Human Rights Watch: Shielding yourself with civilians is a War Crime

The goal of this post is to amalgamate a bunch of posts in LGF, IsraelMatzav, and VitalPerspective regarding a recent event as analyzed here in this Jerusalem Post article:

Analysis: Damned if you do, damned if you don't
Anshel Pfeffer, THE JERUSALEM POST Nov. 21, 2006

The Palestinians' successful use of human shields to stop the IAF from destroying a house suspected of being used to store explosives this week is not just an operational setback for the IDF, it's yet another PR fiasco for Israel.

Both the Arab TV channels and a sympathetic Western media were full of photographs of victorious Palestinians celebrating their outwitting of the Zionist F-16s, yet another reenactment of the David vs. Goliath scene. The humiliation was double; not only did Israel seem cruel and unfeeling, using hi-tech weaponry against civilians, but this time the Palestinians were also portrayed as brave and resourceful, in contrast to the clumsy and bumbling IDF.

The use of the tactic might have been spontaneous, but PA Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh promptly recognized its advantages when he turned up with a full media entourage to congratulate the shields. If he thought they were damaging the Palestinian image, he wouldn't have been so quick to make the scene.

Wait a minute. Wasn't it just last week that Israel was being crucified by the international press for the wanton killings of children in Beit Hanun? Now we seem to be getting the short end of the media stick for not bombing civilians.

Surely we should at least be getting some credit for canceling the air strike after it was clear it couldn't be carried out without heavy bystander casualties. And why has everyone lost sight of the fact that what gave the Palestinians time to flock to the targeted building was the IDF's standard warning call to the building's owner to evacuate everyone immediately. That must be worth a few brownie points on CNN.

In a conflict where the parties accuse each other of targeting civilians, shouldn't the Palestinians be on the receiving end of international blame for deliberately putting their people in the line of fire? Shouldn't the United Nations human rights commissioner have said something about it during her tour of Beit Hanun Monday?

It's all very well blaming the biased and anti-Israel media for always taking the Palestinian side, no matter what, but it might be a bit more useful asking how Israel made it so easy for a simplistic view of the conflict to become engrained in almost every foreign reporters' mind and, more importantly, what is it trying to do to change these perceptions?

So far, the IDF's response to the new Palestinian tactic, as reported by The Jerusalem Post, is to begin planning alternative ground operations to prove to the Palestinians that if we decide to bomb a house, then it's going be bombed.

Whether this course will prove effective remains to be seen, but taking a more broad view might have shown that there is an opportunity here to make gains on another, much more elusive, battlefield.

Rather that let the Palestinians dictate the media coverage, Israel could take the initiative and use the human-shield saga to its benefit. Playing up the concrete actions taken by Israel to minimize civilian casualties, offering recordings of the warning telephone calls and of pilots being called back from the bombing mission, and perhaps even giving a selected network access to a warning call live might go some way toward changing some of the perceptions.

No one is going to be instantly converted, but it would be a start. But that would require a concerted effort by the intelligence, operational and PR branches, and someone sitting up top who understands that sometimes we're better off not firing.

Via LGF, apparently even Human Rights Watch felt that the Palestinian terrorists went too far:

It is a war crime to seek to use the presence of civilians to render certain points or areas immune from military operations or to direct the movement of the civilian population or individual civilians in order to attempt to shield military objectives from attack. In the case where the object of attack is not a legitimate military target, calling civilians to the scene would still contravene the international humanitarian law imperative for parties to the conflict to take all feasible precautions to protect civilians from the effects of attack.

Via IsraelMatzav, I found the following words enlightening:

The problem is those innocent people are acting completely in concert with the jihadis and support them utterly. They’re hardly innocent. They have made themselves into combatants.

More links:

Vital Perspective

Another LGF post

"Why Islamic hate on campus needs to be tackled"

Hat Tip: VitalPerspective

A commentary on this previous post - this part says it all:

Student unions and vice-chancellors have made various attempts to tackle the problem but have always held back from really dealing with it because they fear being accused of Islamophobia. The radical groups have continued to organise and indoctrinate, often under false names, and have found the process increasingly easy in the climate of anger surrounding the Iraq war.

Jewish students at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London have complained of fears for their personal safety because of the pronouncements of some fellow students. Members of student Islamic societies have been among those arrested and charged in recent counter-terrorist operations.

