Personally I'd be much more hard line than this. E.g. I'd cut off aid to Gaza unless the rocket attacks stop and Hamas signs a peace treaty with Israel. However I have no problem with the UK selling or buying arms from Israel as a fellow democracy. If they use those arms to kill terrorists and don't kill too many civilians I'd say they're exercising their right to self defence.
Still the government has a policy and in the UK Cabinet Ministers are bound by the principle of collective responsibility - i.e. once the cabinet has voted on something and it becomes government policy they must support not criticize it publicly unless they resign afterwards
Cabinet collective responsibility is constitutional convention in governments using the Westminster System that members of the Cabinet must publicly support all governmental decisions made in Cabinet, even if they do not privately agree with them. This support includes voting for the government in the legislature. Some Communist political parties apply a similar convention of democratic centralism to their central committee.
Cabinet collective responsibility is related to the fact that, if a vote of no confidence is passed in parliament, the government is responsible collectively, and thus the entire government resigns. The consequence will be that a new government will be formed, or parliament will dissolve and a general election will be called. Cabinet collective responsibility is not the same as individual ministerial responsibility, which states that ministers are responsible and therefore culpable for the running of their departments.
In the United Kingdom, the doctrine applies to all members of the government, from members of the cabinet down to Parliamentary Private Secretaries. Its inner workings are set out in the Ministerial Code. On occasion, this principle has been suspended; most notably in the 1930s when in Britain the National Government allowed its Liberal members to oppose the introduction of protective tariffs; and again when Harold Wilson allowed Cabinet members to campaign both for and against the 1975 referendum on whether the UK should remain in the European Economic Community. In 2003, Tony Blair allowed Clare Short to stay in the cabinet, despite her public opposition to the 2003 Iraq War. However, she later resigned.
In the context of war, perfidy is a form of deception in which one side promises to act in good faith (e.g., by raising a flag of surrender) with the intention of breaking that promise once the enemy has exposed themselves (e.g., by coming out of cover to capture or kill the enemy). Perfidy constitutes a breach of the laws of war and therefore making it a war crime as it degrades the protections and mutual restraints developed in the interest of all parties, combatants, and civilians. In practice, combatants find it difficult to respect protected persons and objects if experience causes them to believe or suspect that their adversaries are abusing claim to protection under international law to gain a military advantage.
Perfidy is specifically prohibited under the 1977 Protocol I Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, which states:
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Protocol I of the Geneva Convention
Article 37. – Prohibition of perfidy
It is prohibited to kill, injure or capture an adversary by resort to perfidy. Acts inviting the confidence of an adversary to lead him to believe that he is entitled to, or is obliged to accord, protection under the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, with intent to betray that confidence, shall constitute perfidy. The following acts are examples of perfidy:
(a) The feigning of an intent to negotiate under a flag of truce or of a surrender;
(b) The feigning of an incapacitation by wounds or sickness;
(c) The feigning of civilian, non-combatant status; and
Whenever you fight Islamist terrorists like Hamas they always store weapons in civilian buildings. When Israel targets them people claim it is a war crime.
But so what? International law is meaningless because there is no international police. Only completely defeated states like Nazi Germany will find their leaders tried for violations of it. And if Israel was completely defeated war crimes trials would be the least of their problems - Hamas are committed to wiping out both Israel and its population.
I.e. the reason that more civilians get killed on the Hamas side is because Hamas uses them as human shields.
International law is just something Hamas hides behind when it suits them and ignores when it doesn't. E.g. forcing Palestinians to be human shields, firing completely unguided Grad missiles at areas full of civilians or suicide bombing civilian targets. Given all that, no I'm not going to condemn Israel for trying to stop them.
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u/RabidRaccoon Aug 05 '14
Sounds like she turned out not to be a team player to me.