DFM Ayalon: Lawfare Is The Fourth Front

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Written by Samuel Sokol

Wednesday, 13 January 2010 19:00

In a speech entitled "Challenges for Israeli Foreign Policy" at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon asserted that the Arab-Israeli conflict has entered into its fourth phase, that of a political and legal campaign to delegitimize Israel, known colloquially as lawfare. Lawfare includes such tactics as boycotts and sanctions as well as legal actions meant to erode the international standing and legitimacy of Israel.

Ayalon blamed such attacks, which he believes emanate from the Palestinian Authority, as "directly damage[ing] our relations with the Palestinians and any possibility of a smooth and viable political process." Speaking before assembled diplomats and the foreign press corps, he said that Israel's foreign policy is under attack from both internal and external forces. "There were different tactics that were used by our enemies... in order to get rid of us," Ayalon explained. Elaborating, he detailed four distinct phases through which he believes the conflict has passed. The first phase, military aggression, is exemplified by the full scale wars leading up to the 1973 Yom Kippur invasion of Israel. The Arabs could not take on the IDF militarily so they next tried to take Israel on economically, he continued, detailing the boycott efforts of the 1970s. The third phase of the conflict was terrorism, which Israel still experiences. Ayalon said that Israel has "found some good defense measures" and that in the future Israel should be more concerned about "long-term incoming ballistic missiles" from Lebanon and Gaza. According to the DFM, deterrence is the solution to this problem.

However, Ayalon did not explain how attacks against Israeli civilians in the aftermath of the removal of roadblocks do not constitute a continuation of traditional terrorism. In the end of 2009, two suicide bombers were apprehended traveling from the Palestinian Authority to carry out attacks in Ashkelon and Jerusalem.

When asked by the Five Towns Jewish Times if Israel intends to take steps to limit European intervention in its internal political discourse through the funding of indigenous radical NGOs, Ayalon enigmatically responded, "We are working on it."

Israel's latest challenge is lawfare, he said, where the trenches "are in Geneva in the Council of Human Rights, or in New York in the General Assembly, or in the Security Council, or in the Hague, the ICJ [International Court of Justice]." The recent difficulties that Israeli soldiers and officials have encountered in the United Kingdom are examples of the new type of warfare. The UK's universal jurisdiction law gives local courts the power to try foreign nationals and leaders for crimes against humanity committed outside of Britain's borders. Private individuals have brought suit against members of Israeli delegations.

The Times Online reported that Diya al-Din Madhoun, a Hamas apparatchik, has taken responsibility for much of this new activity with the statement that "this has absolutely become our policy."

An arrest warrant was issued in December against opposition leader and former foreign minister Tzippi Livni which she described as "an abuse of the British legal system." Foreign Office Minister Ivan Lewis has said that the British government will work to amend the laws applicable in the Livni case.

An IDF delegation recently cancelled a planned trip to meet with top British military officials after they were informed that they could not be guaranteed that arrest warrants would not be issued against them.

Baroness Patricia Scotland, the British Attorney General, expressed disgust at the practice of using British courts to attack Israelis and stated in a speech at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem that she would attempt to reform the law, making an emendation that she be given approval over the issuance of warrants against people suspected of crimes against humanity. British premier Gordon Brown has also condemned these legal attacks.

Ayalon said that he believes that Britain "understand[s] the severity, the scope of the problem, because it is not just directed against Israel, it's directed against any and all democracies which defend themselves against terrorism" and that Israel is in "very intense talks with our friends in London."

Calls for a boycott of Israel have increased in recent years, as part of what the Israel-based NGO Monitor organization terms the Durban Strategy. The strategy is named after the controversial 2001 Durban Conference on Racism and its 2009 review conference, termed a "racist hate fest against the Jewish people and the Jewish state" by Alan Deshowitz. The DFM advanced the idea of providing economic assistance to poorer nations as a way of gaining support in international bodies such as the United Nations.

Samuel Sokol can be reached at samuelsokol5tjt@gmail.com and can be followed online at twitter.com/samuelsokol and at torahfromzion.blogspot.com.