Can Israel Claim Self-Defense Against the Territory It Occupies? Int’l Jurist John Dugard Says No | Democracy Now!

7.8.14

Can Israel Claim Self-Defense Against the Territory It Occupies? Int’l Jurist John Dugard Says No | Democracy Now!: With close to 1,900 dead from Israel’s month-long assault on Gaza, Human Rights Watch is calling on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to seek International Criminal Court jurisdiction over potential war crimes committed on and from Palestinian territory. HRW says both Israeli forces and Palestinian militants committed war crimes. We are joined by HRW Executive Director Kenneth Roth and John Dugard, former U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories and emeritus professor of international law at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. "Given the fact that Gaza is an occupied territory, it means that Israel’s present assault is simply a way of enforcing the continuation of the occupation," says Dugard, "and the response of the Palestinian militants should be seen as the response of an occupied people that wishes to resist the occupation."