ZOG's committment to genocide in Palestine: "unwavering, unbreakable, unshakable"

Yesterday I posted a recent AIPAC statement in which the Israel Lobby in essence demanded that the Obama administration desist from its complaints about the recent humiliation of VP Biden in Israel. Sure enough, the entire US ruling class immediately jumped to attention. Take, for example, the statements of US Congress members which immediately issued statement of loyalty to the Israel Lobby. As for the Executive Branch - we all heard their obsequious reply about the (legally non-existing) "alliance" with Israel: unwavering, unbreakable, and unshakable. It really looked like they were all reading from the same talking points.

There simply can be no doubt about the fact that the United States have been taken over by what some call a "Zionist Occupation Government". I know, I know, that sounds like the kid of words which folks like David Duke or the Aryan Nation might use in one of their speeches. So what?! If tomorrow David Duke or the Aryan nation declare that the earth is round and that 2+2=4 are we going to reject that? Of course not! Rejecting an argument (or, in this case, the use of an acronym) because it is used by somebody we dislike is a typical example of the ad-hominem fallacy. Instead we should ask ourselves: does the acronym "ZOG" make sense, yes or no?

That the US ruling elite, whether Jewish or not, is Zionist is beyond doubt. Heck - every single US politician is more than happy to proclaim it.

Is the Zionist power in the USA an "occupation"? I would argue that it is, if only because this power structure totally ignores the will the the American people (shown in numerous opinion polls and elections). It is important to remember that neither the American people nor Congress have EVER been given a single chance to vote on ANY alliance or treaty with Israel. NEVER. How is that this fundamentally illegal "alliance" ever became "unwavering, unbreakable, and unshakable" if not by the simple fact that this is an *occupation* government?

Are the Zionists a "government"? Well, of course they are, at least since the election of Bill Clinton (before Clinton and Dubya, it was the old "Anglo" guard which ruled the USA). There is no non-Zionist government in the USA, so speaking of ZOG is quite appropriate indeed.

The entire "Biden humiliation" episode illustrates a simple point: the US and Israel are not "allies". The USA is an Israeli colony, every bit as occupied as the Palestinian lands. The main difference between these two occupations is primarily in the method used: bullets and bombs in Palestine, corporate media and money in the USA. Otherwise, there is a lot in common between the Palestinian Authority and the US Nomenklatura such as, for example, its endemic corruption and its willingness to oppress its own population.

In this context, it is worth looking at the entire "Obama peace initiative" canard. What are they talking about, really?

Officially, they are talking about the idea of the USA taking the needed steps to bring Israel and the Palestinian Authority around a negotiating table. Calling things by their real names this means that one Israeli colony (the USA) is making "efforts" to bring another Israeli colony (the PA) and their colonial master (Israel) to sit down and "negotiate". Negotiate about what?! Since when does the master need one slave to "negotiate" with another slave? Since when do masters negotiate with slaves anyway?

As for Hamas, nobody - not Israel, not the PA nor, of course, the USA - is even floating the idea around of negotiating with it. Why would anybody want to negotiate with the duly elected representative of the Palestinian people?

We also hear a lot about the merits of the "one state solution" vs. the "two state solution" and, at least officially, Israel and its colonial subjects (the USA and the PA) support the "two state solution". In reality, of course, both Israel or the USA totally oppose the "two state solution" and their true stance is clearly shown in their yearly opposition to the annual UN Resolution on the "Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine" in which the entire world demands the implementation of a "two state solution" and which is always opposed by Israel, the USA and a couple of South Pacific nations (and sometimes an "Echelon-member" state). Israel and the USA are also vehemently opposed to a "one state solution" as this would wholly negate the "Jewish state" nature of Israel.

So what do the Zionists (in Israel or the USA) really want? Here is how the Israeli academic Arnon Soffer summarized Israel's "solution":

"We will tell the Palestinians that if a single missile is fired over the fence, we will fire 10 in response. And women and children will be killed, and houses will be destroyed. After the fifth such incident, Palestinian mothers won't allow their husbands to shoot Kassams, because they will know what's waiting for them. Second of all, when 2.5 million people live in a closed-off Gaza, it's going to be a human catastrophe. Those people will become even bigger animals than they are today, with the aid of an insane fundamentalist Islam. The pressure at the border will be awful. It's going to be a terrible war. So, if we want to remain alive, we will have to kill and kill and kill. All day, every day (...) If we don't kill, we will cease to exist"

That's is pretty clear, no? If the Israelis want to keep an ethnically/religiously "pure" Jewish state, they have three options for the Palestinian problem: a) convert them all (not going to happen, nobody proposes that either) or b) expel them all (not going to happen, but has plenty of advocates) or c) kill them all.

Obviously, few people dare to openly advocate the complete genocide of the Palestinian people, but that idea in inherently contained in, and forms part of, the Zionist project and ideology.

Once this is clearly understood, we can immediately see what the "peace negotiations" are all about. In fact, they can only be about one thing: the timetable and modalities of the genocide of the Palestinian people. And that is what the Obama Administration committed to in a "unwavering, unbreakable, unshakable" manner: a racist genocide in Palestine. Biden and Hillary included, of course.

Israeli settlers threaten 'Holocaust' in occupied Palestine

The BBC reports this morning that

Jewish settlers are suspected of being behind an attack on a mosque in the north of the occupied West Bank. Attackers set fire to bookshelves and a large area of carpet in the mosque, and sprayed graffiti in Hebrew on a wall (...) Israeli human rights groups have accused the police and army of running inadequate investigations into such incidents. One group reported that nine out of 10 investigations into alleged attacks on Palestinians by settlers end without anyone being charged. (...) One of the slogans sprayed on the wall of the mosque in Yasuf read: "Get ready to pay the price," Israeli public radio reported. Another read: "We will burn you all."

