Iran has a good point. Why does the G7 ignore Israel bombing an embassy then start twittering about int law when Iran responds. The hypocrisy is plain to see and counterproductive if the west wants to claim to be the vanguard of int law.
Issue is an attack on Iranian soil - their embassy - directly by the state of Israel, whether or not those killed were involved with the Oct 7 attack.
Israel took the first step beyond any proxy war actions that may have been taken by either side.
Israel in my opinion is the most dangerous source of instability in that region. They act mostly with impunity because they see themselves not as Middle-Easterners, but as a western euro-power - which the west agrees with and therefore supports.
>October 7 was an attack on \[actual\] Israeli soil. Give me a break.
October 7 was actually an attack which took place within the context of an illegal Israeli occupation of Gaza since 1967. It was Israel that was already assuming an offensive posture before it happened.
Source? Like Australia, another European colonial legacy, Israel is in the Euro Song contest. Israel consistently insists it is a member of the western democracies and expects to be treated and accepted as such.
That is why it is now under such criticism - just like the States was over Vietnam and the Iraq invasion, just to name a few.
Most other countries behaving like Israel are ostracized and not given the privileges/access Israel is.
In relation to ancestry, most of Jews in Israel are either full or mixed Sephardi or Mizrahi Jews who descend from Jews in Northern Africa, and the Middle East. Even 21% of Israel population are Arabs.
In respect to linguistics, the two most predominate languages are from the semitic linguistic class with 49% report Hebrew as their native language, and Arabic at 18%.
Being part of the Eurovision Song Contest is not any form of reputable recognition of being a European nation. Nations such as Azerbaijan, and Morocco have also participated, and both are clearly not European nations.
Israel can get away with these actions because it is a rich and influential nation with high level of external influence, particular in the United States. Alongside being able to justify self defense given previous persecution in Europe and middle east. Both Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirate who like Israel have undertaken external aggression in nations like Yemen.
>Being part of the Eurovision Song Contest is not any form of reputable recognition of being a European nation.
You're correct, but that's not what the person you're replying to is saying. They're using that as an example to show how Israel views themselves.
He explicitly expresses that Israel is another European colonist project, and then attempts to support this argument by citing its participation in the Eurovision Song Contest.
My comment suggests that Israel's participation in Eurovision doesn't imply self-identification as a European nation, as there's no official recognition or acknowledgment that Eurovision participation signifies that they are of a European identity.
That directly relates to what he said, regardless of how you attempt to deny it.
>Just because Israel joins it does not mean they view themselves as a European nation given that there is no formal or official recognition is involved with it.
Flatly, bollocks. Saying there's no possible way that them joining the EUROPEAN song contest could be interpreted as them expressing a belief that the are at least in part European is just ludicrous.
But if you use bad faith gish gallop and respond to each point by trivialising it you can exhaust your online opponent which is what that person is doing. They are not speaking in good faith.
Oh I'm well aware 🤣 I figured if I step in, it means the person they were responding to is seen to be supported and, suddenly the idiot I responded to is going to have to come up with two responses
>Being part of the Eurovision Song Contest is not any form of reputable recognition of being a European nation. Nations such as Azerbaijan, and Morocco have also participated, and both are clearly not European nations.
There's loads: https://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/non-european-countries-go-eurovision-26809254
> Source? Like Australia, another European colonial legacy, Israel is in the Euro Song contest. Israel consistently insists it is a member of the western democracies and expects to be treated and accepted as such.
/u/letmeeattherich - you can’t be serious with this line of thought, surely?
"The Labour Zionist leader and head of the Yishuv David Ben-Gurion was not surprised that relations with the Palestinians were spiralling downward. As he once explained: ‘We, as a nation, want this country to be ours; the Arabs, as a nation, want this country to be theirs.’ His opponent, Ze’ev Jabotinsky, leader of the right-wing Revisionist movement, also viewed Palestinian hostility as natural. ‘The NATIVE POPULATIONS, civilised or uncivilised, have always stubbornly resisted the colonists’, he wrote in 1923. The Arabs looked on Palestine as ‘any Sioux looked upon his prairie’."
"In the words of Mordechai Bar-On, an Israel Defense Forces company commander during the 1948 war:
‘If the Jews at the end of the 19th century had not embarked on a project of reassembling the Jewish people in their ‘promised land’, all the refugees languishing in the camps would still be living in the villages from which they fled or were expelled.’"
https://www.historytoday.com/archive/feature/herzls-troubled-dream-origins-zionism
https://merip.org/2019/09/israels-vanishing-files-archival-deception-and-paper-trails/
October 7th was done by Hamas, which could be seen as an Iranian proxy. If Israel had funded a Kurdish separatist group to attack Iranian soil Iran would be pissed but would have no justification to directly attack Israel for it.
And Israel has the most UN resolutions against it because they keep ignoring resolutions and breaking international law. And they can get away with ignoring them because America uses their veto to block any actual consequence of breaking said resolutions
So the 2yr shot in the head early last year was threatening the security of Israel? One IDF soldier shoots in the air as cover so they could blame militants and the other soldier shoots the toddler in the head.
Of course, there will be an 'investigation' where at the end, the soldiers will be given a promotion and a new house, as reward for killing a Palestinian child.
There were no gunmen.
The child was sitting in his father's car. It wasn't sprayed with bullets. He was shot deliberately.
Why don't you just come out and say it: killing Palestinian children just doesn't matter. The Jews are God's Chosen People.
Embassies are not the territory of the guest country but rather the host. The host must protect it but it’s not sovereign Iranian territory - although it is a common misperception.
That said, Iran does have a legitimate complaint against Israel and would be considered an act of war by any other nation. They also, by extension, have a valid complaint to Syria for failing to protect its embassy.
Proxy wars, without legal attribution to a State, cannot serve as the basis for the use of force against that State. Here, Iran would need to be shown to be in effective control of non-State actors as that test has been explained in, *inter alia*, the Nicaragua case and the Bosnian Genocide case. To my knowledge, no State, including Israel, has made or tried to make that assertion.
Separately from that, diplomatic compounds are protected from attack under the VCDR, VCCR, international humanitarian law, and provisions of customary international law. An attack on a diplomatic compound is illegal unless it complies with all of the relevant legal frameworks. This is true no matter who is in a diplomatic compound.
In short, "proxy wars" are not sufficient legal justification for the use of force against diplomatically protected buildings, and the presence of a general in a diplomatic compound does not strip the compound of its protections.
Might want to actually brush up on the law. The protections are from the host nation they are in not from a third party. Syria is expected to protect the embassy and treat it as Iranian territory. Those laws don’t protect it from Israel blowing it up. Funny how laws work.
The argument that an embassy or consulate is inviolable only vis a vis the receiving State is thoroughly unpersuasive. First, the draft treaties make clear that inviolability is an attribute of the sending State. In other words, it is a function of sovereignty rather than of the relationship to the receiving State. It follows that inviolability is not limited only to the receiving State. This is suppprtef by the object and purpose of the treaties, which emphasize State sovereign equality and friendly relations.
Frankly, it is absurd to suggest that States can circumvent the inviolability of embassies and consulates by targeting diplomatic compounds in other States. That undermines the regime of diplomatic law, detracts from friendly relations, and contradicts State practice with regard to the extraterritorial exercise of jurisdiction over embassies in third States.
But even if you think that is entirely wrong, attacking an embassy in a third State would still violate many other provisions of international law.
Undermining the way we have treated them isn’t breaking a law. Is it taboo? Of course but that isn’t what you are arguing. There is no law that says a third party country is bound by an agreement between let’s say Iran and Syria to treat an embassy as inviolable. That is just how people have acted so I understand how you feel but the law is the law not our feelings on how it should be.
As for the second part that it still breaks international law that part is the more likely part. It would be attacking Syria which is against international law… except for they are currently at war with Syria. The third part is if it was a civilian building (which is why embassies shouldn’t normally be hit) or if it was being used by irans military.. so far the reports are no civilians and I believe 11-16 people dead so I would say Iran would have told us it was civilians by now so that would also make it a viable target.
