Showing posts with label war crimes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label war crimes. Show all posts
Friday, August 15, 2014
Saturday, July 26, 2014
Russian Ministry of Defense accuses Ukies of using White Phosphorus on civilians
The parallels with Gaza are really becoming uncanny:
(Please Click the "captions" Next to settings wheel for English subtitles)
(Please Click the "captions" Next to settings wheel for English subtitles)
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
War crimes and atrocities in Syria - a common sense approach
According to the BBC, the UN bureaucrats are now trying to implicate Syrian President Assad in war crimes. According to UN Commissioner Navi Pillay "the scale of viciousness of the abuses being perpetrated by elements on both sides almost defies belief" and evidence indicated responsibility "at the highest level of government, including the head of state". Notice the nuance? Both sides have perpetrated atrocities, but the evidence only "points to the highest levels of government" and, just in case somebody had any doubts, Mrs Pillay adds "including the head of state".
One might wonder whether this accusation against Assad personally might be based on the so-called doctrine of "command responsibility" but the answer is clearly "no". After all since Mrs. Pillay referred to "evidence" and it is unlikely that she just meant by that "evidence indicating that Assad was the President of Syria". So what kind of "evidence" pointing "directly at the head of state" could she have?
Written orders by Assad to commit war crimes?
Radio intercepts of Assad ordering war crimes?
Witnesses testifying that Assad gave criminal orders?
Witnesses testifying that they saw Assad commit war crimes personally?
As soon as we think about that it becomes quite obvious that what Mrs Pillay has is nothing or, more accurately, all she has is the usual mix of rumors, assumptions, and the usual assortment of testimonies amounting to little more than simple hearsay.
Now, there is no doubt in my mind that unspeakable atrocities were, indeed, committed by both sides. This is not only normal, this is inevitable. Any civil war will inevitably result in atrocities. Since I wrote a full article on this topic (entitled "A few basic reminders about wars, civil wars and human right") I will not repeat it all here other than saying that there is no such thing as a civil war without atrocities. In fact, there is no such thing as war - civil or international - without atrocities. To deny that, or say that it is possible to have wars without atrocities, is simply not to understand the very nature of war.
I fully agree with the the words of the chief American prosecutor at Nuremberg, Robert H. Jackson, who said the the crime of aggression (to initiate a civil or international war) is the ultimate crime because "it contains within itself the accumulated evil" of all the other war crimes. I therefore conclude the party most guilty of all the crimes committed during a war is the one starting the war because wars always produce atrocities and because absent such an initiation of war no crimes would have been committed. In other words, I submit that it is logical to conclude that it is the side which triggered the civil war which is - by definition - most guilty for all the atrocities committed in the course of this war by all the parties, even the "other sides'" atrocities and war crimes.
The other point which I want to make here is this: historically, when orders have been given to commit atrocities there is very rarely any evidence of those orders coming form the top. For example, in the case of Nazi Germany, the so-called "Wannsee Conference Protocol" is open to many possible interpretations and there is really no hard evidence at all that Hitler ever gave an explicit order to commit any genocide.
[Side note: This actually makes the entire Nuremberg trial a rather bizarre event. Think about it: the Bolsheviks (especially Lenin and Trotsky) openly and officially gave orders to take hostages, execute civilians and openly defended terrorism, while the Anglos committed atrocities worldwide, invented concentration camps (Boer war), used slavery at a massive scale in the USA, "multi-genocided" an entire continent (Native Americans), used nukes on Japanese cities, deliberately firebombed German civilians, etc. and yet these powers got to judge the Nazis for their (very real) atrocities even though it was impossible to establish the personal responsibility of most Nazi dignitaries. Still, I think that Nuremberg trials was useful because it raised many important question even if the answers it gave were dubious at best]
Similarly, the recent trials of Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic, Radovan Karadzic or Nikolae Ceausescu and other "ex-allies turned villain" have always resulted in cases of obvious "victor's justice" in which politically pre-judged individuals are tried by kangaroo courts. This is not to say that the forces under the command of these men did not commit atrocities - just that there is zero real evidence that these men personally actually gave any such orders.
It is much easier to prosecute actual executioners, those who personally participated in war crimes and atrocities. But the "big guys" - top officials or heads of state - are usually removed the the actual killers by several layers of command authority. So at the very best, one can charge them with failure to protect and of criminal negligence (via the doctrine of "command responsibility").
Personally, I very much doubt that head of states actually often give any criminal orders to commit atrocities, at least since 1945. This is not just a matter of protecting themselves from future prosecutions, but also because this is bad PR and because atrocities are usually counter-productive anyway.
There are, of course, the various cases of mass atrocities in Africa, ranging from the infamous Radio des Mille Collines in Rwanda to the kind of grotesque atrocities the world witnessed in Sierra Leone, where mid to high level leaders did clearly give genocidal orders. But these are cases of basically psychopathic leaders who cannot be considered typical heads of state.
Keep in mind that the UN does not have its own intelligence service. It cannot intercept phone-calls, letters, emails or anything else. Of course, there are a number of powers (global and regional) which could share intelligence with the UN. The problem is that any government or agency with the capabilities to pass on intelligence to the UN is also - by definition - perfectly capable of severely manipulating the intelligence it shares or even of completely make up non-existing facts and stories (WMD in Iraq anybody?).
So all the UN really can get is the testimony of witnesses and "open source" public information, such as newspaper articles. Again, at the very best this can yield local anecdotes and the identities of local executioners. Not real evidence against the the big guys running the state.
So should we dismiss the UN report and just say that both sides have committed atrocities?
No. Why?
Because whatever atrocities the government forces have committed they are at least not proud of them, they do not present them as justice, much less so divine justice. Whereas the Wahabi liver-eaters are not only extremely proud of their atrocities, they also claim to commit them in the name of God, hence the endless streams of beheading and shooting videos on the Internet showing large crowds of people gathered together to witness "Islamic Justice" at the hands of local officials followed by execution against the backdrop of a hysterical mob screaming Allahu Akbar! Talk about "command responsibility": these executions are ordered by "Islamic" "courts" presided by "Islamic" "judges" who are all well-know, recognized state officials and not some masked death squad leaders of local commanders acting on their own initiative.
