Human Rights

January 22, 2009December 12, 2020

Israel FAIL – The War Crimes Coverups begin

In the Times, there’s a brief outline of the problems associated with bringing Israeli war criminals to justice:

The regulations covering alleged war crimes are complex, carefully worded and restrictive. The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague does not appear to have jurisdiction in Gaza because the Israelis are not signatories to the Rome statute that set it up.

However, individuals and nongovernmental organisations from nations that are signed up can make a case to the ICC; and the United Nations Security Council can also pass a resolution calling for a war crimes investigation, as it did over alleged genocide in Darfur. In terms of the ICC statute, the use of white phosphorus could be governed by Article 8(2)(b) under which a war crime is potentially committed if weapons, including projectiles (shells), are launched “to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering or which are inherently indiscriminate in violation of the international law of armed conflict”.

It is up to Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the ICC chief prosecutor, to decide whether the allegations fall into line with the Rome statute definitions. Killing civilians is not a war crime in itself, unless there is an intentional attack directed against noncombatants or an assault is launched on a military objective “in the knowledge that the incidental civilian injuries would be clearly excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage” – this is the principle of proportionality. In the case of allegations against British troops in Iraq, the ICC prosecutor decided the relevant criteria for starting a formal investigation had not been satisfied.

In the case of Darfur, it was alleged that thousands of civilians had been wilfully killed by the Janjawid rebels. Israel has always insisted that its aim was to target Hamas fighters, not Palestinian civilians.

Juan Cole covers the potential for war crimes tribunals and Israel’s flailing attempts to protect their barbarous soldiers from prosecution:

Israeli politicians and military commanders are being urged to consult counsel before they travel in Europe, where some courts assert universal jurisdiction and where war crimes cases are being filed against Israeli leaders. In 1998, a London court ordered the arrest of Chilean dictator Gen. Augustino Pinochet, who had butchered thousands of community activists, asserting universal jurisdiction. Governments have attempted to reduce the prerogative of courts in this regard, but apparently there are loopholes in the current British legislation that would allow an Israeli leader or officer to be arrested if they journey to the UK. Ynet observes, “The Israeli. . . claim that Hamas has been using women and children as human shields never really took, said a source. Whenever it was used the response was the same: If you know that . . . women and children [were] there – hold your fire.”

Defense Minister Ehud Barak is setting up a legal defense of Israeli troops from potential war crimes prosecutions. Barak pledged that Israeli soldiers would not have to worry about prosecution: “The soldiers did not embark on a private operation . . .We will give them out full support.” It is ironic that an Israeli defense minister seems unaware that the Nuremberg trials established the principle that following orders is no defense for a soldier charged with atrocities.

Even as Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni visited Brussels, human rights organizations in Belgium were (wholly unrealistically) petitioning a court to have her arrested. However impractical the legal move, it was a humiliation for Tzipi.

The right-Zionists are always asking why Israel is held to a different standard. It isn’t. it appears to be being held to the same standard as Augusto Pinochet and Slobodan Milosevic. It isn’t very nice company to be in, and many Israelis are deeply ashamed of what was done and demanding Israeli investigations of war crimes.

Disturbingly, Livni seems to have influenced some EU countries to back off on condemning Israel for its attacks on UN schools and other facilities.

Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Romania are opposed to condemning the shelling of UN Relief and Works Agency infrastructure and do not want the EU to call for an international investigation of alleged war crimes by both Israel and the Hamas governors of Gaza, according to sources close to discussions amongst EU diplomats.

At the other end of the table, a coalition of five member states, Belgium, Cyprus, Greece, Ireland and Sweden, is demanding that the bloc call for an international investigation in its conclusions to come out of a meeting of EU foreign ministers next week.

Other member states however do not support this position. Despite UK Prime Minister’s earlier strong words condemning Israel’s shelling of the UN headquarters in Gaza as “indefensible”, London is reportedly reluctant to back the five as it could set a dangerous precedent for its own military operations elsewhere.

The five have, however, managed to win language on the need to “respect and comply with obligations under international humanitarian law” into the draft text, which was not in the initial version of the document.

France meanwhile backs accountability for the attacks on the UN, but is working to achieve this “behind the scenes”, rather than through a statement by EU foreign ministers.

Livni exonerates her terrorist state from blame:

“The difference between Israel soldiers and the terrorists in Hamas is that we are acting against terror, trying to avoid any kind of civilian casualties, while these terrorists are looking, aiming and targeting civilians as part of their ideology.”

“I would like to be judged by the international community according to the same values by which the international community is working,” she continued. “There is a huge difference in any legal system … between a murderer and someone who kills by mistake.”

After visiting the ruins of the UNRWA compound in Gaza, UN Secretary Ban Ki-Moon on Tuesday (20 January) called for those responsible for bombing UN-run buildings and schools in Gaza to be held accountable.

“There must be a full investigation, a full explanation to make sure it never happens again. There should be accountability through a proper judiciary system,” he said.

