The White House threatens to end aid if Palestine joins the ICC

(Altered file photo)

No Shame on Pennsylvania Ave.

by FRANKLIN LAMB, source

Beirut

Fatou Bom Bensouda, the Gambian-born deputy prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), was never Washington’s first choice to succeed the inveterately self-promoting elitist ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo.

And it is doubtful that key Obama administration officials have changed their minds this week given Ms. Bensouda’s impassioned invitation on 6/27/13 to Palestine, urging its accession to the Rome Statute and the ICC, the former signed and ratified, as of this month, by 122 states with 31 additional countries, including Russia, having signed with ratification pending in their legislatures.

Visiting Al Jalil UNWRA high school across from Shatila camp here in Beirut recently, this observer was asked several questions by students and staff and the most frequent inquiry, which came as no surprise, concerned why the Lebanese government, even those who claim to support the Palestinian cause, still have not acted in Parliament to grant Palestinian refugees the same elementary civil right to work and to own a home that every refugee everywhere, even in Zionist occupied Palestine, have long enjoyed.

The second most commonly asked question, did surprise me a bit and it was why the Palestinian leaders in Ramallah have not joined the International Criminal Court (ICC) in order to challenge the criminal, apartheid regime in occupied Tel Aviv and hold it accountable under international humanitarian law for crimes against Palestinian prisoners and more than a dozen equally brutal campaigns that target the indigenous population increasingly being condemned internationally.

From my time visiting Al Jalil School, it became clear that the students and faculty want their country, Palestine, to join the ICC. One is advised that this sentiment is the same in all 54 Palestinian refugees’ schools in Lebanon and this insistence mirrors virtually all Palestinian, camps, groups and NGO’s with whom I have discussed the subject.

The new ICC Prosecutor Bensouda is also encouraging Palestine to join the International Criminal Court, as she prepares for the cases that are likely to be filed with the ICC in the coming months. Addressing this week’s Transitional Justice and International Justice the Arab World conference, she declared that her office believes Palestine qualifies to join the ICC after the UN General Assembly voted to admit Palestine as a non-member state last November.

The ICC prosecutor’s office is rumored in The Hague to be particularly impassioned and focused on those areas in which their chief, Ms. Bensouda, has particular international legal expertise. With the main area being international crimes comprising the category of continuous crimes against humanity, which, arguably, since 1948, have been most egregiously committed by the last 19th century colonial enterprise that still brutally occupies Palestine.

Prosecutor Bensouda and her ICC staff is reported to be particularly intent on investigating continuing violations of basic humanitarian principles, standards and rules and both have spoken about the case of Palestinian Maysara Abu Hamdiyeh, a cancer-sufferer who died in Israeli custody on 6/25/13 after the Israeli government rejected repeated international calls and protests for his release. This, even as its officials conceded that Mr. Abu Hamidiyeh was no threat to society and could likely be successfully treated if allowed medical treatment for his life threatening condition. One ICC investigator, who asked for anonymity, stated that she and her colleagues considered the actions of the Netanyahu government with respect to the Abu Hamidiyeh, and similar cases, to be “sick!”

The White House and its allies are not pleased by prospects for an eventful next few years at the ICC. What have particularly unnerved outgoing UN Ambassador, Susan Rice and Israeli PM Netanyahu, are the 5/23/13 comments of Ms. Bensouda during the 38th FIDH Congress in Istanbul which celebrated the 15th anniversary of the Rome Statute which created the ICC.

“Gone are the days when those who commit international crimes, could be cleansed of their atrocities through a mere hand shake and a scribble of their initials on a piece of paper which purports to bind them to conditions that they have no intention of ever observing.” She added: “My challenge is to consolidate what has been achieved, to build on from it, and to answer victims’ calls for justice. That is the promise made in Rome and that is the promise we cannot fail to fulfill”.

One the several “going out the door” comments Ms. Rice made on cleaning out her UN office on her way to become President Obama’s National Security Adviser, was basically a reiteration of her livid expressions made following last fall’s UN General Assembly vote giving Palestine its new international status. When asked if she considered the UN vote a repudiation of the Obama administration and her personally, Ms. Rice scolded:

“That resolution is not going to take them closer to statehood, or to the ICC! It may actually make the environment more difficult for them and public references to the “State of Palestine” do not make it a sovereign state. Any reference to the ‘State of Palestine’ in the United Nations, including the use of the term ‘State of Palestine’ on the placard in the Security Council or the use of the term ‘State of Palestine’ in the invitation do not reflect acquiescence that ‘Palestine’ is a state,” she said.

It may be recalled that in a letter addressed to the Secretary-General of the United Nations and the President of the UN Security Council immediately following the 11/29/12 General Assembly vote, the permanent UN observer of Palestine reiterated his delegation’s position that ”all Israeli settlement activities are illegal, constituting grave breaches of article 49 (6) of the Fourth Geneva Convention and thus constituting war crimes, as further determined in accordance with article 8 (2) (b) (viii) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Israel, the occupying Power, must be held accountable for all of the war crimes it is committing against the Palestinian people.”

This letter was cited by the most recent UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) report of February 2013, which also found Israel, as an occupying power, in violation of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention for ”transferring parts of its civilian population into territory that it occupies.”

Adding to all its currents problems, is this week’s announcement that President Obama’s “favorite general,” Retired Gen. James “Hoss” Cartwright will likely cause yet more serious problems for the administration when details of his suspected leaks of information about a covert U.S.-Israeli cyber-attack on the Islamic Republic of Iran’s nuclear program, for which he is expected to soon be arrested and indicted. Coming on the heels of the Edward Snowden’s NSA leaks case, Washington is said to have no patience whatsoever, for Palestine making more problems and opening an ICC Pandora’s box.

Ramallah is being flooded with threats this month from Middle East envoy, Tony Blair, US Secretary of State, John Kerry, now on his 5th visit to the Middle East in as many months, Jordan’s King Hussein and reportedly, several others. The message for Mahmoud Abbas is that the Palestinian Authority risks a cut-off of funds and US dis-engagement from any “peace process” as well as the scrapping of the rumored “mega economic & development package” which Kerry aids are currently finalizing, if Palestine goes anywhere near the International Criminal Court.

It’s a tough call for President Mahmoud Abbas and his supporters because Hamas wants Palestine to immediately file cases against Israel at the ICC and so it appears, do a large majority of Palestinians, in Lebanon and internationally.

The ICC is criminal

by Margaret Kimberley, Moqawama

The New World Order under US dominion turns international law on its head and puts criminal-bought flunkies on the judicial bench.

America, which is not even a signatory to the treaty that created the International Criminal Court, calls all the shots like a Mafia don. Africans and a few Serbs are the only ones that get arrested, while great crimes against peace masquerade as humanitarian intervention.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is despite its name, a court that advances the cause of criminality. It acts in concert with the most powerful nations on Earth, and allows them to engage in crimes of aggression against millions of people all over the world. Only the powerless are ever punished and the aggressors use the court to behave as if they were the injured parties.

