Blumenthal went to this seven-hour conference, held Thursday by the ‘Lawfare Project’ in New York, and has written a great blog post about it at Mondoweiss.
The Lawfare Project has activities in both Israel and the U.S., that are designed primarily to discredit all those human rights activists and organizations worldwide that have criticized Israel’s actions, to criticize those provisions of the laws of war that they consider somehow “unfairly” hamper the armies of states that they judge to be “democracies”, and to work to overturn those provisions.
Sound familiar? Yes, of course these last two things were a big part of what Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby, David Addington, and John Yoo tried to do after 9/11, as well. They were arguing then– and the Lawfare Project is arguing now– that in the “unprecedented” circumstances of today’s worldwide war between the forces of “good” and of “evil”, the “old” norms and existing body of laws of war, which seek evenhanded application between all warring parties and seek to provide protections, in particular, to the citizens who are the victims of war, need urgently to be revised– and pending that, worked around.
How very sad, therefore, to see that one of the three co-chairs of Thursday’s conference was the Dean of Columbia Law School, David Schizer. Blumenthal has a seven-minute video clip from his speech, in the blog post.
Go read Blumenthal’s whole post, which is extremely well researched, as well as well written.
The flier for the conference notes that,
- This program has been approved in accordance with the requirements of the New York State Continuing Legal Education Board for a maximum of 6.5 Transitional and Non-Transitional MCLE credits: 1 Ethics and 5,5 Professional Practice.
Ethics???
I think it’s outrageous and tragic that the Dean of a once-fine law school like Columbia is lending his prestige to this highly anti-democratic and anti-humane campaign (a major aim of which is to trash Judge Goldstone and block demands for implementing his report.)
But at a broader level, many of the developments within the Jewish liberal establishment in the U.S. are fascinating, because we are now seeing for the first time ever, I think, sharp debates within this establishment over the morality of actions taken by the current Israeli government and also, underlying that, over the morality of many of these very same tactics and strategies as have been used in Palestine by the Zionist settler movement throughout its entire 115-year history there.
So David Schizer (what a cool name..) would throw his weight behind this.
As Mandie Rice Davies would say: “He would, wouldn’t he?”
The ethnicity of Americans who line up on this issue is generally obvious, as is the case with this fellow…Whatever the “Herrenvolk” do is cool with them, moral and just too…
The complicity of US ‘intellectual’ elites has long been horribly obvious. only now does one feel outrage?
115 years? What happened in 1895?
I feel really lucky to have you up here explaining things to us, Erik. Not only do you speak perfect German and know almost everything about Zionism, but now it turns out that you are also a close personal friend of Mandy Rice Davies and have permission from her publisher to quote her verbatim. Wow!
BTW Erik, have you heard about this latest outrage by the scumbag Mossad?
http://tinyurl.com/ykhlo2u
That’s great sarcasm, True Believer. You don’t appear to know who Mandy Rice Davies was. I couldn’t see the relevance of your link.
Don’t you have anything better to do with your time? In any case, you’re breaking Helena’s rules, so I guess we won’t be hearing much more from you in the future.
In any case, you’re breaking Helena’s rules
Actually Alastair Northedge, “Erik’ is breaking the rules with yet another anti-Semitic remark (which makes even less sense than usual: is Erik ignorant of who runs “Mondoweiss” and his ethnicity?)
Hey how’s the vegetable punching campaign going?
I thought the topic of this post was the current attempts by the hard right in the US, Israel and elsewhere to rewrite the internationally developed and accepted (at least in theory) rules relating to the conduct of and protection of civilians. This is a very important topic and deserves serious responses, not petty sniping.
Are conditions of asymmetrical war in the 21st century really different from those existing when the current standards were established to discourage atrocities? There are people with good intentions on both sides of this issue and it makes a great difference in how America acts and is perceived in the world. It appears now that Obama has bought into the right wing argument, especially considering his drone assassination policy. I believe this is a serious mistake, and in the long run we will lose far more than we could possibly gain even if this were a useful option; I happen to believe it is not and has never produced positive results, just feelings of misguided self satisfaction.
The fact that some so-called liberals are now embracing these right wing ides is truly a cause for great concern. Progressives have too long allowed the right to frame the issues (domestic and international) and dominate the conversation. This continues that trend in a much more sinister way.
I see you are warning me again, Vadim, that you know where I live, and I’d better look out.
I’ve got the picture. I shouldn’t even expect a horse’s head on the pillow beside me.
Golly Alastair, I ask an innocent question about your practice of vandalizing fruit stands in Paris (data you freely volunteered, along with your address and real name), and suddenly I’m Vito Corleone? I think I liked it better as a “Mossad mole”.
Jack, of which “current standards” do you speak and how have these standards been accepted by HAMAS (“in theory” or here on earth)?
It pains me, Alexno, to discover that you don’t see the value of Erik’s insights regarding MRD or the obvious links between James Brown’s disappearance and the Mossad. Well, hopefully, Erik or Helena will explain it you in terms simple enough for you to understand. I can see by your comments that you are simply not willing to engage in a rational conversation with me.
Alastair, you are one of the Great Ones. Why do you bother replying to the little ones who post inane comments on blogs? You (and Helena) should just shrug them off. I mean it–the two of you have more important things to think about.