Occupation, Terror and the Geneva Conventions
Is it legitimate to compare the violence of occupation with the violence of attacks on civilians? The argument, made by Israeli activists like Jeff Halper, still divides opinion sharply.
In the middle of the second intifada, as suicide bombings and Israeli military operations claimed lives on both sides, the Israeli activist Jeff Halper set out an argument that his critics would never forgive. If Palestinians are forbidden to use terrorism, he wrote, then Israel is equally forbidden to use the forms of coercion built into occupation. He counted two in particular: systematic violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention and the everyday force needed to keep millions of people under military rule.
The argument
Halper, the founder of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, did not defend attacks on civilians. His point was about consistency. International humanitarian law, he argued, binds states as well as armed groups. Settlement building in occupied territory, collective punishment, house demolitions and the confiscation of land are prohibited under the Geneva Conventions. To condemn one side's violations while treating the other's as security policy was, in his view, a double standard that made peace less likely.
The objections
Critics, including organisations that monitor NGOs and many Israeli commentators, called the argument a false or "immoral" equivalence. They made three main points:
- Intent matters. Deliberately targeting civilians is categorically different from actions that harm civilians in the course of security operations.
- Context matters. Israel's measures, they argued, were responses to terrorism, not causes of it.
- Legal disputes. Israel has long contested the application of the Fourth Geneva Convention to the West Bank. Most governments, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the International Court of Justice take the opposite view.
Why the debate persists
The argument over equivalence has only intensified since the 2000s. International courts have been asked to rule on the conduct of both Israel and Palestinian armed groups. Human rights organisations increasingly apply the same legal standards to all parties.
Two positions can both be held. Deliberate attacks on civilians are crimes, whoever commits them. And the laws of occupation are binding obligations, not optional ideals. Halper's contribution was to insist on the second point at a moment when public debate focused almost entirely on the first.