerusalem Issue Briefs (Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Jerusalem), Sept. 2, 2001, available at http://www.jcpa.org/art/brief1-1.htm.
  186. Chaim Levinson and Tomer Zarchin, Netanyahu-Appointed Panel: Israel Isn’t an Occupying Force in West Bank, Haaretz, July 9, 2012, http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/netanyahu-appointed-panel-israel-isn-t-an-occupying-force-in-west-bank-1.449895.
  187. Human Rights Watch, Israel: Reject Settlement Report (July 18, 2012), http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/07/18/israel-reject-settlements-report.
  188. Dore Gold, The Political Battle Over the ‘Occupation’ Narrative, The Weekly Standard, July 20, 2012, http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/political-battle-over-occupation-narrative_648797.html.
  189. Isr. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Agreed Documents on Movement and Access from and to Gaza (Nov. 15, 2005), available at http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/foreignpolicy/peace/mfadocuments/pages/agreed%20documents%20on%20
    movement%20and%20access%20from%20and%20to%20gaza%2015-nov-2005.aspx.
  190. Central Elections Committee-Palestine, The Final Results of the Second PLC Elections (Jan. 29, 2006), available at http://web.archive.org/web/20090404002945/http://www.elections.ps/template.aspx?id=291.
  191. Glenn Kessler, If Hamas Participates, Sharon Says Israel Won’t Aid Palestinian Elections, The Washington Post, Sept. 17, 2005, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/16/AR2005091601768.html.
  192. HCJ, The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel vs. The Government of Israel, HCJ 769/02, Dec. 11, 2005, para 18 (hereinafter Public Committee Against Torture).
  193. United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea art. 2, Dec. 10, 1982 U.N.T.S. 1833.
  194. UN Charter, supra note 57, Art. 51.
  195. Alistair Dawber, Tales From Gaza: What is Life Really Like in ‘the World’s Largest Outdoor Prison’?, The Independent, Apr. 13, 2013, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/tales-from-gaza-what-is-life-really-like-in-the-worlds-largest-outdoor-prison-8567611.html.
  196. UN Agencies Join in Shared Call for End to Israeli Blockade of Gaza, UN News Centre, June 14, 2012, http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=42227#.U_nRAfmSya8.
  197. Yiftah Shapir, Yoel Guzansky, Ephraim Kam, and Yoram Schweitzer, The Seizure of the Klos C: Significance and Implications, INSS Insight (Institute for National Security Studies, Tel Aviv) Mar. 13, 2014, available at http://www.inss.org.il/index.aspx?id=4538&articleid=6745.
  198. Saad Abedine and Michael Schwartz, Israel Intercepts Ship with Weapons Headed to Gaza, CNN, Mar. 6, 2014, http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/05/world/meast/israel-intercepted-weapons.
  199. AP and The Times of Israel Staff, Egypt Finds Hundreds More Tunnels from Gaza, The Times of Israel, Nov. 2, 2014, http://www.timesofisrael.com/egypt-steps-up-efforts-for-gaza-buffer-after-discovery-of-more-tunnels.
  200. Benjamin Netanyahu Facebook Account, Hahochacha Sh’Iran Achra’it L’sfinat Haneshek [The Proof That Iran Is Responsible for the Weapon Ship] (Mar. 10, 2014), available at https://www.facebook.com/Netanyahu/photos/a.10151989920672076.1073741857.268108602075/10151989920902076/?type=3&theater.
  201. State of Isr. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Agreed Documents on Movement and Access from and to Gaza (Nov. 15, 2005), available at http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/foreignpolicy/peace/mfadocuments/pages/agreed%20documents%20on%20movement%20
    and%20access%20from%20and%20to%20gaza%2015-nov-2005.aspx.
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  203. Morsi became the president of Egypt following the 2011 revolution and 2012 elections. He was ousted from power in the 2013 military coup.
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  208. Id. at 7.
  209. UNRWA (United Nations Relief Workers Association) was formed in 1949 to assist all the refugees that arose out of Israel’s War of Independence. In 1952 Israel took over responsibility for the Jewish refugees and quickly found them new homes. UNRWA is now the largest UN agency and is largely in charge of the Palestinian educational system and refugee camps.
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  324. Id.