Despite Israel’s insistence that the UN buildings were not targeted, UN officials have said that they furnished Tel Aviv with GPS co-ordinates of all their buildings.

Czech foreign minister Karel Schwarzenberg, whose nation currently chairs the EU’s six-month rotating presidency, said he trusted the Israeli court system mount a prosecution, rather than the International Criminal Court.

“I have heard the declaration of the UN secretary-general, but to tell you the truth, we consider Israel a democratic state, where the rule of law exists, so of course, in the case of such a criminal act, which can happen in any state, especially during the course of war,” he said, “then the Israeli prosecutor would take the steps that are necessary and then to a court where the case will be decided.”

“The ICC is only a last resort if a country itself doesn’t bring forward a case, [and] we are relying on the Israeli courts and the work of the prosecutor there.”

In view of Obama’s differentiated foreign policy, Livni illustrates she is living in the comfortable black and white Bush past:

She did however warn against opening direct dialogue with the Gaza government, calling on Europe to “continue to delegitimise Hamas.”

Some EU ministers, notably Finnish foreign minister Alexander Stubbs, have said that such dialogue may be necessary.

Ms Livni said: “What is needed is a coalition against terror and not something that ends by an agreement with them.”

White phosphorus links:

Israeli army investigates use of white phosphorus in Gaza

Amnesty International has accused Israel of war crimes over its use of highly incendiary munitions in heavily-populated areas.

“Amnesty International delegates visiting the Gaza Strip found indisputable evidence of widespread use of white phosphorus in densely-populated residential areas in Gaza City and in the north,” the organisation said.

“We saw streets and alleyways littered with evidence of the use of white phosphorus, including still burning wedges and the remnants of the shells and canisters fired by the Israeli army,” said Christopher Cobb-Smith, a weapons expert touring Gaza as part of Amnesty’s four-person fact-finding team.

Child victims in Gaza

Growing concern over Israel’s weapons use

If the investigation which the Israeli military announced this week into the use of white phosphorous is serious, it will have to examine the events at the Abu Kalima house here in this semi-rural suburb of of Beit Lahiya, among many other locations. It’s unlikely to dwell for long on the fact that the war saw the first use of artillery in Gaza since late 2006.

The military ended it after 18 members of one family were killed by shelling on a civilian house in Beit Hanoun in November 2006.

But it will have to take into account that the Amnesty International have no doubt that the shells which killed the Abu Kalima family contained phosphorus. Nafez al Shaban, the Glasgow and US trained head of Shifa Hospital’s Burns Unit is certain that the bone-deep tissue destruction sustained by Mrs Kalima, her critically injured daughter in law and grandaughter, were caused by it. And finally fragments of the brown spongy substance, with its unpleasantly pungent smell, are still lying in the debris outside the Abu Kalima house.

After a week of ceasefire Israel is facing growing questions not only about phosphorus but what other weapons it used. For the many thousands of Gazan civilians seeking to rebuild their ruined lives the hope that a new US president will be more active in the region than his predecessor still seems barely relevant. And this is not only because of an injury total put by the ministry of health in Gaza at 5,300, or worries about long-term psychological damage to their children. They also face a protracted dispute between Israel, the Ramallah based Palestinian Authority, and much of the international community on the one hand, and Hamas on the other before multi-billion dollar task of reconstucrion can even begin. For most Gazans peace is a return to their previous impoverished life under siege —only worse.

Israeli army probes use of phosphorus in Gaza: report

Depleted uranium:

UN to probe claim Israel used depleted uranium bombs in Gaza

United Nations organizations said yesterday that it will investigate complaints that Israel used depleted uranium projectiles in the course of the fighting in Gaza, causing health and environmental damage.

The inquiry will be conducted by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Environment Protection Organization, at the request of the Arab states’ UN envoys.

Other illegal weapons:

Israel Admits It Lied Over Missile Raid on Camp

The Israeli military has admitted that it lied about a rocket attack on a Gaza refugee camp, which according to the army led to no casualties, but which the Palestinians have claimed killed 14 civilians.

A leftwing member of the Israeli parliament, Yossi Sarid, forced the confession from the air force chief after he threatened to release evidence that the military had used a weapon more destructive and indiscriminate than it had publicly claimed.

A month ago, the air force launched an assassination strike against a Hamas activist who was driving through Nuseirat refugee camp. The Palestinians claimed that the attack caused a large number of civilian casualties, but the air force commander, Major General Dan Halutz, produced video footage of the car being hit by two missiles that showed no one standing near the wrecked vehicle as the rockets struck.

The military said that Hellfire missiles were used, producing a concentrated explosion over a small area. Gen Halutz likened the effect of the missiles to “two grenades”. The video footage was widely shown on Israeli television.

But the army now admits that it lied in briefings to the Israeli and foreign press, because the second rocket was not a Hellfire missile.

The military refuses to identify the weapon used, on the grounds of “operational security”. But the speculation is that it was an American-made Flechette, which is illegal under international law because it fires thousands of tiny darts over hundreds of meters, causing horrific injuries. Israel has used similar weapons in Gaza in the past.