The world sees this institution in a benevolent light, assuming that it is a means of protecting humanity from the whims of evil doers in high places. Yet after nine years of existence, the ICC has managed to prosecute mostly little known African dictators and a few Serbians thrown in for good measure.

Ironically, after having opposed the establishment of the ICC and after failing to ratify the treaty that brought it into existence, the United States is now its biggest cheerleader. The Bush administration was terrified that Americans, including Bush, Cheney and the rest of their henchmen and women, might be punished for their transgressions around the world.

It is strange that after instigating the killings of thousands of people in Iraq, that neither Georg W. Bush nor Tony Blair have any reason to fear being brought to justice. They travel around the world, unafraid of punishment, giving speeches, writing books, making money, and having no worries whatever about getting their just deserts.

They had even less reason to worry after Barack Obama succeeded them. As the more effective evil, Obama knew that he needed to eschew Bush regime ham handedness in international relations. While simultaneously refraining from ratifying the treaty which brought the ICC into existence, Obama and company constantly offer up others to put in the dock in the Hague.

Last year Barack Obama, David Cameron and Nicholas Sarkozy decided to carve up Libya, using NATO to do their dirty work, killing an untold number of civilians in the process, and they too have no fear of prosecution. Lead ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said as much while the crime was being committed, openly taking the side of the West…

If there was any pretense of ICC impartiality, Moreno-Ocampo himself dispelled any such notion. The anything but disinterested prosecutor is now featured in the latest Kony 2012 video, ending any debate about whether or not the phony, web driven, ginned up outrage has any standing in reality or truthfulness.

While Obama and Clinton try to scuttle Kofi Annn’s Syrian peace plan and hint at President Assad’s prosecution before the ICC, the ICC shows its true colors. When Palestinians petitioned the ICC to investigate war crimes committed by “Israel” in Gaza, they were turned away. Moreno-Ocampo determined that because Palestine has not been recognized by UN General Assembly it has no standing to seek justice for the 2,000 people massacred by “Israel” in 2008 and 2009. The hypocrisy is blatant, and proves that the United States and its allies present the greatest threats to peace in the world.

At the United National Antiwar Coalition conference last month, this columnist asked professor and author Vijay Prashad why the ICC prosecutes Africans and token Serbs, but never threatens anyone in Washington, London, Paris or Jerusalem. His answer was simple. “It is just international racism. I think there is no (other) way to explain it.”

George Orwell said, “Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable.” Those words are still true, humanitarian missions and “responsibility to protect” are in fact euphemisms meant to promote good old fashioned imperialism.

The fact is that the United States, “Israel” and their European allies never protect anybody. They continue doing what they have done for decades, deciding who is inconvenient and therefore disposal. The human toll is “collateral damage” and quickly forgotten.

“The United States and its allies present the greatest threats to peace in the world.”

There are of course people and nations who cause other human beings great suffering in the world. They should be stopped, but they should all be stopped. Joseph Kony has actually killed fewer people than the president of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni, but Museveni is a friend of the United States, so no social media campaign to will be directed at getting him before the ICC.

Until there is greater justice in the world, that is to say when the rich capitalist nations have rivals for power, perhaps a court dedicated to punishing human rights violations would be a viable option. Right now it is fairly useless, because it was not created by people with honest intent.

Perhaps a simple name change is in order. Is Court for International Criminals a better name? How about Criminal Court International? For once, political language would be honest and George Orwell would be proven wrong.

Gaza war not to be investigated because “Palestine is not a state”

UN school attacked

Al Manar

Under the allegation that Palestine is “not a state” acknowledged by the United Nations, the International Criminal Court decided not to investigate in the crimes that Israel committed during its outrageous war against the Gaza Strip in 2008.

For its part, Israel welcomed this step. It pointed out the double standards and politicization in the ICC by stating that this decision is the result of great pressure exerted by the Zionist entity on the court.

“Not many understand how much work has been put into this issue,” Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said, adding that “we have kept it out of the media… the Foreign Ministry worked very professionally, discreetly and quietly.”

Amnesty International dubbed the decision dangerous, indicating that the decision meant the victims of Israel’s war on the strip will be denied justice.

“This dangerous decision opens the ICC to accusations of political bias and is inconsistent with the independence of the ICC. It also breaches the Rome Statute which clearly states that such matters should be considered by the institution’s judges, Head of Amnesty International’s International Justice campaign, Marek Marczyński said.

ICC prosecutor’s career move switches horses and legal theories in Libya

by Franklin Lamb, Al Manar

Zintan, Libya

Despite the claims of the current new government in Libya that Seif al Islam Gaddafi, the apprehended subject of an International Criminal Court arrest warrant that ordered his transport to The Hague, is in a secure hidden location near Zintan, Libya, a town approximately 85 miles southwest of Tripoli, it is not the case.

Neither are the assurances by Steven Anderson, spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) who on 11/23/11 announced that Seif al-Islam’s injuries had been “taken care of” or Mr. Anderson’s tendering of profuse assurances that Seif is in good health. In point of fact, following the ICRC assurances, the Ukrainian born Doctor Andrei Murakhovsky  (Dr. Andrei Murakhovsky: Gaddafi son needs surgery on gangrenous fingers
only a small part of his thumb and index finger needed to be removed. (Reuters) who lives in Zintan reported that “Seif’s wound is covered with gangrenous tissue and necrotic tissue.” He added that “This wound is not in good condition and requires amputation. His index finger has been ripped off at the level of the middle phalange (finger bone), the bones are all shattered. It’s the same thing with the thumb of that hand.” Dr. Murakhovsky told the Reuters news service. The morning of 11/24/11, Libyan Prime Minister Abdurrahim El-Keib still insisted that “Seif al-Islam is receiving the best possible treatment, but for now he is not in the hands of the provisional central government and we don’t know where he is.”

Regarding Seif al Islam’s “secure and hidden location”, foremost people in the village of Zintan it is known where Seif al Islam is being held as it is to this observer who visited a motley group of B western movie types who are currently guarding and “protecting” Seif. Although armed with a Power of Attorney from one of Seif’s family members to visit him, the group refused my entreaties to visit Seif with the excuse that they had to consult their commander who was not expected to return for a few days since he was now the new Libyan Defense Minister.

On the question of Seif’s health, there is increasing concern also because his guards claim they cannot take him to Zintan’s only hospital because someone would likely kill him in order to collect on the substantial rumored Qatar/NATO offered cash reward for whoever assassinates him thus presumably helping “the new Libya” and its allies avoid a “messy trial”.

Meanwhile, after what he claims in a change of heart, the International Criminal Court Prosecutor agrees that Libya, not The Hague, is the best place after all for Seif al Islam and his trial. Since its establishment by the United Nations in 2003, the ICC has had just one Prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo. To the reported expressed relief of many international defense lawyers, several ICC staff and ICC judges, plus legal commentators familiar with his prosecutorial work, the ICC will have his successor chosen next month in New York. This coming weekend in New York, the legal defense organization, Advocates Sans Frontiers (ASF) will meet in order to try to agree on a successor to propose to the 18 ICC Judges who will decide.

