Yemini Takes Out Blau’s Assassinations Article
In his 2008 article in Ha’aretz, Israeli journalist Uri Blau used illegally obtained military documents obtained by soldier Anat Kamm to accuse the army of committing war crimes and violating a High Court ruling by assassinating West Bank terrorists. As pointed out recently in Snapshots, a letter by former Attorney General Menachem Mazuz destroyed Blau’s claims that the killings violated the court ruling.
Now Ben-Dror Yemini of Ma’ariv has thoroughly decimated Blau’s allegations. In “Libel Manufactured by Ha’aretz,” he writes:
The headline, at the time, was “The chief-of-staff and IDF leadership authorized killings of wanted and innocent men.” The expression “innocent” appears almost 20 times in the article in which the documents were published. The impression is that the IDF has been committing war crimes. This is the impression “Haaretz” intentionally attempts to create. . . .
Well, we should rise to the challenge, and examine what exactly these documents show. The main argument, which the paper attempted to promote, was that the High Court of Justice ruled that targeted killings were illegal. There is indeed a ruling, but nowhere is there any ruling that forbids targeted killings. The High Court of Justice did not go down this path, and wisely so. It was no other than Aharon Barak who made the determination in 2006: that it is impossible to determine a priori that all targeted killings are forbidden by international law, just as it is impossible to determine a priori that all targeted killings are permissible according to international law. This is very clear statement that is somewhat at odds with the impression received when reading “Haaretz” back then, when the documents appeared in Uri Blau’s article, and certainly today, as the paper attempts to hide behind the guise of exposing the truth.
It is well worth reading Yemini’s entire expose.
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