Indiscrimate disproportionate slaughter:

How IDF legal experts legitimized strikes involving Gaza civilians

War crimes:

War crimes convictions after Gaza?

Israel names justice minister to fight war crime charges

Daniel Friedman will lead an inter-ministerial team to coordinate a legal defence for civilians and the military, the source said.

Israel’s military censor has already banned the publication of the identity of the unit leaders who fought against Hamas Islamists on the Gaza Strip for fear they may face war crimes charges.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon demanded Tuesday that those responsible for bombing UN buildings in the Palestinian territory should be made accountable and accused Israel of using excessive force.

Amnesty International said it was “undeniable” that Israel had used white phosphorus in crowded civilian areas, contrary to international law, charging that this amounted to a war crime.

Eight Israeli human rights groups have called on the Israeli government to investigate given the scale of the casualties, describing the number of dead women and children as “terrifying.”

Richard Falk calls for investigation into systematic Israeli war crimes

The UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Occupied Territories, Richard Falk, said he had little doubt about the “unavoidably inhuman character of a large scale military operation of the sort that Israel has initiated… against an essentially defenceless population.”

Falk told journalists that Israeli military operations in the densely populated territory among a population weakened by an 18 month blockade “raises the spectre of systematic war crimes.”

“Unlawful targets have been selected” during the fighting, he alleged.

“The evidence of breaking of fundamental rules of international humanitarian law is so compelling,” he added, backing calls for an independent, international investigation.

Falk, a legal expert, insisted that the Palestinian population of the Gaza Strip was effectively trapped in a war zone and prevented from fleeing, even if they were ill, wounded, or children.

The 47-member UN Human Rights Council voted by a large majority on January 12 to set up a probe into “grave” human rights violations by Israeli forces against Palestinians.

Ariel Sharon Flashback – 1982 Interview with Amos Oz

ABOUT THE SOFT AND THE DELICATE By Amos Oz

(supposed interview with Ariel Sharon published in the Israeli daily Davar Dec. 17, 1982)

printed in Counterpunch

“You can call me anything you like. Call me a monster or a murderer. Just note that I don’t hate Arabs. On the contrary. Personally, I am much more at ease with them, and especially with the Bedouin, than with Jews. Those Arabs we haven’t yet spoilt are proud people, they are irrational, cruel and generous. It’s the Yids that are all twisted. In order to straighten them out you have to first bend them sharply the other way. That, in brief, is my whole ideology.

“Call Israel by any name you like, call it a Judeo-Nazi state as does Leibowitz. Why not? Better a live Judeo-Nazi
than a dead saint. I don’t care whether I am like Ghadafi. I am not after the admiration of the gentiles. I don’t need their love. I don’t need to be loved by Jews like you either. I have to live, and I intend to ensure that my children will live as well. With or without the blessing of the Pope and the other religious leaders from the New Yor Times. I will destroy anyone who will raise a hand against my children, I will destroy him and his children, with or without our famous purity of arms. I don’t care if he is Christian, Muslim, Jewish or pagan. History teaches us that he who won’t kill will be killed by others. That is an iron law.

“Even if you’ll prove to me by mathematical means that the present war in Lebanon is a dirty immoral war, I don’t care. Moreover, even if you will prove to me that we have not achieved and will not achieve any of our aims in Lebanon, that we will neither create a friendly regime in Lebanon nor destroy the Syrians or even the PLO, even then I don’t care. It was still worth it. Even if Galilee is shelled again by Katyushas in a year’s time, I don’t really care. We shall start another war, kill and destroy more and more, until they will have had enough. And do you know why it is all worth it? Because it seems that this war has made us more unpopular among the so-called civilised world.

“We’ll hear no more of that nonsense about the unique Jewish morality, the moral lessons of the holocaust or about the Jews who were supposed to have emerged from the gas chambers pure and virtuous. No more of that. The destruction of Eyn Hilwe (and it’s a pity we did not wipe out that hornet’s nest completely!), the healthy bombardment of Beirut and that tiny massacre (can you call 500 Arabs a massacre?) in their camps which we should have committed with our own delicate hands rather than let the Phalangists do it, all these good deeds finally killed the bullshit talk about a unique people and of being a light upon the nations. No more uniqueness and no more sweetness and light. Good riddance.”

