War & law

Lawfare and the IDF Lawyers

Willy Stern has a very interesting essay at the Weekly Standard about “Dabla,” the Israeli Defense Force’s elite operational lawyers.  The thrust of the story is that because these lawyers ensure that IDF soldiers stay far on the side of legality, and are especially cautious with regard to civilian casualties, it is perverse that a “powerful coalition of self-righteous journalists, pro-Palestinian NGOs, left-leaning academics, biased human rights organizations, and … the United Nations … routinely accuse[] the IDF of perpetrating war crimes.”