Use of Civilians as Human Shields: What Legal and Moral Restrictions Pertain to a War Waged by a Democratic State against Terrorism?
![handle is hein.journals/emint16 and id is 451 raw text is: USE OF CIVILIANS AS HUMAN SHIELDS: WHAT
LEGAL AND MORAL RESTRICTIONS PERTAIN TO
A WAR WAGED BY A DEMOCRATIC STATE
AGAINST TERRORISM?
Emanuel Gross*
INTRODUCTION
Terrorism is not only the use of violence against
innocent persons, it is also incitement, and when it is
employed continuously for lengthy periods of time, it
creates the atmosphere necessary to de-legitimize the
enemy, and then it paves the way to act violently
against it, indiscriminately.'
Since its establishment, the State of Israel has been
embroiled in a harsh war against terrorism. The
development of international terrorism has now led other
countries to face persistent terrorist threats. On September
11, 2001 one of these threats was carried out in brutal
magnitude in the United States. In Israel, the threat is
executed in daily terrorist operations involving the murder
of scores of civilians. Do these facts pave the way to act
violently against it [the enemy], indiscriminately?2 The
purpose of this Article is to present a negative answer to
this question on two levels: the legal statutory level and the
more complex moral level. These two dimensions are
always subject to the reality that the war against terrorism
is a war being waged by a democratic state and that the
democratic state, believing in law, pursues its war against
terrorism within the framework of that law. In so doing,
democratic states set themselves apart from the terrorists
* Professor of Law, Haifa University, Israel. Thanks are due to my research
assistant Karin Meridor, whose diligence and dedicated work enabled this Article, as
well as to Mr. Ranan Hartman of the Academic Center, Kiryat Ono, who assisted in
financing the Article.
R. Yisraeli, Islamikaze-Terror ha-Metavdim [Islamikaze-The Terror of
Suicide], NATIv - A JOURNAL OF POLITICS AND THE ARTS 69, 74 (1997).
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