Some thoughts on the law applicable to the Iran-Israel War and the dangers of what I call International Hasbara Law (IHL). First let’s establish some groundwork 🧵

1) Israel’s attack is an act of aggression against Iran. This is not a fringe position among scholars. It’s the normie one 2) Israel is not just targeting military objectives it is also targeting civilian scientists, which only some scholars agree with, very controversially

3) Iran’s attack is an act of self-defence against this Israeli aggression. 4) Iran has most visibly targeted military objectives, like the Min of Defence, without causing (from available info) disproportionate civilian harm. These attacks are 100% legal

5) In other instances, Iranian missiles have hit civilian homes. It is unclear whether they were the target and there does not appear to be any evidence of a military objective in them (Iran has not claimed this). As it stands, these would be illegal indiscriminate attacks

Now here’s the thing: it’s important to stress though just how harmful International Hasbara Law is in the context of this situation.

If we were to follow @HausdorffMedia’s advice re Israel eg, we’d be unable to conclude that these strikes are unlawful bc we don’t have access to Iranian military intelligence

If we listen to @SpencerGuard , we also should not rush to conclusions about Iran’s actions. It is allowed to conduct an internal investigation and if it concludes that Iran misidentified civilian targets as military ones, that’s not a war crime https://t.co/axA1xooxpr

I could go on… but of course these are unilateral analyses. They apply *only* in defence of Israel. Which is why they are unreliable. And yet, these have been the most visible “legal” voices for the past 20 months

This is unfortunate. It’s a wake up call to academia, so often trapped in podcasts where academics talk to academics or blogs where academics write for academics (or worse, journals no one really knows about or reads)

Academia needs to be more engaged in discourse. It needs to have impact. As important as people like @mehdirhasan @owenjonesjourno and @hasanthehun have been, they shouldn’t have to carry the weight of legal/political expertise on their shoulders too. They need academics

Hopefully this will change in the near future…