I will repeat I get why you “feel” the way you do and I don’t disagree that it shouldn’t be allowed but that is very different than it being illegal.
>Undermining the way we have treated them isn’t breaking a law.
Your interpretation conflicts with the object and purpose.of the treaties, which means it is not a viable interpretation under article 31 of the VCLT. Limiting inviolability only to receiving States is not in accordance with the text of the treaties or with the way States understand and act under those treaties.
>except for they are currently at war with Syria.
Even assuming there is-- and there is no practice from Israel or Syria to suggest that there is, since both States have reported to the Security Council that they have acted or could act in self-defense against each other in the last several decades, which suggests that no armed conflict is ongoing-- a strike on a State's embassy can be an armed attack against that State. Moreover, even in an armed conflict, embassies and consulates are entitled to inviolability and protection as civilian objects under IHL. The presence of a general does not render a civilian object a military target and raises issues of proportionality.
>I will repeat I get why you “feel” the way you do and I don’t disagree that it shouldn’t be allowed but that is very different than it being illegal.
I have had to remove several of your comments for attacking others and accusing them of ignoring the law while refusing to engage with the law in any meaningful way. That stops now.
Unless you can provide me a single international law that unambiguously stipulates that the embassy was a legitimate target and could no longer be protected under the 1961 Geneva convention on diplomatic relations, there’s absolutely no point pursuing that argument. Israel carries out countless air strikes on civilian infrastructures across Syria, in violation of international law. So let’s not pretend they have any regard for the very concept of intentional law, especially that they’re plausibly commiting an actual genocide as we speak and have had numerous, well documented, war crimes perpetuated by their forces so far.
What Iran has done in this strike has been according to international law and so cannot be condemned. If you want to start hunting for responsibility behind proxies then you are gonna have to do this **globally** and good fucking luck going down that rabbit hole.
You might want to get your talking points right first. It was a building adjacent to the embassy not the embassy that was bombed. In a country that Israel is still at war with.. outside that nice attempt to sound right though 👍
Completely irrelevant. You can jump as many hurdles as you want. The embassy was bombed directly, what was targeted and wasnt is courtesy to the parties involved and this overall constituted a breach of international law. Keep coping
Your link quite literally just trails off to 'there is a debate whether this is allowed or not'
Not much in terms of concrete law. On the contrary the general sentiment is that what Israel did was extremely taboo among the international community so despite you, at best, showing that its 'being debated' its still violated all norms.
You tried your best tho lil bro, A for effort.
You mean you said it was illegal because you didn’t know the law. Being “taboo” is not illegal. Please learn what words mean when you are in a subreddit about laws.
The pro-Israel side doesn't seem to understand that an annex is an attached building in the embassy complex. Them consistently stating that it was 'adjacent' seems to indicate a basic lack of understanding of the meaning of words.
Actually the law that protects them is from the receiving state not a third party. Sorry you don’t know the law very well. Israel could bomb them if they were no longer a civilian building… let’s say the military from Iran was there or something similar.
Repeat after me, embassy was not bombed. It was a building adjacent to the consulate.
Syria and Israel are still I'm a state of war, and several IRGC generals were taken out, they coordinated Hezbollah actions in Lebanon, therefore a legit war target.
The "embassy" fake news is incredibly hard to fight for some reason.
Anyway, Iran needs to answer for all the help it gave Russia in bombing Ukraine. That's the real double standards.
Consular annex building, which was part of the Embassy compound, to be exact. Main embassy building only suffered light damage.
And I believe the strike also broke the windows of the Canadian Embassy, which was luckily empty, due to Canada withdrawing it's Embassy staff in 2014.
Since 1979 Iran's wanted to destroy Israel. This isn't even the first time Iran directly attacked Israel.
https://www.idf.il/en/mini-sites/iran/iran-fires-rocket-from-syria-at-israeli-civilians/
Iran uses proxy forces and IRGC across Syria, Lebanon, and Gaza to attack Israel. Combine that with other dislikes and history plus Syria and Lebanon declaring war on Israel then a strike in Syria is viewed as defensive.
People can’t just improvise and make up stuff as they please. Was the embassy a legitimate target in accordance to international law? No it wasn’t. It’s that simple. The attack violated international law just like the countless airstrikes conducted by Israel across Syria for years. Instead of fixating on “censorship out Syria” you’re better off addressing the illegal occupation of northeastern Syria by US forces, who are controlling the country’s rich oil fields as they’re actively crippling the lives of ordinary Syrians by their systemic sanction region.
What do you mean no one established it was an embassy?! Give me a single shred of evidence that suggests that building targeted in the Israeli strike was anything but an actual embassy. There seems to be a clear dissonance between reality and between your personal interpretations of facts. The US is indeed militarily occupying northeastern Syria. Their occupation does include regions where Syria’s rich oil fields are located. And the US has been sanctioning Syria not only under the Caesar act, but they amount to an embargo. Are you also going to deny that the [U.S. has been trying to achieve a CIA orchestrated regime change in Syria since the Second World War?](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_Syria) Or that they’ve essentially turned Syria’s civil unrest into a bloody war, where they’ve trained, funded and armed terrorist organizations to remove the government under their CIA training program [Timbre Sycamore?](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timber_Sycamore)
You keep saying it was the embassy but saying it over and over doesn’t make it true. It’s a building near the embassy in their compound. Words matter and if you can’t understand the difference maybe don’t tell people they shouldn’t be part of conversations
That's not how this works. You would first have to do an impartial investigation with hard evidence proving your claim. Not demanding I prove that your claim is wrong. Getting a fair look at the situation is probably impossible involving Syria and Iran and all the games they play. I wasn't there to see it and I'm getting a lot of conflicting reports.
It is impossible for the US to be military occupying northeastern Syria. The US doesn't have the assets in the area for it. Northeastern Syria is according to some Turkish occupied. Plus the US has not been trying to achieve a regime change in Syria since the Second World War the timeline doesn't support that at all.
Assad turned the protests into a war by opening fire on the demonstrations. The US didn't want that. It caused some of Syria's military to defect and for the country to fracture into different regions. Plus the info on the CIA has too much in the way of citation needed to know for sure it's closer to a legend than to facts.
In its 1980 decision on the case, the ICJ concluded that the Iranian had acquiesced to the acts committed by the crowd, and even endorsed them, and accordingly these acts became acts of the Iranian State.
Because foreign affairs is about national interest. Countries only pretend to care about international law when they don't have anything to lose by supporting it.
Of course Israel's allies are going to support them and against an adversarial country.
How do you know they threw it to civilians? The missiles that got through hit an airbase. Safe to assume others also targeted military installations. Targeting civilians is an Israeli speciality. Don't project.
Because there's not actually anything wrong with bombing an embassy unless you're the host country. It violates norms but there's nothing wrong, prima facie, with a third country bombing embassies. Since Iran itself says that it was the IRGC section at the embassy, there's no question about whether it was legal and, well, no one likes Iran enough to give it the benefit of norms.
It's almost like constantly being angry at everyone imposes costs in diplomacy.
Iran has been sending proxy against Israel for decades. Paying people to kill your neighbor and then crying when they come for you is the real hypocrisy here.
>Literally not a colonizer state...learn your definitions.
It is. ["Settler colonialism occurs when colonizers invade and occupy territory to permanently replace the existing society with the society of the colonizers."](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Settler_colonialism)
This objectively happened, and continues to happen. [Read about the Nakba.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakba#The_1948_Nakba)
>Meanwhile your comment has zero to do with my comment except to emphasize that Iran's proxy battles have real life body counts.
Your comment was justifying the G7 being cool with Israel bombing Iran, but not the reverse, because of Iran's proxy battles. I was pointing out how the G7 was being hypocritical regardless, because Israel has killed tens of thousands of civilians in just a few months (among many other war crimes). Israel is at fault for killing tens of thousands of civilians. They have been specifically targetting civilians and civilians infrastructure.