“I personally don’t want to be any better than Khomeini or Brezhnev or Ghadafi or Assad or Mrs. Thatcher, or even Harry Truman who killed half a million Japanese with two fine bombs. I only want to be smarter than they are, quicker and more efficient, not better or more beautiful than they are. Tell me, do the baddies of this world have a bad time? If anyone tries to touch them, the evil men cut his hands and legs off. They hunt and catch whatever they feel like eating. They don’t suffer from indigestion and are not punished by Heaven. I want Israel to join that club. Maybe the world will then at last begin to fear me instead of feeling sorry for me. Maybe they will start to tremble, to fear my madness instead of admiring my nobility. Thank god for that. Let them tremble, let them call us a mad state. Let them understand that we are a wild country, dangerous to our surroundings, not normal, that we might go crazy if one of our children is murdered – just one! That we might go wild and burn all the oil fields in the Middle East! If anything would happen to your child, god forbid, you would talk like I do. Let them be aware in Washington, Moscow, Damascus and China that if one of our ambassadors is shot, or even a consul or the most junior embassy official, we might start World War Three just like that !” ……

We are talking while sitting on the balcony of the pretty country house belonging to C. which is situated in a prosperous Moshav. To the west we see a burning sunset and there is a scent of fruit trees in the air. We are being served iced coffee in tall glasses. C. is about fifty years old. He is a man well known for his (military) actions. He is a strong, heavy figure wearing shorts but no shirt. His body is tanned a metallic bronze shade, the colour of a blond man living in the sun. He puts his hairy legs on the table and his hands on the chair. There is a scar on his neck. His eyes wander over his plantations. He spells out his ideology in a voice made hoarse by too much smoking:

“Let me tell me [sic] what is the most important thing, the sweetest fruit of the war in Lebanon: It is that now they don’t just hate Israel. Thanks to us, they now also hate all those Feinschmecker Jews in Paris, London, New York, Frankfurt and Montreal, in all their holes. At last they hate all these nice Yids, who say they are different from us, that they are not Israeli thugs, that they are different Jews, clean and decent. Just like the assimilated Jew in Vienna and Berlin begged the anti-Semite not to confuse him with the screaming, stinking Ostjude, who had smuggled himself into that cultural environment out of the dirty ghettos of Ukraine and Poland. It won’t help them, those
clean Yids, just as it did not help them in Vienna and Berlin. Let them shout that they condemn Israel, that they
are all right, that they did not want and don’t want to hurt a fly, that they always prefer being slaughtered to
fighting, that they have taken it upon themselves to teach the gentiles how to be good Christians by always turning the other cheek. It won’t do them any good. Now they are getting it there because of us, and I am telling you, it is a pleasure to watch.

“They are the same Yids who persuaded the gentiles to capitulate to the bastards in Vietnam, to give it in to Khomeini, to Brezhnev, to feel sorry for Sheikh Yamani because of his tough childhood, to make love not war. Or
rather, to do neither, and instead write a thesis on love and war. We are through with all that. The Yid has been
rejected, not only did he crucify Jesus, but he also crucified Arafat in Sabra and Shatila. They are being identified with us and that’s a good thing! Their cemeteries are being desecrated, their synagogues are set on fire, all their old nicknames are being revived, they are being expelled from the best clubs, people shoot into their ethnic
restaurants murdering small children, forcing them to remove any sign showing them to be Jews, forcing them to move and change their profession.

“Soon their palaces will be smeared with the slogan: Yids, go to Palestine! And you know what? They will go to
Palestine because they will have no other choice! All this is a bonus we received from the Lebanese war. Tell me,
wasn’t it worth it?

“Soon we will hit on good times. The Jews will start arriving, the Israelis will stop emigrating and those who
already emigrated will return. Those who had chosen assimilation will finally understand that it won’t help them to try and be the conscience of the world. The ‘conscience of the world’ will have to understand through its arse what it could not get into its head. The gentiles have always felt sick of the Yids and their conscience, and now the Yids will have only one option: to come home, all of them, fast, to install thick steel doors, to build a strong fence, to have submachine guns positioned at every corner of their fence here and to fight like devils against anyone who dares to make a sound in this region. And if anyone even raises his hand against us we’ll take away half his land and burn the other half, including the oil. We might use nuclear arms. We’ll go on until he no longer feels like it…

“…You probably want to know whether I am not afraid of the masses of Yids coming here to escape anti-semitism smearing us with their olive oil until we go all soft like them. Listen, history is funny in that way, there is a dialectic here, irony. Who was it who expanded the state of Israel almost up the boundaries of the kingdom of King David? Who expanded the state until it covered the area from Mount Hermon to Raz Muhammad? Levi Eshkol. Of all people, it was that follower of Gordon, that softie, that old woman. Who, on the other hand, is about to push us back into the walls of the ghetto? Who gave up all of Sinai in order to retain a civilised image? Beitar’s governor in Poland, that proud man Menahem Begin. So you can never tell. I only know one thing for sure: as long as you are fighting for your life all is permitted, even to drive out all the Arabs from the West Bank, everything.

“Leibowitz is right, we are Judeo-Nazis, and why not? Listen, a people that gave itself up to be slaughtered, a people that let soap to be made of its children and lamp shades from the skin of its women is a worse criminal than
its murderers. Worse than the Nazis…If your nice civilised parents had come here in time instead of writing books about the love for humanity and singing Hear O Israel on the way to the gas chambers, now don’t be shocked, if they instead had killed six million Arabs here or even one million, what would have happened? Sure, two or three nasty pages would have been written in the history books, we would have been called all sorts of names, but we could be here today as a people of 25 million!

