Our moving truck came today for our move from Massachusetts to Florida. We had so much stuff that we filled this giant truck up so they are going to need to send a second one tomorrow which was supposed to be reserved for post truck cleaning. Our three cats can not stand being locked in our bedroom. I've been peaking in throughout the day trying to keep up with everything especially the tragic events between Gaza and Israel, which seem so terrible I feel as if I should do something. I notice some asking about war crimes, and thought I might share an article I read a few days ago explaining the definition and requirements for genocide an new charge some are trying to add to war crimes and crimes against humanity that the UN Human Rights Commission voted at the end of last week 29-1 to investigate.
Michael Ratner, President Emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights, and legal advisor to Wikileaks, and Julian Assange makes the case that the UN's Investigation of Israel Should Go Beyond War Crimes to Genocide. s
Ratner wrote his article on July 26, when the death count included "808 people killed in Gaza. Astonishing: 666 of those are civilians, 81.5 percent; 194 our children, 24 percent; over 4,000 wounded, mostly civilians." He also notes that hospitals that have been hit which most of you know already from other sources. First let me offer a view definitions.
1. War crimes are violations of the Geneva Conventions and include the use of disproportionate force, collective punishment, forced migrations of civilian populations, destruction of civilian homes, the forced migration of populations and ethnic cleansing. If these last two are done with the intent to force the migration of population to remove or destroy the population for any reason including to take over their land the charge rise to the level of genocide. (See below.)
2. A crimes against humanity is "part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population". It's carried out by means of murder, forcible transfers, torture, rape, and the crime of apartheid. Ratner believes there is no doubt that forcible transfers and murder have been carried out, as well as apartheid.
3. Genocide which I believe maybe both a war crime and a crime against humanity. To be honest I am not a lawyer so I'm learning this as I'm going along. Ratner will explain more about this below.
Ratner also notes Israel could not have committed these crimes without weapons supplied by the U.S. implying we share some culpability as well.
Ratner also remind us that the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, reported to the UN Human Rights Council that there is a "strong possibility that Israel has committed war crimes, and as I reported on Friday, the council voted 29 to 1 to open war crimes and crimes against humanity against Israel.
Ratner then goes on to explain why he believe the charges of genocide should be added to the investigation.
But what I want to emphasize today is these killings are part of a broader set of inhuman acts by Israel constituting international crimes, carried out by Israel over many years, going back to at least 1947 and 1948. They include crimes that aren't talked about that much in the media or the press, the crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, and apartheid. These crimes can be prosecuted in the International Criminal Court and are defined there. They include what the well-known Israeli writer Ilan Pappé called incremental genocide. Pappé says he wants to place the barbarity of what Israel is doing in its proper context.
I'm a lawyer. I've looked at genocide. Genocide has two elements. One element is the mental element, the intent to destroy the whole or in part a national or ethnic or racial or religious group. Palestinians are clearly a national and ethnic group. And you don't need to kill them all. You just need to have the mental intent to kill part of them. For example, it would be enough to have the mental intent to kill the leadership of the Palestinians or to kill people in one region. No doubt about that.
Genocide also requires that there be acts of genocide--killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm, or inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction, in whole or part, of the people you're trying to destroy. There's no doubt again here this is "incremental genocide", as Ilan Pappé says. iIt's been going on for a long time, the killings, the incredibly awful conditions of life, the expulsions that have gone on for from Lydda in 1947 and '48, when 700 or more villages in Palestine were destroyed, and in the expulsions that continued from that time until today. It's correct and important to label it for what it is.
Also I read that last Friday evening a petition was received by the International Criminal Court to open war crimes hearings against the leadership of Israel, but I haven't determined yet who filed this petition. In the ICC indictments are handed down against individuals not nations. Israel has not signed the Rome Statute to join this court so one major issue is that Israel is not expected to cooperate with the court. If Netanyahu and anyone else charged does not appear in court, hearings can not be held against them.
With indictments against him, others in his cabinet, and the chain of command of the IDF they could not travel to any member state including the United States as all member states are would be required to arrest them.
"One heck of a pin point operation!"
But, as my last article discussed there are many obstacles to bringing these charges. For example, unlike the investigations of the UN HRC which is more like a report, indictments under the ICC which lands people in jail are more difficult. One big obstacle is that the law against "disproportionate force" does not become operative until 2017.
