In 1981, the Israeli Air Force destroyed the Osiraq nuclear reactor, the core of Saddam Hussein's effort to acquire nuclear weapons.
At the time, the UN and most of the world's leaders -- not only the Arabs -- condemned this unilateral use of force and violation of Iraq's sovereignty.
None were willing to acknowledge the failure of the international legal system and their own silence in the face of violations of non-proliferation agreements. Israeli leaders had the responsibility of preventing a power-mad dictator who threatened to blow up half of Israel from getting nuclear weapons.
A few years later, most governments had changed positions, and were thanking Israel for preventing a catastrophe.
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While responsibility for the killing of senior Hamas terrorist Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai last month is not as clear as the 1981 attack, and links to Israel are based on speculation, the condemnations over allegations of forged passports were quick to come. But, now, as in 1981, the diplomatic scolding, including from Australia's leaders, is misdirected.
This case again highlights the complete failure of the world's leaders to fix the broken international legal system, including the UN. If this system had any relation to justice, terrorists such as al-Mabhouh would be apprehended and brought to trial, and any country that gave them shelter would be punished by the UN.
Al-Mabhouh was a cold-blooded murderer; he bragged about having kidnapped and killed two Israeli soldiers. He was a key figure in arranging arms shipments to what the media euphemistically refers to as Hamas militants in Gaza, arranging the shipment of thousands of rockets.
Al-Mabhouh violated the human rights of many Israelis, but the UN's Human Rights Council, which is dominated by moral stalwarts such as Libya, Algeria and Iran, ignores Israeli complaints.
The bitter reality is that for Israel, and for others, such as Hezbollah's Lebanese targets, the international legal frameworks provide no protection. These frameworks are focused entirely on exploiting the rhetoric of human rights and morality to attack Israel, regardless of the events.
The same is true for the organisations and superpowers that claim to be the world's moral guardians, such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Like the UN institutions, the non-government organisations' powerbrokers and ideologues have no interest in confronting Arab and Iranian-supported terrorists who target Israelis or Jews.
Instead of deterring injustice and promoting morality, the institutions that claim to promote international law and morality are obsessed with condemning Israel for attempting to prevent attacks against its citizens.
In the Dubai operation, there was no collateral damage, no innocent civilians were hurt. No buildings were bombed and no country's air space or sovereignty was violated in the process. But journalists, diplomats and legal experts still scold Israel for alleged passport infractions.
Instead, responsible leaders of the world's democracies, including in Australia, need to develop realistic alternatives. They should be focusing on steps necessary to restore some semblance of international legal remedies against terror, which would make drastic actions unnecessary.
Gerald M. Steinberg is a professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University in Israel and president of NGO Monitor.
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