Nobody in his right mind would compare the actions of Canadian Luka Magnotta (real name:"Eric Clinton Kirk Newman") who dismembered a student with the regular chopping off limbs and heads which regularly occurs in Saudi Arabia: in the first case we are dealing with the actions of a deranged maniac while in the second case, we are dealing with the medieval barbarity of an official law system, backed by the state and presented as ordained by God. Likewise, we cannot compare the atrocities committed by the government forces and the insurgency because in the former case they are never upheld as normative while the the second case they are also presented as ordained by God.
But the UN, of course, puts the bulk of the blame on Assad, with no real evidence and against the principles basic common sense.
And yet my beef is not with the UN. Having personally worked at the UN for several years I know the system and I expect nothing else of it. The folks that really disgust me are all the academics, politicians, journalists, bloggers and self-righteous armchair strategists who first fully support a violence uprising and then express outrage when government forces commit atrocities even though supporting the former meant accepting the latter. Likewise, I despise those doubleplusgoodthinkers who always will accuse the government forces of atrocities while systematically looking away from the atrocities committed by the putative "good guys". These hypocrites are cowards who do not have the basic intellectual courage to accept the fact that there are no good guys in a civil war or, more accurately, that the ratio of good to bad guys very rapidly becomes pretty even in all parties involved as soon as a civil war starts.
The Saker
One might wonder whether this accusation against Assad personally might be based on the so-called doctrine of "command responsibility" but the answer is clearly "no". After all since Mrs. Pillay referred to "evidence" and it is unlikely that she just meant by that "evidence indicating that Assad was the President of Syria". So what kind of "evidence" pointing "directly at the head of state" could she have?
Written orders by Assad to commit war crimes?
Radio intercepts of Assad ordering war crimes?
Witnesses testifying that Assad gave criminal orders?
Witnesses testifying that they saw Assad commit war crimes personally?
As soon as we think about that it becomes quite obvious that what Mrs Pillay has is nothing or, more accurately, all she has is the usual mix of rumors, assumptions, and the usual assortment of testimonies amounting to little more than simple hearsay.
Now, there is no doubt in my mind that unspeakable atrocities were, indeed, committed by both sides. This is not only normal, this is inevitable. Any civil war will inevitably result in atrocities. Since I wrote a full article on this topic (entitled "A few basic reminders about wars, civil wars and human right") I will not repeat it all here other than saying that there is no such thing as a civil war without atrocities. In fact, there is no such thing as war - civil or international - without atrocities. To deny that, or say that it is possible to have wars without atrocities, is simply not to understand the very nature of war.
I fully agree with the the words of the chief American prosecutor at Nuremberg, Robert H. Jackson, who said the the crime of aggression (to initiate a civil or international war) is the ultimate crime because "it contains within itself the accumulated evil" of all the other war crimes. I therefore conclude the party most guilty of all the crimes committed during a war is the one starting the war because wars always produce atrocities and because absent such an initiation of war no crimes would have been committed. In other words, I submit that it is logical to conclude that it is the side which triggered the civil war which is - by definition - most guilty for all the atrocities committed in the course of this war by all the parties, even the "other sides'" atrocities and war crimes.
The other point which I want to make here is this: historically, when orders have been given to commit atrocities there is very rarely any evidence of those orders coming form the top. For example, in the case of Nazi Germany, the so-called "Wannsee Conference Protocol" is open to many possible interpretations and there is really no hard evidence at all that Hitler ever gave an explicit order to commit any genocide.
[Side note: This actually makes the entire Nuremberg trial a rather bizarre event. Think about it: the Bolsheviks (especially Lenin and Trotsky) openly and officially gave orders to take hostages, execute civilians and openly defended terrorism, while the Anglos committed atrocities worldwide, invented concentration camps (Boer war), used slavery at a massive scale in the USA, "multi-genocided" an entire continent (Native Americans), used nukes on Japanese cities, deliberately firebombed German civilians, etc. and yet these powers got to judge the Nazis for their (very real) atrocities even though it was impossible to establish the personal responsibility of most Nazi dignitaries. Still, I think that Nuremberg trials was useful because it raised many important question even if the answers it gave were dubious at best]
Similarly, the recent trials of Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic, Radovan Karadzic or Nikolae Ceausescu and other "ex-allies turned villain" have always resulted in cases of obvious "victor's justice" in which politically pre-judged individuals are tried by kangaroo courts. This is not to say that the forces under the command of these men did not commit atrocities - just that there is zero real evidence that these men personally actually gave any such orders.
It is much easier to prosecute actual executioners, those who personally participated in war crimes and atrocities. But the "big guys" - top officials or heads of state - are usually removed the the actual killers by several layers of command authority. So at the very best, one can charge them with failure to protect and of criminal negligence (via the doctrine of "command responsibility").
Personally, I very much doubt that head of states actually often give any criminal orders to commit atrocities, at least since 1945. This is not just a matter of protecting themselves from future prosecutions, but also because this is bad PR and because atrocities are usually counter-productive anyway.
There are, of course, the various cases of mass atrocities in Africa, ranging from the infamous Radio des Mille Collines in Rwanda to the kind of grotesque atrocities the world witnessed in Sierra Leone, where mid to high level leaders did clearly give genocidal orders. But these are cases of basically psychopathic leaders who cannot be considered typical heads of state.
Keep in mind that the UN does not have its own intelligence service. It cannot intercept phone-calls, letters, emails or anything else. Of course, there are a number of powers (global and regional) which could share intelligence with the UN. The problem is that any government or agency with the capabilities to pass on intelligence to the UN is also - by definition - perfectly capable of severely manipulating the intelligence it shares or even of completely make up non-existing facts and stories (WMD in Iraq anybody?).
So all the UN really can get is the testimony of witnesses and "open source" public information, such as newspaper articles. Again, at the very best this can yield local anecdotes and the identities of local executioners. Not real evidence against the the big guys running the state.
So should we dismiss the UN report and just say that both sides have committed atrocities?
No. Why?
Because whatever atrocities the government forces have committed they are at least not proud of them, they do not present them as justice, much less so divine justice. Whereas the Wahabi liver-eaters are not only extremely proud of their atrocities, they also claim to commit them in the name of God, hence the endless streams of beheading and shooting videos on the Internet showing large crowds of people gathered together to witness "Islamic Justice" at the hands of local officials followed by execution against the backdrop of a hysterical mob screaming Allahu Akbar! Talk about "command responsibility": these executions are ordered by "Islamic" "courts" presided by "Islamic" "judges" who are all well-know, recognized state officials and not some masked death squad leaders of local commanders acting on their own initiative.