The most important reason to support these investigations and hearing is to send a clear signal to all political and military leaders of the future that the world is not longer going to look the other way when these kinds of atrocities occur. We must say "never again" and and really mean it. I just saw Professor Alan Dershowitz on TV, whom I once respected, saying "look at these tunnels, what would any other nation do?" Well for one thing, military leaders familiar with the internal rules of war and the Geneva Convention would send its vastly superior armies down into the very tunnels we are being given video tours of, with explosive charges and blow them up, instead of trying to blow them with multi-thousand pound bombs dropped on entire city blocks from F-16s.
To try to justify blowing up entire city blocks, killing dozens of innocent civilians, most of whom had nothing to do with them, with bombs from F-16 under the premise that one is trying to blow up tunnels 30 meters under ground is disgraceful. I'm truly surprised Harvard students and faculty have not demanded his resignation as a crime against human decency and an embarrassment to people of education and civilization everywhere. I have some letters to write in this regard. I do not see how alumni can give any more money to Harvard while such a poor excuse for a human being is still on the faculty.
Such actions appear to me now to constitute specific criminal violations of the Geneva Conventions of disproportionate force, collective punishment, intentional destruction of civilian housing, destruction of hospitals, murder, and genocide. If the the UN and ICC will not prosecute such clear indisputable violations that we are watching on video tape day by day, they may as well shut themselves down as completely worthless. Also, the double standard that we use these courts to prosecute small third world countries but not major powers is an outrageous injustice and needs to end now.
I've got to wake up wicked early tomorrow, and its already late.
May I offer prayers, best wishes, and hopes for peace and safety for all Israelis and Palestinians who should not have to live in such terror. My feeling is that all people who have launched missals and bombs into civilian areas of this magnitude should be indicted and the world should follow the hearings so they get a fair trail and we learn more about the future promise of one day living on a planet that truly respects, observes, and enforces the international rule of law so that all civilians in the future can be safe from these kinds of atrocities.
9:19 PM PT: Oh, I meant to add that one major flaw in this article is that is does not make any mention that all the Hamas soldiers who fired missals into Israel, and any Hamas leader who order it or even allowed it needs to be indicted and prosecuted and it is a damn embarrassing disgrace for everyone who supports the international rule of law that we do not learn of any of this legal apparatus until people want to indict Bibi Netanyuhu.
Why the hell were the Hamas fighters not subject to prosecution 20 friggen years ago when they fired the first damn rocket into Israel.
The pathetic answer offered is that Israel hasn't signed the Rome Statute for the same reason Abbas hasn't - if they do then they are obligated to turn over to the court any leader indicted.
This is stupid. The Court or some World Wide Attorney General ought to have an additional capability to open up investigations to any violations any where in the world. People outside of the Courts jurisdiction can defy it but they should not be able to travel or have financial transactions in any country who does, which is the vast majority.
Sorry, I didn't mention this in the main text. I'm so tired my brain drifted into cruise control and I feel back to "report the article mode."
We need one standard of international law for all people. Major powers, small powers all people equal and no one able to launch rockets into civilian areas without the legal might of the world coming down like a ton of bricks.
BTW, global warming illustrates the time has passed that we can treat the the rest of the world as a vast toilet. We are going to need stronger global institution to control carbon emissions, antibiotic resistant diseases, infectious disease outbreak etc. BTW the world's response to the Ebola outbreak is a pathetic disgrace a well.
I hope to God any intelligent alien species are not watching because they will think we human beings are the stupidest bunch of ignorant assholes they've probably seen anywhere in the galaxy. An American doctor has not been infected, actually maybe two, I've been packing.
So the world has known one of the deadliest viruses known to man has been spreading out of control probably since last year, but we became aware of it in late February early March, not we have more than 1,000 cases, and the damn tourism minister of Liberian is lecturing media to be sensitive on how they report this because the nation has lost $6 million in tourist revenue! Sheesh.
And, the poor overwhelmed, burn out health workers there becoming infected for reasons we are not sure of, but probably a combination of these down scale economy do it your self MIckey Mouse Personal Protection Equipment, PPEs, they are giving them that are too hot to wear in African heat for more than 20 to 30 minutes and probably also the lack of proper training on how to use them.
We should send in one one division in Aghanistan and 1% of the money we are spending on the stupid F-35s that do no work and have the army set up solar powered field hospitals so they have electricity and running water and sewers and air conditioning and decent First World standard PPEs.
We need to make our global responses world class an worthy of the capacity our species may have for intelligence, compassion, and common sense.
Don't make me come down there! Let's shape up and get with a smarter program!