“Even today I am willing to volunteer to do the dirty work for Israel, to kill as many Arabs as necessary, to deport
them, to expel and burn them, to have everyone hate us, to pull the rug from underneath the feet of the Diaspora Jews, so that they will be forced to run to us crying. Even if it means blowing up one or two synagogues here and there, I don’t care. And I don’t mind if after the job is done you put me in front of a Nuremberg Trial and then jail me for life. Hang me if you want, as a war criminal. Then you can spruce up your Jewish conscience and enter the respectable club of civilised nations, nations that are large and healthy. What you lot don’t understand is that the dirty work of Zionism is not finished yet, far from it. True, it could have been finished in 1948, but you interfered, you stopped it. And all this because of the Jewishness in your souls, because of your Diaspora mentality. For the Jews don’t grasp things quickly. If you open your eyes and look around the world you will see that darkness is falling again. And we know what happens to a Jew who stays out in the dark. So I am glad that this small war in Lebanon frightened the Yids. Let them be afraid, let them suffer. They should hurry home before it gets really dark. So I am an anti-Semite ? Fine. So don’t quote me, quote Lilienblum instead [an early Russian Zionist – ed.]. There is no need to quote an anti-Semite. Quote Lilienblum, and he is definitely not an anti-Semite, there is even a street in Tel Aviv named after him. (C. quotes from a small notebook that was lying on his table when I arrived:) ‘Is all that is happening not a clear sign that our forefathers and ourselves…wanted and still want to be disgraced? That we
enjoy living like gypsies.’ That’s Lilienblum. Not me. Believe me. I went through the Zionist literature, I can prove what I say.

“And you can write that I am disgrace to humanity, I don’t mind, on the contrary. Let’s make a deal: I will do all I
can to expel the Arabs from here, I will do all I can to increase anti-semitism, and you will write poems and essays about the misery of the Arabs and be prepared to absorb the Yids I will force to flee to this country and teach them to be a light unto the gentiles. How about it ?”

It was there that I stopped C.’s monologue for a moment and expressed the thought passing through my mind, perhaps more for myself than for my host. Was it possible that Hitler hadnot only hurt the Jews but also poisoned their minds? Had that poison sunk in and was still active? But not even that idea could cause C. to protest or raise his voice. After all, he said to have never shouted under stress, even during the famous operations his name is associated with…”

The above article was discussed at length in an article in The Spectator by Paul Gottfried in 2002.

However, Holger Jensen claims to have spoken with Amos Oz, who told him the interview was with a soldier.

When the interview first appeared after the invasion of Lebanon, “Z” was widely assumed to be Sharon because the interviewee was described as a military man “with a certain history,” about 50 years of age, heavyset and a prosperous farmer. All this fit the stocky Sharon, who had a farm, was the right age and certainly had “a history.”

Sharon had lost his job as defense minister after being held indirectly responsible for a massacre of Palestinian refugees by Israel’s Lebanese Phalange allies in Beirut. The military man interviewed by Oz justified the invasion of Lebanon, dismissed the massacre of Palestinians as one of the harsh realities of war — “how can you call 500 Arabs a massacre?” — and spoke contemptuously of Israeli pacifists as those with “soft and delicate hands.”

Oz never revealed who “Z” was, saying he had promised to protect his identity. He held to that promise when I telephoned him Monday, but confirmed that it was not Sharon. “I have never met or interviewed Sharon,” Oz said. The Middle East is full of mythology. History is rewritten to promote the viewpoints of Israelis or Palestinians and both sides in the conflict suffer from selective recall when it suits their purpose.

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From Recent Trends in Emigration from Israel: The Impact of Palestinian Violence by Ian S. Lustick, 2004

Yisrael Harel, a veteran Gush Emunim activist and former editor of Nekuda, published a long and stunning article in April 2003 which depicted the demographic spectre as Israel’s most daunting problem and even went so far as to propose a solution which would include not only Egyptian and Jordanian acceptance of masses of Palestinian refugees, but also Israeli abandonment of the Gaza Strip, the central heavily Arab areas of the West Bank. The article began as follows, in language formerly almost never heard on the right.

“The Jewish majority between the Jordan and the sea is disappearing day by day, and without an absolute Jewish majority the State of Israel will not be able to survive for long. Security for an absolute Jewish majority is a crucial foundation for any plan…”

Harel concluded by rejecting transfer as impossible and by emphasizing that “every solution [to the Palestinian problem], that does not guarantee a Jewish majority in the Land of Israel is no solution.”

Contemporary immigration figures to 2006 are here. There’s a definite drop off in recent years.

January 21, 2009December 12, 2020

Ban ki Moon admonishes, Israel skulks

UN bombed with white phosphorus Beit Lahia Gaza

Israel received stern words from UN leader Ban Ki Moon who was outraged at the firing on the UN at Beit Lahia.