Prosecutor Ocampo’s visit this week to Libya caused some raised eyebrows among the four groups noted above when he suddenly announced that the ICC would not invoke its UN Security Council granted

power and proceed with Case # ICC 01/11. This case was opened at the ICC on March 3, 2011, having been assigned to the ICC by the UN Security Council following the preceding months uprising in Benghazi, Libya.

Speculation among some in The Hague, in Libya and from ASF lawyers is that knowing that he would not be re-elected for another term as ICC Prosecutor, due to among other reasons he has not won one case during his 9 year term, has repeatedly incurred the wrath of ICC judges for bringing cases which they ruled lacked sufficient evidence and his penchant for self-aggrandizing publicity and making inaccurate claims about cases and defendants that border on judicial misconduct, Ocampo decided to switch horses.

One egregious example of his making false representations is the current ICC case involving Seif al-Islam Gaddafi in which Ocampo made several inaccurate headline grabbing statements over the past several weeks claiming to be negotiating “indirectly” with Seif al Islam to give himself up to the ICC. Seif has emphatically denied Ocampo’s grandstanding claims and presumably, were Ocampo to attempt to personally prosecute his case Seif’s legal team would immediately file a motion to replace Ocampo for cause, as provided by ICC rules.

Given these problems, Ocampo, according to someone who accompanied him during his visit this week to Libya, decided to accept a lucrative offer from the NTC to advise the oil rich country on setting up a legal system to try Seif al Islam and others.

The facile assurances by Moreno-Ocampo, NATO officials and American UN Ambassador Susan Rice that Libya is currently fully capable of currently handling trials of former regime loyalists are nonsense. Rice exhibited ignorance and surprise here last weekend when she claimed not to know that Libya had the death penalty and would apply the death penalty in the ICC case if given the chance. The Libyan public’s apparent preference for the death penalty by hanging in the two Libya ICC cases, as was the case with Rwanda, is one reason the Ruanda Tribunal did not allow the government of Rwanda to conduct certain trials even though that government assured the UN it would not actually carry out a death penalty sentence. Libya has offered no such assurances to the ICC against the use of the death penalty nor has it submitted a legal challenge to ICC jurisdiction over the Seif al Islam or Abdullah Sanussi cases, as the Rome Statute requires.

From its formation last March to the present, NTC statements and assurances on most subjects have been proven false. In addition, NTC claims that the ICC involvement in the Gaddafi and Sanussi cases amount to European neo-colonialism in Africa are not convincing given the fact that the ICC has 119 member plus the law its applies is international and several recent ICC case filings have nothing to do with Africa.

Despite switching jobs, Ocampo has not lost interest in prosecuting the Seif al Islam case which he views as his best chance of finally winning at least an ICC related case, but not at The Hague where there is real doubt that Seif could be convicted given Court rules of procedure and ICC legal staff resources that would actually assist an accused in presenting his defense before the court. Ocampo is said to be betting on gaining a victory in Seif’s high profile case by working with the NATO created NTC government in Libya and running the prosecution as a behind the scenes “consultant” and helping the New Libyan government keep the UN and ICC at bay while allowing the NTC to try both Seif’s case and that of Abdullah Sanussi if and when the latter is proven to have been captured. Ocampo is said to relish the job of becoming the “Father of Libya’s new legal system.’ Mr Ocampo is now explaining that it was never his role “to tell Libyan officials how to hold a fair trial and the standard of the ICC is that it has to be a judicial process that is not organized to shield the suspect and I respect that it’s important for the cases to be tried in Libya.” He then added, “There are so many different traditions, it is difficult to say what is fair.”

No sooner had the surprising news and Ocampo’s sudden vagueness about what constitutes a fair trial begun to ricochet around the Internet than this observer received an email from an International criminal lawyer whose office is two blocks from the Carl Moultrie Courthouse in Washington, DC. The American lawyer was appalled: “Paying Ocampo as a consultant for the new Libyan government on criminal trial procedures is a ridiculous thought/idea. He has no idea of fair trial rights and has not achieved a conviction in his nearly 9 years at the ICC.”

Nor were the ICC Judges thrilled at the perceived betrayal. The ICC quickly fired off a reminder to Ocampo, to the new Libyan government and the media that it is the ICC Judges, and not the ICC Prosecutor, who will decide whether a case will be held in The Hague or if the country where the alleged crimes occurred and only they will decide if Libya has ability to conduct a fair trial. The ICC is signaling that the Ocampo generated international headlines to the contrary notwithstanding, the issue of trial venue in Libya has not settled in ICC case # 01/11.

Prosecutor Ocampo knows well that once the ICC decides to open an investigation of a case, national courts may not investigate that case and are relieved from their obligation to do so. In addition, since the ICC has issued an arrest warrant against Libyan defendants, all states – including Libya – are obliged to cooperate fully with the Court.

Following the public dressing down from The Hague, Ocampo has now retreated a bit and told CNN on 11/23/11 that: “ The only condition is the new Libyan government has to present their position to the International Criminal Court judges and the judges will decide if the case can be prosecuted in Libya. Libya will present evidence to ICC judges that the country can hold the trial, and the judges will decide if they are satisfied”, Ocampo explained.

In some ICC cases, specifically Rwanda, the Judges refused to allow the country which under normal circumstances would have automatically been granted case venue per the Rome Statute because they found that the concerned country did not have the quality of a criminal justice system that would likely produce a fair and impartial trial.

Issues raised in the Rwanda case that convinced that International Tribunal not to send defendants to that country for trial are today applicable in Libya.

The ICC, if it takes up the question as expected, should rule in the developing Seif al Islam case, precisely as the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda found in ruling against that country’s request for trial jurisdiction, although like Libya today, Rwanda claimed to have “modern functioning court system.” The reason is that an initial review of Libya’s criminal judicial system and discussion with Libyan criminal defense lawyers as well as international criminal defense lawyers with years of experience in international tribunals practice, that it is very clear that persons accused of serious crimes in Libya currently do not have even the most minimal judicial rights that are required by international norms acceptable to the international community.

Today is Libya defendants do not enjoy adequate legal representation, financial support for indigent accused, travel and investigation support for defense teams, security for defense teams, and Libya’s central and local governments place impediments curtailing defense teams in the discharge of their functions.

An admittedly to date cursory inquiry in Libya among lawyers here also reveal nonexistent or inadequate accommodation and transport arrangements for witness to Libya, as well as a lack of arrangements for protection of witnesses before, during and after testifying in court. In addition, the new government is engaging in a pattern of threaten potential witnesses preparing to testify against NATO in another case, and the new government in Libya is failing to provide safe and secure travel for Libyan witnesses living abroad including in Algeria, Tunisia, Mali, Niger, and Egypt. Interviews with Libyan lawyers and officials as well as visits to detention facilities in Libya reveal that conditions are not in compliance with international standards and that widespread torture of prisoners in Libya and threats against the families of prisoners are equal to or worse than during the previous regime.