Interesting choice of words, in particular from adepts of the "Holocaust religion¹". See - the word "holocaust" comes from the Greek word ὁλόκαυστον (Holókauston): holos, "whole" and kaustos, "burnt" and it is a frankly bizarre choice of words to describe the mass murder of Jews by the Nazis during World War II considering that the vast majority of murdered Jews (and non-Jews) were, of course, *not* burned. In reality, of course, the reason for the choice of this word "Holocaust^©" (written with a capital "c" and copyrighted to be applicable only to Jews) has nothing to do with the Nazi mode of corpse disposal and everything to do with the Biblical reference to "whole burnt offering which is brought up" to God, in Hebrew (olah) (another frankly bizarre idea as it turns Hitler into some God-serving high priest, but nevermind).

The Old Testament is replete with references to a Messiah which will come one day and die for the sins of mankind, thereby freeing it from death and ushering it into a new Age. Christianity saw Christ as being this Messiah; the Holocaust religion sees the entire Jewish people (assuming, of course, that there is such thing, which, of course, is yet another a myth) as this Messiah. Take all the basic tenets of Christology (Christian dogmatic theology) and simply transpose them from Christ to "the Jewish people" and you will have a pretty good idea of what these self-worshipping racist crackpots actually think about themselves! High-Priest, King of Kings, Son of God - you name it, they claim it....

In this context, the slogan "we will burn you all" is clearly not an innocent choice of words. It is, in fact, a promise to do exactly that - to burn all of the Palestinians in a (real) holocaust (small 'c', copyright free). It would be irresponsible to dismiss this threat as the ravings of a small fringe of lunatics. Not after the use of phosphorus in Gaza, which many Israelis came to watch from specially prepared tourist observation stations. Not after the mass bombing of Lebanon in 2006. Not from a country which, unlike Iran, has never signed the NTP and which sits on several hundred nuclear weapons.

Sadly, and frighteningly, there is a consensus in Israel around the basic idea of taking over all of Palestine and either expelling or exterminating all the remaining Palestinians who still live there. That has been the not-so-secret program of all the Israeli governments since the foundation of this state and the vast majority of the Israeli people steadfastly support it. They differ only in the choice of methods, in tactical details if you wish, but the fundamental strategic goal is clear: a genocide of the Palestinian people.

What is taking place every day in occupied Palestine is a "slow-motion" genocide, an attempt to exterminate an entire people. This genocide is unique not only in that it is executed in slow motion, over many decades now, but by the fact that it is public knowledge, that not a single aspect of this abject enterprise is hidden from view. It is the first, and probably only, genocide in history which is a public genocide. Everybody knows about it, and everybody chooses to simply look away. As for our politicians, they will continue to mantrically repeat the the Zionist slogan of "never again" and spend their time (and our money) prosecuting the likes of Demjanuk for being an "accessory" to Nazi crimes.

But who cares, right?

"Hey, honey, what is the Holocaust^© movie for this holiday season?"

The Saker
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¹ The commandment of this cult are as follows:

1. Remember what Amalek (the Non-Jews) has done to thee.
2. Thou shalt never compare THE HOLOCAUST with any other Genocide.
3. Thou shalt never compare the Nazi crimes with those of Israel.
4. Thou shalt never doubt the number of 6 million Jewish victims.
5. Thou shalt never doubt that the majority of them died in gas chambers.
6. Thou shalt not doubt the central role of SATAN Hitler in the extermination of the Jews.
7. Thou shalt never doubt the right of Israel to exist as the Jewish state.
8. Thou shalt not criticize the leading Jewish organizations and the Israeli government.
9. Thou must never criticize Jewish organizations and the Zionist leadership for abandoning the European Jewry in the Nazi era
10.Thou shalt take these commandments literally and never shew mercy to them that doubt!

Iran to probe into Parachinar 'genocide'

Press TV reports: A report to the Iranian parliament has cited grave human rights abuses against Shias in the northwestern Pakistani city of Parachinar.

Lack of government control over the highly sensitive border areas of Kurram Agency, the capital of which is Parachinar, has lead to an increased Taliban presence in the area.

Local Pakistani media reported last week that Taliban-linked militants in Parachinar, Hangu district and much of the Kurram tribal agency have during the last six months been engaged in sectarian violence and have killed 25 to 30 people on a daily basis.

Military forces based in the areas usually avoid the violence which has caused uproar in the territory bordering the Tora Bora region in Afghanistan, the media report said.

The National Security and Foreign Policy Commission of the Iranian Majlis (parliament) has received a report on the situation in Parachinar.

"The report provides evidence of a humanitarian disaster in that region, which unfortunately due to the crisis in Iraq and Gaza has not garnered media coverage," Iranian lawmaker Heshmatollah Falahat-Pisheh told Tabnak on Saturday.

Falahat-Pisheh affirmed that the parliament would investigate the "genocide" through relevant international agencies.

"We are pressuring international human rights organizations to dispatch fact-finding missions to the area," he added.

Taliban militants have launched deadly attacks against the enclave of Shiites settled in Parachinar and have blocked road routes to the city since April 2007 when sectarian violence between Shias and Sunnis broke out after provocative remarks by a Wahhabi against historical Shiite figures.

The Taliban sided with the Sunni majority in the country, imposing an ongoing 20-month blockade which has caused serious food shortages.

The Pakistani government has on various occasions dispatched relief convoys loaded with food and medicines to the area, but most supplies are confiscated by the militants and the drivers are killed or kidnapped.

