An opinion piece in the New York Times by Roger Cohen promotes the idea voiced by U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro that Israel employs a “double standard” when dealing with Israelis and Palestinians who live in the disputed territories. He writes:
Shapiro was stating the obvious. Israeli settlers are citizens entitled to the full protection of civil law. The 2.8 million Palestinians in the West Bank are not.
But this is only telling half the story. International law demands that Israel differentiate between Palestinians and Israeli citizens. Ambassador Alan Baker of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs points out:
Indeed, there exist two legal frameworks.
The one applied by Israel’s Civil Administration vis-à-vis the Palestinian residents of Judea and Samaria is based on the international norms regarding the administration of territory occupied or administered following armed conflict and pending a peace agreement. These norms, set out in the 1907 Hague Rules and 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention, enable an administering power, in administering a hostile local population, to impose various limitations on the basic freedoms that exist in any ordinary civil legal system. All this pending a permanent peace arrangement regarding the fate of the territory.
The second legal framework covers the Israeli residents of towns, villages and other forms of settlement within the territory, who, not being part of the local Palestinian population, are subject on an ad-personam basis to Israeli law. As such, they are not covered by those limitations that apply solely vis-à-vis the local population of the territory.
Unlike the insinuations in Ambassador Shapiro’s statement, this dual set of legal frameworks is not based on any double standards, but on a clear division of legal authorities dictated by both international humanitarian law and Israeli law.
Both these legal systems, whether that administered by the Civil Administration or that governing Israeli residents in the area, require strict adherence to the rule of law and the concomitant rules of natural justice. Any and every crime has to be investigated and the perpetrator brought to trial in the appropriate court of law.
In fact, were Israel to attempt to apply its laws to Palestinians, it would be seen as an attempt to create a one state solution and dismiss the concept of a “permanent peace arrangement regarding the fate of the territory.” Certainly this is not what Cohen believes.
And as Baker points out, the division of policies does not in any way allow for anything else than full investigation of any crimes committed. Yet rather than cite specific cases, Cohen uses as his source a report from Human Rights Watch (HRW), an organization with a well-known bias against Israel.
NGO Monitor has written numerous reports documenting the bias of HRW:
In particular, HRW’s activities reflect the absence of professional standards and research methodologies; lack of expertise on international law and armed conflict; and a deep-seated ideological bias against democracies in general, and against Israel, in particular.
Even opinion pieces should be based on factual data and present the full context. Sources with a known agenda such as HRW should be avoided.
