RSS
Why Palestinian Terrorism Is Never Legal or Justified: A Fact-Based Retort
Partygoers at the Supernova Psy-Trance Festival who filmed the events that unfolded on Oct. 7, 2023. Photo: Yes Studios
In a world of international anarchy, law-based counter-terrorism is never just about strategy, tactics, or doctrine. Whatever an insurgency’s specific features, this critical arena of national security planning should remain intellect-based and logic-centered.
For Israel in the Islamic Middle East, this means an ongoing awareness of enemy concepts of death. It signifies, among other things, that Israel’s counter-terrorism planners ought continuously to bear in mind the primacy of an historically under-examined form of geopolitical power.
This neglected form of power, abstract but incomparable, is “power over death” — meaning, in what manner should have jihadi promises of immortality been affected by the Assad regime collapse in Syriaand the still-unresolved Gaza War?
“An immortal person,” says Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, “is a contradiction in terms.” Accordingly, any promise of immortality to jihadi terrorists will be densely problematic. It will, however, still resonate among those many insurgents who routinely prefer mystery to reason.
Assuming that others use decision-making rationality often make sense in explaining world politics, but there remain enough significant exceptions to temper any mundane generalities.
If Israel’s national decision-makers were to survey the prevailing configuration of global jihadi terrorist organizations (Sunni and Shiite) from a suitably- augmented analytic standpoint, the nexus between “martyrdom operations” and “life-everlasting” could become more conspicuous and understandable.
At that point, Israel’s national security planners could begin to place themselves in a better position to deter murderous hostage-takers and suicide-bombers, in microcosm (i.e., as individual human terrorists) and in macrocosm (i.e., as law-violating organizations or states that support the terrorist microcosm).
Those jihadi insurgents who seek to justify gratuitously violent attacks on Israelis in the name of “martyrdom” are acting contrary to codified and customary international law.
All insurgents, even those who passionately claim “just cause,” must still satisfy longstanding jurisprudential limits on permissible targets and levels of violence. Moreover, as a binding matter of law, such limits can never be tempered by any actively contending claims of religious faith. Under law, Palestinian claims of insurgency “by any means necessary” remain nothing more than an empty witticism.
Under established rules, even the allegedly “sacred” rights of insurgency always exclude any deliberate targeting of civilians or any intentional use of force to inflict unnecessary suffering. When Hamas terrorists kidnapped and beheaded Israeli infants on October 7, 2023, they were acting not on behalf of sovereignty or self-determination, but rather to cultivate the grotesque pleasures of a lascivious barbarism.
Law and strategy are interrelated. At the same time, they remain analytically distinct. The legal “bottom line” is unambiguous: Violence becomes terrorism whenever “political” insurgents murder or maim noncombatants, whether with guns, knives, bombs or automobiles. Always irrelevant to assessments of “just means” (jus in bello) is whether the expressed cause of terror-violence is just or unjust (jus ad bellum). Under the universal “law of nations,” unjust means used to fight for allegedly just ends are still law-breaking ipso facto.
Sometimes, Israel’s martyrdom-seeking jihadi foes advance the supposedly legal argument of tu quoque. This argument stipulates that because “the other side” is guilty of similar, equivalent or even greater criminality, “our side” is innocent of any wrongdoing.
Jurisprudentially, any such argument is disingenuous and incorrect, especially after landmark legal judgments by the Nuremberg (Germany) and Far East (Japan) ad hoc tribunals. Historically, tu quoque is always an immutably discredited posture.
For conventional armies and insurgent forces, the right to use military force can never supplant “peremptory” rules of humanitarian international law. Nonetheless, without a scintilla of law-based evidence, supporters of jihadi terror-violence against Israeli noncombatants continuously insist that “ends justify means.”
Leaving aside the ordinary ethical standards by which any such argument should be dismissed on its face, ends can never justify means in the law of armed conflict. Indeed, there can be no authoritative argument against this civilizing affirmation.
Witless banalities of politics ought never be taken as valid expectations of international law. In such law, whether codified or customary, one person’s terrorist can never be another’s “freedom-fighter.”
It’s really not complicated. Whenever an insurgent group resorts to unjust means, its actions constitute terrorism. Even if adversarial claims of a hostile controlling power could be plausible or acceptable (e.g., relentless Palestinian claims concerning an Israeli “occupation”), corollary claims of entitlement to “any means necessary” remain false.
Recalling Hague Convention No. IV: “The right of belligerents to adopt means of injuring the enemy is not unlimited.”