In a recent incident, the militants beheaded a police officer on Thursday and kidnapped four Shia Muslims on their way to Parachinar.

"Taliban militants beheaded a policeman and kidnapped four Shias in Tal, a town 45 km northeast of Miranshah," a security official told the European strategic intelligence and security center last week.

The grave situation has also prompted the leading Shiite figure of Iraq, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, to issue a ruling -- known as a fatwa -- encouraging all Shiites in Pakistan to do what they can to help their "brethren" in Parachinar.

"Pakistan says it cannot control the situation in the area, but this is a lie, they have got troops inside Parachinar but the population are better off without them," Hussein Ali Shahriyari, another Iranian lawmaker, said.

ICC evaluates Israeli war crimes case

Press TV reports: The Palestinian Authority has recognized the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court to investigate Israeli war crimes in Gaza.

Acting Palestinian Justice Minister Ali Khashan sent a brief letter to the court on Jan. 21, in which he recognized the authority of the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal. The court made the letter public Tuesday, APTN reported.

On Monday, the office of the International Criminal Court, ICC, said that the ICC has begun a "preliminary analysis" of alleged crimes committed by Israelis during the recent offensive in the Gaza Strip.

Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo told a small group of foreign correspondents in a meeting at the court that he has received 150 separate communications calling for war crimes investigations over the Gaza conflict.

"Ali Khashan gave the letter to my office," said the prosecutor.

"My work now is to analyze if this is in accordance with the law," he said, adding that he would not hastily decide on the issue.

Moreno-Ocampo needs to now determine whether "the Palestinian Authority has the power under international law to recognize the court" -- whether the Palestinians should be considered by the court as having sovereign status.

The use of controversial chemical white phosphorous shells, indiscriminate firing during the offensive in the densely-populated coastal sliver, the shelling of a UN school turned refugee camp, as well as the question as to whether other Israeli military tactics were in breach of humanitarian laws are among the issues Tel Aviv has been charged with.

Human Rights Watch has called for an international investigation into allegations of war crimes by Israel.

The Arab League (AL) also made an appeal to the UN General Assembly last week to "form an international committee to investigate Israeli crimes in the Gaza Strip and to set up a criminal court to try Israeli war criminals."

More than 1330 people, a large number of them civilians, were killed and 5450 others were injured in the Israeli war on Gaza.

Israeli warplanes continue air strikes in southern Gaza Strip despite announcing a ceasefire and allegedly ending the 23-day war.

On Monday, One Palestinian civilian was killed and four others were injured in an Israeli air strike in southern Gaza Strip. On Tuesday, Israeli warplanes attacked the northern Gazan town of Jabaliya.

Black Flag

by Uri Avnery

A SPANISH JUDGE has instituted a judicial inquiry against seven Israeli political and military personalities on suspicion of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The case: the 2002 dropping of a one ton bomb on the home of Hamas leader Salah Shehade. Apart from the intended victim, 14 people, most of them children, were killed.

For those who have forgotten: the then commander of the Israeli Air Force, Dan Halutz, was asked at the time what he feels when he drops a bomb on a residential building. His unforgettable answer: “A slight bump to the wing.” When we in Gush Shalom accused him of a war crime, he demanded that we be put on trial for high treason. He was joined by the Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, who accused us of wanting to “turn over Israeli army officers to the enemy”. The Attorney General notified us officially that he did not intend to open an investigation against those responsible for the bombing.

I should be happy, therefore, that at long last somebody is ready to put that action to a judicial test (even if he seems to have been thwarted by political pressure.) But I am sorry that this has happened in Spain, not in Israel.

ISRAELI TV VIEWERS have lately been exposed to a bizarre sight: army officers appearing with their faces hidden, as usual for criminals when the court prohibits their identification. Pedophiles, for example, or attackers of old women.

On the orders of the military censors, this applies to all officers, from battalion commanders down, who have been involved in the Gaza war. Since the faces of brigade commanders and above are generally known, the order does not apply to them.

Immediately after the cease-fire, the Minister of Defense, Ehud Barak, promoted a special law that would give unlimited backing by the state to all officers and soldiers who took part in the Gaza war and who might be accused abroad of war crimes. This seems to confirm the Hebrew adage: “On the head of the thief, the hat is burning”.

I DO NOT object to trials abroad. The main thing is that war criminals, like pirates, should be brought to justice. It is not so important where they are caught. (This rule was applied by the State of Israel when it abducted Adolf Eichmann in Argentina and hanged him in Israel for heinous crimes committed outside the territory of Israel and, indeed, before the state even existed.)

But as an Israeli patriot, I would prefer suspected Israeli war criminals to be put on trial in Israel. That is necessary for the country, for all decent officers and soldiers of the Israeli army, for the education of future generations of citizens and soldiers.

There is no need to rely on international law alone. There are Israeli laws against war crimes. Enough to mention the immortal phrase coined by Justice Binyamin Halevy, serving as a military judge, in the trial of the border policemen who were responsible for the 1956 massacre in Kafr Kassem, when dozens of children, women and men were mown down for violating a curfew which they did not even know about.

The judge announced that even in wartime, there are orders over which flies “the black flag of illegality”. These are orders which are “manifestly” illegal – that is to say, orders which every normal person can tell are illegal, without having to consult a lawyer.

War criminals dishonor the army whose uniform they wear – whether they are generals or common soldiers. As a combat soldier on the day the Israeli Defense Army was officially created, I am ashamed of them and demand that they be cast out and be put on trial in Israel.

My list of suspects includes politicians, soldiers, rabbis and lawyers.

