From: Hank Roth <odin@world.std.com>
Subject: Israel's War on Lebanon (II)
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: ?
Date: Sun, 20 Dec 1992 06:08:06 GMT

<<< via P_news/p.news >>>
{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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