“I have seen only a fraction of the destruction. This is shocking and alarming,” Ban said, condemning an “excessive use” of force by Israel as well as Hamas’s rocket fire into Israel.

“These are heartbreaking scenes I have seen and I am deeply grieved by what I have seen today,” he told a news conference held against a backdrop of still smoldering food aid in a U.N. warehouse set ablaze by Israeli gunfire last Thursday.

Ban particularly deplored the attack on the UN warehouse:

“It is particularly significant for a secretary-general of the UN to stand in front of this bomb site of the UN compound,” he said.

“I am just appalled and not able to describe how I am feeling having seen this … it’s an outrageous and totally unacceptable attack against the UN. I have protested many times, and I protest again in the strongest terms.”

Ban called for a “full investigation” into the incident to make those responsible for the attack “accountable”.

Despite UN demands, Israel is not allowing supplies with construction materials through, only food and medicine aid – is this a sign that their immoral collective punishment of Gaza’s civilian population is not yet over?

The Israeli exclusivist war machine has destroyed more than 4,000 buildings with over 20,000 severely damaged.
50,000 Gazans have been made homeless due to Israel’s aggression and 400,000 people are without running water.

@AJGaza The Israeli army says its troops have completed their pull-out from the #Gaza Strip.

Significant to Palestinian aspirations, in his inauguration speech Obama said:

“To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect.

“To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society’s ills on the West – know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy.”

Let’s hope the Stalinist reprobates in the Israeli Knesset heed his advice.

While Ban calls for national unity between Palestinian groups, Hamas supporters are retaining the power of their democratic vote and are demanding UN recognition –

“The Hamas government was elected by popular vote,” one said. “We demand an end to double standards.”

The United Nations, with other key mediators in the Middle East, say they will only deal with Hamas if it recognizes Israel, renounces violence and accepts interim peace deals.

Photo Courtesy of Sameh Habeeb, Photojournalisht Gaza

Chances of recognition of the fascist Occupier entity are likely to be non-existent at this point, with 1350 dead and around 5000 people injured from Israel’s unprovoded attack on Gaza. With Israel’s timed withdrawal from Gaza, Hamas is claiming victory.

In blind stupidity and arrogance, the majority of Israelis believe the murder of innocent Palestinians and destruction of their dwellings and public buildings is a legitimate and necessary accompaniment to their government’s attempt to topple the democratically elected Hamas government and right wing Netanyahoo is leading in the electoral polls. Zionism however thrives on hatred and the illegitimate attack and murder by Israel is bound to increase animosity toward the oppressor.

The election of this expansionist hardline ethnic cleanser could prove disastrous for Palestinians – again. Akiva Eldar provides some interesting speculation on imminent change in US policy toward Israel:

Obama is surrounded by Jewish advisers who are very familiar with Israeli tricks and stalling tactics, especially when it comes to the settlements (have we mentioned “natural growth” yet?), but they would still want the new president to adopt the tradition of the “special relationship” with the Jewish state. Obama, however, has also been exposed to the school of thought, existing in both the administration and the American think tanks, that argues that the excessive closeness between the U.S. and Israel undermines America’s strategic interests in the Arab world.

Brent Scowcroft, one of the shapers of foreign policy under President George H.W. Bush, and according to Time magazine, a strong influence on Obama, has called for a fundamental restructuring of American policy in the Middle East. Scowcroft, who was the boss of the current (and incoming) defense secretary Robert Gates, and a friend of the new national security adviser, James Jones, is proposing that the “special relationship” be adjusted to a “natural relationship.” Perhaps such a change would be able to transform celebratory ceremonies into dry agreements.

How will AIPAC and the other gungho Jewish benefactors to US politicians react if Obama does alter US policy to Israel?

The Zionist enterprise’s military wing, the IDF, is investigating a reserve paratroop unit’s use of phosphorus shells in the incident.

According to senior army officers, the IDF used two phosphorus-based weapons in Gaza. One, the sources said, actually contains almost no phosphorus. These are simple smoke bombs – 155mm artillery shells – with a trace of phosphorus to ignite them.

Alkalai’s probe is thus focusing on the second type: phosphorus shells, either 81mm or 120mm, that are fired from mortar guns. About 200 such shells were fired during the recent fighting, and of these, according to the probe’s initial findings, almost 180 were fired at orchards in which gunmen and rocket-launching crews were taking cover.

The one problematic incident was the reserve paratroops brigade that fired about 20 such shells in a built-up area of Beit Lahiya. Many international organizations say phosphorus shells should not be used in heavily populated areas. The brigade’s officers, however, say the shells were fired only at places that had been positively identified as sources of enemy fire.

The 120mm shells, a recent acquisition, have a computerized targeting system attached to a GPS. Brigade commanders say they were very effective, but they were also responsible for two very serious mishaps: a strike on a UNRWA school that killed 42 Palestinians and a friendly fire incident that seriously wounded two officers.

Expect a duck and weave coverup – why were the shells authorised to be used in the first place at all?