THERE IS not the slightest doubt that in the Gaza war, crimes were committed. The question is to what extent and by whom.

Example: the soldiers call on the residents of a house to leave it. A woman and her four children come out, waving white handkerchiefs. It is absolutely clear that they are not armed fighters. A soldier in a near-by tank stands up, points his rifle and shoots them dead at short range. According to testimonies that seem to be beyond doubt, this happened more than once.

Another example: the shelling of the United Nations school full of refugees, from which there was no shooting – as admitted by the army, after the original pretexts were disproved.

These are ”simple” cases. But the spectrum of cases is far wider. A serious judicial investigation has to start right from the top: the politicians and senior officers who decided on the war and confirmed its plans must be investigated about their decisions. In Nuremberg it was laid down that the starting of a war of aggression is a crime.

An objective investigation has to find out whether the decision to start the war was justified, or if there existed another way of stopping the launching of rockets against Israeli territory. Without doubt, no country can or should tolerate the bombing of its towns and villages from beyond the border. But could this be prevented by talking with the Gaza authorities? Was our government’s decision to boycott Hamas, the winner of the democratic Palestinian elections, the real cause of this war? Did the imposition of the blockade on a million and a half Gaza Strip inhabitants contribute to the launching of the Qassams? In brief: were the alternatives considered before it was decided to start a deadly war?

The war plan included a massive attack on the civilian population of the Strip. The real aims of a war can be understood less from the official declarations of its initiators, than from their actions. If in this war some 1300 men, women and children were killed, the great majority of whom were not fighters; if about 5000 people were injured, most of them children; if some 2500 homes were partly or wholly destroyed; if the infrastructure of life was totally demolished – all this clearly could not have happened accidentally. It must have been a part of the war plan.

The things said during the war by politicians and officers make it clear that the plan had at least two aims, which might be considered war crimes: (1) To cause widespread killing and destruction, in order to “fix a price tag”. “to burn into their consciousness”, “to reinforce deterrence”, and most of all – to get the population to rise up against Hamas and overthrow their government. Clearly this affects mainly the civilian population. (2) To avoid casualties to our army at (literally) any price by destroying any building and killing any human being in the area into which our troops were about to move, including destroying homes over the heads of their inhabitants, preventing medical teams from reaching the victims, killing people indiscriminately. In certain cases, inhabitants were warned that they must flee, but this was mainly an alibi-action: there was nowhere to flee to, and often fire was opened on people trying to escape.

An independent court will have to decide whether such a war-plan is in accordance with national and international law, or whether it was ab initio a crime against humanity and a war-crime.

This was a war of a regular army with huge capabilities against a guerrilla force. In such a war, too, not everything is permissible. Arguments like “The Hamas terrorists were hiding within the civilian population” and “They used the population as human shields” may be effective as propaganda but are irrelevant: that is true for every guerrilla war. It must be taken into account when a decision to start such a war is being considered.

In a democratic state, the military takes its orders from the political establishment. Good. But that does not include “manifestly” illegal orders, over which the black flag of illegality is waving. Since the Nuremberg trials, there is no more room for the excuse that “I was only obeying orders”.

Therefore, the personal responsibility of all involved - from the Chief of Staff, the Front Commander and the Division Commander right down to the last soldier - must be examined. From the statements of soldiers one must deduce that many believed that their job was “to kill as many Arabs as possible”. Meaning: no distinction between fighters and non-fighters. That is a completely illegal order, whether given explicitly or by a wink and a nudge. The soldiers understood this to be “the spirit of the commander”.

AMONG THOSE suspected of war crimes, the rabbis have a place of honor.

Those who incite to war crimes and call upon soldiers, directly or indirectly, to commit war crimes may be guilty of a war crime themselves.

When one speaks of “rabbis”, one thinks of old men with long white beards and big hats, who give tongue to venerable wisdom. But the rabbis who accompanied the troops are a very different species.

In the last decades, the state-financed religious educational system has churned out “rabbis” who are more like medieval Christian priests than the Jewish sages of Poland or Morocco. This system indoctrinates its pupils with a violent tribal cult, totally ethnocentric, which sees in the whole of world history nothing but an endless story of Jewish victimhood. This is a religion of a Chosen People, indifferent to others, a religion without compassion for anyone who is not Jewish, which glorifies the God-decreed genocide described in the Biblical book of Joshua.

The products of this education are now the “rabbis” who instruct the religious youths. With their encouragement, a systematic effort has been made to take over the Israeli army from within. Kippa-wearing officers have replaced the Kibbutzniks, who not so long ago were dominant in the army. Many of the lower and middle-ranking officers now belong to this group.

The most outstanding example is the “Chief Army Rabbi”, Colonel Avichai Ronsky, who has declared that his job is to reinforce the “fighting spirit” of the soldiers. He is a man of the extreme right, not far from the spirit of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, whose party was outlawed in Israel for its fascist ideology. Under the auspices of the army rabbinate, religious-fascist brochures of the ultra-right “rabbis” were distributed to the soldiers.

This material includes political incitement, such as the statement that the Jewish religion prohibits “giving up even one millimeter of Eretz Israel”, that the Palestinians, like the Biblical Philistines (from whom the name Palestine derives), are a foreign people who invaded the country, and that any compromise (such as indicated in the official government program) is a mortal sin. The distribution of political propaganda violates, of course, army law.

The rabbis openly called upon the soldiers to be cruel and merciless towards the Arabs. To treat them mercifully, they stated, is a “terrible, awful immorality”. When such material is distributed to religious soldiers going into war, it is easy to see why things happened the way they did.

