Aharon Barak: National security is no excuse for rights abuses

The former president of the Supreme Court, Aharon Barak, who was mentioned on a number of occasions as likely to head a committee investigating the army's conduct during Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip last year, said yesterday that "the security of the state does not constitute carte blanche for harming the rights of the individual."

Barak said: "The supreme test of judges is on issues of terrorism and in times of war, and their responsibility is greater in these issues. They set the norms that also have implications during peacetime."

Barak was giving a lecture before some 80 diplomats as part of a conference organized by the Knesset on the subject of democracies and terrorism.

Ireland and Turkey refused to be represented at the conference.

"The security of the state does not constitute carte blanche for harming the rights of individuals, just as human rights cannot justify in every instance undermining security. No balance will be achieved if security or human rights enjoys absolute protection," Barak said.

He added that "a democracy at times gives up additional security in order to gain additional individual rights. During my 28 years at the Supreme Court, I sought to establish a basis of norms that would grant both liberty and security, and my North Star was the values of Jewish morality."

Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin told the diplomats that according to the standards of Richard Goldstone, the head of the United Nations commission that investigated the Israel Defense Forces operation in Gaza, Winston Churchill should have been tried as a war criminal, as should have the U.S. and British military commanders whose armies killed thousands in Iraq.

"Meanwhile, Israel alone pays the price of double standards that do not distinguish between victim and aggressor, between terrorism and self-defense. However, if this trend does not change, the ones who will follow will also be the British and U.S. military officers and those in the rest of the free world," Rivlin said.

'Exaggerated claim'

Deputy State Attorney Shai Nitzan said at the conference that "the claim of the Goldstone report that the fact that there were civilian casualties during the military operation makes it a war crime, is an exaggerated one."

Defending Israel's refusal to set up an external committee to investigate the operation, Nitzan said that "these are not criminals but soldiers, and they are bound by the laws on war. Israel operates in line with international law. The operations are undertaken with great caution and instructions are issued by the military advocate general and the attorney general in line with international law."

"The principle of proportionality allows a military operation whose benefit outweighs the harm to civilians," Nitzan continued. "Such harm is not a war crime and it should not be investigated as it is not banned as long as the expected military effectiveness is greater than the risk of harming civilians."

Asserting that the IDF and its officers are well-versed in what international law says on war, he charged that "Hamas and Islamic Jihad seek to operate from within mosques and population centers. The Goldstone report ignored this fact nearly completely."