DKos member aoeu had a good diary called "MARO: Mass Atrocity Response Operations."
It concerns a current U.S. Defense Department effort to address mass atrocity situations, which reportedly has been "implemented." The document was obtained in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from the Federation of American Scientists, according to that diary.
A 128-page PDF file of the report is available here from Harvard. The cover of the report identifies it as "A Collaborative Effort Between the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard Kennedy School and the US Army Peacekeeping and Stability
Operations Institute."
Why am I interested in this? On July 30th and 31st, I had a reclist diary that demonstrated why what Israel is doing in Gaza is indeed genocide.
My impression is that most people here casually (or hostilely) disregarded that claim when I started making it a few weeks ago, but now I think most Kossacks think it's true (or largely true). That's progress. Of course, there is small but vocal and slowly shrinking group of Israel supporters here that, so far at least, cannot be swayed by facts, reason, or law.
Below the fold I reproduce pages 95 and 96 of the MARO report (Annex A). I have bolded provisions of the international law that I believe Israel has violated. These include several different kinds of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and ethic cleansing.
ANNEX A
DEFINITIONS OF GENOCIDE AND MASS ATROCITY CRIMES
Following are excerpts of international legal definitions of mass atrocity crimes, according to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. The entire text can be found on the International Criminal Court website: http://www.icc-cpi.int/....
GENOCIDE
The 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines the term “Genocide.” This language is mirrored in Article 6 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
Article II of the Convention includes the following language:
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
Killing members of the group;
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY
Article 7, paragraph 1 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court
includes the following language:
1. For the purpose of this Statute, “crime against humanity” means any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack:
(a) Murder;
(b) Extermination;
(c) Enslavement;
(d) Deportation or forcible transfer of population;
(e) Imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules ofinternational law;
(f) Torture;
(g) Rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity;
(h) Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender as defined in paragraph 3, or other grounds that are universally recognized as impermissible under in ternational law, in connection with any act referred to in this paragraph or any crime within the jurisdiction of the Court;
(i) Enforced disappearance of persons;
(j) The crime of apartheid;
(k) Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering,or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health.
WAR CRIMES
Article 8, paragraphs 1 and 2 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court includes the following language: :
1. The Court shall have jurisdiction in respect of war crimes in particular when committed as part of a plan or policy or as part of a large-scale commission of such crimes.
2. For the purpose of this Statute, ‘war crimes’ means:
(a) Grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, namely, any of the following acts against persons or property protected under the provisions of the relevant Geneva Convention:
(i) Wilful killing;
(ii) Torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments;
(iii) Wilfully causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or health;
(iv) Extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly;
(v) Compelling a prisoner of war or other protected person to serve in the forces of a hostile Power;
(vi) Wilfully depriving a prisoner of war or other protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial;
(vii) Unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement;
(viii) Taking of hostages.
ETHNIC CLEANSING
The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect provides the following explanation of the term ethnic cleansing:
The term “ethnic cleansing” has more recently come into general usage and is the least clearly defined of the four categories. It is understood to describe forced removal or displacement of populations, whether by physical expulsion, or by intimidation through killing, acts of terror, rape and the like: it is essentially one particular class of crimes against humanity.57
FN 57 The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, “R2P FAQ”
http://globalr2p.org/...(accessed April 17, 2010).
CONCLUSION OF DIARY
No matter how strongly one might sympathize with Israel, it's not reasonable to completely disregard all of those evident grave violations of international law. There's a reason why Netanyahu is reportedly striving even now to head this off at the pass through action or inaction of the U.S. Congress. See, for example: http://www.dailykos.com/...
CIVILITY
Let's keep any discussion civil, and please don't throw any HRs in this diary.