White (phosphorous) lies

Last week an article in the Times of London reported that Israel was using white phosphorous shells. It was a charge that was echoed by Samir Kuntar’s BFF, Dion Nissenbaum, who questions the Israeli spokeswoman.

Yaacov Lozowick had some doubts about the Israeli military claimed, but noticed that someone did a little research. The photographic evidence, well, showed that Israel’s use of white phosphorous was, indeed, legal. Confederate Yankee looked at the marking on the shell casings and did a little research.

The full article goes into far more detail about the nuance about the difference between the use of “quick smoke” and “immediate smoke” for battlefield missions, but one thing is painfully obvious–these are artillery shells and they contain white phosphorus, but they are not incendiary weapons, and they are not, by any remote measure, illegal to use in Gaza or anywhere else. They are smoke shells, used to create smoke screens.

The kind of white phosphorus artillery shells used as incendiary munitions are those called burster-type white phosphorus, and Global Security explains the difference between the incendiary and smoke rounds in sufficient detail .

The airburst Cernig and other terrorist apologists laments as an illegal attack is instead how a smokescreen is created to protect advancing soldiers. It is decidedly not an incendiary weapon, is decidedly not illegal, violating no laws or conventions.

J. G. Thayer, at Contentions confirms this, writing about white phosphorous:

In Gaza, Israel is primarily using it for the latter — to conceal its ground troops and allow them to get close enough to the enemy to engage them before they can find more civilians to hide behind. White phosphorus can be a very dangerous substance. It burns on contact and can cause fires if it lands on something suitably flammable.

But it’s rarely used as an incendiary weapon. The reason is that there are other substances that do the same job, far more efficiently. Thermite burns even hotter, and is used to destroy metal. Napalm works better on “softer” targets, as it is more flexible (it can be sprayed easily) and tends to cling to whatever it touches.

Critics are also fond of calling white phosphorus a “chemical weapon.” This is also nonsensical. The specific laws and treaties governing chemical weapons are very specific on definitions: a chemical weapon is one that causes harm by a chemical process other than combustion. The mere fact that a substance is toxic doesn’t make it a chemical weapon; in sufficient qualities, a lot of things are poisonous. Indeed, lead itself is a toxic metal, but no one wants to call a bullet a chemical weapon.

I recently participated in a bloggers poll for National Journal. One of the questions was whether Israel used too much, too little or just enough force in fighting back against Hamas. Among the “right-leaning” bloggers there was a consensus that Israel was using too little force or just enough. In contrast all of the “left leaning” bloggers agreed that Israel was using too much force. I have a feeling that what bothered them was that Israel was fighting back at all. So they would all say the Israeli response was a war crime. One of them, though, actually brought up the white phosphorous. It looks like the white phosphorous charge is a post facto justification of a position Israel’s critics already have. In other words, they believe that Israel’s response is unjustified in any case, and Israel is using white phosphorous – either to illuminate the battlefield or as an obscurant – therefore Israel is committing war crime.

Marc Garlasco a “military expert” at Human Rights Watch has now weighed in. Back in 2006 Garlasco claimed that Israel had committed a war crime when a shell exploded on a Gaza beach killing a family. Israel proved that the shell was not fired by its army, and Garlasco persisted in his charge, demonstrating that he was no “expert” as much as an anti-Israel activist. According to Garlasco:

Israel appeared to be using white phosphorus as an “obscurant” (a chemical used to hide military operations), a permissible use in principle under international humanitarian law (the laws of war). However, white phosphorus has a significant, incidental, incendiary effect that can severely burn people and set structures, fields, and other civilian objects in the vicinity on fire. The potential for harm to civilians is magnified by Gaza’s high population density, among the highest in the world.

First of all it’s important to note that Garlasco considers Israel’s use of white phosphorous is “permissible in principle,” it’s just that he goes on to limit its use in this circumstance for consideration of possible collateral damage.

But this could be applied to any aspect of Israel’s response to Hamas terror. Basically, Garlasco’s making an argument that Israel should not respond to terror if the response will cause collateral damage. In doing so, Garlasco is denying one of the tenets of humanitarian law: that it is a war crime to place military assets in civilian areas and he is effectively telling Israel that it must not strike back at all. It’s an odd position to be taking for someone from an organization that claims to champion human rights. But then, HRW has shown that, for the most part, it is more interested in protecting terrorists than Israeli civilians. Or as Confederate Yankee put it:

Make no mistake–these apologists, Islamists and Leftists alike, are lying, pro-terror shills.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.