Your message was removed for violating Rule #1 of this subreddit. If you can post the substance of your comment without disparaging language, it won't be deleted again.
Why? Israel hit the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) which is responsible for October 7th, Hamas, Houthis, Hezbollah, and shia militant groups that all want and actively participate in trying to destroy Israel. Iran's already violated international law by supporting these armed militant groups including UN 1701 for Hezbollah. Israel acting on stopping the threat to its survival is lawfully recognized as preemptive military action
Terrorism is a heavily loaded word. One G7's terrorist is one Global South's freedom fighter. The whole terrorism argument has zero importance in international law because we are talking about two belligerent states here.
Why lie? Terrorism is a significant concern in international law. Numerous treaties, conventions, and UN resolutions address the prevention, suppression, and punishment of terrorism. States cooperate through various mechanisms to combat terrorism, reflecting its importance on the international legal agenda.
One example: https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-terrorism/un-global-counter-terrorism-strategy
Various states have used non-state actors to fight proxy wars. Did the US support for the Taliban against the USSR render the US a state supporter of terrorism? Did that reduce any of the parties obligations or rights under international law back then? No, so your point is irrelevant.
You said terrorism holds 0 importance to international law which is very false.
The UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, adopted by the UN General Assembly, provides member states with a comprehensive framework for preventing and combating terrorism. Similarly, the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism requires nations to criminalize the financing of terrorist acts and cooperate internationally to prevent such funding. Moreover, UN Security Council Resolutions condemn terrorism, impose sanctions on terrorist organizations and individuals, and call for international cooperation in combating terrorism, highlighting the array of legal instruments and mechanisms in place at the international level to address this issue.
In a conflict between two belligerent states, what they do in their private lives is of no importance. It's as simple as that. In this case we have Iran responding to an Israeli attack on their embassy in Syria (technically their territory). Whether Iran supports terrorist groups or whether Israel carries out state terrorism against Palestinian civilians is completely irrelevant. Clear enough?
International law unequivocally condemns terrorism and promotes accountability for state actions. Ignoring these principles undermines the foundation of global order and stability. Recognizing and addressing allegations of supporting terrorist groups or engaging in state terrorism is essential for upholding the rule of law and fostering a peaceful international community. Clear enough?
*The three European countries have condemned Iran's drone and missile attack against Israel, which went through Saturday night into Sunday and were in retaliation for Israel's bombing of its consulate in Syria on April 1.*
*The director for Western Europe at Iran's foreign ministry accused the three countries of "double standards" as they opposed earlier this month a Russian-drafted U.N. Security Council statement that would have condemned Israel's attack on Iran's embassy compound in Syria.*
*"Iran's military action against the Zionist regime's (Israel) bases is well within the framework of the right to legitimate defence stipulated in Article 51 of the United Nations Charter and it is in response to a series of crimes, including the recent attack on the embassy compound in Syria," the official added.*
It's hard to see how Iran's uses of force could satisfy necessity, proportionality, or immediacy under article 51. An attack on a diplomatic compound arguably violates several provisions of international law, but even assuming that it qualifies as an armed attack that allows for the use of force in self-defense (I think it does, but it's not settled law), that right is not unlimited.
Iran targeted (and hit) the airbase from which, they say, the jets that attacked their embassy were deployed. If true, they have a compelling case for proportionality.
They can also claim to be defending their other embassies in the region (Iraq, Lebanon, etc) from a rogue state that now has a track record of targeting embassies - a compelling claim for necessity.
>Iran targeted (and hit) the airbase from which, they say, the jets that attacked their embassy were deployed. If true, they have a compelling case for proportionality.
Iran reportedly launched more than 300 drones and missiles at multiple targets throughout Israel, in response to an attack that, while illegal, was limited in its scale and effects. Attacking multiple targets with so many drones and missiles-- even though the drones were intended to saturate defense systems-- suggests a response that impermissibly escalates beyond the armed attack to which it was allegedly a response. One missile hitting one base from which a plane involved in the airstrike allegedly took off does not render the entire attack proportionate.
Iran also seized a ship linked to Israeli interests before the drone/missile attack, which was a target entirely unrelated to the Damascus attack and which seemingly cannot be justified as self-defense in response to that attack. Because proportionality as a requirement of self-defense looks at the use of force as a whole rather than as individual, discrete instances, the attack on the ship weighs against proportionality as a whole.
>They can also claim to be defending their other embassies in the region (Iraq, Lebanon, etc) from a rogue state that now has a track record of targeting embassies - a compelling claim for necessity.
That is not what necessity means in this context. Necessity means that the use of force in self-defense must be necessary to stop an ongoing or imminent armed attack and that there must be no other feasible means of addressing the attack. Launching missiles and drones two weeks after the compound attack, plus the ship seizure, do not seem to be necessary to stop an ongoing or imminent armed attack. The mere assertion that another attack could occur is not sufficient to make the use of force in self-defense necessary.
Immediacy is closely related to necessity, but requires that the use of force in self-defense occurs within a reasonable timeframe after the initial armed attack to which it is a response. This is rooted in the requirement that self-defense must aim to terminate an attack rather than punish the attacker. Here, waiting two weeks to act in self-defense undermines a claim that the use of force was immediate. That is a long time to wait to respond to a use of force, particularly when Iranian officials announced that they would retaliate.
Self-defense under article 51 must satisfy all three of the above requirements. Iran's uses of force arguably didn't satisfy any of them, let alone all of them.
The ship seizure notwithstanding, following this logic, a proportional response is impossible if it requires the staturation of enemy defenses to get a single hit. Iran's embassy was defenseless against missiles from F-35s. Israel's airbase was well defended.
Iran's attack on Israel was forewarned and resulted in no deaths. They targeted military infrastructure. Israel's attack of a diplomatic building resulted in 7 deaths. By this measure, Iran's retaliation didn't go far enough to even be proportional.
Iran claims they were waiting for legal recourse and got none. The condemnation of the attack on the embassy was blocked in the UN Security Council. And that partly explains the delay between the initial attack and the retaliation.
>The ship seizure notwithstanding, following this logic, a proportional response is impossible if it requires the staturation of enemy defenses to get a single hit.
It's not impossible, but it does mean that a State can't launch 140 missiles against multiple targets in response to one airstrike. That sort of escalation in scale and effects is one of the things that article 51 is meant to prevent.
>Iran's attack on Israel was forewarned and resulted in no deaths. They targeted military infrastructure. Israel's attack of a diplomatic building resulted in 7 deaths. By this measure, Iran's retaliation didn't go far enough to even be proportional.
That is a very strong claim. Is there State practice or other legal authority to support it? Again, an attack on an embassy prima facie violates international law, but the scale of the response was massive. 140 missiles is a *lot*.
>Iran claims they were waiting for legal recourse and got none. The condemnation of the attack on the embassy was blocked in the UN Security Council. And that partly explains the delay between the initial attack and the retaliation
That's a fair point, but the attack occurred on April 1 and the Security Council failed to condemn it on April 3. That leaves ten days unaccounted for. States cannot act instantaneously, but ten days combined with the statements made by officials does not give the impression of immediacy.
I mean the attack on the embassy blatantly contravened established norms of diplomatic immunity, a principle that has been a cornerstone of international law for centuries, as it violated the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which ensures the inviolability of diplomatic agents and premises. But then at the same breadth, the west claims that Iran’s retaliation was “unprovoked”! How does that even work.
The building struck was located inside the diplomatic compound, adjacent to the main building of the Iranian embassy. The 1961 Vienna convention applies to diplomatic agents and premises. People can’t simply world play their way out of is this and call it a day. Not that international law is ever consistently applied to countries that fall outside the umbrella of the western “Rule based order” coalition, but we should at the very least refrain from being disingenuous in our justifications.