THE PLANNERS of this war knew that the shadow of war crimes was hovering over the planned operation. Witness: the Attorney General (whose official title is “Legal Advisor to the Government”) was a partner to the planning. This week the Chief Army Attorney, Colonel Avichai Mandelblut, disclosed that his officers were attached throughout the war to all the commanders, from the Chief of Staff down to the Division Commander.

All this together leads to the inescapable conclusion that the legal advisors bear direct responsibility for the decisions taken and implemented, from the massacre of the civilian police recruits at their graduating ceremony to the shelling of the UN installations. Every attorney who was a partner to the deliberations before an order was given is responsible for its consequences, unless he can prove that he objected to it.

The Chief Army Attorney, who is supposed to give the army professional and objective advice, speaks about “the monstrous enemy” and tries to justify the actions of the army by saying that it was fighting against “an unbridled enemy, who declared that he ‘loves death’ and finds shelter behind the backs of women and children”. Such language is, perhaps, pardonable in a pep-talk of a war-drunk combat commander, like the battalion chief who ordered his soldiers to commit suicide rather than be captured, but totally unacceptable when it comes from the chief legal officer of the army.

WE MUST pursue all the legal processes in Israel and call for an independent investigation and the indictment of suspected perpetrators. We must demand this even if the chances of it happening are slim indeed.

If these efforts fail, nobody will be able to object to trials abroad, either in an international court or in the courts of those nations that respect human rights and international law.

Until then, the black flag will still be waving.

Israel braces for war crime charges

Press TV reports: Israel prepares to respond to possible war crimes charges after its soldiers admitted to having used chemical weapons against Gazans.

Israeli government sources revealed on Friday that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had tasked an inter-ministerial team to clear Tel Aviv of possible war crimes charges relating to its three-week-long assault on Gaza.

Israeli Justice Minister Daniel Friedman will spearhead the efforts to coordinate a legal defense for civilians and the military amid world condemnation of Tel Aviv's war on Gaza.

Israel moved close to being prosecuted for war crimes after Norwegian found traces of depleted uranium in Gaza victims, suggesting that Israel used the illegal weapons in its war on the densely-populated territory.

The UN nuclear watchdog said on Wednesday that it would open an investigation into Israel's alleged use of depleted uranium weapons, which are listed as 'illegal weapons of mass destruction' in the Geneva Convention.

The case for Israeli war crimes became stronger on Thursday when the Israeli military admitted that it pounded the Palestinian coast with at least twenty phosphorus bombs during the offensive.

White phosphorus, classified as a 'chemical weapon' by the US intelligence, is a highly-incendiary substance that bursts into all-consuming flames that cannot be extinguished with water, burning flesh to the bone and often leading to death.

Under the Geneva Treaty of 1980, the use of white phosphorous as a weapon is prohibited.

Human rights group Amnesty International has also touched on the issue, saying that Tel Aviv used white phosphorus munitions "indiscriminately and illegally" in overcrowded areas of Gaza.

"The repeated use [of White Phosphorus] in this manner, despite evidence of its indiscriminate effects and its toll on civilians, is a war crime," said Donatella Rovera of the Amnesty International.

Eight Israeli human rights groups have also called for an investigation into the offensive -- which has left some 1,340 people dead and thousands of others hospitalized.

UN special rapporteur for the Palestinian territories, Richard Falk, meanwhile, said Thursday that there is more than enough evidence that Israel committed war crimes in the strip.

According to Falk, the crimes committed in Gaza are clearly reminiscent of "the worst kind of international memories of the Warsaw Ghetto", which included the starvation and murder of Polish Jews by Nazi Germany in World War II.

Israel launched its Operation Cast Lead on December 27 to allegedly defend its territories from Hamas rockets, which were fired in retaliation for Israel's defiance of a ceasefire that had previously been in place.

The UN Charter and international law, however, does not give Israel the legal foundation for claiming self-defense in the case of the Gazans.

ICC overlooks Israel's war crimes allegation

Press TV reports: The International Criminal Court prosecutor says it lacks jurisdiction to investigate possible Israeli war crimes committed in Gaza.

The ICC prosecutor said in a statement Wednesday that the "court's jurisdiction is limited to war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of genocide committed on the territory of, or by a national of, a state party while Israel is not a member state.

Tel Aviv launched Operation Cast Lead on December 27 to put an end to rocket attacks against southern Israeli towns. At least 1,015 Palestinians have died during the offensive, while some 4,700 others are reported wounded.

Hamas, the democratically-elected ruler of the coastal sliver, demands a cessation of an 18-month Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip before its fighters suspend the rocket attacks.

The huge number of civilian casualties in the densely-populated coastal sliver has provoked widespread outcries around the globe among many nations as well as their leaders.

A fierce controversy has also broken out over the alleged use of white phosphorus, also known by the military as WP or Willie Pete, by the Israeli army in Gaza.

Human Rights Watch says its researchers have observed the use of WP -- which causes horrific burns, severe injuries or death when it comes in contact with human skin -- by the Israeli military in the Gaza Strip.

The legality of the toxic chemical agent is a matter of debate, with many groups recognizing it as an illegal weapon, while international law allows its usage solely for smoke-screening.

The US intelligence has classified WP as a "chemical weapon."

There are also reports that Tel Aviv has used depleted uranium against civilians in Gaza.

The International body in The Hague made the remarks Wednesday after a Palestinian rights group called on the ICC to investigate Israel for committing war crimes in Gaza, Reuters reported.

"In Gaza at present, the ICC lacks such jurisdiction," Nicola Fletcher, a spokeswoman for the ICC prosecutor, said adding that the ICC can investigate Israel's war crimes only if Tel Aviv voluntarily accepted the court's jurisdiction, or if it is referred to the court by the United Nations Security Council.

