| Al Jazeera, January 15, 2009 |
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| By Sandy Tolan, Middle East analyst |
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The Israeli bombs and rockets streaking through the skies of Gaza trace not only a path of death and terror for Palestinians in 2009, they also outline the smoke trails of traumas past, from the Nakba, or ‘catastrophe,’ in 1948 to the 1967 war; from the Lebanon invasions, to the 2002 assault on Jenin. All are echoes of today’s calamity of US-made missiles and mortars raining down on Gazans. Watching history repeat itself is, of course, most horrifying for the people through whose roofs the missiles are falling, whose children are dying. For the outsider, peering in from a safe perch, it is merely surreal. We look on as Israel replays the tape-loop of its brutal and tragic follies. Israel has shown again and again that, rather than vanquishing its enemies, it makes new ones while strengthening old ones. Many commentators have invoked 2006 and Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, when, in trying to destroy Hezbollah, it made it stronger. But this is only a relatively recent example. ‘My enemy’s enemy’
Consider early 1988, near the beginning of the First Intifada, when Israel, trying to weaken Yasser Arafat, the late PLO leader, invoked the ill-fated strategy known as “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”In trying to marginalise the exiled Arafat and his Tunis cadre, Israel helped seed the growth of a fledgling Hamas in Gaza. Or recall March 1968, when Israeli infantry, tanks, paratroopers, and armoured brigades – 15,000 soldiers in all – moved east across the Jordan River to attack the village of Karama. Though, technically, the Israelis won a military victory, they encountered far stiffer resistance than expected, losing 28 soldiers. At the centre of the heroic Palestinian battle of Karama was the man who would emerge strongest from the fight: Yasser Arafat. The biggest loser was the pro-Western “moderate,” King Hussein of Jordan, who in the wake of the battle was forced to declare, no doubt to the alarm of Israel, “we are all fedayeen now.” Or, we can revisit the pre-dawn of November 13, 1966, when Israeli planes, tanks and troops attacked the West Bank village of Samu, blowing up dozens of houses and killing 21 Jordanian soldiers. The attack deepened anger on the ‘Arab Street’ against Israel and its Western benefactors, and badly weakened King Hussein, who imposed martial law. “The monarchy itself is in jeopardy,” American officials in Amman cabled Washington. Largely as a result of the attack, the Jordanian king was forced into a pan-Arab alliance with his arch-rival, Gamal Abdel Nasser, the Egyptian president. The 11th-hour pact helped seal the fate of the 1967 war, and the 41-year occupation whose echoes can be heard in the exploding shells of Gaza. US response
Yet it is worth considering the American response to Israel’s Samu raid for the lessons it contains for US policymakers today. For although the US sided with Israel, many American officials were working hard behind the scenes to prevent war, and US officials, unlike those of the outgoing and incoming American administrations today, were furious at Israel.The “3000-man raid with tanks and planes was all out of proportion to the provocation,” wrote Walt Rostow, the national security adviser, in a memo to Lyndon Johnson, the then-US president. “They’ve undercut Hussein… It makes even the moderate Arabs feel fatalistically that there is nothing they can do to get along with the Israelis no matter how hard they try.” When Levi Eshkol, the Israeli prime minister, wrote to Johnson for American support “in this difficult hour for us,” the president ignored him, instead writing a note of sympathy to King Hussein, expressing his “sense of sorrow and concern … words of sympathy are small comfort when lives have been needlessly destroyed”. Then, in words scarcely imaginable for a US president today, he added: “My disapproval of this action has been made known to the government of Israel in the strongest terms.” In the end, of course, the US, distracted by Vietnam and in a Cold War struggle with the Soviet Union, backed Israel in the Six Day War, giving it a tacit green light for the surprise attack on Egypt in June 1967. (When Meir Amit, the then-head of the Israeli intelligency agency Mossad, visited Robert McNamara in the Pentagon, he told the inquiring defence secretary that the war would take “seven days”.) Lessons for Obama