Nobody in his right mind would compare the actions of Canadian Luka Magnotta (real name:"Eric Clinton Kirk Newman") who dismembered a student with the regular chopping off limbs and heads which regularly occurs in Saudi Arabia: in the first case we are dealing with the actions of a deranged maniac while in the second case, we are dealing with the medieval barbarity of an official law system, backed by the state and presented as ordained by God. Likewise, we cannot compare the atrocities committed by the government forces and the insurgency because in the former case they are never upheld as normative while the the second case they are also presented as ordained by God.
But the UN, of course, puts the bulk of the blame on Assad, with no real evidence and against the principles basic common sense.
And yet my beef is not with the UN. Having personally worked at the UN for several years I know the system and I expect nothing else of it. The folks that really disgust me are all the academics, politicians, journalists, bloggers and self-righteous armchair strategists who first fully support a violence uprising and then express outrage when government forces commit atrocities even though supporting the former meant accepting the latter. Likewise, I despise those doubleplusgoodthinkers who always will accuse the government forces of atrocities while systematically looking away from the atrocities committed by the putative "good guys". These hypocrites are cowards who do not have the basic intellectual courage to accept the fact that there are no good guys in a civil war or, more accurately, that the ratio of good to bad guys very rapidly becomes pretty even in all parties involved as soon as a civil war starts.
The Saker
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
This is what the GWOT is really all about: war crimes and hatred
Check out this video posted on Live Leak:
On Live Leak this video is entitled "High Value Target (HVT) gets taken out".
What do you see?
I see an unarmed civilian running away. Maybe it is indeed a terrorist, or some insurgency leader, but he is not dressed in any battle fatigue, nor does he appear to be armed. In fact, let's assume that he is some kind of "High Value Target". What do we see next? The guy is clearly shot, which is confirmed by the voice of the soldiers recording it all on camera. At this point, what we see is
1) an unarmed person who is also
2) wounded and obviously unable to flee or resist
In other words, this person is considered as "hors de combat" which the Geneva Conventions define as:
A person is 'hors de combat' if:
- (a) he is in the power of an adverse Party;
- (b) he clearly expresses an intention to surrender; or
- (c) he has been rendered unconscious or is otherwise incapacitated by wounds or sickness, and therefore is incapable of defending himself;
provided that in any of these cases he abstains from any hostile act and does not attempt to escape.
Not only can this man not run anymore, we can even hear the voice of the US solider saying "not moving now, stationary".
We then see several shots missing him until one hits the man in the head and kills him.
The deliberate execution of a person hors de combat is a war crime regardless of the actual identity of the murdered person.
What makes this all even more disgusting are the reactions in the comments section of Live Leak. Here I just show a sampling which happened to be at the top of the comments section:
Clearly, the patriotic Neanderthals at Live Leak are absolutely delighted with this video. And in spite of the obligatory and doubleplusgoodthinking sign at the top of the page opposing racial slurs, no such restrictions are placed on religious slurs.
What we see here is the very socio-psychological core of all the Imperial wars the USA has been waging for decades and, really, centuries: on one hand, murderous thugs who don't give a damn about any moral or legal principles of civilized mankind, and on the other, ignorant racist and bigoted brutes who engage in some kind of warped narcissistic projection and literally feel empowered by what "their" side can inflict on the "other" side. The comment of "Armsdealer" is particularly revealing of the amazing "density of hate" (and ignorance) which can be packed into two short lines.
This is what this grotesque "Global War on Terror" does to people, on the battlefield and at home: its fills them with hatred and turns them into psychologically dysfunctional individuals.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Marine snipers urinate on the people they killed
Yes, I know, this is all over the Internet, but I decided to post it here before Uncle Shmuel convinces the big video hosting companies to pull it off, not wanting "a few bad apples" to cause resentment against "the fine men and women who serve in uniform to protect our freedoms" etc. etc. etc.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Israel's Leaders on the Run
by Gilad Atzmon
Senior officials in Israel confirmed reports on Monday that a British court issued a warrant against opposition leader Mrs. Tzipi Livni for her role in orchestrating Israel's military offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip last December.
British sources reported that though a British court had issued an arrest warrant for Livni over war crimes committed in Gaza, it annulled it upon discovering she was not in the U.K.
As many of us predicted for more than a while the tide is changing. Now Israeli political and military leaders are finally being chased.
Haaretz reported today that Foreign Secretary David Miliband, the man who last week appointed a Zionist Jew to be the next British Ambassador to Israel, announced today that Britain would “no longer tolerate legal harassment of Israeli officials in this fashion.”
Miliband maintained that “the British law permitting judges to issue arrest warrants against foreign dignitaries without any prior knowledge or advice by a prosecutor must be reviewed and reformed”. I find myself puzzled, why exactly this law is to be ‘reviewed’ or ‘reformed’. Is it because Britain decided to give up on its ethical tradition? Or is it because Miliband needs the support of the Labour Friends of Israel so he can be re-elected. Or is he just revealing an ever-present hidden cronyism?
Miliband said that “the British government was determined that arrest threats against visitors of Livni's stature would not happen again.” And I find myself bewildered again, what does he mean by “Livni’s stature’? Does he really mean that ‘Livni like’ genocidal murderers are now welcome on British soil?
"Israel is a strategic partner and a close friend of the United Kingdom. We are determined to protect and develop these ties," Miliband said. This obviously brings to mind the old saying ‘tell me who your friends are, and I'll tell you who you are’. Considering Labours recent history (aka Illegal wars and foreign invasions) it is far from surprising that Miliband has so many friends in the Jewish state. And not just ordinary Israelis but actually the leading mass murderers.
According to Haaretz, Miliband called Livni to express his shock over the arrest warrant and pledged to address the matter immediately. Years ago, when we were young and naive our lecturers on politics insisted on telling us that judicial independence is crucial to the democratic process. Seemingly this principle is not highly regarded by Miliband who professes to spread democracy around the world. Miliband may benefit from spending some time with my son’s primary school teachers so he grasps what democracy stands for.
