USA Africa Dialogue Series - In Gaza, International Law Is Up in Flames

In Gaza, International Law Is Up in Flames

In a flagrant violation of international law, Israel's assault on Gaza has killed hundreds of civilians and devastated civilian infrastructure.

By Phyllis Bennis<http://fpif.org/authors/phyllis-bennis/>, July 30, 2014. Originally published in OtherWords<http://otherwords.org/israel-violates-international-law-in-gaza/>.









Israel is imposing collective punishment against all Gazans, attacking hospitals, schools, and power stations.

As Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip rages on, ceasefires come and go. Most last just long enough for Palestinians to dig out the dead from beneath their collapsed houses, get the injured to overcrowded and under-resourced hospitals, and seek enough food and water to last through the next round of airstrikes.

"There is nothing left but stones," Palestinian journalist Mohammed Omer quoted an old woman saying as she searched desperately through the rubble of what had been her home.

Casualties are soaring. By late July, Israel had killed more than 1,100 Palestinians<http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/29/world/meast/mideast-crisis/> -- at least 73 percent of them civilians<http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/07/28/336000847/conflict-in-gaza-heres-what-you-need-to-know-today>, including hundreds of children. Fifty-six Israelis, almost all of them soldiers, have died too.

A July 28 poll<http://www.jpost.com/Operation-Protective-Edge/Poll-865-percent-of-Israelis-oppose-cease-fire-369064> shows that 86.5 percent of Israelis oppose a ceasefire. Yet we continue to hear that Israelis want peace.

It's true that at least some of them do. An Israeli protest in Tel Aviv brought 5,000 people into the street. That's good -- though a far cry from the 400,000 who poured into the streets to protest Israel's invasion of Lebanon back in 1982.

And when a young Palestinian teenager was kidnapped and tortured to death -- burned alive -- in Jerusalem after the bodies of the three kidnapped young Israeli settlers were found, many Israelis tried to distance themselves from the horrific crime. "In our society, the society of Israel, there is no place for such murderers," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed.

But in fact, there is a place for those who call for murder -- at the highest political and military levels of Israeli society.

Meet Ayelet Shaked<http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/07/israeli-politician-declares-war-on-the-palestinian-people.html>, a member of the Knesset -- Israel's parliament. She belongs to Israel Home, a far-right party in Netanyahu's governing coalition. She issued on Facebook what amounts to a call to commit genocide, by deliberately killing Palestinians, including women, children, and old people.

"The entire Palestinian people is the enemy," Shaked posted. "In wars, the enemy is usually an entire people, including its elderly and its women, its cities and its villages, its property and its infrastructure."

The Knesset member went on to say that the mothers of Palestinians killed should follow their dead sons to Hell: "They should go, as should the physical homes in which they raised the snakes. Otherwise, more little snakes will be raised there."

Her language reminds me of a chapter in our own history -- the genocidal Indian Wars. U.S. military leaders had called on their troops to wipe out all the Native American. Col. John Chivington<http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/program/episodes/four/whois.htm> was asked on the eve of the Sand Creek Massacre about killing Cheyenne children. "Kill and scalp all, big and little -- nits make lice," he replied.

Shaked's comments also echo the words of an Israeli colonel<http://www.hrw.org/de/news/2010/09/24/yes-war-does-have-rules> who testified under oath at the wrongful death trial of Rachel Corrie, a young U.S. peace activist killed by an Israeli soldier driving an armored bulldozer in Gaza. "In a war zone there are no civilians," said the military officer -- who was responsible for training Israeli soldiers to serve in the occupied territories.

There's no question that Hamas' primitive rockets violate international law. They can't be accurately aimed at military targets. But that doesn't justify Israel's violation of its own obligations under international law as the occupying power in Gaza.

Israel has the region's strongest military, the only nuclear weapons arsenal in the Middle East, and the unconditional backing of the United States. Its assault on Gaza violates the Geneva Conventions<http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/israelgaza-conflict-questions-and-answers-2014-07-25>. Israel is imposing collective punishment against all Gazans, attacking hospitals, and using disproportionate force.

Israeli officials know full well that the best way to protect their citizens is to implement a real ceasefire -- a breakthrough that would require opening Gaza's borders. Some of them also know the best way to keep their citizens safe long term is by ending the occupation altogether. Problem is, not enough of them will admit it.

U.S. taxpayers also have a stake in this conflict because Washington keeps sending Israel billions of our tax dollars<http://fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33222.pdf> and refuses to push Tel Aviv<http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/israel-us-aid-hamas-harry-reid-109452.html> to stop violating international law.

For real peace, both of those things must change.

Phyllis Bennis directs the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies<http://www.ips-dc.org/>.

Israel Once Again Unconcerned With Prosecution for War Crimes

The United Nations Human Rights Council announced a commission of inquiry into alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza.

By Russ Wellen<http://fpif.org/authors/russ-wellen/>, July 31, 2014., www.fpif.com
[https://webmail.ccsu.edu/owa/attachment.ashx?id=RgAAAACIR4fP8%2fDSEaNAAAD4YBApBwDd9LcDLkTSEaMkAKDJ4RrzAAAA7%2f1AAACG0aK%2bn4McSrUVwdL4l7nbAFCXmYIvAAAJ&attcnt=1&attid0=EAC%2bgFzwds%2f2SqpJErRA8bBs]

With UNRWA schools under attack by the IDF, Palestinians don't know where to hide..

