World Politics News   Articles for World Politics Course

It’s been a bad day.

First, the US has confirmed that the Malaysian airliner was shot down by a surface to air missile while flying through Ukrainian airspace.   Still unconfirmed is who fired the missile.  The airplane was flying at 30,000 feet so that excludes the possibility that it was shot down by a shoulder-fired surface to air missile, the type that the Russian separatists in the eastern part of Ukraine have access to.  Experts are working to figure out exactly from where the missile was launched.  It may, however, be difficult for experts to access the wreckage since the plane’s remains are in territory controlled by the separatists.  If it is true that the separatists were responsible for this atrocity, then it is likely that there will never be a full investigation into the matter: the separatists have no interest in having the truth come out.

The fear is that the missile used was a Russian, not a Ukrainian, missile.  If it turns out that Russia had supplied the separatists with such sophisticated weaponry, it is highly likely that Western states will feel obliged to exert considerably more pressure on the Russian government.  It is precisely events such as this one that bring wild cards to the situation and make it much more volatile.

The other bad news was that Israel had launched a ground attack on the Gaza Strip over night.  After ten days of aerial bombardment, Israel has decided that the only effective way to address the rocket threat is to bring the fight directly to Hamas.  It is doubtful that Hamas could muster an effective response to the invasion, but the prospect of  long and drawn out ground activity would unquestionably raise the death toll significantly.   Israel will fight it more difficult to distinguish combatants from non-combatants under these circumstances, and several human rights organizations, such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have already criticized Israel for violating this cardinal rule of international humanitarian law.  B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, has also issued a report that severely criticizes the Israeli conduct thus far.   The death toll in Gaza has reached 214, with 1585 injured.  About 80% of the casualties have been civilians, according to the United Nations. 

Hamas is also guilty of violating the laws of war by launching unguided missiles into populated areas.  Fortunately, there has only been one recorded death in Israel attributed to the missiles.