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What Strategic Damage Has Islamic State Inflicted On Regional Powers? – OpEd

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The recent ground offensive against the Islamic State in Iraq is broadly believed to be the beginning of the end for the self-proclaimed caliphate. Provided that the Islamic State has managed, since its inception, to captivate, shock and surprise, the matter is evidently not that simple. And for someone who has been following the developments of the Islamic State (IS), I don’t believe that they will be overcome anytime soon. Unlike regular armies in the Arab world, the Islamic State doesn’t play by anybody’s rules and reports to no one but itself and as such predicting their demise is a big gamble.

Even if the Islamic State is eventually contained, it has already done some serious damage to almost all regional powers in that it has forced some to adjust strategies, and has forced others — such as Iran — to show their unknown face. Here I will only discuss what damage the Islamic State has done to Saudi Arabia and Iran, but by no means does this suggest that its impact is only on the two nations, as the “group” has changed the entire world.

Saudi Arabia

Provided that the majority of Islamic State soldiers and (almost certainly) its funders are Saudis, it is logical that the Islamic State has thousands of sympathizers and supporters within Saudi Arabia itself. For those Saudis wishing to fight on the side of IS, getting into Syria and Iraq to join the group is a huge logistical challenge given that the Saudi government and neighboring countries are on high alert. This means only one thing and that is that the Islamic State has thousands of potential soldiers within the Kingdom. How does the Saudi government deal with this situation?

Security measures can’t be taken because the last thing the Saudi royals want to do is to aggravate the situation farther. Just recently, in Tunisia we witnessed what happens when a government attempts to use the stick against “Islamists”; It simply (to use IS phrase) ignites “flames of war”.  So what to do?

The Saudi government was of late being hailed for its reforms as it relates to “human rights” especially with regard to women. But given the circumstances and not wanting to aggravate the Sharia proponents and would-be joiners of the IS, the Saudi government has been forced to take steps to display its support for Sharia. Islamic Sharia and the rights of women Western-style do not match.
Just this week, the Saudi government lashed out at Sweden for suggesting that the Kingdom’s women are not being afforded appropriate treatment. The strong reaction was less meant for Sweden and more for supporters of Sharia, especially IS sympathizers. In these sensitive times, what the Saudi government wishes to demonstrate to “Islamists” is that it is more respectful to Sharia than to Western demands.

Other actions to be expected as a direct result of the rise of the IS are harder, such as solid steps against Israel. Because of the IS and other Islamist group activities, which are often due to Israel’s actions against Palestinians, Israel is becoming more of a thorn than a nuisance. Whilst the majority of Muslims are repulsed by acts of brutality committed by IS soldiers, they all too often excuse these atrocities thanks to Israel’s decades-long massacres and the American wars against Muslim nations that have left behind millions of orphans, widows and dead Muslims. As such, Saudi Arabia needs now more than ever to be seen to stand by Muslims and eagerly protect them.

On the other hand, the Saudi government will likely be more upfront and confrontational towards Iran to demonstrate that it is the protector of the Sunnis, as Iran is seen to be responsible for the deaths of thousands of Sunnis in Iraq, Syria and Yemen. Effectively, though the “hardliners” are fewer in overall numbers, their impact and potential lash out pressures the Saudi and other regional governments to start showing that they are not against Sharia Islam. In effect they now have to start stepping towards it as opposed to their decade’s long tendencies to stride away from it in the name of human rights and other factors.

Muslim governments who are pro secularism can no longer afford to ignore Sharia Islam and their own survival depends on moving towards true Islamic rule. To be inclusive of the pro-Sharia section of their populations and to regain credit and viability, they must accept and implement a somewhat stricter version of Islam. Inclusion is the only way out as displayed by the backlash of four year old Sisi’s attempt to crush Sharia-Islam; the same that was futilely attempted by his predecessors.

Iran

As it relates to Iran, the IS and other Islamist groups, have managed to expose or reshape Iran in the minds of non-Shia Muslims. Iran was not so long ago viewed as the main backer of the main Muslim world’s resistance movements against Israel’s expansionary and murderous activities. Iran is not only fast losing that image but has managed to even spoil the image of its ally, Hezbollah. Its unwavering support for a brutal Syrian regime has not done much to improve its image either.

Iran’s aggressive moves to advance and strengthen Sheeism throughout the Arab and the Sunni world, namely in Bahrain, Yemen, Iraq and Syria, among other places, has only helped it to increase enemies. Iran’s hero image was won by its staunch opposition to Israel but as of late thanks to the murders and tortures of Sunnis carried out by militias it supports; it has become crystal clear that Iran is not only anti Israel but anti other Muslim sects as well.