Livni clarified that she “doesn't view the arrest warrant as a personal offense, but rather one that affects Israel as a whole.” She is obviously right. The Israeli society is regarded by the growing European masses as a criminal exterminatory state. The arrest warrants against Israeli leaders are indeed just a symbolic act.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday issued a statement saying "We will not agree to a situation in which Ehud Olmert, Ehud Barak and Tzipi Livni will be summoned to the defendant's bench…We will not agree that IDF commanders and soldiers, who - heroically and in a moral fashion - defended our citizens against a brutal and criminal enemy, will be condemned as war criminals. We reject this absurdity outright." It is pretty obvious where Netanyahu is coming from, yet, the Israeli PM must fail to see that dropping white phosphorous on civilians is not exactly what Europeans and cultured people regard as ‘heroism’ or ‘moral fashion’.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry is almost as amusing as its bigot Minister Avigdor Liberman. In an official statement the Ministry declared "We appreciate the British government's desire to play a central role in the Middle East peace process, and thus we expected it to translate the importance it gives its relations with Israel into actions.” Let’s face it, intimidating is a common Israeli tactic. Yet, the fact that Israelis want us to believe that they are heading towards peace is less than comical, it is downright treacherous. Britain is not going to play a part in the ‘peace process’ because there is no such process.
In response to the warrant, Livni deflecting personal guilt said Tuesday that “she would not accept any accusation that compared Israel Defense Forces soldiers to terrorists.” She is actually correct. The so-called ‘terrorists’ are in fact freedom fighters. Israel on the other hand is a racist expansionist state. Its military forces are engaged in a continuous crime against humanity. Israel is as vicious as Nazi Germany but in practice, it is far worse for it is a ‘democracy’. Its murderous practices are a direct reflection of its peoples wishes expressed in a democratic vote. At the peak of the IDF's brutal Gaza campaign 94% of the Israelis supported the lethal measures against the Palestinian population. Israelis are not terrorists, they are actually the embodiment of terror.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Netanyahu uses his pals Sarkozy and Miliband to bury Goldstone report
al-Manar reports:
“A joint French-British UN initiative would call on Israel and the Palestinians to hold immediate, independent investigations into war crimes allegations stemming from the war in Gaza, as part of a bid to send the Goldstone report back to Geneva and out of the hands of the Security Council or the International Criminal Court at The Hague,” Haaretz reported Tuesday.
The proposal comes before the United Nations General Assembly is scheduled Wednesday to deliberate on the Goldstone report on the Israeli war in the Gaza Strip earlier this year. A source at the Israeli Foreign Ministry in occupied Jerusalem said that French President Nicolas Sarkozy informed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the details of the initiative during a telephone conversation.
Netanyahu asked the French President to take action among European Union partners in an effort to form collective opposition to any resolution at the UN on the Goldstone report.
The initiative is a list of "red lines" which was adopted by the 27 members of the European Union. Its main points:
1. A resolution brought for the approval of the General Assembly will not include operational steps, like taking the matter to the Security Council or the International Court of Justice.
2. The resolution would call on Israel and the Palestinians to embark on an independent investigation into the events of Operation Cast Lead, and the allegations of war crimes.
3. The handling of the Goldstone report will return to the Human Rights Council, the UN body in Geneva. The parties will have to report to the council on the findings of their investigations in a few months.
According to the Foreign Ministry source, the document was delivered yesterday by the British and French permanent representatives at the UN to the Palestinian Authority delegation at the international body, as well as the representatives of Arab states, and the members of the Security Council.
Arab representatives at the UN are expected to complete Tuesday the first draft of a resolution that will be brought to the General Assembly for a vote. That report accused Israel of war crimes and was prepared by a UN fact-finding commission led by South African jurist Richard Goldstone.
The French and British has emphasized in their exchanges with the Arab representatives that if the "red lines" are not part of the resolution being prepared, the European Union will abstain, and may even vote against it - and expects that much of the international community will too.
"If you agree to go for a simple resolution which calls on Israel to carry out an investigation you will receive full support," a source familiar with the proposal said. "However, if you attempt to go further there will be at least 60 abstentions and only 120 votes in support."
Any resolution the Palestinians put forth will receive a large majority, but there is great importance to the weight of EU votes, and other countries who will vote in line with the EU.
Assessments in Israel hold that there is little chance the Palestinians will agree to the Franco-British proposal and Tel Aviv wants any resolution torpedoed.
Meanwhile, the Arab draft resolution, obtained by Reuters, says the assembly "requests the Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon to transmit the report ... to the Security Council." It also urges Israel and the Palestinians to comply with the report's recommendations for launching investigations into allegations of war crimes.
The draft also tells Ban to report back to the assembly within three months on implementation of the resolution. Arab and Western diplomats told Reuters there was little doubt a majority of the General Assembly would vote in favor of the Arab draft. But negotiations were underway as Arab delegates sought to persuade Western powers to back the text.
Western diplomats said the United States would most likely vote against the resolution. Unless it is revised, they said, most European delegations would join Washington and reject it.
Resolutions of the General Assembly, unlike those of the Security Council, are nonbinding. But UN diplomats say such a resolution would intensify pressure on Israel to launch a full investigation into the actions of its army during the war. The Goldstone report lambasted both sides in the war, but was harsher toward Israel.
The Arab draft resolution does not explicitly endorse a Human Rights Council resolution from last month that censured Israel for its actions in the Gaza war without referring to any “wrongdoing” by Hamas. The United States voted against that resolution while France and Britain abstained from the vote.
But it does endorse an HRC report that included the resolution. Sudan's UN Ambassador Abdalmahmoud Abdalhaleem said it amounted to a full endorsement of the HRC resolution. "It endorses the Human Rights Council resolution, that is the point," he told Reuters. "And it exposes the double standards that some permanent Security Council members have towards the occupying power (Israel) in Palestine."
Several Western diplomats told Reuters the Arab draft was "unacceptable" because of its endorsement of the HRC actions and for requesting Security Council intervention. Abdalhaleem said the Arabs had rejected an earlier European draft that said the General Assembly would merely "take note" of the Goldstone report and pass the issue back to the HRC.
“A joint French-British UN initiative would call on Israel and the Palestinians to hold immediate, independent investigations into war crimes allegations stemming from the war in Gaza, as part of a bid to send the Goldstone report back to Geneva and out of the hands of the Security Council or the International Criminal Court at The Hague,” Haaretz reported Tuesday.
