Will Israel answer for war crime in Gaza attacks?

orange blossom · **Posted:** Wed Jan 21, 2009 11:38 pm

There could be disputes over the figures but Israel's assault is evidently disportionate in the use of force and high fatalities of civilians, albeit arguments that they are retaliatory and necessary for survival. Legal technicalities enable those responsible escape once again.

Quote:

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay called for independent investigations into possible war crimes after Israel's shelling of another U.N. school compound killed 42 people, including women and children, on Jan. 6.

Israel says the area near the compound was being used by militants to fire rockets.

The sheer number of Palestinian dead in the conflict -- 1,200, of whom 410 are children -- has also led to calls by human rights groups and aid workers for Israel to face examination under international criminal law, specifically on the issue of "proportionality" in the prosecution of the war.

Palmor said Israel's army had nothing to answer for.

BOTH SIDES IN VIOLATION?

A Palestinian rights group on Wednesday urged the International Criminal Court to investigate Israel, producing a 25-page petition alleging that Israel was using "terrorist weapons to conduct crimes against humanity".

The ICC prosecutor in the Hague responded by saying the court had no jurisdiction to investigate in Gaza. The ICC can investigate war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide committed on the territory of, or by a national of, a state.

Experts do believe, however, that both Israel and Hamas may have cases to answer on issues of humanitarian law.

Anthony Dworkin, the executive director of the Crimes of War Project and an expert in international humanitarian law, said Israel's broad approach to what it considered a target in the conflict might expose it to claims under the 1949 Geneva Conventions governing non-international conflict.

http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCr ... USLH286481

Quote:

More than 1,100 Palestinians have died in Gaza, the Hamas-run Ministry of Health says, which estimates that 40 percent were women and children under 18. Israel contends that only a quarter of the dead were civilians. Israel, which has suffered 13 dead, 3 of them civilians, has been accused of a disproportionate use of force.

Death tolls in warfare may carry a moral weight, but not a legal one.

Under international law, proportionality is defined as a question of judgment, not of numbers: Is the potential risk to civilians excessive in relationship to the anticipated military advantage? That puts the weight on military advantage, since civilian risk is a given and must only not be "excessive." Even if the target is legitimate, was the right weapon used to try to minimize civilian damage? The key is the expected damage the commander anticipated from the use of a certain weapon, and not what actually happened when it was fired.

The other key legal principle is "discrimination" - has a military struggled hard enough to hit only military targets and combatants, while trying to avoid purely civilian targets and noncombatants?

Deciding requires an investigation into battlefield circumstances that cannot be carried out while the fighting rages, and such judgments are especially difficult in urban guerrilla warfare, when fighters like Hamas live among the civilian population and take shelter there. While Israel is the focus of most criticism, legal experts agree that Hamas, a semi-state, radical Islamic group, is guilty.

Shooting rockets out of Gaza aimed at Israeli cities and civilians is an obvious violation of the principle of discrimination and fits the classic definition of terrorism. Hamas fighters are also putting civilians at undue risk by storing weapons among them, in mosques, schools and, the Israelis say, hospitals, making them potential military targets. While urban and guerrilla warfare is not illegal, by fighting in the midst of civilians, often in civilian clothing, Hamas may also bring unnecessary risk to noncombatants.

But Hamas's violations tend to be treated as a given and criticized as an afterthought, Israeli spokesmen and officials assert. They insist that Israel has never targeted civilians, medical workers or United Nations facilities or personnel.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/17/ ... 409612.php

orange blossom · **Posted:** Fri Jan 23, 2009 12:09 am

War Crimes : talk but not much action

by Richard Acland

Since July 1, 2002, the International Criminal Court in The Hague has been responsible for prosecuting war crimes. War crimes committed before that year are dealt with by ad hoc tribunals set by the United Nations Security Council - for instance, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, the ICT for Rwanda and the Special Court for Sierra Leone.

To get anything before the ICC is a tortuous process.

The hilarious television drama The Trial Of Tony Blair, about the prosecution of Blair for war crimes, may have given a slightly rosy impression about how easy it is to get a politician into one of those bullet-proof glass cages in The Hague.

It's not easy. The case has to have "sufficient gravity", and you can argue forever about that. The United States is not a party to the Rome Statute, which created the ICC, nor is Israel. They don't accept its jurisdiction to try their citizens for war crimes. A state or country has to accept the jurisdiction of the tribunal before the court can start the machinery of justice.

In Gaza, there are more than 1200 Palestinians dead, of whom more than 400 were children, and thousands more injured. According to Human Rights Watch, the Israelis exploded white phosphorous shells over Gaza which left victims horribly burnt. UN relief supplies were destroyed and last weekend an Israeli tank killed two boys in a UN school.