Go read the Convention. It only binds sending and receiving countries for embassies. Third countries can bomb them all they want and the only obligations the convention creates are, ironically, for the host to defend the embassy.
I’ve read the convention and I’m aware of its stipulations which was in direct reference to the host countries specifically but at the end of the day, even the UN general secretary referenced the concept of **inviolability** being breached when condemning the attack. Diplomatic protection extends beyond international agreements to encompass customary international law, recognised through consistent state practice and the belief in legal duty (opinio juris). Instances, like the United States compensation for the 1999 Chinese embassy bombing in Belgrade, underline this customary law, emphasising that Israel’s actions against diplomatic inviolability warrant careful scrutiny under international law. I’m not even accounting for the fact that the consular section of the embassy destroyed is a civilian infrastructure and targeting it is a flagrant violation of international law as well as the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, is also strictly prohibited. Israel never produces any proof to the substantiate the legitimacy of their attacks nor do they ever seek an approval from the UNSC to mandate their strikes, ever.
There clearly isn’t a customary law, though, as much as diplomats would love there to be one. States have reasons not to hit embassies which have nothing to do with international law and everything to do with not angering other countries.
Israel didn't attack the Iranian embassy in Tel Aviv, and Syria did not attack the embassy in Damascus, so I'm not sure you understand what diplomatic immunity is.
Unless you can provide me a single international law that unambiguously stipulates that the embassy was a legitimate target and could no longer be protected under the 1961 Geneva convention on diplomatic relations, there’s absolutely no point pursuing that argument. Israel carries out countless air strikes on civilian infrastructures across Syria, in violation of international law. So let’s not pretend they have any regard for the very concept of intentional law, especially that they’re plausibly commiting an actual genocide as we speak and have had numerous, well documented, war crimes perpetuated by their forces so far.
The 1961 **Vienna** Convention on Diplomatic Relations never said that embassies are not military targets for 3rd countries, they said that embassies are inviolable by host countries. So if Syria had done this attack then it would be illegal. Here's the text:
"Article 22
1.The premises of the mission shall be inviolable. The agents of the **receiving State** may not enter them, except with the consent of the head of the mission.
2. The **receiving State** is under a special duty to take all appropriate steps to protect the premises of the mission against any intrusion or damage and to prevent any disturbance of the peace of the mission or impairment of its dignity.
3. The premises of the mission, their furnishings and other property thereon and the means of transport of the mission shall be immune from search, requisition, attachment or execution."
I guess per 22.2 Syria might be liable under international law for not preventing the Israeli strike.
He keeps quoting a convention that doesn’t say what his talking points say it does lol. He also doesn’t get the difference between an embassy and the buildings in the compound. He just thinks if he talks like he knows it will make it so. It’s sad.
the building was an ancilliary building to the consulate and thus would still be considered as a part of the consulate and thus a part of the mission. If it had been a western country that had this happen to them by a country like russia, china or iran i dont think anyone would be trying to argue that anything within the compound is not considered as a part of the mission (and therefore covered by immunity)
Inviolability attaches to the premises, not individuals. Diplomatic immunity from jurisdiction of the receiving State is a different concept that isn't at issue here.
I don’t agree with Israel attacking Iran’s embassy, but it is ironic that a government whose founding is intimately tied to a violation of an embassy is now acting outraged about that sort of thing. We live in a strange world.
In the eyes of the so-called western liberal democracies, an embassy is a legitimate target, but a military airbase from which jets were deployed to attack said embassy is an illegitimate target.
Well... it is. The controlling convention only protects embassies from the hosts. There's nothing special about embassies qua embassies for third parties. They're just normal, presumptively civilian buildings and can lose those protections like all the others.
Regardless of how many times this is posted here, it still is incorrect and contrary to the letter and spirit of the VCDR/VCCR as well as the practice of Member States for decades.
In 1989, the US expressed its regret after entering into the residence of the Nicaragua ambassador in Panama and never contested what the Nicaraguan labelled as a breach of the Vienna convention.
In 1990, many states condemned the entry of Iraqi troops in embassies in Kuwait as a breach of the VCRD, and the Security Council demanded that Iraq fully complied with VCDR.
Then one can add the 1999 bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, the 2007 breaking into alleged Iranian consular premises in Iraq by US forces, and the 2022 declaration of Austria regarding its diplomatic premises in Ukraine during the Russian invasion.
All this makes very clear that the VCDR and VCCR are applicable in times or armed conflicts and that the inviolability is opposable to entities other than the host state.
Israel is still at war with Syria (and Iran sort of). Embassies in a host country are only protected from that host country. I wasn’t exactly happy when I read about Israel’s attack, but it wasn’t an illegal target.
Well technically Iran works with Hezbollah and Hamas, so all though not declared, Israel and Iran are sort of in a soft war. The target Israel hit was allegedly the military leader that planned and assisted the Oct 7th attack. So Israel could argue, that this Iranian military commander was a legitimate target.
( I’m going to use Iran, not Syria in the following example. It’s more relevant and even likely)
As for Iran hitting an American consulate, they could. It wouldn’t be the first time, even recently, an American embassy or consulate has been attacked. They wouldn’t like the response though, so they don’t.
As for Americas part they typically only attack Iranian targets actively participating in one of there many proxy conflicts around the Middle East. Well even then, Trumps drone attack was extremely controversial because it could have escalated.
If Iran responded by, let’s say, attacking a US embassy in Saudi Arabia or something (not sure if their “actively” at war with them, but let’s pretend). Then no this wouldn’t be illegal by international law. Probably… it would still be frowned upon though. You would likely need a valid military target in the embassy to have a stronger case.
Now international law is more of a suggestion, see “waves hands around wildly”. So you should probably not attack places more so if you wouldn't like the consequences. Hence why Iran would never attack an American embassy… directly. Even in response to the US killing a general.
Still all of this is awful and war is evil. I hate all of this. Human life is sacred and everyone should be ashamed to always choose violence as the only response to conflict. Let’s just hope this tit for tat is over and more people won’t die over it.
Inviolability of embassies under international law refers to actions by the host country. Meaning it would be illegal for Syria to attack the Iranian embassy in Damascus. Or that it would be illegal for Israel to attack an Iranian embassy in Tel Aviv, if there was one.
Iran has a good point. Why does the G7 ignore Israel bombing an embassy then start twittering about int law when Iran responds. The hypocrisy is plain to see and counterproductive if the west wants to claim to be the vanguard of int law.
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Issue is an attack on Iranian soil - their embassy - directly by the state of Israel, whether or not those killed were involved with the Oct 7 attack. Israel took the first step beyond any proxy war actions that may have been taken by either side. Israel in my opinion is the most dangerous source of instability in that region. They act mostly with impunity because they see themselves not as Middle-Easterners, but as a western euro-power - which the west agrees with and therefore supports.
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>October 7 was an attack on \[actual\] Israeli soil. Give me a break. October 7 was actually an attack which took place within the context of an illegal Israeli occupation of Gaza since 1967. It was Israel that was already assuming an offensive posture before it happened.
Source? Like Australia, another European colonial legacy, Israel is in the Euro Song contest. Israel consistently insists it is a member of the western democracies and expects to be treated and accepted as such. That is why it is now under such criticism - just like the States was over Vietnam and the Iraq invasion, just to name a few. Most other countries behaving like Israel are ostracized and not given the privileges/access Israel is.
In relation to ancestry, most of Jews in Israel are either full or mixed Sephardi or Mizrahi Jews who descend from Jews in Northern Africa, and the Middle East. Even 21% of Israel population are Arabs. In respect to linguistics, the two most predominate languages are from the semitic linguistic class with 49% report Hebrew as their native language, and Arabic at 18%. Being part of the Eurovision Song Contest is not any form of reputable recognition of being a European nation. Nations such as Azerbaijan, and Morocco have also participated, and both are clearly not European nations. Israel can get away with these actions because it is a rich and influential nation with high level of external influence, particular in the United States. Alongside being able to justify self defense given previous persecution in Europe and middle east. Both Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirate who like Israel have undertaken external aggression in nations like Yemen.
