alt Hacker NewsI have questions about the concept of legality in a war like the one between Hamas/Hezbollah and Israel. The idea that in a war there can be legal and illegal actions established by international treaties to protect civilians as much as possible can only work if two (or more) legitimate states are fighting each other, with leaders who can be held accountable for the orders they give. But does it still make sense to talk about legality and international treaties when on one side there is a terrorist organization whose method of warfare consists of kidnapping or killing civilians? At this point, doesn't complying to international treaties only mean further endangering their own population?
Important note: I don't want to spark a debate for or against Israel's actions, but simply to better understand the real sense of applying international treaties and conventions in a war like this.
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Yes, humanitarian law explicitly applies to enemies who do not, themselves, follow it. It's called [non]-reciprocity:
"The obligation to respect and ensure respect for international humanitarian law does not depend on reciprocity"
https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule140
Nations who break international law frequently spread misconceptions about this.
On the contrary, you have it completely backwards. Each time one side beaches the laws of war, more on the other side are motivated towards extremism. This cycle is why there is still war between Israel/Palestine after 74 years of fighting; both sides have continually committed atrocities, cementing the cycle of violence.
Even if it were true, it sounds like an obvious loophole if one party could simply refuse to consider the other party a state and instantly get rid if all legal liability.
Which is actually one of the major issues of conflict with the Palestinians. The Palestinians want to be a state and most of the world considers them one. It's just that Israel and the US (together with other countries) don't and that the US also blocks official designation by the UN.
The Nazis tried the same argument at the Nuremberg trials. They claimed that they weren't bound by the laws of war (e.g., Hague regulations) since Poland and other states hadn't signed them. The court dismissed the argument and stated that certain rules are binding whether both parties are signatories or not. In Israel's case it is even worse since indiscriminate attacks have been outlawed since basically forever. At the Nuremberg trials, the argument "there is no precedent" had some merit, today it certainly does not.
Israel's entire mode of operations is to kidnap, kill and rape civilians. They even rioted for their right to rape prisoners to death.
> The idea that in a war there can be legal and illegal actions established by international treaties to protect civilians as much as possible can only work if two (or more) legitimate states are fighting each other
This is not true (the laws of war work and have been applied successfully in conflicts not involving two or more legitimate states) and it's an assumption that seems to have negatively informed the questions that followed.
> with leaders who can be held accountable for the orders they give.
Holding leaders accountable ("legitimate" political leaders, terrorist leaders, rebel leaders, we can do it) is good, but we also hold individuals accountable.
> But does it still make sense to talk about legality and international treaties when on one side there is a terrorist organization whose method of warfare consists of kidnapping or killing civilians?
Of course it does. The notion that one side is no longer accountable for harm done to civilians in violation of the law because the other side has harmed civilians in violation of the law is wrong.
> At this point, doesn't complying to international treaties only mean further endangering their own population?
Sometimes yes. It certainly does put troops in danger often enough. Everyone who is party to these treaties is well aware that a country could be safer in a conflict if they just quickly incinerated the other side, and they've chosen to be bound by these laws anyway.