I have personally supported Iran in the past, but it is hard not to notice that Iran’s hands are responsible for a lot of fellow Muslims’ deaths and torture through its staunch support for Shia militias. In fact Iran’s soldiers are fighting in Syria and Iraq and the suspicion is that they also commit atrocities against non-Shia Muslims.

Iran’s insistence on interfering in internal affairs of the likes of Yemen, Bahrain, Syria and Iraq has never been more openly displayed. By behaving in such a fashion, Iran is not only overstretching and running itself thin but placing itself in a showdown with a Sunni world which is far more populous and far richer.

The IS has managed to force Iran to step away from the image of protector of Muslims into an a Shia nation that would support Sheeism at any cost. The Americans are benefiting too as they stand aside to give Shia militia more time and opportunity to demonstrate and solidify Iran’s newly gained image. That of course is a big plus for Israel and for nuclear talks.

Supplying weapons to Hezbollah or Hamas is a totally different matter than supplying Bashar al-Assad and the Houthis in Yemen. One is meant to fight an enemy, but the other is seen to be killing Muslims; Sunni Muslims. Iran, it would appear, is fast losing her reputation as a non-aggressive nation; the only thing it’s gaining is the fact that it is displaying its sectarianism nature and in that sense it’s increasingly becoming like its staunch enemy Israel.

The IS, no doubt, commits acts of unimaginable brutality and its upfront about it. In doing so, it has managed to make Iran, a nation and a signatory to human rights conventions, unleash brutality of its own that amounts to war crimes and has managed to render Saudi Arabia to seem to be unable or unwilling to protect Sunni Muslims. For brutality is brutality, be it made in Iran or carried out by the Islamic State.

The elections that have been won by Sharia-driven movements speak volumes about the Arab public’s interest in the return of Sharia. From Algeria, to Palestine to Egypt, the voice has been clear. Every time Islamists seriously stood for elections, they won. As long as the Muslim World grows poorer, more anarchical and more immoral, you can be sure that Muslims will increasingly be more inclined to support the return of Sharia. The partially explains why IS-like inclinations — despite their brutality — are gaining, and why the strategies of countries such as Saudi Arabia are bound to shift markedly.

The post What Strategic Damage Has Islamic State Inflicted On Regional Powers? – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Senior Saudi Expert Rules Out Oil’s Rise To $100 In Future

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By MD Rasooldeen

A senior oil expert from Saudi Arabia said on Sunday that it would be difficult for oil to reach a price range of $100-120 per barrel again. Brent crude is currently sold at around $55 per barrel.

Mohamed Al-Mady, the Saudi representative at the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), was speaking at a workshop held on the eve of the 2nd GCC Petroleum Media Forum to be inaugurated by Petroleum and Mineral Resources Minister Ali Al-Naimi.

The three-day forum, which is being held under the patronage of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman, is an extension of the first forum, which was held in Kuwait in 2013, where GCC leaders decided on a joint petroleum media strategy.

The Saudi Research and Marketing Group, publishers of Arab News, is one of the sponsors.

Al-Mady attributed the price drop to fundamental supply and demand factors and stressed that it was not due to non-economic policies.

He highlighted that it is not in the interest of OPEC to control falling oil prices.

“The prices are decided by the market and are subject to the supply and demand of the product,” he said. “We are not against anybody or against the production of US shale oil since this balances the market in the long run.”

He reiterated that Saudi Arabia had no political motives in its oil policy.

Forecasting growing demand for energy, Al-Mady pointed out that the world population is expected to grow from 7 billion to 9 billion, which will again increase energy demand by one-third of the present demand.

“Such growing demand for energy supplies will also require an increased investment of $40 trillion in the energy sector,” he said.

Ibrahim Al-Muhanna, adviser to the petroleum and mineral resources minister, opened the workshop, titled “GCC Petroleum Media: Issues and Challenges,” at the King Faisal Hall.
The workshop featured two working papers. The first was by Al-Mady, who discussed oil marketing and the increased demand for oil due to the increase in the world’s population.

The second paper was presented by Nasser Al-Dossary, economic adviser to the petroleum and mineral resources minister, who discussed factors affecting the oil market and the role of the Kingdom in the international oil market.

Al-Dossary said the Kingdom has been the most important oil producer since 1970 and is expected to continue its importance in the future.

“Being one of the largest oil-producing countries in the world, Saudi Arabia owns the largest petroleum reserves … representing 22 percent of world’s reserves,” he said.

The post Senior Saudi Expert Rules Out Oil’s Rise To $100 In Future appeared first on Eurasia Review.

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