Economic sanctions – such as those imposed against Iran, Libya, North Korea, apartheid South Africa (not to mention the JFK imposed embargo during the Cuban missile crisis) – have long been recognized as legitimate means, short of all out war, to pressure governments to change odious behavior.
All but the blind and dedicated Israel haters can see that it is Hamas, by its indiscriminate shelling of civilians in southern Israel, that has engaged in crimes against humanity, and is directly responsible for the suffering of its constituents in Gaza.
Arbour deserves credit on at least one front: she is nothing if not consistent. During the 2006 war in Lebanon, while minimizing Israeli suffering from the shelling into the north by Hizbullah (more than 40 civilians killed, over 1200 injured and hundreds of thousands forced to relocate), she actually threatened war crimes prosecutions of Israeli political and military leaders for actions which, as any objective observer understood, were taken to protect civilians from missiles intentionally aimed at them from sites purposely embedded in Lebanese civilian areas.
Hizbullah’s campaign of indiscriminate missile attacks – like those of the Nazi V rockets assaults that wreaked havoc on London and Brussels – have no military value whatsoever. They had one purpose and one purpose only: to terrorize the innocent. Israel had every right under international law to defend its citizens and knock out the missile sites. Somehow, the former judge and war crimes prosecutor managed to miss these inconvenient truths.
The nauseatingly predictable knee jerk reactions from Arbour and the “human rights” community make clear that, when it comes to Israel, hypocrisy rules the day at the UN.