Who Bears Legal Responsibility for Civilian Deaths in Gaza?
[Editor’s note: if you read this blog for real estate-related content . . . skip this post. If you want my take on the horrible, depressing war occurring in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank now, keep reading.]
“Felony Murder Rule”: a legal doctrine in some common law jurisdictions that broadens the crime of murder in two ways. First, when an offender kills accidentally or without specific intent to kill in the commission of a felony, the offender can be charged with murder. Second, it makes any participant in such a felony criminally liable for any deaths that occur during or in furtherance of that felony.
–Wikipedia
When a fleeing bank robber leads police on a chase in which a pursuing police car inadvertently hits and kills a pedestrian, who’s responsible?
The banker robber, according to a legal principle called The Felony Murder Rule.
Even though the police car hit and killed the pedestrian, our legal system holds the bank robber responsible, because it was their actions that launched the chain of events that led to the civilian’s death.
In Hamas’ Way
In the Middle East conflict, Hamas is the bank robber.
When it places its fighters, arms caches, tunnels, and rocket launchers in (and under) Gaza hospitals, schools, and mosques, the tragic — and inevitable — spilling of innocent civilian blood is on their hands, not Israeli soldiers.