Israel and the United States are not among the 108 signatories of the Rome Statute creating the Hague-based court in 2000 to investigate and prosecute war crimes.
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Note: in yet another glorious landmark of its equally glorious history the "invincible Tsahal" has now killed more than 1000 people in Gaza.

The Saker

A very interesting idea: sue the bastards!

There is an interesting idea being floated around by the Iranian government and other circles. The idea is to sue Israel and/or Israeli leader for war crimes, crimes against humanity and even genocide. Sounds silly? Think again.

It all began when the government of Iran asked the ICC to issue warrants for the arrest of Israeli leaders. Soon thereafter a US professor, Francis Anthony Boyle, has offered the Iranian President a plan according to which he would open a legal case against Israel. Boyle has interesting views on this topic (see his article about the legal basis for prosecution) and his offer could do something very useful: internationalize the effort to sue the Israelis.

I find this very interesting. First, it shows that Iran is willing to actually do something to help the Palestinians (proving the Iran bashers wrong, yet again). Second, while the actual probability of seeing Olmert or Livni sitting next to Karadzic in the Hague is remote, there is a huge potential for all sorts of legal headaches for the Israeli leaders in their travels. Think about it, literally any judge in any country might issue an arrest warrant for any Israeli leader (even without an ICC warrant, by the way). Of course, the vast majority governments of the world will immediately bail out any Isareli official in trouble (after all, who would dare alienate the USraelian Empire?), but still - imagine the embarrasment. Thirdly, with the USraelien Empire in decline there just might be a country where such an arrest would "stick" and where the charge would actually go to a court (remember Pinochet).

Lastly, this example shows that there are things a government can do to help the Palestinians short of declaring a war on Israel. The fact that *all* the Arab governments are simply "sitting on their hands" is not due the a lack of options but to a shameful lack of will and care.

Top US Lawyer And UNICEF Data Reveal Afghan Genocide

By Dr Gideon Polya (Source: Countercurrents via Informationclearinghouse)

The United States invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 with the ostensible excuse of the Afghan Government’s “protection” of the asserted Al Qaeda culprits of the 9/11 atrocity that killed 3,000 people. In the light of as many as 6.6 million post-invasion excess deaths in Occupied Afghanistan as of February 2008 (see below), it is important to consider the major problems with this Bush-ite and neo-Bush-ite version of events as summarized below:

1. The US has a long history of “questionable” excuses for war e.g. the explosion of the Maine (the Spanish-American War), the sinking of the US arms-carrying Lusitania (entry into World War 1), the Pearl Harbor attack with now recognized US foreknowledge (entry into World War 2), North Koreans provoked into invading their own country (the Korean War), the fictitious Gulf of Tonkin incident (the Vietnam War; recently similarly but unsuccessfully attempted in the Persian Gulf as an “excuse” to attack Iran) and the extraordinary 1,000 post-9/11 lies told by Bush Administration figures, most notoriously about non-existent Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction (the Iraq War; post-invasion excess deaths now about 1.5-2 million).

2. The US supported and funded Al Qaeda and the Taliban from the late 1970s to the early 1990s associated with its anti-Soviet policies (see William Blum’s “Rogue State”).

3. Oil- and hegemony-related plans for the invasion of Afghanistan were all ready to go before 9/11.

4. No Afghans were involved in the 9/11 attack according to the “official 9/11 story” of the egregiously dishonest Bush Administration.

5. Even the right-wing, neo-Bush-ite Democrat Al Gore in his recent book “The Assault on Reason” (Chapter 6, National Insecurity, pp178-179) condemns the Bush Administration for effective passive complicity in the 9/11 atrocity i.e. they let it happen, just as a fore-warned US Administration permitted the Pearl Harbor attack to happen in 1941: “Their behaviour, in my opinion, was reckless, but the explanation for it lies in hubris, not in some bizarre conspiracy theory …These affirmative and repeated refusals to listen to clear warnings [prior to 9/11] constitute behaviour that goes beyond simple negligence. At a minimum, it represents a reckless disregard for the safety of the American people.”

6. However, further to point #5, the extremely eminent former 7-year President of Italy, law professor, senator for life and long-term Western intelligence intimate Francesco Cossiga recently (November 2007) told one of Italy's top newspapers that (a) the US CIA and Israeli Mossad committed the 9/11 outrage in order to further US and Zionist aims and that (b) major Western intelligence agencies are well aware of this (for details and documentation see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/18569/26/).

As of February 2008, analysis of UNICEF data (see UNICEF statistics on Occupied Afghanistan: http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/afghanistan_statistics.html) allows the following estimate of 3.3-6.6 million post-invasion excess deaths (avoidable deaths, deaths that should not have happened) in Occupied Afghanistan:

1. annual under-5 infant deaths 370,000.

2. post-invasion under-5 infant deaths 2.3 million (90% avoidable).

3. post-invasion avoidable under-5 infant deaths 2.1 million.

4. post-invasion non-violent excess deaths 3.2 million (2.3 million /0.7 = 3.3 million; for impoverished, worst case Third world countries the under-5 infant deaths are about 0.7 of total non-violent excess deaths (see A Layperson’s Guide to counting Iraq deaths: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/5872/26/ ).

5. post-invasion violent deaths about 3.3 million (assuming roughly 1 violent death for every non-violent avoidable death i.e. roughly as in US-occupied Occupied Iraq where the ratio of violent deaths to non-violent excess deaths is 0.8-1.2 million to 0.7-0.8 million; see Continued Australian and US Coalition war crimes in Occupied Iraq: http://ruddaustraliareportcard.blogspot.com/2008/01/rudd-australia-report-card-1-continued.html).

