NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #30/NN_1992_30.iso/spool/misc/activism/progress/9522

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From: Hank Roth <[e-mail]>
Subject: Israel's War on Lebanon (II)
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{From ISRAEL'S WAR IN LEBANON: Eyewitness Chronicles of the
Invasion and Occupation, Edited by Franklin P. Lamb (Spokesman
for the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation) Russell Press Ltd,
Nottingham, England (1984)}

Part 2--INTRODUCTION

REQUIREMENT OF ACTUAL NECESSITY

The principle of necessity refers to the imminence of the threat
of attack and the absence of effective peaceful alternatives for
averting it. The purpose of the requirement of actual necessity
is to prevent states from using self-defense as an excuse for
aggression. As Professor Myles McDougal of Yale University Law
School has written:

  "The structure of traditional prescription [in international
   law] has established a standard of justifying necessity commonly
   referred to in exacting terms. A high degree of necessity--a
   "great and immediate" necessity, "directly and immediate,"
   "compelling and instant" --was prerequisite to a characterization
   of coercion as "legitimate self-defense." Necessity that assumed
   the shape of an actual and current application of violence
   presented little difficulty, contain and restrict the assertion
   of claims to apply preemptive violence, that is, when the
   necessity pleaded consisted of alleged expectations of an attack
   which had yet actually to erupt...There is a whole continuum of
   degrees of imminence or remoteness in future time, from the most
   imminent to the more remote, which, in the expectations of the
   claimant of self-defense, may characterize an expected attack.
   Decision-makers sought to limit lawful anticipatory defense by
   projecting a customary requirement that the expected attack
   exhibit so high a degree of imminence as to preclude effective
   resort by the intended victim to non-violent modalities of
   response."

The legal principles of self-defense, and particularly the
requirement of "actual necessity," were raised early in the
United States in an 1837 incident known as the CAROLINE case. The
case involved the capture and destruction of a small U.S. vessel,
the CAROLINE, and the killing of two Americans in U.S. territory
by Canadian troops. The CAROLINE had been used to transport men
and supplies to Canadian insurgents. Apparently the British
government had previously brought the matter to the attention of
U.S. authorities, but the United States failed to stop the use of
the ship, in apparent violation of customary neutrality
requirements. In the diplomatic controversy that followed, Great
Britain justified its action on the basis that imperative need
for self-defense required immediate action. The United States
did not challenge the facts of the ship's involvement in the
transport activities, but effectively claimed that the
circumstances did not make a case of reasonable necessity for
anticipatory self-defense. While the British tendered a formal
apology, they did not accept legal responsibility for the
destruction of the vessel and the death of the two crewmen.

The CAROLINE case is often cited to illustrate then Secretary of
State Webster's statement that the necessity fo self-defense in
such cases should be "instant, overwhelming, having no choice of
means and no moment for deliberation." While relevant, Webster's
dictum should not be taken literally in the international
community today. Nuclear weapons stockpiles and the capability of
instantaneous delivery raise the likelihood that the initial
attack may leave few defenders or little to be defended. Thus,
the definition of the "moment for deliberation" must be
reconsidered.

As noted above, although opinions differ regarding the requirement
of an "armed attack" for the lawful exercise of the right under
Article 51 of the UN Charter, the weight of opinion and practice
is that the right may be claimed and used only when there is
reasonable cause to believe that the national existence is
imperiled. In other words, international law permits the exercise
of self-defense not only when there is reasonable cause to
believe that the very survival of the state is endangered in the
face of actual attack, but also against a threatened aggression
when the danger is imminent and threatens national existence.

The actual necessity of self-defense must be shown to be
overwhelming in order to preserve the existence of the state.
This was not the case with respect to the Israeli invasion of
Lebanon. Israel's argument that it met the requirement of actual
necessity is based on its claim that it had been attacked by the
PLO through terrorist attacks against individuals and that, in
any event, there existed the threat of an imminent PLO armed
attack. But the evidentiary record discloses no evidence of an
armed attack by the PLO of a degree of gravity to meet the actual
necessity test for Israel's use of force. Indeed, UNIFIL
headquarters in Lebanon has stated that the PLO's only use of
military force against Israel between the July 1981 ceasefire and
the June 1982 Israeli invasion was on May 9, 1982, in response to
intense Israeli bombing, which itself violated the July 1981
ceasefire.

Israel argued in the Security Council on June 6: "Even in a
relatively short period of time which has elapsed since the July
1981 agreement on cessation of hostiles, the total of dead and
wounded at the hands of the PLO has steadily mounted to a point
where it has now reached 17 dead and 241 wounded in a total of
141 terrorist acts, all of them originating from terrorist bases
inside Lebanaon." Middle East specialist John Reddaway, commenting
on this point, declared:

  "Concerning the 17 stated to have been killed, Israel provided 15
  specific examples which included eight Israeli Jews, seven of
  whom were apparently killed in Israel, and an Israeli diplomat
  killed in France. He also referred to seven Jews killed in
  foreign countries including Austria, Belgium and West Berlin,
  none of whom were stated to be Israeli citizens. Concerning the
  seven Israeli Jews stated to be killed in Israel, he said that
  four were killed on April 22, 1979, and three on April 6, 1980
  (both occasions prior to the 1981 ceasefire). He assumed that the
  PLO was responsible in all instances, but furnished no proof. In
  the case of the Jews killed outside Israel, he did not say
  whether the local police authorities agreed that the PLO were
  responsible."

