Condemning the Right to Self Defence: Iran’s Retaliation and Israel’s Privilege

There is a throbbing complaint among Western powers, including those in the European Union and the United States. Iran is not playing by the rules. Instead of accepting with dutiful meekness the slaughter of its military leadership and scientific personnel, Tehran decided, promptly, to respond to Israel’s pre-emptive strikes launched on June 13. Instead of considering the dubious legal implications of such strikes, an act of undeclared war, the focus in the European Union and various other backers of Israel has been to focus on the retaliation itself.

To the Israeli attacks conducted as part of Operation Rising Lion, there was studied silence. It was not a silence observed when it came to the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 by Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Then, the law books were swiftly procured, and obligations of the United Nations Charter cited under Article 2(4): “All members shall refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity of any state.” Russia was condemned for adopting a preventive stance on Ukraine as a threat to its security: that, in Kyiv joining NATO, a formidable threat would manifest at the border.

In his statement on the unfolding conflict between Israel and Iran, France’s President Emmanuel Macron made sure to condemn “Iran’s ongoing nuclear program,” having taken “all appropriate diplomatic measures in response.” Israel also had the “right to defend itself and ensure its security,” leaving open the suggestion that it might have been justified resorting to Article 51 of the UN Charter. All he could offer was a call on “all parties to exercise maximum restraint and to de-escalate.”

In a most piquant response, Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories stated that, “On the day Israel, unprovoked, has attacked Iran, killing 80 people, the president of a major European power, finally admits that in the Middle East, Israel, and only Israel, has the right to defend itself.”

The German Foreign Office was even bolder in accusing Iran of having engaged in its own selfish measures of self-defence (such unwarranted bravado!), something it has always been happy to afford Israel. “We strongly condemn the indiscriminate Iranian attack on Israeli territory.” In contrast, the foreign office also felt it appropriate to reference the illegal attack on Iran as involving “targeted strikes” against its nuclear facilities. Despite Israel having an undeclared nuclear weapons stockpile that permanently endangers security in the region, the office went on to chastise Iran for having a nuclear program that violated “the Non-Proliferation Treaty,” threatening in its nature “to the entire region – especially Israel.” Those at fault had been found out.

The President of the EU Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, could hardly improve on that apologia. She revealed that she had been conversing with Israeli President Isaac Herzog about the “escalating situation in the Middle East.” She also knew her priorities: reiterating Israel’s right to self-defence and refusing to mention Iran’s, while tagging on the statement a broader concern for preserving regional stability. The rest involved a reference to diplomacy and de-escalation, toward which Israel has shown a resolute contempt with regards Iran and its nuclear program.

The assessment offered by Mohamed ElBaradei, former Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), was forensically impressive, as well as being icily dismissive. Not only did he reproach the German response for ignoring the importance of Article 2(4) of the Charter prohibiting the use of force subject to the right to self-defence, he brought up a reminder: targeted strikes against the nuclear facilities of any party “are prohibited under Article 56 of the additional protocol of the Geneva Conventions to which Germany is a party.”

ElBaradei also referred anyone exercised by such matters to the United Nations Security Council 487 (1981), which did not have a single demur in its adoption. It unreservedly condemned the attack by Israel on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear research reactor in June that year as a violation of the UN Charter, recognised that Iraq was a party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and had permitted the IAEA inspections of the facility, stated that Iraq had a right to establish and develop civilian nuclear programs and called on Israel to place its own nuclear facilities under the jurisdictional safeguards of the IAEA.

The calculus regarding the use of force by Israel vis-à-vis its adversaries has long been a sneaky one. It is jigged and rigged in favour of the Jewish state. As Trita Parsi put it with unblemished accuracy, Western pundits had, for a year and a half, stated that Hamas, having started the Gaza War on October 7, 2023 bore responsibility for civilian carnage. “Western pundits for the past 1.5 days: Israel started the war with Iran, and if Iran retaliates, they bear responsibility for civilian deaths.” The perceived barbarian, when attacked by a force seen as superior and civilised, will always be condemned for having reacted most naturally, and most violently of all.

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