One can wish Luis Moreno-Ocampo good luck in his new career as would be “Father of the New Libya’s Legal system,” but the current ICC case # 01/11 is too critical for all involved to wait until his project is complete and meets international standards.

Franklin Lamb is doing research in Lebanon. He is reachable c\o fplamb@gmail.com

He is the author of The Price We Pay: A Quarter-Century of Israel’s Use of American Weapons Against Civilians in Lebanon. Dr. Lamb is Director, Americans Concerned for Middle East Peace, Wash.DC-Beirut Board Member, The Sabra Shatila Foundation and the Palestine Civil Rights Campaign, Beirut-Washington DC
Shatila Palestinian Refugee Camp

What Does the ICC Stand For? The Imperialist Crime Cover-Up

RB comment: I’m posting this as an example of the ICC hypocrisy and the so called “international justice” used as a tool in the hands of some countries to advance their interests.

by DIANA JOHNSTONE, source

Last May 16, Luis Moreno Ocampo, chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, officially sought an arrest warrant for Libyan leader Moammer Kadhafi for “crimes against humanity”. Also accused were the leader’s son Seif al-Islam Kadhafi and Libyan intelligence chief Abdullah Senussi.

U.S. jurist David Scheffer told Agence France Presse: “NATO will doubtless appreciate the ICC investigation and indictment of top Libyan leaders, including Kadhafi.”

Well, yes. And nobody is better placed to know what NATO appreciates than David Scheffer.

The day before, Tripoli had made yet another offer of a truce, calling for an end to NATO bombing and for peace negotiations with the armed rebels based in Benghazi. NATO’s response took the form of the ICC indictment. When NATO bombs a country to unseat a leader, the targeted leader must be treated like a common criminal. His place cannot be at the negotiating table, but behind bars. An international indictment handily transforms NATO’s military aggression into a police action to arrest “an indicted war criminal” – an expression that evacuates the presumption of “innocent until proven guilty”.

This is a familiar pattern.

On March 24, 1999, NATO began bombing Yugoslavia in support of armed Albanian rebels in Kosovo. Two months later, in mid-May, as the bombing intensified against Serbia’s infrastructure, the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, Louise Arbour, issued an indictment against Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic for crimes against humanity. All but one of the alleged “crimes against humanity” took place in Kosovo during the chaos caused precisely by the NATO bombing.

On March 31, 2011, NATO began bombing Libya, and this time the International Criminal Court was even faster. And the charges were even less substantial. Ocampo said that there was evidence that Kadhafi personally ordered attacks on “innocent Libyan civilians”.

In Libya as in the Kosovo war, the accusations are those made by armed rebels supported by NATO, with no discernable trace of independent neutral investigation.

In the spring of 1999, David Scheffer, who was then U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s Ambassador at large for War Crimes, visited Louise Arbour and provided her with NATO reports on which to base her indictments. Indeed, Scheffer had earlier helped set up the ICTY as instructed by Ms Albright. The May 1999 accusations served their main immediate purpose: to block negotiations and to justify NATO’s continued bombing. As Madeleine Albright put it, “We are not negotiating with Milosevic… The indictments, I think, clarify the situation because they really show that we are doing the right thing in terms of responding to the kinds of crimes against humanity that Milosevic has perpetrated.” (See Michael Mandel, How America Gets Away With Murder, PlutoPress, 2004, pp.141-145.)

To sum up, in both cases an “international criminal tribunal/court” intervenes in the midst of a NATO bombing to accuse the leader of the country being bombed of “crimes against humanity” based on flimsy evidence provided by NATO itself or by its rebel clients.

Thus the International Criminal Court turns out to be a continuation of the ICTY, that is, an instrument not of international justice but the judicial arm of Western intervention in weaker countries. The ICC could well stand for Imperialist Crimes Cover-up.

It certainly does not deserve its official title, since it studiously ignores truly “international” crimes, such as U.S. and NATO aggression or the many massacres of civilians that result. Rather, so far the only alleged crimes it has undertaken to prosecute have all been the result of internal conflicts taking place in countries on the African continent. In short, the ICC so far acts mainly as a way of putting political pressure on, or justifying military action against, weak governments the Western powers want to replace with leaders of their choice.

Concerning the Kadhafi indictment, Scheffer is quoted by AFP as saying that the move might increase pressure on Kadhafi to think about finding refuge in a country that has not agreed to ICC jurisdiction. This is a senseless remark, since Libya itself has not agreed to ICC jurisdiction. Nor has Sudan, which has not prevented the ICC from going after its president, Omar Al Bashir, even though the ICC is supposed to apply only to countries that have recognized its jurisdiction. But non-recognition of ICC jurisdiction proves to be of no protection for weak countries.

Just as NATO and the ICC continue to pursue Kadhafi on the pretext that he is “killing his own people”, in Afghanistan NATO armed forces continues to kill people who are not their own, with impunity.

The ICC has developed into one of the most blatant illustrations of double standards. The United States manipulates the ICC without recognizing its jurisdiction, and having further protected itself by bilateral agreements with a long list of countries that provide immunity for United States citizens as well as by Congressional laws to protect U.S. citizens from the ICC.

Other NATO countries have recognized ICC jurisdiction, but there is no sign that they will ever be troubled by the international court.

Last Sunday, two notoriously nonconformist French lawyers, Jacques Vergès and former foreign minister Roland Dumas, announced that they intended to bring a lawsuit against President Nicolas Sarkozy for “crimes against humanity” in Libya. At a press conference in Tripoli, Dumas deplored that the NATO mission to protect civilians was killing them, and said he was ready to defend Kadhafi at the ICC. Meanwhile, the two lawyers intend to represent the families of victims of NATO bombing in litigation against Sarkozy in French courts. “We are going to break through the wall of silence,” announced Vergès.

There is more solid evidence of the civilian victims of NATO bombing, including the three baby grandchildren of Moammer Kadhafi, than of the “crimes against humanity” attributed by Ocampo to the Libyan leader. But the French public has been mesmerized by the propaganda portraying Kadhafi as a bloodthirsty ogre whose only desire is to “kill his own people”. Since most people in the West know absolutely nothing about Libya, anything goes.

On Monday, as France and Britain prepared to send in combat helicopters to support the armed rebels and hunt down Kadhafi, NATO secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen announced that Kadhafi’s “reign of terror is coming to an end”. The real “rain of terror” is the rain of NATO bombs falling on defenseless Tripoli, with the clear intention of terrorizing Libyans into surrendering to the NATO-backed rebels. And there is no sign of it ever coming to an end.

The international league of war criminals

{Children of Gaza-Livni WANTED} by Jalal Al Rifa'i-Al Dustor newspaper-Jordan

by Chris Marsden, WSWS, 17 December 2009

The issuing of a British arrest warrant for former Israeli Foreign Minister and current leader of the opposition Tzipi Livni is only the latest event confirming an international body of legal opinion that Israel should be tried for war crimes over its treatment of the Palestinians.