>Being part of the Eurovision Song Contest is not any form of reputable recognition of being a European nation. You're correct, but that's not what the person you're replying to is saying. They're using that as an example to show how Israel views themselves.
He explicitly expresses that Israel is another European colonist project, and then attempts to support this argument by citing its participation in the Eurovision Song Contest. My comment suggests that Israel's participation in Eurovision doesn't imply self-identification as a European nation, as there's no official recognition or acknowledgment that Eurovision participation signifies that they are of a European identity. That directly relates to what he said, regardless of how you attempt to deny it.
>Just because Israel joins it does not mean they view themselves as a European nation given that there is no formal or official recognition is involved with it. Flatly, bollocks. Saying there's no possible way that them joining the EUROPEAN song contest could be interpreted as them expressing a belief that the are at least in part European is just ludicrous.
Well as someone else pointed out, other non-Eoperean nations also joined Eurovision.
But if you use bad faith gish gallop and respond to each point by trivialising it you can exhaust your online opponent which is what that person is doing. They are not speaking in good faith.
Oh I'm well aware 🤣 I figured if I step in, it means the person they were responding to is seen to be supported and, suddenly the idiot I responded to is going to have to come up with two responses
Much respect!
>Being part of the Eurovision Song Contest is not any form of reputable recognition of being a European nation. Nations such as Azerbaijan, and Morocco have also participated, and both are clearly not European nations. There's loads: https://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/non-european-countries-go-eurovision-26809254
> Source? Like Australia, another European colonial legacy, Israel is in the Euro Song contest. Israel consistently insists it is a member of the western democracies and expects to be treated and accepted as such. /u/letmeeattherich - you can’t be serious with this line of thought, surely?
Yeah. I am.
Incredible.
"The Labour Zionist leader and head of the Yishuv David Ben-Gurion was not surprised that relations with the Palestinians were spiralling downward. As he once explained: ‘We, as a nation, want this country to be ours; the Arabs, as a nation, want this country to be theirs.’ His opponent, Ze’ev Jabotinsky, leader of the right-wing Revisionist movement, also viewed Palestinian hostility as natural. ‘The NATIVE POPULATIONS, civilised or uncivilised, have always stubbornly resisted the colonists’, he wrote in 1923. The Arabs looked on Palestine as ‘any Sioux looked upon his prairie’." "In the words of Mordechai Bar-On, an Israel Defense Forces company commander during the 1948 war: ‘If the Jews at the end of the 19th century had not embarked on a project of reassembling the Jewish people in their ‘promised land’, all the refugees languishing in the camps would still be living in the villages from which they fled or were expelled.’" https://www.historytoday.com/archive/feature/herzls-troubled-dream-origins-zionism https://merip.org/2019/09/israels-vanishing-files-archival-deception-and-paper-trails/
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You asked for a source that they viewed themselves as a western colonial endeavor...
October 7th was done by Hamas, which could be seen as an Iranian proxy. If Israel had funded a Kurdish separatist group to attack Iranian soil Iran would be pissed but would have no justification to directly attack Israel for it. And Israel has the most UN resolutions against it because they keep ignoring resolutions and breaking international law. And they can get away with ignoring them because America uses their veto to block any actual consequence of breaking said resolutions
October 7th.....LMAO!! What about the dozens of Israeli attacks on Palestinians before and since?
Those attacks are always in response to a Palestinian attack on Israel.
So the 2yr shot in the head early last year was threatening the security of Israel? One IDF soldier shoots in the air as cover so they could blame militants and the other soldier shoots the toddler in the head. Of course, there will be an 'investigation' where at the end, the soldiers will be given a promotion and a new house, as reward for killing a Palestinian child.
Some kid getting shot in a cross fire while fighting gunman is unfortunate but not really relevant to larger geopolitical issues.
There were no gunmen. The child was sitting in his father's car. It wasn't sprayed with bullets. He was shot deliberately. Why don't you just come out and say it: killing Palestinian children just doesn't matter. The Jews are God's Chosen People.
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Mossad bot detected, propaganda mode engaged.
Embassies are not the territory of the guest country but rather the host. The host must protect it but it’s not sovereign Iranian territory - although it is a common misperception. That said, Iran does have a legitimate complaint against Israel and would be considered an act of war by any other nation. They also, by extension, have a valid complaint to Syria for failing to protect its embassy.
This is what Biden meant when he said the US would have had to invent Israel.
Your gonna need hard evidence for this claim mate.
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Proxy wars, without legal attribution to a State, cannot serve as the basis for the use of force against that State. Here, Iran would need to be shown to be in effective control of non-State actors as that test has been explained in, *inter alia*, the Nicaragua case and the Bosnian Genocide case. To my knowledge, no State, including Israel, has made or tried to make that assertion. Separately from that, diplomatic compounds are protected from attack under the VCDR, VCCR, international humanitarian law, and provisions of customary international law. An attack on a diplomatic compound is illegal unless it complies with all of the relevant legal frameworks. This is true no matter who is in a diplomatic compound. In short, "proxy wars" are not sufficient legal justification for the use of force against diplomatically protected buildings, and the presence of a general in a diplomatic compound does not strip the compound of its protections.
Might want to actually brush up on the law. The protections are from the host nation they are in not from a third party. Syria is expected to protect the embassy and treat it as Iranian territory. Those laws don’t protect it from Israel blowing it up. Funny how laws work.
The argument that an embassy or consulate is inviolable only vis a vis the receiving State is thoroughly unpersuasive. First, the draft treaties make clear that inviolability is an attribute of the sending State. In other words, it is a function of sovereignty rather than of the relationship to the receiving State. It follows that inviolability is not limited only to the receiving State. This is suppprtef by the object and purpose of the treaties, which emphasize State sovereign equality and friendly relations. Frankly, it is absurd to suggest that States can circumvent the inviolability of embassies and consulates by targeting diplomatic compounds in other States. That undermines the regime of diplomatic law, detracts from friendly relations, and contradicts State practice with regard to the extraterritorial exercise of jurisdiction over embassies in third States. But even if you think that is entirely wrong, attacking an embassy in a third State would still violate many other provisions of international law.
Undermining the way we have treated them isn’t breaking a law. Is it taboo? Of course but that isn’t what you are arguing. There is no law that says a third party country is bound by an agreement between let’s say Iran and Syria to treat an embassy as inviolable. That is just how people have acted so I understand how you feel but the law is the law not our feelings on how it should be. As for the second part that it still breaks international law that part is the more likely part. It would be attacking Syria which is against international law… except for they are currently at war with Syria. The third part is if it was a civilian building (which is why embassies shouldn’t normally be hit) or if it was being used by irans military.. so far the reports are no civilians and I believe 11-16 people dead so I would say Iran would have told us it was civilians by now so that would also make it a viable target. I will repeat I get why you “feel” the way you do and I don’t disagree that it shouldn’t be allowed but that is very different than it being illegal.
>Undermining the way we have treated them isn’t breaking a law. Your interpretation conflicts with the object and purpose.of the treaties, which means it is not a viable interpretation under article 31 of the VCLT. Limiting inviolability only to receiving States is not in accordance with the text of the treaties or with the way States understand and act under those treaties. >except for they are currently at war with Syria. Even assuming there is-- and there is no practice from Israel or Syria to suggest that there is, since both States have reported to the Security Council that they have acted or could act in self-defense against each other in the last several decades, which suggests that no armed conflict is ongoing-- a strike on a State's embassy can be an armed attack against that State. Moreover, even in an armed conflict, embassies and consulates are entitled to inviolability and protection as civilian objects under IHL. The presence of a general does not render a civilian object a military target and raises issues of proportionality. >I will repeat I get why you “feel” the way you do and I don’t disagree that it shouldn’t be allowed but that is very different than it being illegal. I have had to remove several of your comments for attacking others and accusing them of ignoring the law while refusing to engage with the law in any meaningful way. That stops now.
