Archive for the ‘International Law’ Category
The Second Battle of Gaza: Israel’s Undermining Of International Law
by Jeff Halper
The Israeli attack on Gaza in December 2008/January 2009 was not merely a military assault on a primarily civilian population, impoverished and the victim of occupation and besiegement these past 42 years. It was also part of an ongoing assault on international humanitarian law by a highly coordinated team of Israeli lawyers, military officers, PR people and politicians, led by (no less) a philosopher of ethics. It is an effort coordinated as well with other governments whose political and military leaders are looking for ways to pursue “asymmetrical warfare” against peoples resisting domination and the plundering of their resources and labor without the encumbrances of human rights and current international law. It is a campaign that is making progress and had better be taken seriously by us all.
Since Ariel Sharon was indicted by a Belgian court in 2001 over his involvement in the Sabra and Chatila massacres and Israel faced accusations of war crimes in the wake of its 2002 invasion of the cities of the West Bank, with its high toll in civilian casualties (some 500 people killed, 1,500 wounded, more than 4,000 arrested), hundreds of homes demolished and the urban infrastructure utterly destroyed, Israel has adopted a bold and aggressive strategy: alter international law so that non-state actors caught in a conflict with states and deemed by the states as “non-legitimate actors” (“terrorists,” “insurgents” and “non-state actors,” as well as the civilian population that supports them) can no longer claim protection from invading armies. The urgency of this campaign has been underscored by a series of notable setbacks Israel subsequently incurred at the hands of the UN. In 2004, at the request of the General Assembly, the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled that Israel’s construction of wall inside Palestinian territory is “contrary to international law” and must be dismantled—a ruling adopted almost unanimously by the General Assembly, with only Israel, the US, Australia and a few Pacific atolls dissenting. In 2006 the UN Commission of Inquiry concluded that “a significant pattern of excessive, indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force by the IDF against Lebanese civilians and civilian objects, failing to distinguish civilians from combatants and civilian objects from military targets.” together with the harsh criticism of the UN’s Goldstone report on Gaza accusing the Israeli government and military again of targeting Palestinian civilians and causing disproportionate destruction, has made this campaign even more urgent.
Dahr Jamail: Honoring The Vets Who Go Unnoticed
Crossposted at Air America Radio.
Dahr Jamail is an award-winning independent journalist whose work has appeared on National Public Radio, in The Guardian (UK), The Nation, The Progressive, and more. In his latest book, The Will to Resist: Soliders who refuse to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, Jamail brings us inside the movement of military resistance to the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. War is traumatic and many veterans who speak out against their actions (or their government’s policies) want their experiences to be validated, understood and accepted. Yet anti-war veterans organizations are not honored to the same degree as the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legion or Disabled American Veterans. Jamail believes all veterans must be honored, even those who speak out against war. The Will to Resist opens the door to the lives of many servicemen and veterans who speak out against war and killing, and their need to regain their humanity. Jamail talked about what war resisters endure on a daily basis, including the recent tragedy at Fort Hood, TX.
What does justice look like in Cambodia?
Khmer children posing in front of a mass grave in Cambodia's notorious "Killing Fields." Many children hang around this and other memorial sites while faking sad faces so that affected tourists will give them money. We asked them to act like themselves.
I was in Cambodia in 2006 working with a small, grass-roots, non-profit organization dedicated to street children. One day while heading to a village located on the outskirts of Phnom Penh (Cambodia’s capital), I passed by the massive reconstruction site of what was to become the UN backed Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC). My companion who had been living in Cambodia for the past several years scoffed at the site:
They are wasting all that money to prosecute a few old men who will be dead soon. But you’ve seen how the majority of Khmer people live today.
According to the official website, this court was created to try “serious crimes committed during the Khmer Rouge regime 1975-1979.” It became fully operational in 2007.
Orchestrated by the Pol Pot led Khmer Rouge, the Cambodian genocide resulted in the deaths of nearly 2 million Cambodians, beginning with the country’s elite and educated. Many were tortured and executed—hundreds of thousands died of starvation. Pol Pot’s vision of turning Cambodia into a peasant farming society involved herding the country’s educated and upper class citizens (although the poor were certainly not exempt if they were suspected of being enemies of the state) into the countryside to work in what later become known as the notorious “Killing Fields.” Read the rest of this entry »
Smoke and Mirrors – On the Hardships of Self-Inquiry
Looking in the mirror is no easy task. Especially when your eyes are smoked by Zionism. Now that impunity is slowly diminishing, Israel finds itself stuck between the Goldstone and a hard place. How does the spoiled brat of the Middle East deal with the fact that years of stealing cookies from the cookie jar have left its face covered in damning chocolate?
