demagogue on 23/11/2012 at 01:31

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In your hypothetical, that may already be an act of war (Say you intercepted the launch order), and most states have never questioned that an imminent attack is of course covered by that self defense provision. If basic intuition says something like that, it going to get covered by law. But there's still a good reason you don't want the text to actually say that (because then they take any perceived provocation as justification, which isn't right either) and have it part of the interpretation. (Reagan ordered a launch as a joke on the mic at a conference in like 1985. Would the USSR have been legal to preemptively launch nukes against the US & UK and roll tanks into W. Berlin? No, common sense.)

But all of these nuances don't apply to the present case because clearly the rockets were already over the border hitting their territory.

demagogue on 24/11/2012 at 10:32

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There was an (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/23/opinion/americas-failed-palestinian-policy.html) editorial in the NYTimes today to the effect that as long as Israel keeps up its policy, and the US encourages it, Hamas only has an incentive to keep resorting back to violence. It's the only thing Hamas feels it makes "progress" on. But Israel already calls its clean up operations "cutting the grass", and they're apparently supposed to relax their demand on things like Hamas's "you don't have a right to exist" stance.

I was thinking this is one of the least persuasive arguments for its audience ever. First, if they're resorting to criminal kinds of violence (targeting civilians not military, which is what indiscriminate rockets are), who cares what their incentives are? But either way, they're leaving Israel's only incentive is to keep the status quo or tighten its grip more. They already *assume* Hamas is going to go ape shit every chance it can get if it has rockets, so there's no reason it can see to back down on as tight restrictions as it can get. The outbursts only give chance for Israel to clean up as many rockets as it can in a week so there will be less for the next time.

It was an almost incoherent argument. But it's the fact that so many Palestinians are thinking this same argument that's an issue. I'm interested in Fatah going to the UN for recognition as a non-state party... At least get some momentum swinging back in their direction, and get people thinking in terms of actually being an organised state doing things that states do (take out garbage & provide water, implement treaties, basic security and police) and not always a perpetual resistance struggle.