MOSCOW, August 6 (RIA Novosti) - As the conflict in Gaza surges on causing international trepidation, Lawrence Davidson, a history professor at West Chester University in Pennsylvania, said he blamed Israel and the United States for faults in the practice of international law enforcement.
“The most blatant contemporary example of this disregard for international law as it pertains to human rights can be seen in the actions of Israel. The Zionist state’s present blitzkrieg in Gaza may be the worst of that nation’s ongoing series of violations of International humanitarian law,” Davidson wrote in his an op-ed for Consortium News.
“It is not an exaggeration to say that Israel’s acclaimed ‘Defense Forces’ have become experts in violating human rights: murder and ethnic cleansing, illegal confiscation of occupied land, destruction of civilian housing, destruction of civilian infrastructure (water, electricity, sanitation, etc.), attacking of medical facilities, torture both of adults and children, the use of banned weaponry, the mistreatment of prisoners and more. And they have done it all quite openly,” Davidson wrote, highlighting Israel’s skill in continuously using the system of international law to its benefit.
Despite a steady stream of complaints regarding Israeli behavior brought before the United Nations several times a year, no changes or punishment has been issued, since the United States always vetoes the resolution, Davidson wrote.
According to Davidson, this relationship between the United States and Israel is not only toxic to Israel and its people, but to international law as a whole.
Davidson pinpointed the reason for the relationship between the U.S. and Israel to be the inflated role of special interests, or lobbies, in their governing structures.
At the moment, the manipulation of democratic states by lobbies allows any organization with sufficient resources to legally do as they please. Davidson explained, “If you are a great power or the close ally of one, you can pretty much do what you want, where you want.”
