From the beginnings of its now
decade-long “peace process” with the Palestinian Authority, Israel has
agreed to various intermittent terrorist releases. The rationale of
these actions is always the same; that is, that there will be a
Palestinian quid pro quo in the form of reduced Arab violence
against Israelis. Inevitably, however, this turns out not to be the case
and freed Palestinian terrorists proceed to join an expanding stream of
Arab murderers.
This article points out that Israel’s
freeing of terrorists – the latest expression of which is in alleged
compliance with the Quartet’s “Road Map” – is not only foolish, but also
illegal. Terrorism is a codified crime under international law. No
government has any legal right to free any terrorists as a so-called
“goodwill gesture”.
International law presumes
solidarity between states in the fight against all crime. Whenever an
individual state violates this solidarity – as is currently the case
with Israel and the Road Map – it implicates itself in a “denial of
justice”. This is true even where a particular terrorist release is
backed by the United Nations. All states, even when they are consciously
seeking peace, are subject to the persistently overriding claims of
“peremptory” norms – rules that usually derive from what is commonly
called “Higher Law” or the “Law of Nature”. The obligation to seek out
and punish terrorists is such a peremptory norm. Significantly, the
origins of this Higher Law lie in Ancient Israel.