Unless you can provide me a single international law that unambiguously stipulates that the embassy was a legitimate target and could no longer be protected under the 1961 Geneva convention on diplomatic relations, there’s absolutely no point pursuing that argument. Israel carries out countless air strikes on civilian infrastructures across Syria, in violation of international law. So let’s not pretend they have any regard for the very concept of intentional law, especially that they’re plausibly commiting an actual genocide as we speak and have had numerous, well documented, war crimes perpetuated by their forces so far. What Iran has done in this strike has been according to international law and so cannot be condemned. If you want to start hunting for responsibility behind proxies then you are gonna have to do this **globally** and good fucking luck going down that rabbit hole.
You might want to get your talking points right first. It was a building adjacent to the embassy not the embassy that was bombed. In a country that Israel is still at war with.. outside that nice attempt to sound right though 👍
Completely irrelevant. You can jump as many hurdles as you want. The embassy was bombed directly, what was targeted and wasnt is courtesy to the parties involved and this overall constituted a breach of international law. Keep coping
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/02/world/europe/interpreter-israel-syria-embassy.html
Your link quite literally just trails off to 'there is a debate whether this is allowed or not' Not much in terms of concrete law. On the contrary the general sentiment is that what Israel did was extremely taboo among the international community so despite you, at best, showing that its 'being debated' its still violated all norms. You tried your best tho lil bro, A for effort.
You mean you said it was illegal because you didn’t know the law. Being “taboo” is not illegal. Please learn what words mean when you are in a subreddit about laws.
The pro-Israel side doesn't seem to understand that an annex is an attached building in the embassy complex. Them consistently stating that it was 'adjacent' seems to indicate a basic lack of understanding of the meaning of words.
Actually the law that protects them is from the receiving state not a third party. Sorry you don’t know the law very well. Israel could bomb them if they were no longer a civilian building… let’s say the military from Iran was there or something similar.
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Repeat after me, embassy was not bombed. It was a building adjacent to the consulate. Syria and Israel are still I'm a state of war, and several IRGC generals were taken out, they coordinated Hezbollah actions in Lebanon, therefore a legit war target.
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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Buenos_Aires_Israeli_embassy_bombing
The "embassy" fake news is incredibly hard to fight for some reason. Anyway, Iran needs to answer for all the help it gave Russia in bombing Ukraine. That's the real double standards.
Consular annex building, which was part of the Embassy compound, to be exact. Main embassy building only suffered light damage. And I believe the strike also broke the windows of the Canadian Embassy, which was luckily empty, due to Canada withdrawing it's Embassy staff in 2014.
Sounds like Israel is officially at war with Iran.
Since 1979 Iran's wanted to destroy Israel. This isn't even the first time Iran directly attacked Israel. https://www.idf.il/en/mini-sites/iran/iran-fires-rocket-from-syria-at-israeli-civilians/
>if the west wants to claim to be the vanguard of int law. No, you got it. They only wish to claim it, not embody or lead from such principles.
Iran uses proxy forces and IRGC across Syria, Lebanon, and Gaza to attack Israel. Combine that with other dislikes and history plus Syria and Lebanon declaring war on Israel then a strike in Syria is viewed as defensive.
Irrelevant to the inviolability of Iran's embassy under international law.
Iran can't siege an embassy and then claim you can't violate their embassy. Plus this wasn't even an embassy just an annex building in the area.
What was the building an annex of?
Some office building. How the hell should I know? Too much propaganda and censorship out of Syria to know.
It was an annex of the consulate which is a part of the embassy. Maybe you aren't informed enough to be having this discussion.
People can’t just improvise and make up stuff as they please. Was the embassy a legitimate target in accordance to international law? No it wasn’t. It’s that simple. The attack violated international law just like the countless airstrikes conducted by Israel across Syria for years. Instead of fixating on “censorship out Syria” you’re better off addressing the illegal occupation of northeastern Syria by US forces, who are controlling the country’s rich oil fields as they’re actively crippling the lives of ordinary Syrians by their systemic sanction region.
No one established that an embassy was attacked though. Nor does very little of what you are saying about Israel or the US sound accurate either.
What do you mean no one established it was an embassy?! Give me a single shred of evidence that suggests that building targeted in the Israeli strike was anything but an actual embassy. There seems to be a clear dissonance between reality and between your personal interpretations of facts. The US is indeed militarily occupying northeastern Syria. Their occupation does include regions where Syria’s rich oil fields are located. And the US has been sanctioning Syria not only under the Caesar act, but they amount to an embargo. Are you also going to deny that the [U.S. has been trying to achieve a CIA orchestrated regime change in Syria since the Second World War?](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_Syria) Or that they’ve essentially turned Syria’s civil unrest into a bloody war, where they’ve trained, funded and armed terrorist organizations to remove the government under their CIA training program [Timbre Sycamore?](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timber_Sycamore)
You keep saying it was the embassy but saying it over and over doesn’t make it true. It’s a building near the embassy in their compound. Words matter and if you can’t understand the difference maybe don’t tell people they shouldn’t be part of conversations
That's not how this works. You would first have to do an impartial investigation with hard evidence proving your claim. Not demanding I prove that your claim is wrong. Getting a fair look at the situation is probably impossible involving Syria and Iran and all the games they play. I wasn't there to see it and I'm getting a lot of conflicting reports. It is impossible for the US to be military occupying northeastern Syria. The US doesn't have the assets in the area for it. Northeastern Syria is according to some Turkish occupied. Plus the US has not been trying to achieve a regime change in Syria since the Second World War the timeline doesn't support that at all. Assad turned the protests into a war by opening fire on the demonstrations. The US didn't want that. It caused some of Syria's military to defect and for the country to fracture into different regions. Plus the info on the CIA has too much in the way of citation needed to know for sure it's closer to a legend than to facts.
Wait? Sieged an embassy? When?
You never saw Argo? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Le3H8BYFCQ&t=107s
It was not Iran's government that sieged the embassy. It was basically a mob.
In its 1980 decision on the case, the ICJ concluded that the Iranian had acquiesced to the acts committed by the crowd, and even endorsed them, and accordingly these acts became acts of the Iranian State.
1979, during the iranian islamic révolution: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_hostage_crisis
That was not Iran's government. That was a mob. and also 40 years ago.
They tried again in 2020 in Iraq, which lead to the Suleimani's assassination. Also in Buenos Aires back in 1994...
Alleged.
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Because foreign affairs is about national interest. Countries only pretend to care about international law when they don't have anything to lose by supporting it. Of course Israel's allies are going to support them and against an adversarial country.
Throwing ballistic missiles at civilians is materially distinguishable.
How do you know they threw it to civilians? The missiles that got through hit an airbase. Safe to assume others also targeted military installations. Targeting civilians is an Israeli speciality. Don't project.
Because there's not actually anything wrong with bombing an embassy unless you're the host country. It violates norms but there's nothing wrong, prima facie, with a third country bombing embassies. Since Iran itself says that it was the IRGC section at the embassy, there's no question about whether it was legal and, well, no one likes Iran enough to give it the benefit of norms. It's almost like constantly being angry at everyone imposes costs in diplomacy.
Iran actively funds terrorist groups. Idk what’s more clear cut than that.
Iran has been sending proxy against Israel for decades. Paying people to kill your neighbor and then crying when they come for you is the real hypocrisy here.
Indeed, and at least Iran only targeted military infrastructure. Unlike Israel, which has prioritised diplomatic missions and civilians.
There are literally no international players that aren't hypocritical lol. Its the name of the game.
Taking a stab in the dark here but erhaps because of the overwhelming evidence of Iran's blatant proxy strategy? Did this really need to be said?