Livni was a member of the war cabinet during Operation Cast Lead, the offensive against Gaza between December 27, 2008 and January 18 this year. Some 1,400 Palestinians—the majority of them civilians, including 400 women and children—were killed, at least 5,000 people were injured, and 21,000 homes and other vital infrastructure were destroyed.

In October, the United Nations Human Rights Council endorsed a report by South African Judge Richard Goldstone stating that the war was “a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorise a civilian population, radically diminish its local economic capacity both to work and to provide for itself, and to force upon it an ever-increasing sense of dependency and vulnerability.”

The warrant against Livni was issued by Westminster Magistrates’ Court at the request of lawyers acting on behalf of 16 Palestinian plaintiffs. Livni was due to address the Jewish National Fund conference on December 13, but it is claimed she had cancelled her appearance some time ago due to a “scheduling conflict.” However, the New York Times reported Thursday that Livni was tipped off about the warrant and the threat of arrest.

This is far from the first time that an Israeli political or military figure has faced the threat of prosecution. In 2001, a warrant was issued in Belgium for the arrest of former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, former Army Chief-of-Staff Raphael Eitan and former head of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) Northern Command, Amos Yaron, for their roles in the Sabra and Shatila massacres in 1982.

In September 2005, former head of IDF Southern Command Doron Almog faced arrest in the UK for ordering the demolition of 59 civilian Palestinian homes. The arrest warrant was supposedly issued secretly under UK law, but Israeli diplomats were tipped off and Almog refused to leave his plane for two hours until it took off again for Israel.

An arrest warrant was also issued by Spain for seven Israelis involved in the July 2002 bombing of an apartment building in Gaza City that killed Hamas military leader Salah Shehadeh and 14 civilians, including his wife and several children. Moshe Ya’alon, the Israeli deputy prime minister and strategic affairs minister, and the former defence minister, Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, were amongst the accused.

In September, the Westminster Court was asked to issue an arrest warrant for Ehud Barak, Israel’s defence minister, under the 1988 Criminal Justice Act, for his involvement in the Gaza War. The court accepted the assertion by the Foreign Office that he was a serving minister who would be meeting his British counterparts and therefore enjoyed immunity under the State Immunity Act of 1978.

Ex-ministers, not on official business, such as Livni, enjoy no such immunity. For this reason both Ya’alon and Avi Dichter, the public security minister and head of the Shin Bet security agency, have turned down invitations to events in Britain.

The government of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has mounted a campaign to end all possibility of future arrests under universal jurisdiction provisions of the Geneva Conventions and other international laws. As far as Israel’s allies are concerned, however, Tel Aviv is kicking against an open door.

Whenever there has been a prosecution threatened against an Israeli official, Washington has brought pressure to bear to prevent it. This led to the dropping of Belgium’s charges against Sharon, et al and changes to Belgian law to lessen the possibility of similar prosecutions in the future. In June this year, a Spanish court shelved its investigation into the Gaza City bombings. In addition, the US led a block of six nations that voted against acceptance of the Goldstone report, while Britain and France abstained.

Britain’s response to Israel’s official protests against the warrant issued for Livni was more than merely fawning. It led to promises by Foreign Secretary David Miliband and Prime Minister Gordon Brown to change the law allowing non-citizens to be brought before British courts.

In the naked language of imperialist realpolitik, Miliband declared, “Israel is a strategic partner and a close friend of the United Kingdom. We are determined to protect and develop those ties.” So much for Western claims to uphold international law and democratic rights!

As with the position taken by the US, much more is involved in the UK’s response than mere loyalty to an ally. There is a basic issue of self-preservation.

Time and again Israeli spokesmen have warned that the leaders of the major powers—including George Bush and Tony Blair over Iraq and Brown and President Barack Obama over Afghanistan—are threatened with prosecutions under universal jurisdiction provisions. Netanyahu himself warned, regarding Goldstone’s report, “It’s not just our problem… If they accused IDF officers, IDF commanders, IDF soldiers, IDF pilots and even leaders, they will accuse you too. What, NATO isn’t fighting in various places? What, Russia isn’t fighting in various places?”

The concept of universal jurisdiction allows prosecution by international or national courts when the case is deemed to be a crime against humanity and not likely to be tried in the allegedly guilty party’s own state. It underlies the creation of a range of institutions such as the International Criminal Court (ICC), established in 2002, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The US and other major powers have been happy to see these bodies utilized against those regimes they have targeted as hostile to their interests, such as Serbia. But like Israel, the US opposes universal jurisdiction over itself and therefore endorses neither the ICC nor the ICJ.

When Obama gave his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize last week, he argued explicitly for war as an instrument of US foreign policy, defending military action whose purpose “extends beyond self-defense or the defense of one nation against an aggressor.” He insisted that such pre-emptive imperialist wars—of the kind already conducted in Iraq and Afghanistan—were essential to the US maintaining its position at the centre of the “architecture to keep the peace” set up in the aftermath of World War II.

This supposedly included abiding by “certain rules of conduct” and the US acting as “a standard bearer in the conduct of war.” To this end, he made great play of having personally reaffirmed “America’s commitment to abide by the Geneva Conventions” and “other international laws of war.”

This is one lie amongst many. Some newspapers have claimed that Spain and Britain pioneered the concept of universal jurisdiction, with the 1998 extradition warrant by Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon for former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. In point of fact, the concept is rooted in the Geneva Conventions, adopted on August 12, 1949.

Regarding war crimes, the Conventions require signatory nations, such as Britain and the US, to pass the necessary laws and “provide effective penal sanctions” for persons “committing, or ordering to be committed” any “grave breaches” of the Conventions. Article 129 goes on to state that each signatory “shall be under the obligation to search for persons alleged to have committed, or to have ordered to be committed, such grave breaches, and shall bring such persons, regardless of their nationality, before its own courts.”

That is why the Goldstone report made an explicit call to countries that are signatories to the Conventions to use their “universal jurisdiction” to search for and prosecute those Israelis, as well as leaders of Hamas, it accused of war crimes.

In reality, the imperialist powers and their allies operate as a de facto international league of war criminals—dedicated to their mutual defence and self-preservation. That is why the US rejects universal jurisdiction when it comes to its friends, as well as its own politicians and military personnel.

Now Brown and Miliband have made clear that they too will abrogate the independence of the courts in order to prevent any prosecution for war crimes that runs contrary to the strategic interests of British imperialism. In doing so, they may hope to save themselves from the possibility of being brought to justice. But they should know that some crimes are too great for prosecution to be avoided forever.

Europe arrests may bar Israeli trips

Thu, 15 Oct 2009, Press TV

Concerns of facing arrests in Europe shroud Israel’s hawkish government as the Goldstone report on Gaza wins more support across the world.

The Israeli government is reportedly considering limitations on its officials’ travel to Europe fearing that they could be arrested over charges of committing war crimes during the Gaza war in January.

Israel’s Western allies on Wednesday called on Tel Aviv for a credible investigation into UN allegations of possible war crimes by the Israel Defense Forces during the winter conflict in the Gaza Strip.