About 30 members of the one Palestinian clan were killed by shells or missiles in the Zeitun area after they were all gathered together by Israeli forces. Palestinian paramedics were prevented from attending to the wounded for two days. About 40 people were also killed on January 6 at a UN school compound housing refugees.

The International Committee of the Red Cross, the United Nations and Amnesty International all had people in the Gaza strip, and all condemned Israel's disproportionate aggression.

The Western media is only now being allowed into Gaza to report on the devastation. The Haaretz newspaper said that Israel was acting like a steamroller.

In the beginning, Israel said it was defending itself against "terror attacks". By the time of the ceasefire it certainly didn't look that way and quite soon the words "war crimes" started to appear.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, said in relation to the January 6 attack on the UN school compound that independent investigations should be carried out into possible war crimes.

And after last weekend's school attack the head of the UN relief and works agency in Gaza, John Ging, asked: "Is this [the killing of two small boys] and the killing of other innocent civilians in Gaza a war crime?"

Yigal Palmor, a spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry, was asked whether there was any chance of a case being brought against Israel in the International Criminal Court. He thought there was not "the slightest piece of evidence". Further, he said, the army had a legal department that "advises it and gives its opinions on measures that are taken".

Like all legal departments, it rather depends on the sort of lawyers who are dishing out the advice.

Gaza has long been a tragedy, and no more so in the latest bombings and invasion. Does that make what happened a war crime? The answer is more bound up with politics than law.

The UN Security Council could, if it felt like it, dispense with that state-based acquiescence and just refer relevant Israeli ministers and military commanders for investigation by the ICC.

How likely do you think that would be with Israel's great and powerful ally the United States holding a veto vote at the Security Council?

Even before a determination can be made about whether to have a formal investigation, the Office of the Prosecutor has to carry out years of analysis and overcome resistance from the people being investigated.

More than a year after a referral to prosecute was made in the Dafur situation, there were still no arrest warrants. While that is no longer the situation, the Dafur defendants have not progressed beyond the pre-trial chamber.

Apart from the [b]Dafur [/b]case, the ICC has on its booksalleged war crimes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, and the Central African Republic. As The Economist recently pointed out, all these atrocities involved "low-tech mass killings at close quarters", and these are the sort of war crimes where the ICC seems most at home.

It is pointed out that civilians are frequently hit by NATO aircraft in Afghanistan and never is it suggested that whoever is responsible should wind up in The Hague.

When it comes to high-tech Western-style air campaigns, the rights and wrongs become far too difficult for the International Criminal Court.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/war- ... ntentSwap1

GooBai · **Joined:** Mon May 19, 2008 2:27 am **Posts:** 334

orange blossom wrote:

War Crimes : talk but not much action

by Richard Acland

The hilarious television drama The Trial Of Tony Blair, about the prosecution of Blair for war crimes, may have given a slightly rosy impression about how easy it is to get a politician into one of those bullet-proof glass cages in The Hague.

It's not easy. The case has to have "sufficient gravity", and you can argue forever about that. The United States is not a party to the Rome Statute, which created the ICC, nor is Israel. They don't accept its jurisdiction to try their citizens for war crimes. A state or country has to accept the jurisdiction of the tribunal before the court can start the machinery of justice.

In Gaza, there are more than 1200 Palestinians dead, of whom more than 400 were children, and thousands more injured. According to Human Rights Watch, the Israelis exploded white phosphorous shells over Gaza which left victims horribly burnt. UN relief supplies were destroyed and last weekend an Israeli tank killed two boys in a UN school.

Quote from the Torah :

"Only the Jews are humans, the Non-Jews are not humans, but cattle" (goyim = human cattle) [1]
- Kerithuth 6b page 78, Jebhammoth 61a

"The birth-rate of the Non-Jews has to be suppressed massively" [3]
- Zohar II, 4b

"To box an Israeli on the ear, is like to box on the ear of God"
- Sanhedrin 58b

The Jews will have to learn to live peacefully with others in Israel on an equal basis. The Palestinians also have rights to life and property as much as those of Jews. In fact, the Palestinians have as much if not more right of return than the Jews. Israel is what South Africa was and will wind up becoming what South Africa is. It's not going to be a pretty sight. Israel is a lesson on the worthlessness of democracy. Only a Monarch by the consent of parliament can lead/treat their subjects on an equal basis and protect the rights of the vulnerable. America revolted against Britain primarily because of the proclamation line. The British Monarchy knew it was bound by honor to protect the rights of natives, even if it is reluctant to do so.

oneworldtalk

Will Israel answer for war crime in Gaza attacks?

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