Israel’s War Crimes

Israel blamed its earlier wars on the threat to its security, even that against Lebanon in 1982. However, its assault on Gaza was not justified and there are international calls for an investigation. But is there the political will to make Israel account for its war crimes?
By Richard Falk

March 21, 2009 "Le Monde diplomatique" -- -For the first time since the establishment of Israel in 1948 the government is facing serious allegations of war crimes from respected public figures throughout the world. Even the secretary general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, normally so cautious about offending sovereign states – especially those aligned with its most influential member, the United States – has joined the call for an investigation and potential accountability. To grasp the significance of these developments it is necessary to explain what made the 22 days of attacks in Gaza stand shockingly apart from the many prior recourses to force by Israel to uphold its security and strategic interests.In my view, what made the Gaza attacks launched on 27 December different from the main wars fought by Israel over the years was that the weapons and tactics used devastated an essentially defenceless civilian population. The one-sidedness of the encounter was so stark, as signalled by the relative casualties on both sides (more than 100 to 1; 1300-plus Palestinians killed compared with 13 Israelis, and several of these by friendly fire), that most commentators refrained from attaching the label “war”.The Israelis and their friends talk of “retaliation” and “the right of Israel to defend itself”. Critics described the attacks as a “massacre” or relied on the language of war crimes and crimes against humanity. In the past Israeli uses of force were often widely condemned, especially by Arab governments, including charges that the UN Charter was being violated, but there was an implicit acknowledgement that Israel was using force in a war mode. War crimes charges (to the extent they were made) came only from radical governments and the extreme left.The early Israeli wars were fought against Arab neighbours which were quite literally challenging Israel’s right to exist as a sovereign state. The outbreaks of force were of an inter-governmental nature; and even when Israel exhibited its military superiority in the June 1967 six day war, it was treated within the framework of normal world politics, and though it may have been unlawful, it was not criminal.But from the 1982 Lebanon war this started to change. The main target then was the presence of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in southern Lebanon. But the war is now mainly remembered for its ending, with the slaughter of hundreds of unarmed Palestinian civilians in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila. Although this atrocity was the work of a Lebanese Christian militia, Israeli acquiescence, control and complicity were clearly part of the picture. Still, this was an incident which, though alarming, was not the whole of the military operation, which Israel justified as necessary due to the Lebanese government’s inability to prevent its territory from being used to threaten Israeli security.

Click here: http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22264.htm to read more.

Israeli minister calls for new Gaza invasion
Deputy defence minister Matan
Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem
guardian.co.uk, Monday 23 March 2009 10.09 GMT

Israel's deputy defence minister has called for a new invasion of Gaza and the capture of land close to the border, despite growing domestic and international concern about the conduct of the previous war.
"We need to conquer the areas from which mortar shells are being fired," Matan Vilnai told an Israeli conference on the Gaza war last night. "The mortar shell is the main threat," he said. Most were launched from within four miles (6km) of the border. "We just need to be there," he said.
His comments reflected a wider Israeli frustration with the results of the devastating three-week war. Israeli forces destroyed thousands of homes and buildings and killed more than 1,400 Palestinians but failed to achieve their main goal: to halt the rockets and mortars which are still being fired into southern Israel.
Binyamin Netanyahu, who is expected to become the prime minister of a new, rightwing Israeli government within days, has decided that "toppling the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip" will be a strategic goal of his government.
The latest criticism of Israeli military conduct in Gaza comes in the wake of fresh testimony last week from Israeli soldiers who gave accounts of how Palestinian civilians were killed and their homes ransacked. Themilitary said it would investigate the claims.
This week Richard Falk, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, is due to report to the UN human rights council. An advance copy of his report is highly critical of the war, saying Israel's "recourse to force was not legally justified given the circumstances and diplomatic alternatives available, and was potentially, a crime against peace". He calls for an expert inquiry into war crimes allegations against Israel.