Yet US officials, before acquiescing to Israel in the final days before war, actually fought to prevent it, and it is there, in that lost moment, that the lessons lie for Barack Obama, the incoming US president.Similar to (but far worse than) the Samu raid of 1966, Israel now wages a war whose destruction is “all out of proportion to the provocation.” Like the days leading up to the Six Day War, hundreds of thousands of people are taking to the streets, with mass protests in Cairo, Beirut, Amman, Doha, Paris, Athens, Istanbul, Sydney and other international capitals. These genuine expressions of fury, combined with wide-ranging condemnations from international leaders, and increasing outrage from a vocal minority of Israelis, do not bode well for the US or Israeli governments. Unlike 42 years ago, however, no US president, incoming or outgoing, is willing to criticise Israel. Obama’s tepid comment – “the loss of civilian life in Gaza and Israel is a source of deep concern” – does not qualify. Worse, his statement in Sderot last July – “If somebody was sending rockets into my house, where my two daughters sleep at night, I’m going to do everything in my power to stop that” – has been used as another green light by Israeli military politicians whose prime ministerial ambitions are a key factor underlying the assault on Gaza. Hillary Clinton’s declaration, during her senate confirmation hearings on Tuesday, January 13, 2008, that “the president-elect and I understand and are deeply sympathetic to Israel’s desire to defend itself under the current conditions,” hardly points to a visionary change in US policy. Yet if Obama wishes to preserve the truest hopes inherent in his election – that his presidency would stand for real change; that his internationalist view of the world would translate into wisdom and compassion for people other than the most powerful – he must be willing to transform US dealings in a region where the phrase “honest broker” has become a parlour joke. For the US to restore its credibility, Obama must send clear signals that Israeli impunity cannot continue. He needs to speak hard truths to an old friend, pointing out the Jewish state’s history of making its enemies stronger. Strengthening Hamas
And this, beyond the needless deaths, may be the ultimate result of the current war on Gaza. Israel, despite its stated goal of stopping Hamas’ rocket attacks, has simply not done so. Despite the latest wave of assassination by bombing, Israel’s attempts to destroy Hamas seem to be going the route of Lebanon, 2006.”What is the strategic purpose behind the present fighting?” asks the normally staid Anthony Cordesman in a commentary for the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC. “Has Israel somehow blundered into a steadily escalating war without a clear strategic goal or at least one it can credibly achieve? … It is also far from clear that the tactical gains are worth the political and strategic cost to Israel. At least to date, the reporting from within Gaza indicates that each new Israeli air strike or advance on the ground has increased popular support for Hamas and anger against Israel in Gaza. The same is true in the West Bank and the Islamic world.” Or, as Khaled Meshaal, the Hamas leader, declared to Israel last weekend, “you have created resistance in every household.” Thus the horrible chapter called “Gaza 2009” fits snugly into Israel’s book of outsized assaults on Palestinian civilians. It seems it will ever be so, until a US president steps forward with the guts and vision to change the game. Sandy Tolan is associate professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California, and author of The Lemon Tree: An Arab, A Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East. The views expressed by the author are not necessarily those of Al Jazeera. |
Archive for the ‘Palestine’ Category
Gaza: The endless cycle of trauma
January 15, 2009
Israeli human rights groups speak out as death toll passes 1,000
January 15, 2009- The Guardian, Thursday 15 January 2009
The number of Palestinians killed by Israel’s offensive in Gaza climbed above 1,000 yesterday, despite repeated calls from the UN for a halt to the conflict.
With mounting concern about the hundreds of civilians killed, nine Israeli human rights groups wrote to their government warning of their “heavy suspicion … of grave violations of international humanitarian law by military forces”.
Among the sites hit yesterday was Sheikh Radwan cemetery. Thirty graves were destroyed, spreading rotting flesh over a wide area. The army said it was targeting a nearby weapons cache.
So far 1,010 Palestinians have died, including 315 children and 95 women, Dr Moawiya Hassanein, head of Gaza’s medical emergency services, told the Guardian. The number of injured after 19 days of fighting stood at 4,700, he said. On the Israeli side, 13 people have died, among them three civilians, and four soldiers accidentally killed by their own troops.
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, which is based in Gaza and has field staff across the territory, believed at least 673 civilians had been killed – about two-thirds of the total. A more accurate count of civilian deaths is difficult, with journalists and international human rights observers banned from entering Gaza.
Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, was in Cairo for talks to halt the fighting. “My call is for an immediate end to violence in Gaza, and then to the Israeli military offensive and a halt to rocket attacks by Hamas,” he said. “It is intolerable that civilians bear the brunt of this conflict.”