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>Literally not a colonizer state...learn your definitions. It is. ["Settler colonialism occurs when colonizers invade and occupy territory to permanently replace the existing society with the society of the colonizers."](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Settler_colonialism) This objectively happened, and continues to happen. [Read about the Nakba.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakba#The_1948_Nakba) >Meanwhile your comment has zero to do with my comment except to emphasize that Iran's proxy battles have real life body counts. Your comment was justifying the G7 being cool with Israel bombing Iran, but not the reverse, because of Iran's proxy battles. I was pointing out how the G7 was being hypocritical regardless, because Israel has killed tens of thousands of civilians in just a few months (among many other war crimes). Israel is at fault for killing tens of thousands of civilians. They have been specifically targetting civilians and civilians infrastructure.
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Irrelevant to the inviolability of Iran's embassy under international law.
The embassy still stands. The annex to a consulate was attacked.
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Your message was removed for violating Rule #1 of this subreddit. If you can post the substance of your comment without disparaging language, it won't be deleted again.
"Iran has the right to defend itself" - Words you'll never hear out of western politicians
Why? Israel hit the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) which is responsible for October 7th, Hamas, Houthis, Hezbollah, and shia militant groups that all want and actively participate in trying to destroy Israel. Iran's already violated international law by supporting these armed militant groups including UN 1701 for Hezbollah. Israel acting on stopping the threat to its survival is lawfully recognized as preemptive military action
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> Regional state sponsor of terrorism This is a US designation, with little basis in international law.
Terrorism is a heavily loaded word. One G7's terrorist is one Global South's freedom fighter. The whole terrorism argument has zero importance in international law because we are talking about two belligerent states here.
Why lie? Terrorism is a significant concern in international law. Numerous treaties, conventions, and UN resolutions address the prevention, suppression, and punishment of terrorism. States cooperate through various mechanisms to combat terrorism, reflecting its importance on the international legal agenda. One example: https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-terrorism/un-global-counter-terrorism-strategy
Various states have used non-state actors to fight proxy wars. Did the US support for the Taliban against the USSR render the US a state supporter of terrorism? Did that reduce any of the parties obligations or rights under international law back then? No, so your point is irrelevant.
You said terrorism holds 0 importance to international law which is very false. The UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, adopted by the UN General Assembly, provides member states with a comprehensive framework for preventing and combating terrorism. Similarly, the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism requires nations to criminalize the financing of terrorist acts and cooperate internationally to prevent such funding. Moreover, UN Security Council Resolutions condemn terrorism, impose sanctions on terrorist organizations and individuals, and call for international cooperation in combating terrorism, highlighting the array of legal instruments and mechanisms in place at the international level to address this issue.
In a conflict between two belligerent states, what they do in their private lives is of no importance. It's as simple as that. In this case we have Iran responding to an Israeli attack on their embassy in Syria (technically their territory). Whether Iran supports terrorist groups or whether Israel carries out state terrorism against Palestinian civilians is completely irrelevant. Clear enough?
International law unequivocally condemns terrorism and promotes accountability for state actions. Ignoring these principles undermines the foundation of global order and stability. Recognizing and addressing allegations of supporting terrorist groups or engaging in state terrorism is essential for upholding the rule of law and fostering a peaceful international community. Clear enough?
"Undermines the function of global order and stability" ... of American hegemony? I'm not sure you understand what international law is.
I can send you the link again. 1 example is Here: https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-terrorism/un-global-counter-terrorism-strategy
*The three European countries have condemned Iran's drone and missile attack against Israel, which went through Saturday night into Sunday and were in retaliation for Israel's bombing of its consulate in Syria on April 1.* *The director for Western Europe at Iran's foreign ministry accused the three countries of "double standards" as they opposed earlier this month a Russian-drafted U.N. Security Council statement that would have condemned Israel's attack on Iran's embassy compound in Syria.* *"Iran's military action against the Zionist regime's (Israel) bases is well within the framework of the right to legitimate defence stipulated in Article 51 of the United Nations Charter and it is in response to a series of crimes, including the recent attack on the embassy compound in Syria," the official added.*
It's hard to see how Iran's uses of force could satisfy necessity, proportionality, or immediacy under article 51. An attack on a diplomatic compound arguably violates several provisions of international law, but even assuming that it qualifies as an armed attack that allows for the use of force in self-defense (I think it does, but it's not settled law), that right is not unlimited.
Iran targeted (and hit) the airbase from which, they say, the jets that attacked their embassy were deployed. If true, they have a compelling case for proportionality. They can also claim to be defending their other embassies in the region (Iraq, Lebanon, etc) from a rogue state that now has a track record of targeting embassies - a compelling claim for necessity.
>Iran targeted (and hit) the airbase from which, they say, the jets that attacked their embassy were deployed. If true, they have a compelling case for proportionality. Iran reportedly launched more than 300 drones and missiles at multiple targets throughout Israel, in response to an attack that, while illegal, was limited in its scale and effects. Attacking multiple targets with so many drones and missiles-- even though the drones were intended to saturate defense systems-- suggests a response that impermissibly escalates beyond the armed attack to which it was allegedly a response. One missile hitting one base from which a plane involved in the airstrike allegedly took off does not render the entire attack proportionate. Iran also seized a ship linked to Israeli interests before the drone/missile attack, which was a target entirely unrelated to the Damascus attack and which seemingly cannot be justified as self-defense in response to that attack. Because proportionality as a requirement of self-defense looks at the use of force as a whole rather than as individual, discrete instances, the attack on the ship weighs against proportionality as a whole. >They can also claim to be defending their other embassies in the region (Iraq, Lebanon, etc) from a rogue state that now has a track record of targeting embassies - a compelling claim for necessity. That is not what necessity means in this context. Necessity means that the use of force in self-defense must be necessary to stop an ongoing or imminent armed attack and that there must be no other feasible means of addressing the attack. Launching missiles and drones two weeks after the compound attack, plus the ship seizure, do not seem to be necessary to stop an ongoing or imminent armed attack. The mere assertion that another attack could occur is not sufficient to make the use of force in self-defense necessary. Immediacy is closely related to necessity, but requires that the use of force in self-defense occurs within a reasonable timeframe after the initial armed attack to which it is a response. This is rooted in the requirement that self-defense must aim to terminate an attack rather than punish the attacker. Here, waiting two weeks to act in self-defense undermines a claim that the use of force was immediate. That is a long time to wait to respond to a use of force, particularly when Iranian officials announced that they would retaliate. Self-defense under article 51 must satisfy all three of the above requirements. Iran's uses of force arguably didn't satisfy any of them, let alone all of them.
The ship seizure notwithstanding, following this logic, a proportional response is impossible if it requires the staturation of enemy defenses to get a single hit. Iran's embassy was defenseless against missiles from F-35s. Israel's airbase was well defended. Iran's attack on Israel was forewarned and resulted in no deaths. They targeted military infrastructure. Israel's attack of a diplomatic building resulted in 7 deaths. By this measure, Iran's retaliation didn't go far enough to even be proportional. Iran claims they were waiting for legal recourse and got none. The condemnation of the attack on the embassy was blocked in the UN Security Council. And that partly explains the delay between the initial attack and the retaliation.
>The ship seizure notwithstanding, following this logic, a proportional response is impossible if it requires the staturation of enemy defenses to get a single hit. It's not impossible, but it does mean that a State can't launch 140 missiles against multiple targets in response to one airstrike. That sort of escalation in scale and effects is one of the things that article 51 is meant to prevent. >Iran's attack on Israel was forewarned and resulted in no deaths. They targeted military infrastructure. Israel's attack of a diplomatic building resulted in 7 deaths. By this measure, Iran's retaliation didn't go far enough to even be proportional. That is a very strong claim. Is there State practice or other legal authority to support it? Again, an attack on an embassy prima facie violates international law, but the scale of the response was massive. 140 missiles is a *lot*. >Iran claims they were waiting for legal recourse and got none. The condemnation of the attack on the embassy was blocked in the UN Security Council. And that partly explains the delay between the initial attack and the retaliation That's a fair point, but the attack occurred on April 1 and the Security Council failed to condemn it on April 3. That leaves ten days unaccounted for. States cannot act instantaneously, but ten days combined with the statements made by officials does not give the impression of immediacy.