“Currently there is no specific advisory and different senior officers are continuing their travel as planned,” army spokesperson Avital Leibovitz told The Washington Times, adding the army was discussing Foreign Ministry and other Israeli authorities’ possible restrictions on the travel of senior officials to Europe.

The Gaza war report by an independent international investigative committee has drawn much criticism from Israeli officials for highlighting Israeli army’s crimes against Palestinians during the weeks-long incursion of the Gaza Strip.

The damning document has brushed off Israeli hopes to finally normalize ties with Arab states and marred Israel’s relations with those few Arab countries who have peace deals with Tel Aviv.

But the report, which is finding its way to the International Criminal Court (ICC) over Israel’s failure to conduct an independent and vivid inquiry into crimes committed during the Gaza war, has panicked Israel over possible arrest warrants against its officials in European countries.

The Israeli government is holding talks with Spain, Norway, Britain and other EU countries in a bid to bar international courts from ‘intervening in the issue’.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday hurled still another tirade against the UN report, vowing not to let the Israeli officials who launched the Gaza war ‘arrive at’ the International Court in The Hague.

The Goldstone report gives Israel six months to investigate the war crimes charges before recommending that the matter be sent to the ICC.

Suing for war crimes

Ogambo-Arrest warrant of Bashir-War crimes in Gaza (long paper stack)/International criminal court} by Fahed Al Bahadi-AlJazeera.net

Any recourse to international law in seeking to bring Israeli officials to book must be carefully considered, writes Azmi Bishara

It is not my intention to discuss the definitions of resistance, the legitimacy of resistance or the laws of war in general. Nor will I delve into the definition of war crimes, the relevant articles in international conventions, the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, the duties and obligations of its member states, the powers of its prosecutor and the difference between this court and those that were established for the prosecution of war crimes and crimes against humanity in specific countries, such as the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia. All these subjects have been treated extensively in numerous other publications. My purpose here is to shed light on some possibly unfamiliar aspects of the notion of appealing to this form of international arbitration.

All such tribunals and conventions have derived their impetus from the will on the part of powerful nations to bring war criminals to account and from the ability of these powerful sovereign nations not only to draw up the law but to put it into effect when they want. Given this, it is fundamentally erroneous to liken international law to the rule of law in sovereign countries. International law does not prevail internationally, is not applied around the globe as though the world was a single sovereign country, and has no executive authority to put it into effect apart from powerful nations. It is thus subject to political aims and interests. Above all, the principle of equality before the law that applies in democratic countries does not exist in international law, either practically or theoretically.

Since it was founded Israel has claimed that its civilians have been the victims of “crimes of terrorism” perpetrated in the course of the clash between its occupation forces and the Palestinian resistance. Yet Israel — the one state established by UN resolution (or by what the Arabs like to call “international legitimacy”) — has never once appealed to the international justice system. Instead its security agencies took the matter in hand, exacting revenge upon those on its hit lists, even resorting to operations carried out in Western Europe on the territory of its allies. The US has acted similarly in its global “war on terror”.

It is no coincidence that it is not Arab governments but the Arab people and their rights activists and civilian organisations that are pressing for international enquiries into the crimes committed by Israel in Gaza and, to a lesser extent, in Lebanon. The people realise that their governments are too weak to act to redress the wrong and humiliation inflicted upon them. They also resent the double standards in international law and justice, epitomised by the contrast between the International Court’s campaign over Darfur and its indifference to American crimes in Iraq. Arab public opinion cares little for details and explanations. There is, however, a widespread sense of injustice combined with frustration at the weakness of their regimes which is why the Arab public has high expectations from any efforts to exact revenge upon Israeli officials through recourse to international criminal law.

International law was established to regulate relations between Western nations after a long and painful process, extending from the rise of the international order in the late 19th through the 20th century. Its provisions on war crimes, the laws of war, the rights of POWs, the Red Cross and the rights of civilians and wounded, as well as the right of resistance, all emanated from the Western experience of war, in the two world wars in Europe itself, in Europe’s colonies and even in such grey cases as the Boer war. Throughout this long period there was no mention of the need to respect the right of Third World peoples to resist occupation, of their rights as captives, or of war crimes perpetrated against them. Western countries exchanged Western POWs, not African or Asian prisoners who had no rights. In modern times, there was no thought of bringing a single American official to justice when atom bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II with the deliberate aim of wreaking the greatest possible degree of death and destruction. Yet this was a crime against humanity as horrific as the crimes committed by the Nazis against European peoples.

International law on war crimes, POWs, civilians and the like arose in the context of what we might call a European civil war, and even then it was only put into effect against the defeated party. The victors were never brought to account for their crimes. International law still adheres to this tradition, which now extends to Western powers in general, especially if they emerge victorious from a war. The US has never been tried for war crimes in Vietnam, Iraq or elsewhere. The same applies to all colonial powers, from the conventional European powers to their more contemporary Zionist version. (It also applies to other major powers such as China).

Only in the latter half of the 20th century has there emerged a theoretically and morally universalised jurisprudence of international law intended to comprehend peoples who are not white or of European origin.
A liberation movement that turns to a corpus of law that is international in name only sacrifices its liberationist substance to legal formalities that it lacks the capacity to enforce. In other words, it concedes its natural right to liberation and to build and utilise the force necessary to achieve this in favour of principles of international law that were never conceived for it, over which it has no say and which it would never be able to enforce anyway if it relinquishes the sources of its own strength.

International law recognises states, not liberation movements. If it did recognise them before they obtained the status and sovereignty of a state it would encumber them with the duties of states without granting them the rights of states. Duties are imposed by others. People must secure their own rights if they are not to be prey to the will of others.

The International Criminal Court offers a previously unavailable avenue to punish people guilty of war crimes. It was inspired by the need to offer a means to prosecute such crimes, in the absence of a state or judiciary willing to bring to justice persons responsible for the massacres in Rwanda, Burundi and elsewhere. The strong point of this court is also its weak point.

Criminal law punishes individuals and holds them to account individually. As such it acts as a deterrent to individuals who issue or execute orders to commit crimes. Recourse to it does not entail conceding principle, accepting the legitimacy of entities one does not recognise, or relinquishing the right to resist. Also, in this case, the international prosecutor is not an individual but rather the embodiment of a sort of international “public right”, while the defendants are not governments, but rather military and political officials being called to account as individuals responsible for their acts.

Its weak point is that it does not prevail where there exists a national judiciary capable of performing its function, which is a claim made by the majority of Western governments, including Israel. And perhaps they do exist — in form. They bring suspected officials to trial, put them through the required steps and then acquit them for lack of evidence or because the national law allows leeway for “collateral damage”; or the defendant’s lawyers make a deal with the prosecution to have the charges reduced. More important from the perspective of a resistance movement, criminal law does not differentiate between the occupier and the occupied; it deals with individuals who commit crimes. It has been demonstrated recently that even international rights organisations have a problem with their formal logic when it comes to differentiating between a protracted crime, such as the violence perpetrated by occupation, and the intermittent and exceptional response to it, as represented by the violence of the resistance. What compels international criminal law to bring to account an Israeli officer for issuing orders leading to a massacre of Palestinians may also compel it to bring to account a Palestinian resistance fighter who kills Israeli civilians in the course of his fight against the occupation. The primary factor that stands in the way of such a prospect is the Israeli claim that it is capable of avenging itself. It does, in its own way, hunting down and kidnapping the “perpetrator”, prosecuting him, or assassinating him along with everyone living in the same building if need be.