Yesterday John Holmes, the UN’s humanitarian chief, told the security council: “The situation for the civilian population of Gaza is terrifying, and its psychological impact felt particularly by children and their parents, who feel helpless and unable to protect them.”
He added that Hamas’s rocket attacks on Israel violated international laws and must cease. “Yet any Israeli response must itself comply with international humanitarian law. Here, too, there is considerable and grave cause for concern.”
The Israeli military pressed on with its offensive yesterday, striking 20 sites across Gaza, including what it said were rocket launching sites, three smuggling tunnels, several armed gunmen and five buildings storing weapons.
Yet despite the intense bombing and artillery, militant rocket fire from Gaza has continued every day since the war began. Yesterday at least 16 rockets were fired into southern Israel, some reaching as far as Be’er Sheva and Ashdod.
Separately, guerrillas in southern Lebanon fired rockets into northern Israel yesterday. There were no casualties. The Israeli military fired mortars back.
The nine Israeli human rights groups, which include B’Tselem, Gisha, Amnesty International’s Israel section and Physicians for Human Rights, said accounts from Gaza showed the Israeli military was “making wanton use of lethal force” and called for a halt to attacks on civilians, access for civilians to escape the fighting, medical care for the injured, access for medical and rescue teams and the proper operation of electricity, water and sewage systems. Their unusually strong criticisms stand out in a country whose Jewish population at least has been united in extraordinarily strong support for the war in Gaza.
The desperate state of health facilities in Gaza was highlighted yesterday in the Lancet medical journal. Several mobile clinics and ambulances have been damaged by Israeli attacks, it notes, and at least six medical personnel killed. Hospitals and clinics have been forced to close. International law requires that all medical staff and facilities be protected at all times, even during armed conflict, said the Lancet. “Attacks on staff and facilities are serious violations of these laws,” it said.
Many doctors are working 24-hour shifts, ambulances cannot be maintained and are breaking down, while hospital equipment, medicines and anaesthetics, beds and medical staff are all in short supply. Hospitals and clinics have had their electricity supplies cut and are relying on “fragile back-up generators”.
Norwegian doctors Mads Gilbert and Erik Fosse wrote that during their spell working in al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City in the current conflict they had “witnessed the most horrific war injuries in men, women and children of all ages in numbers almost too large to comprehend. The wounded, dying and dead have streamed into the overcrowded hospital in endless convoys of ambulances and private cars and wrapped in blankets in the caring arms of others. The endless and intense bombardments from Israeli air, ground and naval forces have missed no targets, not even the hospital.”
Two Palestinian journalists working for an Iranian television station were charged in Israel yesterday with passing classified information to the enemy. They were accused of reporting the start of the ground invasion two weeks ago while the information was still under military censorship, and could face lengthy jail terms.
Medical staff recovers bodies of 22 Palestinians killed by Israel in Gaza city
January 14, 2009| [ 13/01/2009 – 04:50 PM ] |
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GAZA, (PIC)– Palestinian medical staff was able this morning to recover bodies of 22 Palestinian citizens killed during the IOF troops’ attempts to advance last night and early Tuesday into the Tel Al-Islam neighborhood, southeast Gaza city. The medical staff have not been able to have access to all bodies which are caught in crossfire in the area, according to Dr. Muawiya Hassanein, the director of emergency services in the health ministry. The Tel Al-Islam area witnessed fierce fighting between Palestinian resistance fighters and IOF troops who failed to break into the area after they took positions in nearby agricultural lands. According to Palestinian eyewitnesses, the Palestinian resistance fighters showed heroic death-defiance and managed to destroy more than 10 tanks and armored vehicles in the area. The eyewitnesses added that the ferocity of the resistance made the IOF troops shell and fire at the area randomly, where dozens of houses and buildings were completely destroyed, noting that the IOF troops used white phosphorous and incendiary shells during their attack. Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, managed during a successful ambush to kill and wound at dawn Tuesday a number of IOF troops who tried to infiltrate into east of Khan Younis city, south Gaza. In a communiqué received by the PIC, Al-Qassam Brigades said that its fighters detonated four anti-personnel explosive devices, and fired 15 mortar shells and one RPG at different Israeli special forces who tried to advance into Khuzaa, east of Khan Younis. The Hebrew radio reported that one of its soldiers was seriously wounded and three others sustained slight and moderate injuries after an Israeli brigade of paratroopers was attacked by Palestinian resistance fighters in the north of Gaza, alleging that the paratroopers were mistakenly shot by other Israeli troops. |
Israeli Troops Ordered to ‘Shoot Rather Than Ask Questions’
January 14, 2009Gaza-deployed Soldiers Appalled by Destruction as Reports of Civilian Deaths Grow
Posted January 13, 2009
“We are treating everything as hostile right now. We were told not to take chances – to shoot rather than ask questions.” That is the policy of the invading Israeli soldiers as described by one of their lieutenants. And indeed, they’re doing plenty of shooting. As for who they’re shooting, that’s one of those questions that not only are they not supposed to ask, they’d just as soon not answer.