What about Israeli attacks on Gaza targets? Though Israel’s bombardments of Gaza are spawned multiple Palestinian casualties, the legal responsibility for these harms lay entirely with Hamas “perfidy” or “human shields.” While Palestinian casualties were always unwanted, inadvertent and unintentional, Israeli civilian deaths and injuries were always the result of jihadi criminal intent or “mens rea.”
International law does not provide an intuitive or subjective set of standards. This law has determinable form and content. Therefore, it can never be casually invented or reinvented by terror groups to justify selective adversarial interests. This is especially the case when inhumane terror-violence intentionally targets a designated victim state’s most fragile and vulnerable civilians. Murdering captive infants is never defensible. Never.
National liberation” movements that fail to meet the test of just means can never be protected as lawful or legitimate in themselves. Even if relevant law were to accept the questionable argument that jihadi terror groups had fulfilled all valid criteria of “national liberation,” these groups would still fail to satisfy equally significant jurisprudential standards of distinction, proportionality, and military necessity.
These standards were specifically applied to insurgent or sub-state organizations by the common Article 3 of the four Geneva Conventions of 1949, and (additionally) by the two 1977 Protocols to these Conventions.
There is more. Standards of “humanity” remain binding upon all combatants by virtue of the broader norms of customary and conventional international law, including Article 1 of the Preamble to the Fourth Hague Convention of 1907. This rule, commonly called the “Martens Clause,” makes “all persons” responsible for the “laws of humanity” and for associated “dictates of public conscience.” There can be no exceptions to this universal responsibility.
Under international law, terrorist crimes mandate universal cooperation in both apprehension and punishment. As punishers of “grave breaches” under international law, all states are expected to search out and prosecute or extradite individual terrorists. This is emphatically true for the United States, which incorporates international law as the “supreme law of the land” at Article 6 of the Constitution.
For the foreseeable future, jihadi “martyrs” could present an incrementally existential threat to Israel. If these criminals should ever get their hands on usable fissile materials, however, this threat could become more immediately existential. This does not mean that terrorists would necessarily require a “chain-reaction” nuclear explosive, but only the essential ingredients for an advanced radiation dispersal device.
In a worst case scenario, jihadi use of radiation dispersal weapons against Israel could spur Iran into protracted and enlarged military conflict with Israel. At that unpredictable point, Israel’s policy considerations of adversarial “last things” could become all-important.
In essence, for Israel, a jihadist enemy that links terror-violence to faith-based hopes of immortality could pose an incomparable threat. To suitably deter this fearsome peril, Israel’s national security planners should more expressly examine all strategic, geographic, and legal dimensions of the problem. For these science-based planners, jihadi searches for “power over death” ought immediately to become a subject of highest policy urgency.
Prof. Louis René Beres was educated at Princeton (Ph.D., 1971) and is the author of many books and scholarly articles dealing with international law, nuclear strategy, nuclear war, and terrorism. In Israel, Prof. Beres was Chair of Project Daniel (PM Sharon). His 12th and latest book is Surviving Amid Chaos: Israel’s Nuclear Strategy (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016; 2nd ed., 2018).
The post Why Palestinian Terrorism Is Never Legal or Justified: A Fact-Based Retort first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Flemish Culture Minister Assembles Expert Committee to Help Tackle Claims of Nazi-Looted Art
Flemish Minister for Welfare and Culture Caroline Gennez pictured during a plenary session of the Flemish Parliament in Brussels, Wednesday 02 April 2025. Photo: BELGA via Reuters Connect
Caroline Gennez — the Flemish minister of welfare and poverty reduction, culture, and equal opportunities — is assembling a group of experts who will develop the framework for a permanent committee that will settle claims related to artwork stolen by Nazis from Jews during the Holocaust.
The six-person expert group will include specialists in law, history, and art history. It will be chaired by Bruno De Wever, a historian and emeritus professor of history specializing in World War II who is also the brother of Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever. The group will focus on establishing a permanent restitution commission to advise on claims.
The move marks the first official step by the Flemish government, which governs the northern region of Belgium, to tackle claims of Nazi-looted art from World War II. “Unlike other occupied countries such as the Netherlands or France, we have remained passive for too long,” Gennez said. “We have to catch up. Art that has been stolen or sold under duress must be returned to its rightful owners.”
