geneva conventions | hughdbryant

From a Sermon for All Saints and All Souls, 5th November 2023

By Hugh Bryant

I think we need to give some time, as Christians, not only to the Saints and to the souls of our faithful departed, but also to all the other people who have died and tragically are still dying today, in circumstances where we need to cry out to the Lord and pray for his comfort and relief.

Until a month ago if I had been preaching this sermon, I would’ve mentioned first the war in Ukraine, and indeed I still do so. We will pray for a just and peaceful outcome to that terrible conflict. The same is true of the conflicts in Syria, Yemen and the Sudan.

But I suppose that, particularly as it is happening in or near to places we read about or have made pilgrimages to in the Holy Land, the conflict that is uppermost in our minds today, and which is exercising us so much, is the tragic conflict in Israel and Palestine, and particularly in Gaza – and in the area just outside Gaza where the conflict began, with the terrible attack on the people in the kibbutz and the music festival, by Hamas.

There are saints and souls here as well. In our Old Testament lesson some of us will probably have been moved by the thought that our reading comes in the middle of a passage in Isaiah [chapter 66] where the prophet sets out a vision of the new earth, of the new Jerusalem, of God’s holy mountain; a vision perhaps of heaven. A vision of the promised land, where God’s chosen people will come ‘on horses and chariots’, (and also on ‘dromedaries’, you’ll be pleased to know.) They will come ‘to my holy mountain, Jerusalem’, says the Lord.

But what is happening in Israel and Palestine does not look like what is supposed to be happening on God’s holy mountain. There are Christians caught up in this as well. Admittedly the number of Christians living in the Holy Land has diminished greatly, but there are Palestinian and Israeli Christians as well; and Saint George’s Cathedral in Jerusalem. What do the Christians say? What would Jesus say?

In all the discussions about whether there have been breaches of international law there is a key concept, we are told, which is ‘proportionality’. In self defence, is the response proportional? It sounds very like what Jesus was talking about in the Sermon on the Mount. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

Scholars have told us that the principle of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, which comes in Exodus chapter 21, Leviticus 24 or Deuteronomy chapter 19, means not that there is carte blanche to take revenge without restraint but that, just as in international law, any retaliation must be strictly in proportion, so only one eye for one eye and only one tooth for one tooth.

Let us look at what has happened and what is happening in the light of that. Leave aside for a minute what principles Hamas may have followed to justify their initial attack – and of course we have heard from the United Nations Secretary General Mr Guterres and others that it didn’t come from nowhere, but only after many years of oppression of the people of Gaza.

But leaving that on one side, Hamas killed just under 2000 people, but at the last count Israel has killed over 9000 people, of whom 4000 have been children; and it is not the case that they have been retaliating just against their enemies, because it’s quite clear that only a very small minority of the people in Gaza belong to Hamas. So even according to the Jewish law as set out in Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy, the law of ‘an eye for an eye’, it looks as though what Israel has been doing is wrong. And it follows that it is a clear breach of international law. As indeed was the initial Hamas attack, because, however frustrated and oppressed the people of Gaza may be, nothing would justify the violence which Hamas meted out on seventh October.

So where are the saints? What should we, as Jesus’ saints, say? Jesus had an answer. As reported in Saint Matthew’s Gospel chapter 5, Jesus said, ‘You have heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also… And again, you have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbour and hate your enemies. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.’

Just imagine what might happen if Israel adopted that strategy! They would no longer be trying to annihilate Hamas, and if so, Hamas would surely no longer want them to be erased from the earth – it would no longer be an eye for an eye. The Good Friday Agreement shows that it can happen.

So when we pray for all saints and all souls, let us pray also that Jesus’ message, the message of love and peace, will finally be listened to, and that there will be peace in the Holy Land.

Sermon for Mattins on the 24th Sunday after Trinity, 15th November 2015 – Security or Liberty?
Daniel 12:1-3 ‘There shall be a time of trouble, such as never was ..’
Mark 13:1-8 ‘Such things must needs be; but the end shall not be yet’

‘For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows. But take heed to yourselves: for they shall deliver you up to councils; and in the synagogues ye shall be beaten:…’

That’s the end of our Gospel reading this morning, and the verse after. It might be a description of what it feels like to be a Christian in Iraq, or Syria, or anywhere else where so-called Islamic State is operating. It’s not safe to be a Christian there – and many Christians have become refugees.

And now, in Paris, that violence, that terrorism, has come out of the Middle East and is on our doorstep. Hundreds of people have been killed and maimed by suicide bombers with Kalashnikovs in that lovely city, where we all have treasured memories, of happy days, beautiful sights and wonderful meals in fine company.

We are horrified. We feel for the poor people of Paris. How frightened they must feel. If these terrorists could do it once, can they, will they, do it again? It could be London next time. How can we deal with this terrorism?

I was already thinking about this earlier in this week, before the terrible news from Paris arrived. Mohammed Emwazi, ‘Jihadi John’, the IS terrorist with a British accent, who appeared on several of their awful propaganda videos and appears to have murdered several innocent people, was killed in Syria earlier this week by a missile fired from an unmanned aircraft, a drone. Or rather, the Americans, whose missile it was, say they are ‘99% certain’ they killed Emwazi. And several other people were in the same car and were killed when it was hit by the missile.