Even among the invading army there is no small amount of shock at the destruction of residential neighborhoods. To quote the same soldier “it looks destroyed, demolished, like we were bombing it for years. You can’t imagine what damage we have done.” Nor can we rely on the international press to cover that damage, because they are still being kept from entering the strip by the Israeli military.
But we do get plenty of eyewitness accounts from the ground. The death toll has reportedly exceeded 975 now, with untold thousands wounded, and the promised “phase three” of the attacks haven’t even started in earnest yet. Israeli rights group B’Tselem reported that Israeli soldiers opened fire on a group of civilians trying to flee their homes, even though they had been ordered out by the Israeli military and were waving white flags at the time. The toll seems bound to rise as the troops move into the most densely populated parts of Gaza City.
Related Stories
compiled by Jason Ditz [email the author]
The Humiliation of America
January 14, 2009
Paul Craig Roberts | Information Clearing House, January 14, 2009
“Early Friday morning the secretary of state was considering bringing the cease-fire resolution to a UNSC vote and we didn’t want her to vote for it.” Olmert said. “I said ‘get President Bush on the phone.’ They tried and told me he was in the middle of a lecture in Philadelphia. I said ‘I’m not interested, I need to speak to him now.’ He got down from the podium, went out and took the phone call.”
“Let me see if I understand this,” wrote a friend in response to news reports that Israeli Prime Minister Olmert ordered President Bush from the podium where he was giving a speech to receive Israel’s instructions about how the United States had to vote on the UN resolution. “On September 11th, President Bush is interrupted while reading a story to school children and told the World Trade Center had been hit–and he went on reading. Now, Olmert calls about a UN resolution when Bush is giving a speech and Bush leaves the stage to take the call. There exists no greater example of a master-servant relationship.”
Olmert gloated as he told Israelis how he had shamed US Secretary of State Condi Rice by preventing the American Secretary of State from supporting a resolution that she had helped to craft. Olmert proudly related how he had interrupted President Bush’s speech in order to give Bush his marching orders on the UN vote.
Israeli politicians have been bragging for decades about the control they exercise over the US government. In his final press conference, President Bush, deluded to the very end, said that the whole world respects America. In fact, when the world looks at America, what it sees is an Israeli colony.
Responding to mounting reports from the Red Cross and human rights organizations of Israel’s massive war crimes in Gaza, the United Nations Human Rights Council voted 33-1 on January 12 to condemn Israel for grave offenses against human rights.
On January 13, the London Times reported that Israelis have gathered on a hillside overlooking Gaza to enjoy the slaughter of Palestinians in what the Times calls “the ultimate spectator sport.”
It is American supplied F-16 fighter jets, helicopter gunships, missiles, and bombs that are destroying the civilian infrastructure of Gaza and murdering the Palestinians who have been packed into the tiny strip of land. What is happening to the Palestinians herded into the Gaza Ghetto is happening because of American money and weapons. It is just as much an attack by the United States as an attack by Israel. The US government is complicit in the war crimes.
Yet in his farewell press conference on January 12, Bush said that the world respects America for its compassion.
The compassion of bombing a UN school for girls?
The compassion of herding 100 Palestinians into one house and then shelling it?
The compassion of bombing hospitals and mosques?
The compassion of depriving 1.5 million Palestinians of food, medicine, and energy?
