Qana: Professor Kittrie’s cut

In his Wall Street Journal column yesterday, Arizona State University law school Professor Orde Félix Kittrie refutes the allegations that Israel has violated international law in Lebanon: “A war crime at Qana?” Professor Kittrie points out that by contrast, Hezbollah, Iran and Syria are clearly violating international law in this conflict. He concludes that, compared with how China, Russia, and the EU have dealt with non-existential threats, Israel’s responses to the threats to its existence have been remarkably restrained rather than disproportionately violent: “Israel’s conduct compares favorably to how its most powerful accusers have behaved when their own interests have been threatened.”