The proposal comes before the United Nations General Assembly is scheduled Wednesday to deliberate on the Goldstone report on the Israeli war in the Gaza Strip earlier this year. A source at the Israeli Foreign Ministry in occupied Jerusalem said that French President Nicolas Sarkozy informed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the details of the initiative during a telephone conversation.
Netanyahu asked the French President to take action among European Union partners in an effort to form collective opposition to any resolution at the UN on the Goldstone report.
The initiative is a list of "red lines" which was adopted by the 27 members of the European Union. Its main points:
1. A resolution brought for the approval of the General Assembly will not include operational steps, like taking the matter to the Security Council or the International Court of Justice.2. The resolution would call on Israel and the Palestinians to embark on an independent investigation into the events of Operation Cast Lead, and the allegations of war crimes.
3. The handling of the Goldstone report will return to the Human Rights Council, the UN body in Geneva. The parties will have to report to the council on the findings of their investigations in a few months.
According to the Foreign Ministry source, the document was delivered yesterday by the British and French permanent representatives at the UN to the Palestinian Authority delegation at the international body, as well as the representatives of Arab states, and the members of the Security Council.
Arab representatives at the UN are expected to complete Tuesday the first draft of a resolution that will be brought to the General Assembly for a vote. That report accused Israel of war crimes and was prepared by a UN fact-finding commission led by South African jurist Richard Goldstone.
The French and British has emphasized in their exchanges with the Arab representatives that if the "red lines" are not part of the resolution being prepared, the European Union will abstain, and may even vote against it - and expects that much of the international community will too.
"If you agree to go for a simple resolution which calls on Israel to carry out an investigation you will receive full support," a source familiar with the proposal said. "However, if you attempt to go further there will be at least 60 abstentions and only 120 votes in support."
Any resolution the Palestinians put forth will receive a large majority, but there is great importance to the weight of EU votes, and other countries who will vote in line with the EU.
Assessments in Israel hold that there is little chance the Palestinians will agree to the Franco-British proposal and Tel Aviv wants any resolution torpedoed.
Meanwhile, the Arab draft resolution, obtained by Reuters, says the assembly "requests the Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon to transmit the report ... to the Security Council." It also urges Israel and the Palestinians to comply with the report's recommendations for launching investigations into allegations of war crimes.
The draft also tells Ban to report back to the assembly within three months on implementation of the resolution. Arab and Western diplomats told Reuters there was little doubt a majority of the General Assembly would vote in favor of the Arab draft. But negotiations were underway as Arab delegates sought to persuade Western powers to back the text.
Western diplomats said the United States would most likely vote against the resolution. Unless it is revised, they said, most European delegations would join Washington and reject it.
Resolutions of the General Assembly, unlike those of the Security Council, are nonbinding. But UN diplomats say such a resolution would intensify pressure on Israel to launch a full investigation into the actions of its army during the war. The Goldstone report lambasted both sides in the war, but was harsher toward Israel.
The Arab draft resolution does not explicitly endorse a Human Rights Council resolution from last month that censured Israel for its actions in the Gaza war without referring to any “wrongdoing” by Hamas. The United States voted against that resolution while France and Britain abstained from the vote.
But it does endorse an HRC report that included the resolution. Sudan's UN Ambassador Abdalmahmoud Abdalhaleem said it amounted to a full endorsement of the HRC resolution. "It endorses the Human Rights Council resolution, that is the point," he told Reuters. "And it exposes the double standards that some permanent Security Council members have towards the occupying power (Israel) in Palestine."
Several Western diplomats told Reuters the Arab draft was "unacceptable" because of its endorsement of the HRC actions and for requesting Security Council intervention. Abdalhaleem said the Arabs had rejected an earlier European draft that said the General Assembly would merely "take note" of the Goldstone report and pass the issue back to the HRC.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
‘Prolonged diapering’ revealed as ‘enhanced interrogation technique’
By Stephen Webster for the Raw Story
A CIA inspector general report released Monday in a less-redacted version reveals that “prolonged diapering” was on the agency’s list of approved “enhanced” interrogation techniques. The revelation is in Appendix F, included in the IG’s report on page 149, as part of a set of guidelines for “medical and psychological support to detainee interrogations.” The document is dated Sept. 4, 2003.
A CIA inspector general report released Monday in a less-redacted version reveals that “prolonged diapering” was on the agency’s list of approved “enhanced” interrogation techniques. The revelation is in Appendix F, included in the IG’s report on page 149, as part of a set of guidelines for “medical and psychological support to detainee interrogations.” The document is dated Sept. 4, 2003.
According to American Civil Liberties Union staff attorney Jameel Jaffer, this is the first document released publicly which categorizes diapering as an enhanced interrogation technique. Another ACLU source told RAW STORY that while they are familiar with the use of diapers on clients being transported, this is “news to us.”
The document in Appendix F of the IG report reads: “Captured terrorists turned over to the CIA may be subjected to a wide range of legally sanctioned techniques, all of which are used on U.S. military personnel in SERE training programs. They are designed to psychologically ‘dislocate’ the detainee, maximizing his feelings of vulnerability and helplessness, and reduce or eliminate his will to resist our efforts to obtain critical intelligence.” The list, organized in “ascending degree of intensity,” says the following were approved standard measures “without physical or substantial psychological pressure”:
Shaving Stripping Diapering Hooding Isolation White noise or loud music (at a decibel level that will not damage hearing) Continuous light or darkness Uncomfortably cool environment Restricted diet, including reduced caloric intake (sufficient to maintain general health) Water dousing Sleep deprivation (up to 72 hours)
A second list of “enhanced” measures “with physical or psychological pressure beyond the above” reads:
Attention grasp Facial hold Insult (facial) slap Abdominal slap Prolonged diapering Sleep deprivation (over 72 hours) Stress positions –On knees, body slanted forward or backward –Leaning with forehead on wall Walling Cramped confinement Waterboard
The appearance of diapering on the list seems to contradict an Office of Legal Counsel memo (PDF link) written by former Bush administration lawyer Steven Bradbury in 2005. Bradbury claimed diapering “is not used for the purpose of humiliating the detainee, and it is not considered to be an interrogation technique.” However, in the appendix of the IG’s report, “prolonged diapering” was on the list of approved interrogation techniques (P. 150). While diapering is included on page 149 as a standard technique — along with shaving, stripping, hooding and isolation — it is also listed as one of a number of “enhanced measures,” with an intensity level below waterboarding, but above the “abdominal slap.”