6. upper estimate of non-violent plus violent post-invasion excess deaths 3.3 million + 3.3 million = 6.6 million excess deaths.

For detailed documentation of the above see “Australian complicity in continuing Afghan genocide”: http://ruddaustraliareportcard.blogspot.com/ . A major cause of the carnage is revealed by WHO (see: http://www.who.int/en/ ) – the “total annual per capita medical expenditure” permitted by the Occupiers in Occupied Afghanistan is a mere $19 – as compared to as compared to $2,560 (the UK), $3,123 (Australia) and $6,096 (the US). This is in gross contravention of Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (see: http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/92.htm) which unequivocally demands that the Occupier must provide life-sustaining food and medical requisites to its Conquered Subjects “to the fullest extent of the means available to it”. Compounding this is the appalling reality of 4 million Afghan refugees.

What is happening in Afghanistan is an Afghan Holocaust. One sees that post-invasion under-5 infant deaths in Occupied Afghanistan (2.3 million) vastly exceeds the number of Jewish children murdered by the Nazis in World War 2 (1.5 million). The upper estimate of post-invasion violent and non-violent excess deaths in Occupied Afghanistan (6.6 million out of an average 2001-2008 Afghan population of about 25 million) exceeds the number of Jews murdered by the Nazis in World War 2 ( 5.6 million out of 8.2 million Jews in German-occupied Europe in the period 1941-1945) (see: Gilbert, M. (1969), Jewish History Atlas (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London) and Gilbert, M. (1982), Atlas of the Holocaust (Michael Joseph, London)).

Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention (see: http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/genocide/convention.html) states “In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: a) Killing members of the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

From the data summarized above, it is apparent that the Afghan Holocaust is also an Afghan Genocide as defined by the UN Genocide Convention.

Outstanding US Law academic Professor Ali Khan of the Washburn University School of Law, Topeka, Kansas has also described what is going on in Afghanistan as genocide i.e. an Afghan Genocide (see “NATO Genocide in Afghanistan”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/19831/42/ ).

The key legal verdict of Professor Khan is as follows: “The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (entered into force, 1951) is binding on all states including the 26 member states of NATO. The Genocide Convention is jus cogens, the law from which no derogation is allowed. It provides no exceptions for any nation or any organization of nations, such as the United Nations or NATO, to commit genocide. Nor does the Convention allow any exceptions to genocide "whether committed in time of peace or in time of war." Even traditional self-defense - let alone preemptive self-defense, a deceptive name for aggression – cannot be invoked to justify or excuse the crime of genocide.”

Professor Khan proceeds to analyse the campaign of extermination of the Indigenous Afghan Taliban in Afghanistan in relation to International law. He states that in relation to Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention “In murdering the Taliban, NATO armed forces systematically practice on a continual basis the crime of genocide that consists of three constituent elements - act, intent to destroy, and religious group.” His detailed analysis can be succinctly summarized as follows:

1. “The Genocidal Act” is prohibited as defined in the Genocide Convention as “a) Killing members of the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part” – but is is clearly occurring on a huge scale as indicated by the above data.

2. “The Genocidal Intent” is expressed in the Genocide Convention as “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group”- but is clearly present in the statements of the NATO leaders. The “Intent” is also apparent from the sustained, resolute conduct of this horrendously bloody war for over 6 years.

3. “The Genocidal targeting of a Religious Group” is clearly prohibited by the Genocide Convention by “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group” – but is clearly being carried out with the accompaniment of immense Islamophobic propaganda in the West.

Professor Khan concludes: “It may, therefore, be safely concluded that NATO combat troops and NATO commanders are engaged in murdering the Taliban, a protected group under the Genocide Convention, with the specific intent to physically and mentally destroy the group in whole or in part. This is the crime of genocide.”

As an agnostic humanist I certainly don’t care for the Taliban beliefs – but what agnostic humanists (such as myself) or people of other philosophic persuasions think about the religious beliefs and interpretations of the Taliban is beside the point from the perspective of the UN Genocide Convention.

And while I strongly object to human rights violations by the Taliban (especially in relation to women and application of their extreme interpretations of Sharia Law) one has to objectively give credit to the Taliban for (a) bringing Peace through victory in the middle 1990s and (b) for destroying 95% of the Afghan opium production in 2001 (as well of course banning the vastly more deadly use of alcohol and for prohibiting Afghan Government employees from the even more deadly practice of smoking tobacco in 1997). Smoking, alcohol and illicit drugs kill about 7 million people annually, the breakdown being 5 million (tobacco), 1.8 million (alcohol) and 0.2 million (from illicit drugs, about half opiate drug-related).

It can be estimated that 0.6 million people have died world-wide due to opiates in the last 6 years, about 0.5 million of these deaths being due to US Alliance restoration of the Taliban-destroyed Afghan opium industry from 5% of world market share (2001) to 93% (2007) (see UN Office on Drugs and Crime, UNODC, World Drug Report 2007: http://www.unodc.org/unodc/world_drug_report.html ).

The 0.5 million global US-NATO-linked opiate drug-related deaths plus 6.6 million post-invasion Afghan excess deaths bring an upper estimate of the carnage due to the US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan to 7.1 million deaths. If we include excess deaths associated with UK-US actions against Iraq in the period 1990-2008 (about 4 million) then the gruesome carnage of the Bush I plus Bush II Asian Wars now totals about 11 million excess deaths (and this ignores the impact of the Bush Wars through oil price rises and other factors on Third World avoidable deaths).