Campus radicalism persists and is spreading. Mere “guidance” from mandarins in the DfES is unlikely to stop it spreading.

I'm shocked, I tell you - shocked!

Link to article

Times Online November 17, 2006

Omar Khan Sharif, left, who was radicalised on campus and became the first British suicide bomber recruit in the Israel-Palestine conflict, along with Asif Hanif, right

Comment: why Islamic hate on campus needs to be tackled
By Sean O’Neill
A Times expert on radical Islam explains why the threat from Islamist radicals on campus needs to be combated with more than just proposals

Islamist groups first identified Britain’s universities as a fertile recruiting ground more almost two decades ago.

They followed the example set by the far-left, which had been hugely successful in the 1980s in attracting young people with impressionable minds to simplistic utopian ideologies.

The Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HuT) organisation - which at the time was under the control of the radical cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed - was active on a number of campuses.

Over a period of weeks in 1988, I often accompanied one of Bakri Mohammed’s organisers as he criss-crossed London arranging and talking at meetings in university rooms and mosques.

Despite being a full-time employee of Islington council, the man’s entire working day appeared to be devoted to preaching the message of Islamist radicalism which was then a novelty but is now well-rooted in many young Muslims.

One of the meetings was at King’s College in Central London where he delivered a talk to Muslim students about the necessity of returning to the golden age of the Khilafa, an Islamic state to be governed by strict religious law.

It was a sparsely attended event. But more than 10 years later, at similar meetings at the same college, a young man called Omar Sharif was radicalised by what he heard.

Sharif, an undergraduate from Derby, very quickly became devout, began to wear traditional Islamic dress and abruptly ended friendships he had previously enjoyed with non-Muslims. Soon afterwards, he left King’s and went to Damascus to study Arabic.

Returning to Britain, Sharif retained his radical views and was in touch with Omar Bakri Mohammed (by then split with HuT and running his al-Muhajiroun movement) and with Abu Hamza, the former imam of Finsbury Park Mosque.

In April 2003, Sharif and another young Briton, Asif Hanif, went to Tel Aviv where they became the first foreign suicide bombers in the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Sharif was not the only young man to be radicalised at university who opted for a life of violent jihad. Omar Saeed Sheikh, who has been convicted in Pakistan for his part in the kidnap and murder of the American journalist Daniel Pearl, was first exposed to the Islamist ideology at the London School of Economics.

Student unions and vice-chancellors have made various attempts to tackle the problem but have always held back from really dealing with it because they fear being accused of Islamophobia. The radical groups have continued to organise and indoctrinate, often under false names, and have found the process increasingly easy in the climate of anger surrounding the Iraq war.

Jewish students at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London have complained of fears for their personal safety because of the pronouncements of some fellow students. Members of student Islamic societies have been among those arrested and charged in recent counter-terrorist operations.

Campus radicalism persists and is spreading. Mere “guidance” from mandarins in the DfES is unlikely to stop it spreading.

The author is a Times reporter and co-author of The Suicide Factory: Abu Hamza and the Finsbury Park Mosque

UK Universities given 'how-to' guide for fighting violent Islam

Hat Tip: VitalPerspective

This just took the cake:

The scenarios described in the booklet include the invitation of a preacher suspected of justifying terrorist attacks against British civilians; the taking over of an Islamic prayer room; and the radicalising of an Islamic students group, in which moderate members are frozen out and bullied into electing hardline leaders.

In another case, "a member of teaching staff has raised concerns with university authorities about some literature that was left lying around in a university room in which she took a tutorial group.

"Some leaflets were written in English, and others appeared to be in Arabic. She reported that the literature in English had titles such as ‘Who is a legitimate target?’ and ‘From Jihad to a new world order.’"

Gee, now why does that stuff sound familiar? Nah, would never happen at UCI - not in a million years!

The just-released booklet on violent extremism at UK universities

UK Press Release

A UK Universities booklet on "promoting good relations"

Click here to see a UK Telegraph news segment on dealing with Islamic Facist Imperialsts on UK campuses

Link to article

Times Online November 17, 2006
Universities given 'how-to' guide for fighting violent Islam
By Sam Knight
Comment: why action is needed

The Government today issued explicit guidelines aimed at tackling violent Islamist extremism on Britain's university campuses.

