ISRAELI COURT SAYS IT'S FINE FOR GOVERNMENT TO HARM RESIDENTS OF GAZA STRIP

HAARETZ, ISRAEL - The High Court of Justice ruled that Israel's reduction of power and fuel to the Gaza Strip is legal as the remaining supplies still meet the humanitarian needs of the population. A three-justice panel, headed by Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch, rejected the petitions submitted by the human rights organizations Gisha and Adalah.

The Gaza Strip is controled by a murderous terror organization, which works tirelessly to harm Israel and its citizens, and breaks every possible rule of international justice in its violent actions against men, women and children," Justice Beinisch wrote. Beinisch wrote that in war, civilians were the first to suffer.

However in the actions against Israel, civilians were the intended target. The High Court of Justice said Israel was not required to transfer unlimited supplies of goods and fuel, but only to fulfill its obligations by international law. . .

The human rights groups Gisha and Adalah called the ruling a "dangerous legal precedent."

RICHARD SILVERSTEIN, TIKUN OLAM - 'In war civilians are the first to suffer.' This statement is somehow meant to excuse the suffering inflicted by the Gaza siege. Then Beinisch claims that the Qassam attacks are deliberate targeting of Israeli civilians which somehow justifies Israel inflicting suffering which deliberately targets Gaza civilians. Remember Martin Luther King's remarkable phrase: "If we live by an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth then we all end up blind and toothless." This is the logic of this decision."

Of course the argument that Israel has no obligation to provide sufficient fuel and electricity for Gaza because it no longer controls Gaza is utterly bankrupt. Israel, in fact, controls Gaza in effect through a practically air tight siege. Nothing goes in or comes out unless the IDF approves. This constitutes "effective control" whether Beinisch acknowledges it or not. . .

It reminds me a bit of Roger Taney's decision in the Dred Scott case in which he found that a slave was property and not entitled to any legal protections under the Constitution.