Occupied Afghanistan is the New Auschwitz of the US and its complicit allies (including former Axis countries Germany and Japan who have on US instigation joined the US-NATO Afghan Genocide) (see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/7616/26/ ).

Those Bush-ite and neo-Bush-ite politicians, military and Mainstream media executives complicit in the Afghan Genocide should be arraigned before the International Criminal Court (see: http://ruddaustraliareportcard.blogspot.com/ ).

In his 2005 Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech (see: http://www.countercurrents.org/arts-pinter081205.htm ), UK playwright Harold Pinter urged the arraignment of Bush and Blair before the International Criminal Court for war crimes and stated “How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand? More than enough, I would have thought.”

Eleven million? More than enough, I would have thought.

Dr Gideon Polya published some 130 works in a 4 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text "Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds" (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London, 2003). He has just published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/1375/247/ and http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ).

Should Armenian Allies Bomb the United States?

Washington's Holocaust Deniers

By Brendan Cooney

In light of President Bush's opposition to a resolution that would acknowledge the Armenian genocide, the question must be considered as to whether he is a madman who cannot be trusted with nuclear weapons.

Should Armenian allies adopt a preemptive approach and bomb strategic North American sites?

U.S. press reports of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denying the Nazi genocide have been a flashpoint of the popular perception here that he is either insane or a beast. In either case, he is someone who must be attacked before he can obtain nuclear weapons.

When Ahmadinejad is asked these days whether the Nazi holocaust occurred, he says historians need to conduct more research. It is an answer that bears an uncanny resemblance to that of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice when asked about the Armenian holocaust.

In this clip, when Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) asks Rice if there is any doubt in her mind that the murder of 1.5 million Armenians between 1915 and 1923 constitutes a genocide, she says, "I think that the historical circumstances require a very detailed and sober look from historians, and what we've encouraged the Turks and the Armenians to do is to have joint historical commissions that can look at this, to have efforts to examine their past, and in examining their past to get over their past."

This is akin to saying the Jews and Germans should get together and study this question of atrocities, and then for them both to get over it. "Lots of people are coming to terms with their history," Rice adds.

She goes on to say that she doesn't think the United States weighing in would help the process of reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia. Well, there's an answer Ahmadinejad might wish to consider next time a goofy "60 Minutes" guy asks him for his Holocaust position: "I don't think me giving an answer would help the Jewish healing process."

Why is there such a runaway-mad perception in the United States that Ahmadinejad is a runaway madman? It's because Vice President Dick Cheney and others in the Administration want to attack Iran, and they are flailing around for a casus belli.

The propaganda campaign against Ahmadinejad is working on two layers, like the trompe l'oeil of an improbable masterpiece. In the background we see hues of a kook with violent intent. Logic fades as we're beguiled by the colors; we forget that there are probably plenty of leaders around the world whose views would affront us, and that we normally don't bomb for beliefs. In the foreground are strokes outlining purported actions. These are things he hasn't just thought but done, such as the supplying of weapons that are killing our boys and girls in uniform. There's blood on his hands! We're already at war with him! The painting becomes vivid, and all sense is lost, as are recollections of the original crime of invading and occupying a sovereign nation.

In simple terms, the propaganda war seeks to prove two things: This is a bad person, and this is a person who has done bad things. One attacks a mode of thought, the other a mode of action. On the mode-of-thought level, Ahmadinejad is portrayed as guilty of two things: he wants to wipe Israel off the map, and he denies that the Holocaust occurred. Ahmadinejad's defenders dispute both, and they point to issues of context and translation. On the mode-of-action level, he is charged with supporting "terrorism" in Iraq with money and weapons.

It is hard to watch all the documentaries showing how we were duped five years ago and think that it could ever happen again, let alone so soon afterward. The pretext for invading Iraq was seen as a flimsy lie by nearly everyone in the world except the ideologically tiny island of people living in the United States. The propaganda washed like a tsunami over the minds of everyone on that island. And don't blame the hoi polloi. Journalists and "intellectuals" were the first to be swept away.

Now the Administration is seeking to disprove that infamous Texas slogan: "You can fool me, but you can't get fooled again."

Already the "intellectuals" have been suckered. Columbia University President Lee Bollinger called Ahmadinejad a "petty and cruel dictator" to his face and suggested he was "astonishingly ignorant." This from a man astonishingly ignorant of the fact that Iran's unelected commander-in-chief, the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, holds more power than its elected president, Ahmadinejad.

In Iraq, it was the supposed existence of weapons that might or might not be used against the United States that caused our leaders and citizens to support an invasion. A mighty thin veil for naked aggression. Now we're sifting through Ahmadinejad's speeches for attitudes that might predispose him to act in a certain way if he obtains weapons in a few years and is re-elected in 2009 though he's not even the commander-in-chief? How thin can the veil get?

What about Turkey's denial of the Armenian holocaust? Do we even know who the leader of Turkey is, let alone if his eyes are too close together? No, no. We need Turkey right now to keep our occupation well-fed, as Defense Secretary Robert Gates reminded us yesterday. We can talk history another day.

But just like the Jews protesting Ahmadinejad's speech at Columbia University last month, the Armenians see the relevance of discussing history now. And if Bush and his crew continue to deny their genocide, they could take a page from Cheney's playbook and say that here is a lunatic country that must be stopped. It is a holocaust-denying nation that is considerably further along in its development of nuclear weapons than even Iran and more than anyone else has demonstrated a willingness to use them.

Could the friends of Armenia paint this into a picture that makes bombing the United States seem like the only sane solution? Nah, the only ones who would buy a painting like that are living all alone on a little island.

Brendan Cooney is an anthropologist living in New York City. He can be reached at: itmighthavehappened@yahoo.com