Israel Is Committing War Crimes
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- Written by GEORGE E. BISHARAT GEORGE E. BISHARAT
- Published: 12 January 2009 12 January 2009
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Hamas's violations are no justification for Israel's actions.
By GEORGE E. BISHARAT
Israel's current assault on the Gaza Strip cannot be justified by self-defense. Rather, it involves serious violations of international law, including war crimes. Senior Israeli political and military leaders may bear personal liability for their offenses, and they could be prosecuted by an international tribunal, or by nations practicing universal jurisdiction over grave international crimes. Hamas fighters have also violated the laws of warfare, but their misdeeds do not justify Israel's acts.
The United Nations charter preserved the customary right of a state to retaliate against an "armed attack" from another state. The right has evolved to cover nonstate actors operating beyond the borders of the state claiming self-defense, and arguably would apply to Hamas. However, an armed attack involves serious violations of the peace. Minor border skirmishes are common, and if all were considered armed attacks, states could easily exploit them -- as surrounding facts are often murky and unverifiable -- to launch wars of aggression. That is exactly what Israel seems to be currently attempting.
Israel had not suffered an "armed attack" immediately prior to its bombardment of the Gaza Strip. Since firing the first Kassam rocket into Israel in 2002, Hamas and other Palestinian groups have loosed thousands of rockets and mortar shells into Israel, causing about two dozen Israeli deaths and widespread fear. As indiscriminate attacks on civilians, these were war crimes. During roughly the same period, Israeli forces killed about 2,700 Palestinians in Gaza by targeted killings, aerial bombings, in raids, etc., according to the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem.
But on June 19, 2008, Hamas and Israel commenced a six-month truce. Neither side complied perfectly. Israel refused to substantially ease the suffocating siege of Gaza imposed in June 2007. Hamas permitted sporadic rocket fire -- typically after Israel killed or seized Hamas members in the West Bank, where the truce did not apply. Either one or no Israelis were killed (reports differ) by rockets in the half year leading up to the current attack.
Israel then broke the truce on Nov. 4, raiding the Gaza Strip and killing a Palestinian. Hamas retaliated with rocket fire; Israel then killed five more Palestinians. In the following days, Hamas continued rocket fire -- yet still no Israelis died. Israel cannot claim self-defense against this escalation, because it was provoked by Israel's own violation.
An armed attack that is not justified by self-defense is a war of aggression. Under the Nuremberg Principles affirmed by U.N. Resolution 95, aggression is a crime against peace.
Israel has also failed to adequately discriminate between military and nonmilitary targets. Israel's American-made F-16s and Apache helicopters have destroyed mosques, the education and justice ministries, a university, prisons, courts and police stations. These institutions were part of Gaza's civilian infrastructure. And when nonmilitary institutions are targeted, civilians die. Many killed in the last week were young police recruits with no military roles. Civilian employees in the Hamas-led government deserve the protections of international law like all others. Hamas's ideology -- which employees may or may not share -- is abhorrent, but civilized nations do not kill people merely for what they think.
Deliberate attacks on civilians that lack strict military necessity are war crimes. Israel's current violations of international law extend a long pattern of abuse of the rights of Gaza Palestinians. Eighty percent of Gaza's 1.5 million residents are Palestinian refugees who were forced from their homes or fled in fear of Jewish terrorist attacks in 1948. For 60 years, Israel has denied the internationally recognized rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes -- because they are not Jews.
Although Israel withdrew its settlers and soldiers from Gaza in 2005, it continues to tightly regulate Gaza's coast, airspace and borders. Thus, Israel remains an occupying power with a legal duty to protect Gaza's civilian population. But Israel's 18-month siege of the Gaza Strip preceding the current crisis violated this obligation egregiously. It brought economic activity to a near standstill, left children hungry and malnourished, and denied Palestinian students opportunities to study abroad.
Israel should be held accountable for its crimes, and the U.S. should stop abetting it with unconditional military and diplomatic support.
Mr. Bisharat is a professor at Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco.
Call the IDF, tell the them to stop the killing
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- Written by AUPHR AUPHR
- Published: 12 January 2009 12 January 2009
- Hits: 3085 3085
Here is the number. Everyone is invited to call it to protest the war on Gaza instead.
+972-2-5839749
From the U.S. you dial:
011-972-2-5839749
YOU CAN ALSO SKYPE IT (+972-2-5839749) !!! I just did it and told him that the IDF is killing children and innocents and that there is only a political solution to the conflict !
THEY SPEAK ARABIC AND ENGLISH !
I encourage others to make the call sooner rather than later bec=use surely they'll change the number once these kinds of calls start=20 coming in.
The Tragedy of Gaza
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- Written by Peter Miller, AUPHR Peter Miller, AUPHR
- Published: 11 January 2009 11 January 2009
- Hits: 3098 3098
[Note: This article was first published in Street Roots, a newspaper whose sales helps empower the homeless, check them out at www.streetroots.org]
The Tragedy of Gaza
American citizens must force our politicians to change U.S. policy towards Israel and Palestine.
January 6, 2009
As I watched the reports of mounting civilian casualties in Gaza and saw the photos of the frightened children, mangled victims, grieving parents and the bodies of infants drained of blood, I came across Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's statement that Israel, in pursuing its devastating attack on Gaza, would treat the population of Gaza "with silk gloves." The disparity between his words and the brutal reality of Israel's attack couldn't be greater. It is similar to the disparity between the reaction around the world opposed to Israel's attack on Gaza and the universal support for it by U.S. members of Congress.