The compassion of violently overthrowing the democratically elected Hamas government?
The compassion of blowing up the infrastructure of one of the poorest and most deprived people on earth?
The compassion of abstaining from a Security Council vote condemning these actions?
And this is a repeat of what the Israelis and Americans did to Lebanon in 2006, what the Americans did to Iraqis for six years and are continuing to do to Afghans after seven years. And still hope to do to the Iranians and Syrians.
In 2002 I designated George W. Bush “the White House Moron.” If there ever was any doubt about this designation, Bush’s final press conference dispelled it.
Bush talked about connecting the dots, but Bush has failed to connect any dots for eight solid years. “Our” president was a puppet for a cabal led by Dick Cheney and a handful of Jewish neoconservatives, who took control of the Pentagon, the State Department, the National Security Council, the CIA, and “Homeland Security.” From these power positions, the neocon cabal used lies and deception to invade Afghanistan and Iraq, pointless wars that have cost Americans $3 trillion, while millions of Americans lose their jobs, their pensions, and their access to health care.
“These obviously very difficult economic times,” Bush said in his press conference, “started before my presidency.”
Bush has plenty of liberal company in failing to connect a $3 trillion dollar war with hard times. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities blames Bush’s tax cut, not the wars, for “the fiscal deterioration.”
Bush told the White House Press Corps, a useless collection of non-journalists, that the two mistakes of his invasion of Iraq were: (1) Putting up the “mission accomplished” banner on the aircraft carrier, which, he said, “sent the wrong message,” and (2) the absence of the alleged weapons of mass destruction that he used to justify the invasion.
Although Bush now admits that there were not any such weapons in Iraq, Bush said that the invasion was still the right thing to do.
The deaths of 1.25 million Iraqis, the displacement of 4 million Iraqis, and the destruction of a country’s infrastructure and economy are merely the collateral damage associated with “bringing freedom and democracy” to the Middle East.
Unless George W. Bush is the best actor in human history, he truly believes what he told the White House Press Corps.
What Bush did not explain is how America is respected when its people put a moron in charge for eight years.
The Facts About Hamas and the War on Gaza
January 14, 2009By NORMAN FINKELSTEIN | Counterpunch, January 13, 2009
The record is fairly clear. You can find it on the Israeli website, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website. Israel broke the ceasefire by going into the Gaza and killing six or seven Palestinian militants. At that point—and now I’m quoting the official Israeli website—Hamas retaliated or, in retaliation for the Israeli attack, then launched the missiles.
Now, as to the reason why, the record is fairly clear as well. According to Ha’aretz, Defense Minister Barak began plans for this invasion before the ceasefire even began. In fact, according to yesterday’s Ha’aretz, the plans for the invasion began in March. And the main reasons for the invasion, I think, are twofold. Number one; to enhance what Israel calls its deterrence capacity, which in layman’s language basically means Israel’s capacity to terrorize the region into submission. After their defeat in July 2006 in Lebanon, they felt it important to transmit the message that Israel is still a fighting force, still capable of terrorizing those who dare defy its word.
And the second main reason for the attack is because Hamas was signaling that it wanted a diplomatic settlement of the conflict along the June 1967 border. That is to say, Hamas was signaling they had joined the international consensus, they had joined most of the 
international community, overwhelmingly the international community, in seeking a diplomatic settlement. And at that point, Israel was faced with what Israelis call a Palestinian peace offensive. And in order to defeat the peace offensive, they sought to dismantle Hamas.
As was documented in the April 2008 issue of Vanity Fair by the writer David Rose, basing himself on internal US documents, it was the United States in cahoots with the Palestinian Authority and Israel which were attempting a putsch on Hamas, and Hamas preempted the putsch. That, too, is no longer debatable or no longer a controversial claim.
The issue is can it rule in Gaza if Israel maintains a blockade and prevents economic activity among the Palestinians. The blockade, incidentally, was implemented before Hamas came to power. The blockade doesn’t even have anything to do with Hamas. The blockade came to—there were Americans who were sent over, in particular James Wolfensohn, to try to break the blockade after Israel redeployed its troops in Gaza.