If we looked beyond such obstacles, recourse to criminal prosecution would entail the following.
Firstly, the persons or agencies that are bringing suit must be thoroughly compared and must coordinate effectively among themselves. The presentation of their case must be so solid that they cannot lose. The Palestinian people hardly need an international court to acquit Israel for war crimes on technical or procedural grounds after having accepted that body’s legitimacy to pursue the matter.

Secondly, all procedural formalities will have to be taken as given. When one goes to court one plays by its rules, which means presenting arguments and submitting evidence that can be substantiated and corroborated and, if need be, dropping important and powerful claims that, as convinced as one may be of their veracity, cannot be proven in the language of the courts.

Thirdly, it will be important to distinguish between combat and massacre, and fighters who fell in the course of battle and civilians who were deliberately targeted and slaughtered. In Arabic they may all be “martyrs” but the language of the courts insists on the distinction. And why not make the distinction? Surely it is wrong, for example, to regard a heroic stand on the part of resistance as a massacre. There are times when the Palestinian people should be proud of their struggle, and these are the instances that should not be taken to the court as though the courageous fighters that took part were mere victims of a massacre. Summoning the necessary precision will be difficult because it conflicts with the Palestinians’ day-to-day awareness and prevailing sympathies and culture. However, Israel did indeed commit massacres of Palestinian civilians, and these must be isolated with the dispassion of a surgeon. The hard facts must be presented to prove that they did indeed occur and more hard facts need to be presented to establish the responsibility of Israeli political and military officials.

Fourth, as in any criminal case, it will be necessary to establish the existence of all elements constituting the perpetration of a crime. The precise nature of the crime must be defined, means and motive established, and evidence produced with an eye to distinguishing between the circumstantial and the direct.

In order to establish Israeli culpability in this type of crime Palestinians will have to demonstrate from official statements, political literature and the prevailing climate that there was a deliberate policy of targeting civilians as a form of collective punishment or for other political aims. They will have to furnish concrete evidence that Israeli political or military officials knew in advance that a military action would take a severe civilian toll but pressed ahead with the action anyway. They will further have to establish that the Israeli judiciary, to the legitimacy of which Palestinians in the occupied territories have lent credence by continually resorting to it, does not seriously punish war crimes (as was the case when the court fined the man who ordered the Kafr Qasem massacre one piastre).

It would not be wise for Palestinians to seek recourse to the international justice system under current international circumstances, in which, at best, the criminal is equated with the victim and more often than not the victim is blamed, if this course requires conceding political positions that would lend legitimacy to Israel or involve conceding the right to resist and to fight for national liberation. The court remains an alternative, but it is one that needs to be considered carefully. Remember, the court attributes individual responsibility. It does not deal with political entities. Yet this latter aspect is extremely important. Any case must be grounded in the fact that the Palestinian victims of Israeli violence are not mere side-effects from the bombarding of resistance fighters. Attention must be drawn to the history of Israeli war crimes and to the culture of unleashing massively excessive force against the indigenous population whether to teach them a lesson about supporting the resistance or to drive them off their land. Any legal action must also work to refute the claim that Israel is an organised state with a judicial system that has not collapsed and which is capable of bringing the guilty to justice. In matters of security and war the Israeli judiciary has amply demonstrated that it is part of the machinery of repression and occupation. It does not prosecute criminal behaviour among its security forces so as not to dampen their combat energies.

No one expects the official Arab order to contribute seriously to the drive to seek redress for war crimes, including those perpetrated against Arab citizens in other Arab countries. When there was a state of war Arab governments thought that apart from the routine of going to the Security Council, war meant taking revenge through warfare, not through wailing and laments. Later, after Arab states turned to the negotiating process and peace initiatives, they succumbed to a general impression that there was a contradiction between accusing Israeli rulers of being war criminals and making peace with them. For this reason, when Arab officials refer to war crimes at all, they do so timidly and in Arabic, and then take the matter no further. This inconsistency in Arab behaviour does little to help in the arena of litigation. It somehow jars to hear Arab officials levelling charges of war crimes against Israeli officials and then having to watch one news report after another of the same officials flying off to peace conferences and shaking hands and exchanging visits with the person they accused. The world is not stupid. It is always on the lookout for those who vouch for Israel.

Al-Ahram Weekly

Sudan issue: International justice???

We all know there is a war in the Darfur region of Sudan. A while ago some of the warring factions and the Sudanese government had a meeting in Qatar and agreed on some things, so the issue was being dealt with but then this happened.

The international justice system has become politicized, to be one of the many long arms of what is called the international community basically the US administration and the ones who revolve around it. What I have heard till now about this accusation is that it came through the UN Security Council saying the Darfur issue is threatening world peace? Eh? How is it doing that? So the war in Sri Lanka is not? How about the ones in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine? So what Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Blair, Rice did in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan along with others are not war crimes?! The death of hundreds of thousands is nothing? These people are free and even some of them reemployed like Blair to bring “peace” have done nothing wrong and shouldn’t rot in jail? How about “Israel’s” Peres, Sharon, Netanyahu, Olmert, Livni, Barak, etc. are all exempted of genocide and war crimes in Palestine and Lebanon even if it is obvious with the ones with eyes? Yes sure this court said they don’t have the specialty to deal with the crimes in Gaza, yeah right we believe you *rolls eyes*. Peres was given a Nobel peace prize while Sharon was called the “man of peace”, simply disgusting.

Even if Al Bashir, the president of Sudan, has done something the utter hypocrisy of the international court and community across the years makes it very hard to even believe them. Is the international court going to help Sudan? How when it is indirectly asked for a coup when calling out to the Sudanese to catch their active president. That brings peace to Sudan? On the contrary it brings exactly the opposite.

The whole situation is ridiculous,  these “world rulers” can’t come up with something good, it is only the populations around the world who can make a difference.

Egypt hinders investigations into Gaza war

from Reuters

Mon, 09 Feb 2009,

Egypt has refused entry into the Gaza Strip to members of an international committee in charge of investigating Israeli war crimes.

The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) set up the committee.

Four French and Norwegian lawyers comprise the committee. The ICC had earlier started preliminary analysis into alleged Israeli war crimes in the Gaza war.

French and Norwegian lawyers from Amnesty International on Thursday had attempted to enter the impoverished Palestinian sliver through Egypt’s Rafah crossing with Gaza.

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, as well as B’Tselem, and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, have filed a lawsuit with the International Criminal Court (ICC) against alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza.

The criminal case is expected to focus on the Israeli atrocities, including charges of using disproportionate force, white phosphorous bombs and depleted uranium in the densely populated area.