In order to punish Hamas because of their disregard for Israeli lives, the Israeli and U.S. governments have demonstrated an even more profound and encompassing disregard for Palestinian lives, attacking people who are under already living under a cruel siege, living with sewage and digging through garbage. Many of the dead, dying and injured are children and the hospitals are unable to help them. This means that injuries that could have been easily treated are killing many Gazans or leaving them mangled by the hundreds and the end is not in sight.
The Call for a Cease-Fire in Gaza Returns to Pioneer Courthouse Square
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- Written by PPRC, AUPHR PPRC, AUPHR
- Published: 10 January 2009 10 January 2009
- Hits: 3346 3346
Event: The Call for a Cease-Fire in Gaza Returns to Pioneer Courthouse
Square.
Date: Saturday, January 10, 2009
Time: 3:00 PM
Location: Pioneer Courthouse Square, SW Yamhill & Broadway, downtown
Portland, Oregon.
Contacts:
Americans United for Palestinian Human Rights
Hala Gores (503) 307-9339
Peter Miller (503) 358-7475
Portland Peaceful Response Coalition
William Seaman (503) 888-7455
The Call for a Cease-Fire in Gaza Returns to Pioneer Courthouse Square.
"Anyone who justifies this war also justifies all its crimes. Anyone who
sees it as a defensive war must bear the moral responsibility for its
consequences. Anyone who now encourages the politicians and the army to
continue will also have to bear the mark of Cain that will be branded on his
forehead after the war. All those who support the war also support the
horror."
Gideon Levy, Journalist and Editor
"The time of the righteous"
Ha’aretz (Israeli daily newspaper)
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1054158.html
Read more: The Call for a Cease-Fire in Gaza Returns to Pioneer Courthouse Square
The time of the righteous
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- Written by Gideon Levy Gideon Levy
- Published: 09 January 2009 09 January 2009
- Hits: 4306 4306
The unbridled aggression and brutality are justified as "exercising caution": the frightening balance of blood - about 100 Palestinian dead for every Israeli killed, isn't raising any questions, as if we've decided that their blood is worth one hundred times less than ours, in acknowledgement of our inherent racism.
Rightists, nationalists, chauvinists and militarists are the only legitimate bon ton in town. Don't bother us about humaneness and compassion. Only at the edges of the camp can a voice of protest be heard - illegitimate, ostracized and ignored by media coverage - from a small but brave group of Jews and Arabs.
Alongside all this, rings another voice, perhaps the worst of all. This is the voice of the righteous and the hypocritical. My colleague, Ari Shavit, seems to be their eloquent spokesman. This week, Shavit wrote here ("Israel must double, triple, quadruple its medical aid to Gaza," Haaretz, January 7): "The Israeli offensive in Gaza is justified ... Only an immediate and generous humanitarian initiative will prove that even during the brutal warfare that has been forced on us, we remember that there are human beings on the other side."
To Shavit, who defended the justness of this war and insisted that it mustn't be lost, the price is immaterial, as is the fact that there are no victories in such unjust wars. And he dares, in the same breath, to preach "humaneness."
Does Shavit wish for us to kill and kill, and afterward to set up field hospitals and send medicine to care for the wounded? He knows that a war against a helpless population, perhaps the most helpless one in the world, that has nowhere to escape to, can only be cruel and despicable. But these people always want to come out of it looking good. We'll drop bombs on residential buildings, and then we'll treat the wounded at Ichilov; we'll shell meager places of refuge in United Nations schools, and then we'll rehabilitate the disabled at Beit Lewinstein. We'll shoot and then we'll cry, we'll kill and then we'll lament, we'll cut down women and children like automatic killing machines, and we'll also preserve our dignity.
The problem is - it just doesn't work that way. This is outrageous hypocrisy and self-righteousness. Those who make inflammatory calls for more and more violence without regard for the consequences are at least being more honest about it.
You can't have it both ways. The only "purity" in this war is the "purification from terrorists," which really means the sowing of horrendous tragedies. What's happening in Gaza is not a natural disaster, an earthquake or flood, for which it would be our duty and right to extend a helping hand to those affected, to send rescue squads, as we so love to do. Of all the rotten luck, all the disasters now occurring in Gaza are manmade - by us. Aid cannot be offered with bloodstained hands. Compassion cannot sprout from brutality.
Yet there are some who still want it both ways. To kill and destroy indiscriminately and also to come out looking good, with a clean conscience. To go ahead with war crimes without any sense of the heavy guilt that should accompany them. It takes some nerve. Anyone who justifies this war also justifies all its crimes. Anyone who preaches for this war and believes in the justness of the mass killing it is inflicting has no right whatsoever to speak about morality and humaneness. There is no such thing as simultaneously killing and nurturing. This attitude is a faithful representation of the basic, twofold Israeli sentiment that has been with us forever: To commit any wrong, but to feel pure in our own eyes. To kill, demolish, starve, imprison and humiliate - and be right, not to mention righteous. The righteous warmongers will not be able to allow themselves these luxuries.
Anyone who justifies this war also justifies all its crimes. Anyone who sees it as a defensive war must bear the moral responsibility for its consequences. Anyone who now encourages the politicians and the army to continue will also have to bear the mark of Cain that will be branded on his forehead after the war. All those who support the war also support the horror.