The problem all along has been that Israel doesn’t want Gaza to develop, and Israel doesn’t want to resolve diplomatically the conflict, both the leadership in Damascus and the leadership in the Gaza have repeatedly made statements they’re willing to settle the conflict in the June 1967 border. The record is fairly clear. In fact, it’s unambiguously clear.
Every year, the United Nations General Assembly votes on a resolution entitled “Peaceful Settlement of the Palestine Question.” And every year the vote is the same: it’s the whole world on one side; Israel, the United States and some South Sea atolls and Australia on the other side. The vote this past year was 164-to-7. Every year since 1989—in 1989, the vote was 151-to-3, the whole world on one side, the United States, Israel and the island state of Dominica on the other side.
We have the Arab League, all twenty-two members of the Arab League, favoring a two-state settlement on the June 1967 border. We have the Palestinian Authority favoring that two-state settlement on the June 1967 border. We now have Hamas favoring that two-state settlement on the June 1967 border. The one and only obstacle is Israel, backed by the United States. That’s the problem.
Well, the record shows that Hamas wanted to continue the ceasefire, but only on condition that Israel eases the blockade. Long before Hamas began the retaliatory rocket attacks on Israel, Palestinians were facing a humanitarian crisis in Gaza because of the blockade. The former High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, described what was going on in Gaza as a destruction of a civilization. This was during the ceasefire period.
What does the record show? The record shows for the past twenty or more years, the entire international community has sought to settle the conflict in the June 1967 border with a just resolution of the refugee question. Are all 164 nations of the United Nations the rejectionists? And are the only people in favor of peace the United States, Israel, Nauru, Palau, Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and Australia? Who are the rejectionists? Who’s opposing a peace?
The record shows that in every crucial issue raised at Camp David, then under the Clinton parameters, and then in Taba, at every single point, all the concessions came from the Palestinians. Israel didn’t make any concessions. Every concession came from the Palestinians. The Palestinians have repeatedly expressed a willingness to settle the conflict in accordance with international law.
The law is very clear. July 2004, the highest judicial body in the world, the International Court of Justice, ruled Israel has no title to any of the West Bank and any of Gaza. They have no title to Jerusalem. Arab East Jerusalem, according to the highest judicial body in the world, is occupied Palestinian territory. The International Court of Justice ruled all the settlements, all the settlements in the West Bank, are illegal under international law.
Now, the important point is, on all those questions, the Palestinians were willing to make concessions. They made all the concessions. Israel didn’t make any concessions.
I think it’s fairly clear what needs to happen. Number one, the United States and Israel have to join the rest of the international community, have to abide by international law. I don’t think international law should be trivialized. I think it’s a serious issue. If Israel is in defiance of international law, it should be called into account, just like any other state in the world.
Mr. Obama has to level with the American people. He has to be honest about what is the main obstacle to resolving the conflict. It’s not Palestinian rejectionism. It’s the refusal of Israel, backed by the United States government, to abide by international law, to abide by the opinion of the international community.
And the main challenge for all of us as Americans is to see through the lies.
Norman Finkelstein is author of five books, including Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict, Beyond Chutzpah and The Holocaust Industry, which have been translated into more than 40 foreign editions. He is the son of Holocaust survivors. This article is an edited extract of the views of Finkelstein given at DemocracyNow.org. His website is www.NormanFinkelstein.com
Gaza Killings Trigger Call for War Crimes Probe
January 14, 2009
By Thalif Deen | Inter Press Service
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 13 (IPS) – With hundreds of civilians, mostly women and children, killed during nearly three weeks of fighting in Gaza, there is a growing demand either for an international tribunal or an international commission to investigate charges of war crimes committed by Israel.
But there are fears that any such move may be shot down by the United States, and possibly by other Western nations, which continue to politically temper their criticism of Israel despite violations of all the known international conventions protecting women, children, the wounded and the dying in war zones.
“On an inter-governmental level, the war crimes process is essentially subject to geopolitical control, which means in practice that the criminal wrongdoing of the most powerful [the U.S. government] and its closest friends [Israel] get a free pass,” Richard Falk, a professor of international law and a U.N. human rights expert, told IPS.
Despite widespread condemnation, this practice of “geopolitical impunity” is likely to shield Israel from formal scrutiny with respect to the alleged crimes of war and crimes against humanity associated with its military operations in Gaza since Dec. 27, he added.