The World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO), which addresses the restitution of Jewish property stolen during World War II, welcomed Gennez’s announcement. “This is a long-overdue and meaningful step toward justice for victims of the Holocaust and their families,” said WJRP President Gideon Taylor and WJRO COO Mark Weitzman in a joint statement on Sunday. “We commend Minister Gennez for her leadership and call on Belgium’s federal and regional governments to work together to ensure that looted cultural property is returned, and history is acknowledged. Justice delayed must not be justice denied.”
Roughly 66,000 Jews lived in Belgium before the Holocaust, but the Jewish community in the country now stands at around 29,000, with most Jews living in Brussels and Antwerp, according to the WJRO.
The post Flemish Culture Minister Assembles Expert Committee to Help Tackle Claims of Nazi-Looted Art first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Harvard University Maintains Ties to Terror Proxy Groups, Report Alleges
Demonstrators take part in an “Emergency Rally: Stand With Palestinians Under Siege in Gaza,” amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, Oct. 14, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Brian Snyder
Harvard University has ties to anti-Zionist nongovernmental organizations and other entities acting as proxy organizations for terrorist groups that warrant scrutiny and reproach, according to a new “preliminary” report published by nonprofit watchdog NGO Monitor.
Titled, “Advocacy NGOs in Academic Frameworks: Harvard University Case Study,” the report presents copious evidence that Harvard’s academic centers, including Harvard Law School, have come under the influence of Al-Haq and Addameer — two groups identified by the Israeli government as agents and propaganda manufacturers for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), an internationally designated terrorist organization. The NGOs, the report added, influence research and institutional culture, tilting the ideological balance of the campus toward anti-Zionism.
“The report demonstrates the major contribution from prominent advocacy NGOs to the atmosphere of propaganda and antisemitism at Harvard, particularly through frameworks claiming human rights agendas,” Professor Gerald Steinberg, who authored the report alongside Dr. Adi Schwartz, said in a statement. “The close cooperation between prominent NGOs and Harvard academic programs warrants urgent scrutiny. The blurred lines between scholarship and advocacy threaten academic integrity and risk further inflaming campus tensions.”
He added, “In this context, it is important to highlight the urgent need for transparency regarding funding for the NGOs and these Harvard academic frameworks.”
One academic center named in the report is the Harvard François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights (FXB), which was until this year formally partnered with a higher education institution located in the West Bank. The center, it explains, farms its research from an interconnected network of anti-Zionist figures and nonprofits, such as Amnesty International. Moreover, it appears to focus less on improving health outcomes than on politics and Gaza, having devoted 40 percent of its public events to the topic.
FXB director Mary T. Bassett, is particularly problematic, the report alleges.
“A review of her publication record reflects the absence of any expertise on health issues in conflict zones, in general, or regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in particular,” Steinberg and Schwartz write. “She has consistently displayed an anti-Israeli ideological bias, which is distributed widely through the center’s website and the media. For example, a week after [Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of Israel], she published an ‘End-of-year message’ on the FXB website (since deleted), in which she wrote of ‘the potential genocide facing civilians in Gaza.’”
Another academic center, the Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic (IHRC), has cooperated in presenting research to a United Nations commission of inquiry that has been widely accused of antisemitic bias. Additionally, an instructor there once worked as a fellow for Amnesty International, a human rights organization that legal experts and Israeli officials have lambasted for pushing anti-Israel “propaganda” and “antisemitic blood libels.” The academics and clinicians there, stationed both to teach and mentor students, use the classroom to replicate their biases, accoding to NGO Monitor.
“The clinic prides itself on finding jobs for its alumni at a variety of NGOs around the globe,” the report says. “In this sense, the clinic acts as a training framework and ‘feeder’ for the NGRO ideological advocacy network.”
Steinberg and Schwartz’s research comes amid concerns that Harvard University has become a hub for antisemitism and illiberalism that is glossed with a veneer of progressive values.
“Harvard is an Anti-Semitic, Far Left Institute, as are numerous others, with students being accepted from all over the World that want to rip our Country apart,” US President Donald Trump said last month, writing on Truth Social. “The place is a Liberal mess, allowing a certain group of crazed lunatics to enter and exit the classroom and spew fake ANGER and HATE [sic]. It is truly horrific. Now, since our filings began, they act like they are all ‘American Apple Pie.’ Harvard is a threat to democracy.”
In April, the university released a long anticipated report on campus antisemitism and along with it an apology from interim president Alan Garber which acknowledged that school officials failed in key ways to address the hatred to which Jewish students were subjected following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel.