The report does not define “prolonged” as it applies to diapering, nor does it confirm whether it was used on any prisoners. It is also unknown when exactly diapering was authorized as an EIT, and whether or not the order was rescinded before the 2005 Bradbury memo. Describing standard diapering, Bradbury wrote, “The detainee’s skin condition is monitored and diapers are changed as needed so that the detainee does not remain in a soiled diaper.” Bradbury is one of three former Bush administration attorneys — including John Yoo and Jay Bybee — whose legal memos are being probed by the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is reportedly in the process of appointing a special prosecutor to investigate instances of CIA detainee abuse.
Spencer Ackerman, reporting for the Washington Independent, speculates that “prolonged diapering” could be the “eleventh” EIT.
“The 2004 CIA inspector general’s report on torture says clearly that in 2002, the CIA proposed to the Justice Department the use of eleven “enhanced interrogation techniques,”’ Ackerman writes. “Ten of them got the approval of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel in August 2002 in the infamous Jay Bybee/John Yoo memo declassified by the Obama administration in April: the attention grasp; walling; the facial hold; the facial or insult slap; cramped confinement; insects; wall standing; stress positions; sleep deprivation; the waterboard. But what happened to the eleventh?”
Quoting the memo, he writes, “The Agency eliminated one proposed technique — [REDACTED] — after learning from DoJ that this could delay the legal review.”
“But an appendix to the report written by former CIA Director George Tenet gives an indication as to what that eleventh technique was — and says that it’s permissible,” Ackerman continues. “Take a look at Appendix E, Tenet’s January 28, 2003 memorandum on guidelines for both ’standard’ and ‘enhanced’ interrogations. Tenet’s list of ‘enhanced’ techniques, you’ll notice, number eleven:
These techniques are, [sic] the attention grasp, walling, the facial hold, the facial slap (insult slap), the abdominal slap, cramped confinement, wall standing, stress positions, sleep deprivation beyond 72 hours, the use of diapers for prolonged periods, the use of harmless insects, the water board, and such techniques as may be specifically approved pursuant to paragraph 4 below.
Ackerman adds, “All the others on Tenet’s list were approved by the Office of Legal Counsel in August of 2002. But that diapering technique was never approved by the Justice Department. Tenet considered ‘the use of diapers for limited periods (generally not to exceed 72 hours)’ to be a ’standard’ technique, as I blogged earlier. But it’s at least conceivable that the Justice Department would have thought reviewing prolonged diapering would have delayed the 2002 review, since the humiliation and health issues of forcing someone to remain in their own filth for over three days raise serious legal issues.”
Ron Brynaert contributed to this report.
Monday, June 29, 2009
CIA Crucified Captive In Abu Ghraib Prison
By Sherwood Ross for CLG
The Central Intelligence Agency crucified a prisoner in Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, according to a report published in The New Yorker magazine.
“A forensic examiner found that he (the prisoner) had essentially been crucified; he died from asphyxiation after having been hung by his arms, in a hood, and suffering broken ribs,” the magazine’s Jane Mayer writes in the magazine’s June 22nd issue. “Military pathologists classified the case a homicide.” The date of the murder was not given.
“No criminal charges have ever been brought against any C.I.A. officer involved in the torture program, despite the fact that at least three prisoners interrogated by agency personnel died as a result of mistreatment,” Mayer notes.
An earlier report, by John Hendren in The Los Angeles Times, indicated other torture killings. And Human Rights First says nearly 100 detainees have died in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Hendren reported that one Manadel Jamadi died “of blunt-force injuries” complicated by “compromised respiration” at Abu Ghraib prison “while he was with Navy SEALs and other special operations troops.” Another victim, Abdul Jaleel, died while gagged and shackled to a cell door with his hands over his head.” Yet another prisoner, Maj. Gen. Abid Mowhosh, former commander of Iraq’s air defenses, “died of asphyxiation due to smothering and chest compression” in Qaim, Iraq.
"There is no question that U.S. interrogations have resulted in deaths," says Anthony Romero, executive director of the ACLU. "High-ranking officials who knew about the torture and sat on their hands and those who created and endorsed these policies must be held accountable. America must stop putting its head in the sand and deal with the torture scandal." At least scores of detainees in U.S. custody have died and homicide is suspected. As far back as May, 2004, the Pentagon conceded at least 37 deaths of prisoners in its custody in Iraq and Afghanistan had prompted investigations.
Nathaniel Raymond, of Physicians for Human Rights, told The New Yorker, “We still don’t know how many detainees were in the black sites, or who they were. We don’t fully know the White House’s role, or the C.I.A.’s role. We need a full accounting, especially as it relates to health professionals.”
Recently released Justice memos, he noted, contain numerous references to CIA medical personnel participating in coercive interrogation sessions. “They were the designers, the legitimizers, and the implementers,” Raymond said. “This is arguably the single greatest medical-ethics scandal in American history. We need answers.”
The ACLU obtained its information from the Pentagon through a Freedom of Information suit. Documents received included 44 autopsies and death reports as well as a summary of autopsy reports of people seized in Iraq and Afghanistan. An ACLU statement noted, "This covers just a fraction of the total number of Iraqis and Afghanis who have died while in U.S. custody." (Italics added).
Torture by the CIA has been facilitated by the Agency’s ability to hide prisoners in “black sites” kept secret from the Red Cross, to hold prisoners off the books, and to detain them for years without bringing charges or providing them with lawyers.
Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, denounced the Obama administration for considering “prevention detention,” The New Yorker’s Mayer wrote. Roth said this tactic “mimics the Bush Administration’s abusive approach.”
From all indications, CIA Director Panetta has no intention of bringing to justice CIA officials involved in the systematic torture of prisoners. Panetta told Mayer, “I’m going to give people the benefit of the doubt…If they do the job that they’re paid to do, I can’t ask for a hell of a lot more.”
Such sentiments differ markedly from those Panetta wrote in an article published last year in the January Washington Monthly: “We either believe in the dignity of the individual, the rule of law, and the prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, or we don’t. There is no middle ground.”
One way to discern who really runs a country is to look to see which individuals, if any, are above the law. In the Obama administration, like its predecessors, they include the employees of the CIA. Crucifixions they execute in the Middle East differ from those reported in the New Testament in at least one important respect: Jesus Christ had a trial.