Falk, who is the U.N. Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, was detained and expelled from an airport in Tel Aviv last month when he was on a U.N.-mandated assignment to probe human rights in the occupied territories.
As of Tuesday, the Palestinian death toll had risen to more than 900, mostly civilians, compared with over 10 Israelis, including those killed by Hamas’s rocket fire.
The London-based Amnesty International has asked the Security Council “to take firm action to ensure full accountability for war crimes and other serious abuses of international human rights and humanitarian law.”
The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay told a special session of the Human Rights Council (HRC) in Geneva that accountability must be ensured for violations of international law.
“I remind this Council that violations of international humanitarian law may constitute war crimes for which individual criminal responsibility may be invoked,” she said.
At the special session Monday, the HRC adopted a resolution calling for an “urgent independent international fact-finding mission” to investigate all violations of international human rights and humanitarian law by Israel.
Asked specifically about charges of “war crimes” in Gaza, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon refused to express his view on the unbridled killings of civilians.
“That’s something which the International Criminal Court (ICC) or other international organisations will have to determine,” he told reporters Monday, on the eve of his weeklong peace mission to the Middle East.
But the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), which is calling for an international commission of investigation, points out that Israel has not ratified the statute of the ICC.
“Activating the ICC jurisdiction for these crimes implies for the U.N. Security Council to refer the situation to the ICC,” in order for the ICC prosecutor to initiate an investigation, FIDH said in a letter to the 15-member U.N. body.
But any such Security Council action will most likely be vetoed by the United States, a longstanding ally of Israel.
Besides the ICC, which was established in 2003, there have been special criminal tribunals or special courts created to prosecute war crimes or genocide in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Lebanon, Cambodia and East Timor.
“There certainly should be a tribunal,” Michael Ratner, president of the New York-based Centre for Constitutional Rights, told IPS.
While it would look at war crimes committed by all parties, Hamas’s actions pale in comparison to the murders committed by Israel, he said.
“The continued impunity of Israel for crimes it has committed encourages it in perpetrating gross violations of humanitarian law,” said Ratner, who is also adjunct professor law at Columbia University.
“A tribunal is essential, [but] the United States will likely veto such a Security Counsel resolution. By doing so, it is enabling and condoning war crimes,” he warned.
Stephen Zunes, professor of politics and international studies at the University of San Francisco, said: “A strong case can be made for an investigation into war crimes committed by Israeli armed forces.”
Since the Gaza Strip is legally a non-self-governing territory, the United Nations has a particular responsibility to ensure that those guilty of war crimes are prosecuted, he added.
“Such prosecution, however, would be more appropriate if pursued through the International Criminal Court, which did not exist at the time special tribunals were set up for Yugoslavia, Cambodia and Rwanda,” Zunes told IPS.
By pursuing cases through the ICC rather than a special tribunal, it would lessen the likelihood of charges that the United Nations was once again unfairly singling out Israel for violations of international humanitarian law, he added.
Falk said “the most that we can expect are fact-finding and investigative missions” established by the Human Rights Council in Geneva (as proposed in its Special Session) and by the General Assembly (as an outcome of an upcoming Ninth Special Session).
“I think these symbolic steps are important, and they will undoubtedly be opposed by the United States and Israel, and Israel will in all likelihood not allow such initiatives to enter Gaza,” he said.
This will confirm concealment, a virtual admission of guilt, and will still enable authoritative reports and recommendations for a criminal accountability mechanism to be established, which the General Assembly has the authority to do under Article 22 of the U.N. Charter, Falk said.
There are some other possibilities for establishing legal responsibility and criminal accountability, especially well-organised civil society initiatives.
He pointed out that one model would be the tribunal process associated with the Iraq War, with sessions in some 20 countries, and a culminating Iraq War Tribunal held in Istanbul, Turkey in June 2005.
“There exists the political climate to organise such a tribunal process for Gaza, and it will have worldwide resonance.”
In the course of such a democratically conceived grassroots tribunal process, there would also be an opportunity to consider the implications of the U.S. role in providing vast military assistance and unconditional diplomatic support to Israel, as well as to consider the relative passivity of Europe, Arab neighbours, and others, he added.