Amnesty and Human Rights Watch have condemned the Israeli actions as war crimes:

Human rights group Amnesty International has accused Israel of war crimes, saying its use of white phosphorus munitions in densely populated areas of the Gaza Strip was indiscriminate and illegal.

The accusations from the London-based organisation came as the scale of the destruction caused by the Israeli assault on the Palestinian territory overwhelmed Gazans.

Amnesty is not the first group to accuse Israel of using white phosphorus.

Human Rights Watch made the accusation on January 10 and the UN has also said Israel used the munition during its offensive in Gaza.

Donatella Rovera, a researcher with Amnesty, said: “Such extensive use of this weapon in Gaza’s densely populated residential neighbourhoods is inherently indiscriminate.”

“Its repeated use in this manner, despite evidence of its indiscriminate effects and its toll on civilians, is a war crime,” she said.

Attorneys on behalf of Belgian and French nationals with relatives who were either wounded or killed in Gaza have petitioned a Belgian court to arrest Tipsy Livni for war crimes when she visits Brussels tomorrow.

In other war crimes news, there’s a new Israeli site listing the prospective war criminals and their misdeeds.

includes “arrest orders,” complete with pictures and personal details, for Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert,Livni, Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai, Public Security Minister Avi Dichter, National Infrastructure Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi and his two predecessors, Dan Halutz and Moshe Ya’alon, former air force commander Eliezer Shkedy and others.

It also explains how to inform the International Criminal Court in The Hague of when the “suspects” are outside Israel, and hence vulnerable to arrest.

The first sign of hope and justice from Obama comes from the announcement that he has “ordered the U.S. government to suspend prosecutions of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay for 120 days.”

Israel must be judged at the International Criminal Court – Sign the Universal petition.

Francis A. Boyle called for an International War Crimes Tribunal three days after the commencement of Israel’s disgraceful slaughter.

The United Nations General Assembly must immediately establish an International Criminal Tribunal for Israel (ICTI) as a “subsidiary organ” under U.N. Charter Article 22. The ICTI would be organized along the lines of the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY), which was established by the Security Council.

The purpose of the ICTI would be to investigate and prosecute Israeli war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide against the Peoples of Lebanon and Palestine–just as the ICTY did for the victims of international crimes committed by Serbia and the Milosevic Regime throughout the Balkans.

The establishment of ICTI would provide some small degree of justice to the victims of Israeli war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide against the Peoples of Lebanon and Palestine–just as the ICTY has done in the Balkans. Furthermore, the establishment of ICTI by the U.N. General Assembly would serve as a deterrent effect upon Israeli leaders such as Prime Minister Olmert, Foreign Minister Livni, Defense Minister Barak , Chief of Staff Ashkenazi and Israel’s other top generals that they will be prosecuted for their further infliction of international crimes upon the Lebanese and the Palestinians.

Without such a deterrent, Israel might be emboldened to attack Syria with the full support of the Likhudnik Bush Jr. Neoconservatives, who have always viewed Syria as “low-hanging fruit” ready to be taken out by means of their joint aggression. If Israel attacks Syria as it did when it invaded Lebanon in 1982, Iran has vowed to come to Syria’s defense.

And of course Israel and the Bush Jr administration very much want a pretext to attack Iran. This scenario could readily degenerate into World War III.

For the U.N. General Assembly to establish ICTI could stop the further development of this momentum towards a regional if not global catastrophe.

The US GIVES free fuel to the Israeli military worth $1.1b since 2004

Israel wanted a humanitarian crisis – Targeting civilians was a deliberate part of this bid to humiliate Hamas and the Palestinians, and pulverise Gaza into chaos

Audio: Abunimah, Finkelstein, Mearsheimer discuss Israel’s attacks on Gaza

In a desperate attempt to prevent their war criminals from being prosecuted, the IDF is censoring the names of battalion commanders involved in the attack on Gaza.

The IDF has also taken preliminary steps to defend military officers against legal charges abroad stemming from their involvement in Operation Cast Lead. The full names of battalion commanders involved in the fighting will be censored to prevent Israeli and international left-wing activists from attempting to try them for war crimes. The names of more senior officers cannot be redacted as their involvement and names have been reported by many media outlets.

Robert Fisk: So, I asked the UN secretary general, isn’t it time for a war crimes tribunal?

January 20, 2009December 12, 2020

Hope for Palestine?

No point in going through the obvious, beating round the bush – the sadistic criminally incompetent reprobate is gone at last. Obana is about to take the stage and the throne – Oogeroo Noonuccal’s poem is for him and everyone.

Obamicon by IntrepidTeacher

Song of Hope

Look up, my people,
The dawn is breaking,
The world is waking,
To a new bright day,
When none defame us,
Nor colour shame us,
Nor sneer dismay.

Now brood no more
On the years behind you,
The hope assigned you
Shall the past replace,
When juster justice
Grown wise and stronger
Points the bone no longer
At a darker race.