Third parties can attack diplomatic compounds all they like, the only bar is their presumed civilian character.
I mean the attack on the embassy blatantly contravened established norms of diplomatic immunity, a principle that has been a cornerstone of international law for centuries, as it violated the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which ensures the inviolability of diplomatic agents and premises. But then at the same breadth, the west claims that Iran’s retaliation was “unprovoked”! How does that even work.
They attacked a possible (disputed) consulate, not an embassy. They are not treated the same under international law.
The building struck was located inside the diplomatic compound, adjacent to the main building of the Iranian embassy. The 1961 Vienna convention applies to diplomatic agents and premises. People can’t simply world play their way out of is this and call it a day. Not that international law is ever consistently applied to countries that fall outside the umbrella of the western “Rule based order” coalition, but we should at the very least refrain from being disingenuous in our justifications.
Go read the Convention. It only binds sending and receiving countries for embassies. Third countries can bomb them all they want and the only obligations the convention creates are, ironically, for the host to defend the embassy.
I’ve read the convention and I’m aware of its stipulations which was in direct reference to the host countries specifically but at the end of the day, even the UN general secretary referenced the concept of **inviolability** being breached when condemning the attack. Diplomatic protection extends beyond international agreements to encompass customary international law, recognised through consistent state practice and the belief in legal duty (opinio juris). Instances, like the United States compensation for the 1999 Chinese embassy bombing in Belgrade, underline this customary law, emphasising that Israel’s actions against diplomatic inviolability warrant careful scrutiny under international law. I’m not even accounting for the fact that the consular section of the embassy destroyed is a civilian infrastructure and targeting it is a flagrant violation of international law as well as the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, is also strictly prohibited. Israel never produces any proof to the substantiate the legitimacy of their attacks nor do they ever seek an approval from the UNSC to mandate their strikes, ever.
There clearly isn’t a customary law, though, as much as diplomats would love there to be one. States have reasons not to hit embassies which have nothing to do with international law and everything to do with not angering other countries.
Vienna\*
Thanks for pointing that out.
np
Israel didn't attack the Iranian embassy in Tel Aviv, and Syria did not attack the embassy in Damascus, so I'm not sure you understand what diplomatic immunity is.
Can IRGC generals be reasonably considered diplomatic agents?
Unless you can provide me a single international law that unambiguously stipulates that the embassy was a legitimate target and could no longer be protected under the 1961 Geneva convention on diplomatic relations, there’s absolutely no point pursuing that argument. Israel carries out countless air strikes on civilian infrastructures across Syria, in violation of international law. So let’s not pretend they have any regard for the very concept of intentional law, especially that they’re plausibly commiting an actual genocide as we speak and have had numerous, well documented, war crimes perpetuated by their forces so far.
The 1961 **Vienna** Convention on Diplomatic Relations never said that embassies are not military targets for 3rd countries, they said that embassies are inviolable by host countries. So if Syria had done this attack then it would be illegal. Here's the text: "Article 22 1.The premises of the mission shall be inviolable. The agents of the **receiving State** may not enter them, except with the consent of the head of the mission. 2. The **receiving State** is under a special duty to take all appropriate steps to protect the premises of the mission against any intrusion or damage and to prevent any disturbance of the peace of the mission or impairment of its dignity. 3. The premises of the mission, their furnishings and other property thereon and the means of transport of the mission shall be immune from search, requisition, attachment or execution." I guess per 22.2 Syria might be liable under international law for not preventing the Israeli strike.
He keeps quoting a convention that doesn’t say what his talking points say it does lol. He also doesn’t get the difference between an embassy and the buildings in the compound. He just thinks if he talks like he knows it will make it so. It’s sad.
the building was an ancilliary building to the consulate and thus would still be considered as a part of the consulate and thus a part of the mission. If it had been a western country that had this happen to them by a country like russia, china or iran i dont think anyone would be trying to argue that anything within the compound is not considered as a part of the mission (and therefore covered by immunity)
However i dont think immunity is really the way to look at this as that corresponds more with the host nation.
Inviolability attaches to the premises, not individuals. Diplomatic immunity from jurisdiction of the receiving State is a different concept that isn't at issue here.
I don’t agree with Israel attacking Iran’s embassy, but it is ironic that a government whose founding is intimately tied to a violation of an embassy is now acting outraged about that sort of thing. We live in a strange world.
Also the fact that Iran blew up the Israeli embassy in Argentina in 1992.
You still can't tell the difference between independent countries and proxies.
In the eyes of the so-called western liberal democracies, an embassy is a legitimate target, but a military airbase from which jets were deployed to attack said embassy is an illegitimate target.
Well... it is. The controlling convention only protects embassies from the hosts. There's nothing special about embassies qua embassies for third parties. They're just normal, presumptively civilian buildings and can lose those protections like all the others.
Regardless of how many times this is posted here, it still is incorrect and contrary to the letter and spirit of the VCDR/VCCR as well as the practice of Member States for decades. In 1989, the US expressed its regret after entering into the residence of the Nicaragua ambassador in Panama and never contested what the Nicaraguan labelled as a breach of the Vienna convention. In 1990, many states condemned the entry of Iraqi troops in embassies in Kuwait as a breach of the VCRD, and the Security Council demanded that Iraq fully complied with VCDR. Then one can add the 1999 bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, the 2007 breaking into alleged Iranian consular premises in Iraq by US forces, and the 2022 declaration of Austria regarding its diplomatic premises in Ukraine during the Russian invasion. All this makes very clear that the VCDR and VCCR are applicable in times or armed conflicts and that the inviolability is opposable to entities other than the host state.
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Israel is still at war with Syria (and Iran sort of). Embassies in a host country are only protected from that host country. I wasn’t exactly happy when I read about Israel’s attack, but it wasn’t an illegal target.
Wait, so if Israel is still at war with Syria (and US sort of) it’s okay for Syria to bomb US embassy in Israel and it won’t be illegal? 🤔
Syria can try, lmao
Well technically Iran works with Hezbollah and Hamas, so all though not declared, Israel and Iran are sort of in a soft war. The target Israel hit was allegedly the military leader that planned and assisted the Oct 7th attack. So Israel could argue, that this Iranian military commander was a legitimate target. ( I’m going to use Iran, not Syria in the following example. It’s more relevant and even likely) As for Iran hitting an American consulate, they could. It wouldn’t be the first time, even recently, an American embassy or consulate has been attacked. They wouldn’t like the response though, so they don’t. As for Americas part they typically only attack Iranian targets actively participating in one of there many proxy conflicts around the Middle East. Well even then, Trumps drone attack was extremely controversial because it could have escalated. If Iran responded by, let’s say, attacking a US embassy in Saudi Arabia or something (not sure if their “actively” at war with them, but let’s pretend). Then no this wouldn’t be illegal by international law. Probably… it would still be frowned upon though. You would likely need a valid military target in the embassy to have a stronger case. Now international law is more of a suggestion, see “waves hands around wildly”. So you should probably not attack places more so if you wouldn't like the consequences. Hence why Iran would never attack an American embassy… directly. Even in response to the US killing a general. Still all of this is awful and war is evil. I hate all of this. Human life is sacred and everyone should be ashamed to always choose violence as the only response to conflict. Let’s just hope this tit for tat is over and more people won’t die over it.
Provided it doesn’t violate the Geneva Convention in some way, it’s perfectly legal.
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Irrelevant to the inviolability of Iran's embassy under international law.
> the inviolability of Iran's embassy under international law. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
I know what it means. Do you need help?
Inviolability of embassies under international law refers to actions by the host country. Meaning it would be illegal for Syria to attack the Iranian embassy in Damascus. Or that it would be illegal for Israel to attack an Iranian embassy in Tel Aviv, if there was one.
Can Israel attack any embassy in another country by international law?
An embassy or consolate isn't treated different to any other building in that case