Gaza: Israeli troops reveal ruthless tactics against Hamas
January 14, 2009
Israel may face UN court ruling on legality of Gaza conflict
January 14, 2009- The Guardian, Wednesday 14 January 2009
The UN general assembly, which is meeting this week to discuss the issue, will consider requesting an advisory opinion from the international court of justice, the Guardian has learned.
“There is a well-grounded view that both the initial attacks on Gaza and the tactics being used by Israel are serious violations of the UN charter, the Geneva conventions, international law and international humanitarian law,” said Richard Falk, the UN’s special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories and professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University.
“There is a consensus among independent legal experts that Israel is an occupying power and is therefore bound by the duties set out in the fourth Geneva convention,” Falk added. “The arguments that Israel’s blockade is a form of prohibited collective punishment, and that it is in breach of its duty to ensure the population has sufficient food and healthcare as the occupying power, are very strong.”
A Foreign Office source confirmed the UK would consider backing calls for a reference to the ICJ. “It’s definitely on the table,” the source said. “We have already called for an investigation and are looking at all evidence and allegations.”
An open letter to the prime minister signed by prominent international lawyers and published in today’s Guardian states: “The United Kingdom government … has a duty under international law to exert its influence to stop violations of international humanitarian law in the current conflict between Israel and Hamas.”
The letter argues that Israel has violated principles of humanitarian law, including launching attacks directly aimed at civilians and failing to discriminate between civilians and combatants.
The letter follows condemnation earlier this week from leading QCs of Israel’s action as a violation of international law, and a vote by the UN’s human rights council on Monday on a resolution condemning the ongoing Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip.
“The blockade of humanitarian relief, the destruction of civilian infrastructure, and preventing access to basic necessities such as food and fuel are prima facie war crimes,” a group of leading QCs and academics, including Michael Mansfield QC and Sir Geoffrey Bindman, wrote in a letter to the Sunday Times.
Israel has already been found to have violated its obligations in international law by a previous advisory opinion of the ICJ, and is likely to vigorously contest arguments that it is an occupying power. It previously stated that occupation ceased after disengagement from Gaza in 2005.
Its stance raises questions as to the utility of an advisory opinion by the ICJ after Israel rejected its finding in a previous case, which found the wall being constructed in the Palestinian territories to be a violation of Israel’s obligations under international humanitarian law.
Questions are also being raised as to whether the international criminal court, which deals with war crimes and crimes against humanity, would have any jurisdiction to hear cases against perpetrators of the alleged crimes on both sides of the conflict. Neither Israel nor the Palestinian territories are signatories to the Rome statute, which brings states within the jurisdiction of the ICC.
More likely, experts say, is the establishment of ad-hoc tribunals of the kind created to deal with the war in the former Yugoslavia and the genocide in Rwanda.
“If there were the political will there could be an ad-hoc tribunal established to hear allegations of war crimes,” Falk said. “This could be done by the general assembly acting under article 22 of the UN charter which gives them the authority to establish subsidiary bodies.”
We Will Not Go Down: A Song From Gaza Source:
January 13, 2009We Will Not Go Down
A song for Gaza
Video
This is a song of hope for the Palestinians in Gaza, composed and performed by Michael Heart
Women and children alike Murdered and massacred night after night While the so-called leaders of countries afar Debated on who’s wrong or right
Posted January 12, 2009 –
A blinding flash of white light
Lit up the sky over Gaza tonight
People running for cover
Not knowing whether they’re dead or alive
They came with their tanks and their planes
With ravaging fiery flames
And nothing remains
Just a voice rising up in the smoky haze
We will not go down
In the night, without a fight
You can burn up our mosques and our homes and our schools
But our spirit will never die
We will not go down
In Gaza tonight
Women and children alike
Murdered and massacred night after night
While the so-called leaders of countries afar
Debated on who’s wrong or right
But their powerless words were in vain
And the bombs fell down like acid rain
But through the tears and the blood and the pain
You can still hear that voice through the smoky haze
We will not go down
In the night, without a fight
You can burn up our mosques and our homes and our schools
But our spirit will never die
We will not go down
In Gaza tonight
We will not go down
In the night, without a fight
You can burn up our mosques and our homes and our schools
But our spirit will never die
We will not go down
In the night, without a fight
We will not go down
In Gaza tonight
Peace and Justice Post 