You may remember the case of Derek Bentley, condemned to death – and executed – in 1953 – for the murder of a policeman. He was a 19-year-old with learning difficulties. During an attempted burglary, his partner in crime, Christopher Craig, who was under 18, shot a policeman after Bentley had called out ‘Let him have it’, ‘it’ being the gun. The prosecution alleged that ‘Let him have it’ meant ‘Shoot him’, and the judge directed the jury to find that interpretation. Bentley was hanged. He has since been posthumously pardoned, and his conviction quashed.

Bentley’s case was one of those miscarriages of justice which persuaded our parliament to abolish the death penalty. At least, to abolish it when we bring an alleged murderer before the courts.

But what if the alleged murderer is a terrorist? Do you remember ‘Death on the Rock’, the ITV documentary broadcast in 1988, about three IRA man who were shot by the SAS in Gibraltar?

Or Jean Charles de Menezes, the innocent man shot nine times by policemen on a Victoria Line tube train?

Or even Osama bin Laden, shot by the US special forces in Pakistan at his home? None of them was tried. But they were all killed, killed by the forces of law and order. Was that right?

There is a difference in legal interpretation between us and the USA in this context. They characterise these operations as being part of a ‘War against Terror’, an actual war, in which the terrorists are combatants, soldiers. We, on the other hand, see terrorists as criminals, to be brought to justice in the courts.

In general, in war, subject to the Geneva Conventions, it is lawful to kill enemy soldiers. Therefore if Mr Emwazi was a soldier and there was a war, in principle it would have been lawful to kill him.

But if there wasn’t a war, at least a war in the sense that Mr Emwazi was a soldier in an army belonging to a country which was at war with the United States, then he was simply a criminal who should have been brought to trial. Incidentally, murder is one of the few crimes which the British courts will try, irrespectively where in the world the offence was committed.

So was it right, or lawful, to kill him with a missile? Nobody is sure even that it was indeed him who was killed – let alone whether his fellow-passengers were in any way sufficiently culpable in order to deserve the death penalty.

Compare Jihadi John’s case with Derek Bentley’s. Bentley was tried. He had the benefit of counsel. There was a jury. The judge was experienced. But they still got it wrong.

Here, we don’t even know for sure whether it was Jihadi John that the missile hit. We don’t know who the other people who were killed were. The missile was fired by the US Army at a car in a town in Syria, Raqqa. The United States is not at war with Syria. Dare one ask, on what legal basis could the strike be justified?

Now I know that you will have listened to me saying that, and you’re probably thinking, ‘That must be wrong’. Wrong, in the sense that ‘of course it was the right thing’ to get rid of Emwazi. He was a ‘dangerous terrorist’. The Prime Minister, I believe, has said that killing him was a question of self-defence.

A former law professor at the LSE, a very old friend of mine, said that the special circumstances, in effect, justified the killing. ‘Imagine you have him in your sights, knife poised over neck of a captive… Do you shoot, or ring 999 and hope for the best?’ It is the same sort of reasoning which is sometimes used to justify torture.

Well, some lawyers at least certainly disagree with those suggestions. The former Master of the Rolls, Lord Bingham, Sir Tom Bingham, in his very fine book ‘The Rule of Law’, quoted Cicero, De Legibus (‘On Laws’),’ Salus populi suprema lex esto’, (‘let the safety of the people be the highest law’), but said that he preferred Benjamin Franklin’s view that ‘he who would put security before liberty deserves neither’.

The early Christians had a hard time. As we read in St Mark’s Gospel, Jesus was preparing the apostles for persecution. What he warned them about indeed sounds like what is happening to the Christians in the Middle East today. But remember what St Paul said, in his Letter to the Romans, chapter 8.

35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
36 As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

And let us remember what Jesus himself said in the Sermon on the Mount.

‘I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.’

Jesus had no use for military intervention, let alone a ‘war on terror’. In the Beatitudes, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God’. Love your enemies. Love your enemies! This is revolutionary stuff. How can we handle it?

Surely we cannot just stand aside and let IS run amok all over the world? Can we? Last week I preached about how ‘Thou shalt not kill’ had evolved into the doctrine of the Just War, and how in modern times the rules sometimes allowing for warlike acts had been agreed in the United Nations Charter. The war must be in self-defence, or to give effect to a mutual protection treaty, or if the United Nations to has sanctioned it.

This is presumably why the Prime Minister has made reference to self defence, in seeking to justify the drone strike which probably killed Jihadi John. But it is at least arguable that there is no war; there was only terrorism, which in this country is a criminal matter, not an act of war.

In that case, whether or not the action was in self-defence is not relevant, in the sense that the Battle of Britain was fought in self-defence by the RAF. Even if it were, it is highly unlikely that Jihadi John was in any meaningful way a threat to the existence of this country.

We need to pray for guidance, and for our leaders to have wisdom and discernment where terrorism is concerned. It is no use our getting involved in ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’. We should remember that ‘He who would put security before liberty deserves neither’.

Truth and reconciliation are far more likely to lead to long term peace. Let us pray that they are forthcoming.

An Eye for an Eye

Liberté Égalité Securité