  "The inclusion of attacks on non-Israeli Jews outside the State
   of Israel reflects claims advanced by the Israeli Government that
   "the Jewish people" throughout the world share a common
   nationality with the citizens of Israel. But, in fact, the
   Government of Israel has no legal authority to intervene
   diplomatically or militarily on behalf of Jews who are not
   Israeli nationals. Even supposing the Jews killed in foreign
   countries are Israeli nationals, the responsibility for their
   protection lies primarily with the host countries, and
   intervention by Israel could be justified only if that protection
   fell below the standard commonly accepted by the international
   community. To try to make out that a number of isolated attacks
   on Jews, by unidentidified assailants in Europe, presented such a
   danger to the State of Israel as to justify its invasion of a
   neighboring state in the Middle East is making a mockery of the
   concept of self-defense."

Israel has not offered any evidence whatsoever that a PLO armed
attack was imminent. Indeed, Prime Minister Begin admitted that
the invasion of Lebanon was not necessary to ensure the exitence
of the State of Israel. In his August 8 appearance at the
National Defense College in Israel, Begin specifically stated
that the invasion "does not really belong to the category of wars
of no alternative," thus acknowledging that Israel's invasion was
not a legitimate act of self-defense and did not meed the
requirment of actual necessity.

Following the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the Israeli lobby in
the United States and elsewhere, in close coordination with the
Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, attempted to justify the
invasion retrospectively by arguing that Israel captured large
quantities of PLO arms, proving an armed attack was imminent. The
posession of arms does not establish that an armed attack is
imminent or that an actual necessity existed. Moreover, inasmuch
as the arms were "discovered" after the invasion, they could not
have constituted justification for an invasion that had already
been launched. By mid-June, the Israel lobby began circulating
revelations of the seizure by the Israeli Army of massive depots
of PLO arms. According to Defense Minister Sharon, the quantities
were "incredible."

As Michael Jansen, author of the BATTLE OF BEIRUT, has noted, one
of the purposes of the PLO arsenal stories was to achieve the
propaganda goal of furnishing "proof" not only that the
Palestinians were planning to launch a full-scale attack on
Israel, but that they were actually going to do it with foreign
forces, including Russian forces (and for whom these weapons were
being prepositioned.) At one fund-raising event, senior Israeli
Army officers stated that they had seized enough arms to equip
"one million terrorists" and that it would "require 500 large
trucks working for months to transport the massive material,
valued at $5 billion." The Israeli lobby continued its claims:

* In a July 2 letter to THE TIMES of London, Shabtar Rossene
stated that it would take 80 trucks at least a month to transport
4,000 tons of ammunition and in addition 140 tanks and other
military vehicles, 12,500 light weapons, 520 heavy weapons, and
so on.

* Israel Ambassador to the United States Moshe Arens claimed that
500 to 600 heavy artillery pieces were captured.

*  Prime Minister Begin claimed that the captured weapons would
equip five divisions, or 60,000 troops.

* On June 28, at an exhibition of captured arms, a logistic corps
brigadier stated that the weapons were sufficient not for five
divisions, but for five brigades, or 20,000 men and that it would
take 1,000 men and 150 trucks a month to complete their removal.
Vistors to the exhibition were advised that the Russian T-162
tanks on display were a selection of the 500 tanks captured from
the Syrians and the PLO.

These wildly inflated claims were reduced to reality by military
correspondents of Israeli newspapers as they began to investigate
the figures. For example, the Israeli newspaper HA'ARETZ
concluded that the weapons found were enough for one lightly
armed infantry division, that is, for 12,000 men, and that only
38 T-34 tanks were captured. The HA'ARETZ article continued:

  "It is likely that some of the 46 T-55's captured belonged to
   the terrorists, but there is another view that they all belonged
   to the Syrians. So it is not true that 400 or 500 tanks were
   captured in terrorist territory. The only weapons found in large
   quantities were different types of rifles: some 10,000
   Kalachnikov assault rifles..while the number of artillery pieces
   seized were also large, it was not as great as some political
   leaders claimed earlier in the war."

   "Fifty-one heavy guns were captured, including two old French
   155mm guns and 32 Russian 130mm guns, and 240 other types of
   artillery, some of which could have belonged to the Syrians. The
   booty was also poor in the latest-type Katushyas; of the 26
   captured only 15 were the latest type. Did these arms threaten
   Israel's exitence? They did constitute a danger of raids,
   shelling and terror, but in no sense a danger to our existence.
   The strength of an infantry division with partial support is no
   danger to Israel's existence, unless we suddenly desire to ignore
   the strength of the Israel Defense Force."

Following this and other reports documenting the discrepancy
between reality and the claims made earlier by government
officials, there was a demand in the Knesset for an inquiry into
the origin of the inflated claims. TO-DATE, NOTHING DEFINITIVE
HAS BEEN REPORTED ON THE RESULTS.
----------------------------------------------
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