On Tuesday, July 29, Ibrahim Barzou and Yousur Alhlou of the Associated Press<http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/07/29/4260379/israel-target-symbols-of-hamas.html> reported on that deadly day in Gaza:

Israel unleashed its heaviest air and artillery assault of the Gaza war on Tuesday, destroying key symbols of Hamas control, shutting down the territory's only power plant and leaving at least 128 Palestinians dead on the bloodiest day of the 22-day conflict.

On Tuesday, multiple members of at least five families were pulled from the rubble after airstrikes and tank shells struck their homes, including the mayor of the Bureij refugee camp, his 70-year-old father and three relatives, according to Palestinian health officials.

In all, at least 1,229 Palestinians have been killed, including 128 on Tuesday, making it the single deadliest day since the start of fighting on July 8, said Palestinian health official Ashraf al-Kidra. More than 7,000 have been wounded, he said.

That sounds suspiciously like, as Rashid Khaliki writes in the New Yorker "Collective Punishment in Gaza<http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/collective-punishment-gaza>."

It's worth listening carefully when Netanyahu speaks to the Israeli people. What is going on in Palestine today is not really about Hamas. It is not about rockets. It is not about "human shields" or terrorism or tunnels. It is about Israel's permanent control over Palestinian land and Palestinian lives.

... What Israel is doing in Gaza now is collective punishment. It is punishment for Gaza's refusal to be a docile ghetto. It is punishment for the gall of Palestinians in unifying, and of Hamas and other factions in responding to Israel's siege and its provocations with resistance.

Back to Barzou and Alhlou:

The Israeli military has said it is targeting Hamas command centers, along with rocket launchers and weapons arsenals, but has not provided explanations when asked about specific strikes in which many members of a single family were killed.

Perhaps because they know that no justification exists. Yesterday at Foreign Policy in Focus, Phyllis Bennis<http://fpif.org/violating-international-law-gaza/> mirrored Khaliki.

There's no question that Hamas' primitive rockets violate international law. They can't be accurately aimed at military targets. But that doesn't justify Israel's violation of its own obligations under international law as the occupying power in Gaza.

Israel has the region's strongest military, the only nuclear weapons arsenal in the Middle East, and the unconditional backing of the United States. Its assault on Gaza violates the Geneva Conventions. Israel is imposing collective punishment against all Gazans, attacking hospitals, and using disproportionate force.

Operation and operation, Israel and the IDF (Israel Defense Force) act with absolute impunity. For instance, after Israeli tanks shelled the school in Jabaliya on Tuesday, BBC reported<http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-28558433>:

[Chris] Gunness from the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) told the BBC that Israel had been told 17 times that the school in the Jabaliya refugee camp was housing the displaced. ... [He] said "the world stands disgraced" by the attack, in which 15 died and dozens were hurt.

Ms. Bennis again:

Meet Ayelet Shaked, a member of the Knesset -- Israel's parliament. She belongs to Israel Home, a far-right party in Netanyahu's governing coalition. She issued on Facebook what amounts to a call to commit genocide, by deliberately killing Palestinians, including women, children, and old people.

"The entire Palestinian people is the enemy," Shaked posted. "In wars, the enemy is usually an entire people, including its elderly and its women, its cities and its villages, its property and its infrastructure."

Ms. Shaked ventures into rabble-rousing that greases the skids to genocide, such as in Rwanda where the Tutsis were called cockroaches:

The Knesset member went on to say that the mothers of Palestinians killed should follow their dead sons to Hell: "They should go, as should the physical homes in which they raised the snakes. Otherwise, more little snakes will be raised there."

A quick Google search reveals that Israel has only been taken to task for war crimes in an official capacity by the Goldstone Report<http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/12session/A-HRC-12-48.pdf> and one occasion when they were charged with war crimes<http://www.globalresearch.ca/state-of-israel-charged-for-crime-of-genocide-and-war-crimes-kuala-lumpur-tribunal/5346375> in August 2013:

The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal (KLWCT) will be hearing war crimes and genocide charges against Amos Yaron, a retired Israeli army general and the State of Israel from 21 to 24 August in Kuala Lumpur.

This is the first time that war crimes charges will be heard against the retired general and the State of Israel in compliance with due legal process. The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission (KLWCC), having received complaints from victims from Palestine (Gaza and West Bank) and the Sabra - Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon, in 2012, investigated these complaints resulting in the institution of formal charges on war crimes against the accused.

But, Haaretz reported (behind a paywall) on June 14,

The United Nations Human Rights Council on Wednesday launched a commission of inquiry into alleged Israeli war crimes in its current Gaza offensive, backing Palestinian efforts to have Israel held up to international scrutiny.

Meeting in Geneva, the 46-member council backed a Palestinian-drafted resolution by 29 votes, with supports from Arab and Muslim countries, China, Russia, Latin American and African nations.

Naturally:

The United States was the only member to vote against the resolution, while European countries abstained.

Naturally again:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office fiercely condemned the UN council's decision as a "travesty and should be rejected by decent people everywhere."

We'll give the last word to Khaliki, just because it's a trenchant quote:

... the United States puts its thumb on the scales in favor of the stronger party. In this surreal, upside-down vision of the world, it almost seems as if it is the Israelis who are occupied by the Palestinians, and not the other way around. In this skewed universe, the inmates of an open-air prison are besieging a nuclear-armed power with one of the most sophisticated militaries in the world.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.