On Friday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Alex Wagner Tonight,” MSNBC host Ayman Mohyeldin stated that “both sides are committing war crimes,” and that countries who don’t criticize Israel, “can’t turn around and expect people to follow international law. You can’t turn around and expect countries and participants in war to be clear about what international law is going to be applied here, and which ones are going to be violated.” And that “Russia then exploits it in its invasion of Ukraine, and other countries say, well, the international law was violated here, they can get away with it in what they’re doing in elsewhere in places like Ukraine and what have you.”
Mohyeldin stated, “As the former Executive Director of Human Rights Watch, Ken Roth, told me on my show earlier this week, the war crimes of one party in a war do not justify the war crimes of the other. And so, whatever war crimes Hamas committed, which they certainly did in targeting civilians in their attack on Israel on Saturday, that is a war crime. That does not justify Israel committing war crimes. And, now, with the white phosphorus allegation, with the collective punishment that is clear for the world to see that there are two million people deprived of electricity, deprived of food and water, unable to leave, that is a form of collective punishment under international law. Again, clear as day, considered to be a violation of international humanitarian law. So, you are in a situation right now where both sides are committing war crimes, and the people, the civilians on both sides, are the ones that are suffering.”
He added, “[W]hen you have European officials, specifically British officials, incapable of saying, or unwilling to say that the forced displacement of a million people to leave within a span of hours is a violation of international law, when you have international organizations on the ground saying that is impossible, this is a violation, it makes the reality ambiguous. And that is very troubling, when you don’t speak with clarity about what is international law, then you can’t turn around and expect people to follow international law. You can’t turn around and expect countries and participants in war to be clear about what international law is going to be applied here, and which ones are going to be violated. That’s part of the fundamental problem. I think Palestinians look at U.N. Security Council resolutions about the occupied territories having been neglected for years, not enforced, and Israel gets away with occupation settlements. International law is neglected all of the time in this conflict, and that has been a major source of the problem. And honestly, it kind of weakens the international rules-based system, because Russia then exploits it in its invasion of Ukraine, and other countries say, well, the international law was violated here, they can get away with it in what they’re doing in elsewhere in places like Ukraine and what have you.”
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