A 20-page booklet aimed at university Vice Chancellors and principals of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) advises campus administrators how best to resist extremist groups and preachers attempting to radicalise their students and commit themselves to violent jihad.

The document, following general guidelines issued last year to tackle all forms of extremism among students, contains several "real life" scenarios specifically aimed at targeting Islamism.

As well a definition of "violent extremism in the name of Islam", the guidelines describe various pieces of anti-terrorism legislation that might be relevant to controlling extremist groups.

The specific nature of the advice drew a rebuke from Universities UK (UUK), the association of universities that helped prepare the last guidelines, while a coalition of Muslim students said the document contained little to improve campus relations.

Universities UK praised the guidelines for offering "practical and useful information for staff and students alike on recent legislation" but observed: "UUK’s earlier document focused on all kinds of extremism, not just on extremism in the name of Islam.

"Universities are some of the most diverse communities in the UK, and work hard to ensure community cohesion on campus across all faiths and racial groups. Universities have a duty of care to protect vulnerable groups, and they also have a responsibility to assure all their constituent communities that they are party to fundamental values of free enquiry and free expression within the law."

The scenarios described in the booklet include the invitation of a preacher suspected of justifying terrorist attacks against British civilians; the taking over of an Islamic prayer room; and the radicalising of an Islamic students group, in which moderate members are frozen out and bullied into electing hardline leaders.

In another case, "a member of teaching staff has raised concerns with university authorities about some literature that was left lying around in a university room in which she took a tutorial group.

"Some leaflets were written in English, and others appeared to be in Arabic. She reported that the literature in English had titles such as ‘Who is a legitimate target?’ and ‘From Jihad to a new world order.’"

A separate scenario describes a member of the college library staff watching students using the internet. "She reported that two males were looking at some kind of home-made images of other men dressed in military and civilian clothing holding guns," the guidance says.

"The two men were joined by two others and she could see that they were watching shots being fired and explosions on the computer. The images then appeared to show somebody making a home made explosive device."

In this case, the booklet advises: "The HE provider will have a policy on internet use and internet security... If it is alleged that these policies are breached then what is the process for sensitively investigating allegations, and if necessary who should decide whether to inform the police?"

According to the Department of Education Skills (DfES), today's document is the product of 18 months of consultations between colleges, the police and Muslim students and leaders.

Launching the guide this morning, Bill Rammell, the Minister for Higher Education, said: "The guidance provides a recognition - that I believe must be faced squarely - that violent extremism in the name of Islam is a real, credible and sustained threat to the UK. And that there is evidence of serious, but not widespread Islamist extremist activity in HEIs."

"This guidance is not about targeting one particular community."

The document was welcomed by the British Muslim Forum today, although the group said it would like to see similar guidelines issued to help confront "the anti-Muslim extremism of the far right".

But the Federation of Student Islamic Societies (Fosis), an umbrella grup that represents around 90,000 Muslim students in the UK, joined the National Union of Students and other bodies, issuing a statement saying there was a need for positive proposals.

"Demonising Muslims is unacceptable and dangerous, whether in educational institutions or in communities," the joint statement said. "Students and staff should be assured by their institutions that there is no intention of adding to a climate of Islamophobia."

The busy life of university campuses and the fluid nature of student organisations have for years enabled Islamic extremist groups to organise addresses by radical preachers and to target young Muslims amenable to violent interpretations of Islam.

Members of proscribed groups such as Hizb-ut Tahrir and al-Muhajiroun have been reported giving speeches and forming new student associations.

The sentencing of Dhiren Barot, the most senior al-Qaeda operative to be prosecuted in Britain, last week revealed that he had a fake research pass for Brunel University, allowing him access to the campus.

The Sunday Times reported last weekend that fundamentalists had been recently reported at least four British universities: Brunel University, west London, Bedfordshire University, Luton, Sheffield Hallam University and Manchester Metropolitan University.

The newspaper quoted Sheikh Musa Admani, an imam who helps moderate the views of radical young Muslims and is one of Mr Rammell's advisers, saying that extremist groups were adept at avoiding campus bans and joining mainstream organisations with the aim of turning a few members to their cause.