Common Sense Solutions to Self-Inquiry
For weeks now, the Goldstone report has gained its rightful place in the Israeli mainstream media- the front page. At first, articles were all about the “one-sidedness” and the “antesemitism” of the report. Now, what we’re seeing is a consistent media push for self-inquiry. Not because we have some ethical ‘splaining to do, mind you, but because Israel’s public image is in jeopardy. Ha’aretz’s diplomatic correspondent (and a fellow at the Israeli Institute For National Security Studies), Aluf Benn- a shining example of this “practical strategic thinking”- finally remembers to ask some tough questions:
Goldstone and the Kids
Illustration by Carlos Latuff
Anything that happens in my world, now, seems just that little bit more ironic, since Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Not that I credit the institution with too much merit, considering its list of peace-fakers, but the propaganda of this ill-executed award bothers me, nevertheless. While it’s easy to discredit Obama as an initiator of peace just for the sheer amassing of dead Afghans, this year I’d like to take it to my own little corner of the world.
Politics of Human Rights
Another action against peace, which the Obama administration has taken, is the pressure it applied in the UN to bury the Goldstone report:
Unsurprisingly, an early ally in the Israeli campaign for impunity was the Obama Administration, whose UN ambassador, Susan Rice, expressed “very serious concerns” about the report and trashed Goldstone’s mandate as “unbalanced, one-sided and basically unacceptable.” (Rice was acting true to her word; in April she told the newspaper Politico that one of the main reasons the Obama Administration decided to join the UN Human Rights Council was to fight what she called “the anti-Israel crap.”) [Electronic Intifada]
Callous and impenitent
Bolton at the Hay Festival last year before his attempted arrest for war crimes
John Bolton, with his characterisic contempt for international law, writes in today’s Washington Post that ’with no other timely option, the already compelling logic for an Israeli strike [on Iran] is nearly inexorable’. The article is reproduced in full below. It should, I suggest, be read whilst mindful of Article 2 of the UN Charter by which it was agreed that: ‘All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.’
Last year, you may recall, the Guardian columnist George Monbiot attempted a citizens arrest on Bolton. It was a futile but symbolic act; and a rare acknowledgment that this man is a war criminal by any decent standard - and an unrepentant one at that.
By John R. Bolton
Thursday, July 2, 2009
With Iran’s hard-line mullahs and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps unmistakably back in control, Israel’s decision of whether to use military force against Tehran’s nuclear weapons program is more urgent than ever.
Iran’s nuclear threat was never in doubt during its presidential campaign, but the post-election resistance raised the possibility of some sort of regime change. That prospect seems lost for the near future or for at least as long as it will take Iran to finalize a deliverable nuclear weapons capability.
Gaza: 1.5 million people trapped in despair
Khan Younis. Public taps for drinking water, May 2009.
Today the International Red Cross released a report detailing the catastrophic results of Israel’s brutal war on Gaza. As the siege which has crippled Gazans for the past two years continues, the Red Cross found seriously ill patients facing difficulty obtaining the treatment they needed; children suffering from deep psychological problems and people whose homes and belongings were destroyed during the conflict unable to recover.
The report in full reads:
During the 22 days of the Israeli military operation, nowhere in Gaza was safe for civilians. Hospitals were overwhelmed with casualties, including small children, women and elderly people. Medical personnel showed incredible courage and determination, working around the clock to save lives in extremely difficult circumstances. Meanwhile, daily rocket attacks launched from Gaza put thousands of residents at risk in southern Israel. Medical workers in Israel provided care for the traumatized population and treated and evacuated casualties.
Many people in Gaza lost a child, a parent, another relative or a friend. Israel’s military operation left thousands of homes partly or totally destroyed. Whole neighbourhoods were turned into rubble. Schools, kindergartens, hospitals and fire and ambulance stations were damaged by shelling.
This small coastal strip is cut off from the outside world. Even before the latest hostilities, drastic restrictions on the movement of people and goods imposed by the Israeli authorities, particularly since October 2007, had led to worsening poverty, rising unemployment and deteriorating public services such as health care, water and sanitation. Insufficient cooperation between the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah and the Hamas administration in Gaza had also hit the provision of essential services. As a result, the people of Gaza were already experiencing a major crisis affecting all aspects of daily life when hostilities intensified in late December. Read the rest of this entry »
Canadian companies face legal action for settlement building in Palestine
American-Israeli lawyer Emily Schaeffer. (Photo: Jasmin Ramsey)
My Interview found below was originally published in Rabble.