So long we waited
Bound and frustrated,
Till hate be hated
And caste deposed;
Now light shall guide us,
And all doors open
That long were closed

See plain the promise,
Dark freedom-lover!
Night’s nearly over,
And though long the climb,
New rights will greet us,
New mateship meet us,
And joy complete us
In our new Dream Time.

To our father’s fathers
The pain, the sorrow;
To our children’s children
The glad tomorrow.

Oogeroo Noonuccal

January 20, 2009December 12, 2020

Israel & Egypt preparing for some ethnic cleansing?

This is a direct transcript from Jews Sans Frontieres – Please Disseminate Widely & Quickly

Under cover of announcing humanitarian relief for injured Palestinians, it is now emerging that Israel is planning the transfer of tens of thousands of Palestinians from Gaza into Egypt.

Evidence of the Israeli transfer plan has been sent to London based Islington Friends of Yibna** [IFY]. Earlier today, Sat 17 Jan 09, IFY received a photo of tents [see attached] outside the main hospital in Egyptian Rafah, near the border with Gaza.

Tents on the Egyptian Rafah Border The white tents with no markings are being erected by the Egyptian Army, starting last night, Fri 16 Jan 09. The photo was taken this morning [Sat 17 January 09]. The soldiers stated that 5,000 tents were planned for refugees from Gaza.

Further information is available from our contacts in the Egyptian side of Rafah [Rafah was divided by Israel after it occupied Gaza and Sinai in 1967; Israel divided Rafah when Sinai was returned to Egypt].

From our contacts in Yibna Refugee Camp in Gaza we have learnt that, in the north east of Rafah, near the Egyptian border, Israeli tanks have surrounded and sealed off the Al Sarayh neighbourhood, for more than the last 48 hours. There are many injured people trapped there, the Israelis are not allowing access for the Red Cross and many people are dying of their wounds, isolated and with no medical treatment.

We have grave concerns that Israel will target the Al Sarayh neighbourhood to be the first to be transferred and that this might be within the next 24h.

While Al Sarayh is completely isolated, with no access even to the Red Cross, Israel can prepare and carry out its plans without any witnesses from the aid agencies to alert the international community. While preventing Al Sarayh from accessing any medical treatment, Israel would portray a transfer as an Israeli humanitarian gesture to allow them access to medical treatment in Egypt. Given that Israel has been bombing Al Sarayh non-stop Israel would portray a transfer as a humanitarian gesture to allow them to escape the killing fields of the constant Israeli bombardment [thus claiming they will be safer in Egypt and giving them the “choice”].

Israel is NOT on a mercy mission. While presenting this transfer as a humanitarian gesture, allowing injured Palestinians and their families out across the Rafah border crossing for hospital treatment, the Israeli plan to ethnic cleanse Gaza and transfer Palestinians to Egypt is not new. This is an advanced stage in the Israeli plan to ethnic cleanse the 1.5 million Palestinians out of Gaza [e.g. see the video interview in English of the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger, a year ago, on 18 Jan 08, calling for the Palestinians in Gaza to be transferred to the Sinai desert as a humanitarian gesture]. Those forced now to leave, under the pretext of a humanitarian gesture, will never again be allowed back [just like they have never been allowed back to the homes from which they were ethnic cleansed in 1948]. The Palestinian refugees, ethnic cleansed from Gaza, would continue to be hunted down by Israel, even if they would be later transferred further into the Sinai desert.

It appears that the ceasefire agreement with Egypt [part of the Israeli “unilateral” ceasefire due to start on 17 Jan, 2400 GMT] paved the way to the erection of the tents by Egyptian forces and that Egypt agreed to allow Israel to ethnic cleansed dozens of thousands of Palestinians from Gaza into Egypt, under the pretext of a humanitarian gesture.

Earlier this afternoon, PM Gordon Brown announced that injured children would be taken out of Gaza for medical treatment and food aid would be stepped up. IFY spoke with medics in the Egyptian Rafah, and they said that today the Egyptian soldiers rejected ALL the food they provided for Gaza, while on other days they allowed some food in [though in no way proportionate to the needs of 1.5 millions]. As for the medical treatment, that could be the cover story for the ethnic cleansing of dozens of thousands, especially as the tents are near the hospital.

By last week, more than 40,000 people in Rafah have already been forced out of their homes by the day and night Israeli bombardment, making transfer easier as there is now no need to get them out of their houses, many of which are now bombed ruins. There’s nothing left for the Palestinians in Gaza [even the cemetery in Rafah was bombed] and they have been terrorised for so long, that it is hard to estimate how much more violence Israel would need to exercise to force them to leave Gaza It is not anticipated that Israel would immediately ethnic 1.5million Palestinians in Gaza, but that it would pursue its completion when it feels there are international circumstances that would allow it.

For further information and updates please contact Yael Kahn on +44 (0)7880 731 865 or Rob Langlands on +44 (0)7977 490415

More information and photos at Free Speech Unlimited