The group intended to collect evidence and testimonials on “Operation Cast Lead” which killed over 13,00 Palestinian and wounded nearly 5,500 others, a large number of them women and children.

The evidence was to be submitted to the International Court before Sunday, February 8th.

Egyptian authorities, however, prevented the four member group from crossing the border, arguing that for now only displaced Palestinians can enter the territory through the crossing.

Egypt has been cooperating closely with Israel in closing the Rafah border crossing in the past 19 months and particularly during the three week long Gaza offensive.

Hamas has also sharply criticized Cairo for refusing to keep the crossing open to wounded Palestinian people despite the dire humanitarian situation in the heavily bombarded coastal strip.

The country has won Israel’s praise for not allowing people’s basic needs and arms from reaching the Palestinian government in Gaza.

“There is an accumulation of weapons and equipment meant for Hamas in Sinai, but Egypt is preventing it from getting into the Strip,” Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak said.

Source

Holding “Israel” accountable for its many crimes against humanity

An injured Palestinian boy is loaded onto an ambulance by a Red Crescent official at the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip December 30, 2008. REUTERS/Amr Dalsh (EGYPT)

News:

Israel’s Gaza War Crimes at ICC

Doctors Document Gaza Horrors

Clerics, Press Scold BBC on Gaza Appeal

Well, at least there is action to prosecute the Israelis for the genocide in Gaza even though it is not their first one. I was watching this show the other day about a serial killer who eluded the authorities for more than two decades and killed many women. The reason for his capture was one relentless cop who refused to let go of the issue and the criminal was caught by some of his crimes. “Israel” is a serial killer that operates through state terrorism, not the first of its kind but one of the most barbaric and in its prolonged existence. Is Gaza going to be that ultimate crime that is going to bring “Israel” to justice? Or will its protectors try their best to hide its crimes once more?

{Gaza (woman and child)} by Abdu’Allah Darqawi-Al Dustour newspaper-Jordan

If criminals are not caught for a long time and held accountable they might think they can carry on as it is and become more brutal with no repercussions. “Israel” has this mindset and it has reached a point where there is an end to its lies, hiding of crimes even if they were obvious, and protection of  the individuals who committed them. Olmert the other day told the Israeli soldiers who were active during the Gaza war they will be offered judicial protection, indirectly admitting they were guilty.

(Reuters)

“Israel” has already been taken to court and sentenced by many people in this world of all walks of life. It will not bring back the hundreds of martyrs or reduce the pain and suffering of their families and thousands of wounded, but there is a sense of calm that comes over the grieving families if they know they are not alone and that justice will prevail.

{Gaza (on gun)}

“Israel” acts to block war crimes charges

By JONATHAN COOK

The National

Jerusalem // Mounting fear in Israel that the country’s leaders face war crimes charges over their involvement in the recent Gaza offensive pushed officials into a frenzy of activity at the weekend to forestall legal actions abroad.

The urgency was underlined after rumours last week that Belgian authorities might arrest Tzipi Livni, Israel’s foreign minister, if she attended a summit of European counterparts in Brussels on Wednesday. In an indication of how seriously the matter is judged, Ms Livni’s advisers were on the verge of cancelling her trip when the story was revealed to be a hoax.

Nonetheless, officials are braced for real attempts to arrest senior political and military figures following a warning from the country’s chief law officer, Menachem Mazuz, that Israel will soon face “a wave of international lawsuits”.

In response, the government is setting up a special task force to work on legal defences, has barred the media from naming or photographing army officers involved in the Gaza attack, and has placed restrictions on overseas visits. Today, ministers were expected to approve an aid package to help soldiers fight warrants abroad for their arrest.

The concern about war crimes trials follows a series of pronouncements by Richard Falk, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on the occupied territories and a professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University in the United States.

He has accused Israel of gravely violating the laws of war during its three-week offensive, which killed more than 1,300 Gazans, most of them civilians, and wounded thousands more.

“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,” he said during the final stages of fighting.

Since they gained entry to the tiny enclave after a ceasefire declared a week ago, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have added their voice. The two human-rights organisations have censured Israel over its failure to distinguish between Palestinian civilians and combatants as well as its use of controversial weapons.

There is incontrovertible evidence, both groups say, that Israel fired white phosphorus shells over Gaza, despite its banned use in civilian areas, setting homes on fire and burning civilians caught under the shower of phosphorus.

Kenneth Roth, the director of Human Rights Watch, has also lambasted Israel for using high-explosive shells in built-up areas of Gaza, even though the artillery has a blast range of up to 300 metres.

Initial indications suggest that the army may have resorted also to an experimental weapon – dense inert metal explosive, or Dime – that severs limbs and ruptures the internal organs of anyone close to the blast.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, is investigating claims forwarded by Saudi Arabia that depleted uranium shells were used in Gaza.

In addition, human-rights groups have begun documenting instances of the Israeli army’s targeting of civilian buildings, including UN schools, and of soldiers taking Palestinian civilians as human shields.

A senior Israeli official told Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper: “As far as the international arena is concerned, Israel is entering what is probably its darkest era.”

In a further sign of concern, an unnamed government minister was quoted last week as saying: “When the scale of the damage in Gaza becomes clear, I will no longer take a vacation in Amsterdam, only at the international court in The Hague” – a reference to the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands that tries war crimes.

Over the past week about 300 human-rights organisations have jointly prepared a 37-page dossier of evidence to be presented to the court.

According to legal experts, it will be difficult to try Israel at the ICC because it is not a signatory to the Rome statute governing the court’s jurisdiction and function. However, an ad hoc tribunal similar to the ones set up to deal with war crimes in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia may be an option. The ICC might also try to pursue individual Israeli commanders for war crimes.

A more pressing concern for Israel is that European human-rights activists, especially in Britain and Belgium, could use local legislation to initiate war crimes trials in their domestic courts against Israeli leaders.

Such actions have been launched before, most notably in 2005 when Doron Almog, the former Israeli commander in Gaza, avoided being arrested in the United Kingdom only after he was warned to remain seated in a plane after his arrival at Heathrow airport. Major Gen Almog had overseen the demolition of hundreds of homes in Gaza three years earlier.

In an attempt to make life more difficult for Israeli leaders, anonymous activists in Israel launched a website (www.wanted.org.il) – “outing” those it accused of war crimes, including Ehud Barak, the defence minister, Ehud Olmert, the prime minister, and Ms Livni. It also identified most of the senior military command.

Offering photographs and information about each official’s alleged offence, the site provides contact details for the ICC and tells visitors to alert the court when “the suspect is outside of Israel’s borders”.

To avert the danger of arrests for war crimes, Israel hurriedly initiated a series of moves to protect its leaders. A special task force, overseen by the prime minister’s office, will convene in the next few days to start building a defence for army commanders.

The Israeli media suggested experts on international law would seek to compile evidence that Hamas stockpiled weapons in civilian buildings, and that the army went to great efforts to warn residents to flee before bombing areas.

The military censor is excising from media reports all identifying information about senior officers involved in the Gaza operation, and officers who wish to travel abroad will be required first to seek the advice of military officials.

Source