Fair enough on the point on the occupied territories as previously separate territory and therefore more likely to come under war crimes rules, but the broader point on civil wars and the problems in civilian/military distinctions still holds morally.
>Your argument is especially strange since you obviously believe Milosevic
is
>guilty of war crimes short of genocide in Kosovo - which was a civil war,
>however painful it is to admit that.
I never made a big deal of international legalese in my support of Kosovo intervention; in fact, I have consistently stated my skepticism of the whole "war crimes" legal approach to such decisions. I think Milosevic was acting immorally and that on balance intervention was more moral than its absence.
I think Hamas's suicide bombings and Israel's murderous retaliations are both immoral. Arafat's fatah faction is the only group acting with any semblance of moral decency in the whole conflict, so I am a strong supporter of Arafat as who should be given the fullest support by US left activists.
But it is just disingenousness to ignore the fact that there is a large faction of Hamas-style Palestinians who advocate driving every Jew out of Israel. That there are some Jews who advocate the reverse of driving every Palestinian out of the occupied territories is dispicable but hardly a shocking revelation.
My biggest problem with the Left approach to Israel is not opposition to its murderous occupation (which is fully justified) but the lack of even-handed condemnation of extreme racism by Arabs as condemnation of racism by Israelis.
-- Nathan Newman