On April 17 of this year the small and modest Palestinian village of Bi’lin (located 7 km West of the city of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank) lost one of its most loved and well-known members. Bassem Ibrahim Abu Rahmah was 30 years old when he was shot in the chest with a tear gas canister by an Israeli soldier.
On the day of his death Baseem was non-violently protesting Israel’s occupation of his land, something which he had been actively doing for the past four years. Joined by Israelis and international peace activists, Bi’lin villagers participate in non-violent demonstrations against Israel’s illegal separation barrier and settlements weekly. Despite suffering continuing psychological damage and always facing the threat of physical harm, the villagers and their supporters remain committed to peacefully resisting the Israeli government’s colonization of their land through protest as well as through legal action.
Since the Israeli courts refuse to hear Bi’lin’s case in its entirety, the village has enlisted the help of Canada to hold two Canadian corporations that are complicit in the occupation accountable. American-Israeli lawyer Emily Schaeffer, who works with a small human rights law firm located in Tel Aviv, is currently collaborating with a Canadian firm in presenting the lawsuit (initially filed in 2008) as it enters a crucial phase.
The lawsuit asserts that Green Park International and Green Mount International (not to be confused with Greenpark in Ontario), both Quebec-registered construction companies, are in violation of international and Canadian law and should be held accountable for their actions.
Occupation, Colonialism, Apartheid
For those who refuse to accept the brutal reality on the ground, the Human Sciences Research Council of South 
Africa has produced a new detailed legal report which confirms “that Israel is practicing both colonialism and apartheid in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT).” The study was commissioned to “test the hypothesis posed by Professor John Dugard in the report he presented to the UN Human Rights Council in January 2007, in his capacity as UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in the OPT:
Israel is clearly in military occupation of the OPT. At the same time, elements of the occupation constitute forms of colonialism and of apartheid, which are contrary to international law. What are the legal consequences of a regime of prolonged occupation with features of colonialism and apartheid for the occupied people, the Occupying Power and third States?
On the specific question of colonialism the report unambiguously states that:
“Five issues, which are unlawful in themselves, taken together make it evident that Israel’s rule in the OPT has assumed such a colonial character: namely, violations of the territorial integrity of occupied territory; depriving the population of occupied territory of the capacity for selfgovernance; integrating the economy of occupied territory into that of the occupant; breaching the principle of permanent sovereignty over natural resources in relation to the occupied territory; and denying the population of occupied territory the right freely to express, develop and practice its culture” (pp. 15-16). Furthermore, “Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem is manifestly an act based on colonial intent” (ibid.).
Concerning the charge of apartheid, the report states:
By examining Israel’s practices in the light of Article 2 of the Apartheid Convention, this study concludes that Israel has introduced a system of apartheid in the OPT (p. 17)
After Iraq, it’s not just North Korea that wants a bomb
Steve Bell on the new nuclear arms race
The ‘international condemnation’ of North Korea’s nuclear test on Monday was severely lacking in credibility for its fantastical double-standards, writes Seumas Milne, who argues only radical disarmament can halt their spread.
Here in Scotland the SNP made an attempt to seek support from this same ‘international community’ to rid the country of its nuclear weapons, which are stored in a naval base on the River Clyde. In October 2007 First Minister Alex Salmond wrote to representatives of 189 countries signed up to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, seeking ‘observer status’ as defence is not an area devolved to Holyrood. The renewal of the Trident missiles is set to run into the tens of billions over the next 20 years, with the parent Westminster government insisting this is a necessary “deterrent” to protect “national security interests”. Sadly the list of replies were published last summer showing there to be little international support for this brave move from a minority administration.
This example reflects Milne’s Guardian article nicely I think.
The big power denunciation of North Korea’s nuclear weapons test on Monday could not have been more sweeping. Barack Obama called the Hiroshima-scale underground explosion a “blatant violation of international law”, and pledged to “stand up” to North Korea – as if it were a military giant of the Pacific – while Korea’s former imperial master Japan branded the bomb a “clear crime”, and even its long-suffering ally China declared itself “resolutely opposed” to what had taken place. Read the rest of this entry »