The over 300-page document provides a complete account of antisemitic incidents which transpired on Harvard’s campus in recent years — from the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee’s (PSC) endorsement of the Oct. 7 terrorist atrocities to an anti-Zionist faculty group’s sharing an antisemitic cartoon which depicted Jews as murderers of people of color — and said that one source of the problem is the institution’s past refusal to afford Jews the same protections against discrimination enjoyed by other minority groups.
“I am sorry for the moments when we failed to meet the high expectations we rightfully set for our community. The grave, extensive impact of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas assault on Israel and its aftermath had serious repercussions on campus,” Garber said in the statement that accompanied the report. “Harvard cannot — and will not — abide bigotry. We will continue to provide for the safety and security of all members of our community and safeguard their freedom from harassment. We will redouble our efforts to ensure that the university is a place where ideas are welcomed, entertained, and contested in the spirt of seeking truth; where argument proceeds without sacrificing dignity; and where mutual respect is the norm.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Harvard University Maintains Ties to Terror Proxy Groups, Report Alleges first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Ritchie Torres Defends John Fetterman, Says Israel Support Cause of Attacks Over Senator’s Mental Health
US Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) gives an interview in his office in the Russell Senate Office Building in Washington, DC, Jan. 18, 2024. Photo: Rod Lamkey / CNP/Sipa USA for NY Post via Reuters Connect
Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) defended Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) amid an onslaught of attacks regarding the latter’s mental acuity, claiming that the mounting criticism against the US senator stems from his support for Israel.
“I know a hit piece when I see one. The only reason for the coordinated campaign against Senator John Fetterman is his unapologetic pro-Israel politics. Let’s call it what it is,” Torres posted on social media on Friday. “As someone who has struggled with depression my whole adult life, I can tell you that if you truly care about someone’s mental health, leaking hit pieces against them is a strange way of showing it.”
Fetterman, one of the most strident supporters of Israel in the US Congress, has been the subject of a series of articles which have called into question his mental stability. An article published in New York Magazine depicted the senator as moody, irrational, and conspiratorial. Additionally, the article took a series of swipes at Fetterman’s stance on Israel, suggesting that the senator’s vocal advocacy of the Jewish state stems from his supposedly deteriorating mental health. It also portrayed Fetterman as racially biased against Palestinians, claiming that in conversations he compared Gaza civilians to “a carton of sour milk.”
Another article published in Politico called Fetterman “increasingly alone,” noting that “few fellow Democrats have rushed to Fetterman’s defense” following the publication of the bombshell article in New York Magazine. The publication asserted that “private chatter about primary challenges” against Fetterman have started and that some Pennsylvania Democrats are suggesting he step down.
Though Fetterman campaigned as a progressive, he has surprisingly emerged as a staunch ally of Israel in the months following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks across southern Israel. Fetterman has repeatedly condemned anti-Israel voices within his own party in the US Congress, as well as elite universities for tolerating what he has characterized as antisemitic and anti-Israel hate speech on their campuses.
Fetterman’s staunch support of Israel has incensed progressives and sparked an exodus of staffers from his Senate office. Last year, 16 former campaign staffers penned a letter urging the senator to “join the right side of history” by supporting a “ceasefire” between Israel and Hamas. Several of his top communications staffers have fled to join anti-Israel operations such as the Working Families Party or the office of Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson.
Three Republican senators — Dave McCormick (D-PA), Tom Cotton (R-AK), and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) — publicly defended Fetterman, arguing that the Pennsylvania lawmaker has been subjected to unfair political hit-pieces.
“It’s time to put politics aside and stop these vicious, personal attacks against Senator Fetterman, his wife, and his health,” McCormick wrote. “While we have many differences, we are both committed to working together to achieve results for the people of Pennsylvania and make their lives better.”
“John Fetterman and I have our differences, but he’s a decent and genuine guy,” he added.
“The radical left is smearing him [Fetterman] with dishonest, vicious attacks because h’’s pro-Israel and they only want reliable anti-Israel politicians. Disgraceful,” Cotton posted on X/Twitter.
“The media ought to lay off Senator Fetterman,” Grassley added.
Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (NY) also gave a vote of confidence to Fetterman, claiming the Pennsylvania lawmaker is “doing a good job, and he’s a good legislator.”
The post Ritchie Torres Defends John Fetterman, Says Israel Support Cause of Attacks Over Senator’s Mental Health first appeared on Algemeiner.com.