28 June 2009
(Sherwood Ross formerly reported for major dailies and wire services. To contact him or contribute to his Anti-War News Service: sherwoodr1@yahoo.com)
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
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.
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.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
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.
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.
Friday, January 23, 2009
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.
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.
IDF censor bans naming officers involved in Gaza op
Ha'aretz reports: The Military Censor is applying strict restrictions preventing the media from identifying officers who participated in the Gaza Strip fighting and information about them that may be used in legal proceedings against them abroad. There is growing concern at the Defense Ministry and the Ministry of Justice that Israeli officers will be singled out in a massive wave of suits for alleged human rights violations.
The new instructions from the military censor to the media were prepared in consultation with Attorney General Menachem Mazuz and his military counterpart, Brigadier General Avihai Mandelblit. Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi was also involved in the decisions on this matter.
In recent days the censor has forbidden publishing the full names and photographs of officers from the level of battalion commander down. It is assumed that the identity of brigade commanders has already been made known. The censor also forbids any reports tying a particular officer of such battlefield command rank (lieutenant to lieutenant colonel) to destruction inflicted in a particular area.
There is particular concern at the Defense Ministry that interviews in the press by officers describing the destruction of homes or harm to civilians in areas where they commanded forces could become "self-incriminating" evidence, used by human rights groups and political groups seeking to bring suits against IDF officers.
The new regulations were finalized earlier this week, tightening censorship rules that had allowed more detailed reporting, as well as revealing the identities of officers. Two days ago, an unofficial report was received on a suit allegedly brought in the Netherlands against the commander of one of the brigades, following the release of his identity to the media. Israel's ambassador to the Netherlands has been unable to confirm that such a suit had been filed.
Moreover, it is known that a number of organizations have begun preparing a "target list" of officers - names of officers involved in the fighting and where they fought, in an effort to establish evidence that will allow legal proceedings to begin.
The commander of the Gaza Division, Brigadier Eyal Eisenberg, when asked Thursday whether he was concerned that legal steps would be taken against him and his officers abroad, said that "the state is supposed to provide security to its citizens. The operation [in Gaza] came after eight years of suffering thousands of Qassam rockets in the Negev. I think we embarked on a just war and I stand behind the troops."
The new instructions from the military censor to the media were prepared in consultation with Attorney General Menachem Mazuz and his military counterpart, Brigadier General Avihai Mandelblit. Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi was also involved in the decisions on this matter.
In recent days the censor has forbidden publishing the full names and photographs of officers from the level of battalion commander down. It is assumed that the identity of brigade commanders has already been made known. The censor also forbids any reports tying a particular officer of such battlefield command rank (lieutenant to lieutenant colonel) to destruction inflicted in a particular area.
There is particular concern at the Defense Ministry that interviews in the press by officers describing the destruction of homes or harm to civilians in areas where they commanded forces could become "self-incriminating" evidence, used by human rights groups and political groups seeking to bring suits against IDF officers.
The new regulations were finalized earlier this week, tightening censorship rules that had allowed more detailed reporting, as well as revealing the identities of officers. Two days ago, an unofficial report was received on a suit allegedly brought in the Netherlands against the commander of one of the brigades, following the release of his identity to the media. Israel's ambassador to the Netherlands has been unable to confirm that such a suit had been filed.
Moreover, it is known that a number of organizations have begun preparing a "target list" of officers - names of officers involved in the fighting and where they fought, in an effort to establish evidence that will allow legal proceedings to begin.
The commander of the Gaza Division, Brigadier Eyal Eisenberg, when asked Thursday whether he was concerned that legal steps would be taken against him and his officers abroad, said that "the state is supposed to provide security to its citizens. The operation [in Gaza] came after eight years of suffering thousands of Qassam rockets in the Negev. I think we embarked on a just war and I stand behind the troops."
Thursday, January 15, 2009
IDF targets hospital, UN compound and journalists
Ha'aretz reports: The Al-Quds hospital in Gaza City was engulfed in flames on Thursday after it was caught in the fighting between Israel Defense Forces troops and Hamas.
Just before, the IDF shelled the main United Nation aid compound in the city of Gaza, drawing harsh criticism from visiting UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and a subsequent apology from Defense Minister Ehud Barak. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said its compound, where up to 700 Palestinians were being sheltered, was hit twice by fire and three staff members were wounded.
Another explosion blasted a tower block that houses the offices of Reuters and several other media organisations, wounding a journalist for the Abu Dhabi television channel (...)
Just before, the IDF shelled the main United Nation aid compound in the city of Gaza, drawing harsh criticism from visiting UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and a subsequent apology from Defense Minister Ehud Barak. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said its compound, where up to 700 Palestinians were being sheltered, was hit twice by fire and three staff members were wounded.
Another explosion blasted a tower block that houses the offices of Reuters and several other media organisations, wounding a journalist for the Abu Dhabi television channel (...)
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
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.
-------
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
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.
-------
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
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Breaking News: the Israelis massacre refugees in a UN compound (again)
It is an Israeli tradition of sorts to attack UN compounds in each of its war. Remember the first and second Israeli attacks on the UN compound in Qana? Well, this time the 'glorious and invincible Tsahal' did it again: they just attacked a UN compound in Gaza killing 40+ people who had found a shelter in this school converted into a refugee center. As always, the UN had given the Israelis the GPS coordinates of the compound. Actually, the Israelis hit the first UN compound on Monday morning, but that initial strike did not achieve the intended result. This latest strike, however, will probably give the Israelis a sense of "teaching the UN a lesson".
I am just curious about one thing: will the Israelis actually claim that Hamas was firing missiles from inside (or nearby) the UN compound?
I am just curious about one thing: will the Israelis actually claim that Hamas was firing missiles from inside (or nearby) the UN compound?
Friday, January 2, 2009
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.
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.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Friday, December 19, 2008
Lebanon Raises The Voice: Freedom for Gaza!
Al-Manar reports:
Action to end the inhumane Gaza siege has started from Lebanon…
Lebanon, the country of Resistance and patriotism, raised on Friday the voice in response to Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah’s call, expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people amid a "suspicious" Arab and international calm.
On Monday, Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah called upon all Arabs and Muslims to start actions against the siege. His eminence has called on all Lebanese, regardless of the political affiliations, to take part in the action given the importance of the central cause of Palestine. "I call on all the Lebanese, regardless of whether they are loyal to March 8 or 14, to participate in the demonstration that Hezbollah will organize on Friday at 2 PM," Sayyed Nasrallah said.