Durban II: no-show is slap in face of victims of apartheid
Arjan El Fassed, The Electronic Intifada, 17 March 2009



More and more Western countries are either announcing their boycott or are threatening to boycott Durban II, a United Nations conference scheduled for April to review progress made since the World Conference Against Racism (WCAR) held in Durban, South Africa in 2001, nicknamed Durban I. Earlier this month, Italy became the first EU member to withdraw from the event, stating that it could not endorse a draft agenda that criticizes Israel. Italy followed in the footsteps of Israel, Canada and the United States. France and the Netherlands are threatening their own boycotts. Maxime Verhagen, the Dutch foreign minister, recently explained that "The Netherlands will not be party to a propaganda circus." In December 2008, Verhagen claimed that the 2001 summit was an "anti-Semitic witch-hunt."Perhaps in September 2001, the world was not yet ready to accept the notion that Israel is in fact practicing apartheid. But ever more observers are coming to precisely that conclusion. The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman warned four years ago that "if Israel does not relinquish the West Bank and Gaza, the Palestinians will soon outnumber the Jews and Israel will become either an apartheid state or a non-Jewish state."Four years later, Friedman wrote, "Well, having taken a little drive through part of the West Bank, as I always do when I visit, it strikes me more than ever that it's not only five after midnight, it's five after midnight and a whole week later."The Israeli organization Peace Now stated early in March that Israel's housing ministry has plans that would nearly double the number of settlers in the West Bank, rendering a two-state solution impossible. Israel has planned 73,000 new housing units in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli group stated, of which 15,000 have already received approval. Moreover, Israel's prime minister designate Benjamin Netanyahu announced that a government he leads will expand settlements.

Click here: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10396.shtml to read more.

Amnesty urges UN to ban arms to Israel and Hamas - 23 Feb 09




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JtcvoOwnfE&feature=channel_page

Petition for Israel War Crimes Tribunal
Feb 19th, 2009 by kawther.salam

A petition forwarded to me by Dr. Tammam Kelani, the president of Arab-Austrian Federation of Doctors and Pharmacists, follows below. The Petition is about the creation of a Special UN Tribunal to try Israeli War Criminals. This petition was also forwarded to me by Maha HOMSI from the Early Childhood/Child Protection Specialists of the UNICEF in Jordan.

To: President and Member States of United Nations General Assembly
PETITION
To: President and Member States of United Nations General AssemblyThe Creation of a Special Tribunal to try Israeli War Criminals
Recalling that Israel was created by virtue of a General Assembly Resolution in 1947 against the wishes of the indigenous population of Palestine;
Recalling that the creation of Israel was achieved through the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population, which resulted in the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem, and that more than half of the population of 1.5 millions of the Palestinian Occupied Territory called the Gaza Strip are Palestinian refugees who have become, with the other civilian population, victims of the recent Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip;
Noting that the UN Human Rights Council, in its ninth Special Session, has adopted on 12 January 2009, a resolution “on the grave violations of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory including the recent aggression of the occupied Gaza Strip” in which it “strongly condemned the ongoing Israeli military operation which had resulted in massive violations of human rights of the Palestinian people and systematic destruction of the Palestinian infrastructure”; and “decided to dispatch an urgent independent international fact-finding mission to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law by the occupying power against the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory”(United Nations Press Release of 12 January 2009, Human Rights Council, ROUNDUP);
Recalling that Israel has in the past refused to cooperate with similar fact-finding commissions or even give them visas to enter;
Recalling Article 22 of the Charter of the United Nations
Recalling further the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice of 9th July 2004 on the Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall by Israel, the occupying power, in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, in which the Court emphasized the special responsibility of the General Assembly for the Question of Palestine;
The undersigned NGOs and individuals,
Call upon the General Assembly to create a special international tribunal to try Israel, its political and military leaders, for such crimes in violation of international law, human rights law and international humanitarian law in the Palestinian Occupied Territory of which they may be charged.
Sincerely,
Sign the Petition

Israel and international law