[lbo-talk] Dershowitz: when it's ok to kill civilians

Bill Bartlett billbartlett at dodo.com.au
Sun Jul 23 16:07:04 PDT 2006


At 1:54 PM -0400 23/7/06, Doug Henwood wrote:


>Los Angeles Times - July 22, 2006
>
>'Civilian Casualty'? It Depends
>Those who supports terrorists are not entirely innocent.
>By Alan Dershowitz
>ALAN DERSHOWITZ is a professor of law at Harvard. He is the author,
>most recently, of "Preemption: A Knife that Cuts Both Ways."

[...]


>The Israeli army has given well-publicized notice to civilians to
>leave those areas of southern Lebanon that have been turned into war
>zones. Those who voluntarily remain behind have become complicit.
>Some - those who cannot leave on their own - should be counted among
>the innocent victims.

Likewise, the enemies of Israel have given well-publicised notice to the Zionists that they should leave Palestine. So those who stay are "not entirely innocent" either, according to the Dershowitz definition of innocent civilian. Surely the definition cuts both ways? Israel is, by the standard definition, a terrorist organisation and its bombing of Lebanon is a terrorist attack as much as the Hizbolla bombing of Israel is a terrorist attack.

The only innocent ones, on either side, are those too young to renounce their citizenship and leave. There seem to be more people leaving Lebanon than Israel, so we have to assume that Israelis are more hard-core terrorists than the Lebanese.


>If the media were to adopt this "continuum," it would be informative
>to learn how many of the "civilian casualties" fall closer to the
>line of complicity and how many fall closer to the line of innocence.

What a scumbag. Somebody shoot him.


>Every civilian death is a tragedy, but some are more tragic than others.

I feel sick. Is it just me, or does this creature come across as a psychopath?

Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas



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