The response was quick. Lebanese, from all regions, answered on Friday the call… Tens of thousands of Lebanese and Palestinians took part in the first announced step in the massive movement to protest the inhumane siege, call for freedom of Gaza and reject the Arab official calm.
The central protest took place at the southern suburb of Beirut. Even before 2 PM, protesters flocked to the Sayyed al-Shouhadaa' complex from where they marched throughout the streets of Dahiye.
Hezbollah Deputy Secretary General Sheikh Naim Kassem delivered Hezbollah’s speech and criticized Arab silence saying Gaza should not be treated like this. "The child of Gaza is more honourable than you and your positions and he will triumph, God willing…The people of Gaza will never be defeated because they’ve chosen the path of resistance." His eminence stressed that "we are not with the humiliating settlement…We are with the resistance."
"Freedom for Gaza" was the main slogan. "Death for America, Death for Israel," they shouted in one high voice. "Palestinians will stay in Palestine, Zionists are the ones who will go out," the protestors also shouted.
The splendid scene witnessed in the southern suburb of Beirut was also reflected in other regions from the North to the South, where the Lebanese and the Palestinians answered the call and raised their voice.
In this context, Saida, the capital of the South, witnessed one of the major movements. MP Oussama Saad addressed the crowds and saying that officials in all Arab states should possess the will of confrontation and resistance, the will of safeguarding Arab dignity as well as the blood of the martyrs. He called on all free and noble people in Lebanon and the Arab world to stay united against the Gaza siege.
The Bekaa region also witnessed massive rallies in solidarity with besieged Gaza. Under the slogan "silence was siege in itself," the Lebanese and the Palestinians took part in the demonstration and called on their fellow Arabs and Muslims to join them. Hezbollah Shoura Council member Sheikh Mohamad Yazbek stressed Allah will undoubtedly render Gaza victorious as its people has shown a high level steadfastness and patience. His eminence also underlined the fact that Israel will cease to exist. “Gaza is decrying the weakness that has plagued the Arab and Islamic nations and regimes. Arab silence is encouraging the others to do what they are doing now.” Sheikh Yazbek expressed regret that the government of Egypt continues to close the Rafah crossing.
In Tripoli, north of Lebanon, the head of the Islamic Work Front Sheikh Fatho Yakan urged all Palestinians to unite and stop internal blood shedding. He called on the Palestinians to engage in a united resistance project “to gain back honor,” by following the example of the resistance in Lebanon. The Front’s branch in Beirut observed a sit-in in solidarity with Gaza. Sheikh Dr. Abdul Nasser Jabri stressed the necessity to support the Palestinian people with every possible means. “We should press all Arab and Islamic regimes as well as the free international community to end the siege of Gaza,” he said.
Several villages in the Iqlim Kharroub region in south of Beirut observed a sit-in following Friday prayers with the participation of opposition party officials.
Action to end the inhumane Gaza siege has started from Lebanon…
Lebanon, the country of Resistance and patriotism, raised on Friday the voice in response to Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah’s call, expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people amid a "suspicious" Arab and international calm.
On Monday, Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah called upon all Arabs and Muslims to start actions against the siege. His eminence has called on all Lebanese, regardless of the political affiliations, to take part in the action given the importance of the central cause of Palestine. "I call on all the Lebanese, regardless of whether they are loyal to March 8 or 14, to participate in the demonstration that Hezbollah will organize on Friday at 2 PM," Sayyed Nasrallah said.
The response was quick. Lebanese, from all regions, answered on Friday the call… Tens of thousands of Lebanese and Palestinians took part in the first announced step in the massive movement to protest the inhumane siege, call for freedom of Gaza and reject the Arab official calm.The central protest took place at the southern suburb of Beirut. Even before 2 PM, protesters flocked to the Sayyed al-Shouhadaa' complex from where they marched throughout the streets of Dahiye.
Hezbollah Deputy Secretary General Sheikh Naim Kassem delivered Hezbollah’s speech and criticized Arab silence saying Gaza should not be treated like this. "The child of Gaza is more honourable than you and your positions and he will triumph, God willing…The people of Gaza will never be defeated because they’ve chosen the path of resistance." His eminence stressed that "we are not with the humiliating settlement…We are with the resistance."
"Freedom for Gaza" was the main slogan. "Death for America, Death for Israel," they shouted in one high voice. "Palestinians will stay in Palestine, Zionists are the ones who will go out," the protestors also shouted.
The splendid scene witnessed in the southern suburb of Beirut was also reflected in other regions from the North to the South, where the Lebanese and the Palestinians answered the call and raised their voice.
In this context, Saida, the capital of the South, witnessed one of the major movements. MP Oussama Saad addressed the crowds and saying that officials in all Arab states should possess the will of confrontation and resistance, the will of safeguarding Arab dignity as well as the blood of the martyrs. He called on all free and noble people in Lebanon and the Arab world to stay united against the Gaza siege.
The Bekaa region also witnessed massive rallies in solidarity with besieged Gaza. Under the slogan "silence was siege in itself," the Lebanese and the Palestinians took part in the demonstration and called on their fellow Arabs and Muslims to join them. Hezbollah Shoura Council member Sheikh Mohamad Yazbek stressed Allah will undoubtedly render Gaza victorious as its people has shown a high level steadfastness and patience. His eminence also underlined the fact that Israel will cease to exist. “Gaza is decrying the weakness that has plagued the Arab and Islamic nations and regimes. Arab silence is encouraging the others to do what they are doing now.” Sheikh Yazbek expressed regret that the government of Egypt continues to close the Rafah crossing.
In Tripoli, north of Lebanon, the head of the Islamic Work Front Sheikh Fatho Yakan urged all Palestinians to unite and stop internal blood shedding. He called on the Palestinians to engage in a united resistance project “to gain back honor,” by following the example of the resistance in Lebanon. The Front’s branch in Beirut observed a sit-in in solidarity with Gaza. Sheikh Dr. Abdul Nasser Jabri stressed the necessity to support the Palestinian people with every possible means. “We should press all Arab and Islamic regimes as well as the free international community to end the siege of Gaza,” he said.
Several villages in the Iqlim Kharroub region in south of Beirut observed a sit-in following Friday prayers with the participation of opposition party officials.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
