Stephen Lendman

Writer, poet, playwright, sculptor, artist, and Nobel laureate Grass is regarded as Germany's most celebrated author.

Awarded the 1999 Nobel Prize in Literature, the Swedish Academy said his "frolicsome black fables portray the forgotten face of history."

It credited his first novel, "The Tin Drum," with restoring honor to German literature "after decades of linguistic and moral destruction."

It "comes to grips with the enormous task of reviewing contemporary history by recalling the disavowed and the forgotten: the victims, losers and lies that people wanted to forget because they had once believed in them."

Published in 1959, "The Tin Drum" became one of the most admired and revealing allegories of guilt and complicity. He once said he "believe(d) it....a good thing that a writer does not sit on the side of the victors." He also called Germany a psychologically damaged society.

His writings stirred controversy. He's done it again. On April 4, Haaretz headlined, "German Nobel laureate Guenter Grass' new poem: Nuclear Israel is a threat to world peace," saying:

Now age 84, his new poem "calls for Germany to cease supplying Israel with submarines (able to carry nuclear-armed missiles), and warns against an Israeli strike on Iran."

"Israel's nuclear potential has been stealthily growing for years," he said, with no international supervision. Fearing the worst, he added that "Germany could be responsible for a crime that can be foreseen."

Der Spiegel headlined, "Nobel Laureate Grass Attacks Israel in New Poem," saying:

"Germany's most famous living author....sparked outrage in Germany....with the publication of a poem, "What must be said," in which he sharply criticizes Israel's policies on Iran."

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Palestinian Centre for Human Rights

International Criminal Court Prosecutor Luis Moreno
Ocampo (Photo: David Kawai / Postmedia News)

ICC Office of the Prosecutor decides not to open investigations into situation of Palestine.

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) wishes to express its extreme disappointment following the decision by the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC) not to open an investigation in the situation Palestine. This situation has been under examination by the Court for more than 3 years; in response to the suspected commission of grave war crimes and possible crimes against humanity in the context of Israel’s 27 December 2008 – 18 January 2009 offensive on the Gaza Strip (Operation ‘Cast Lead’), Palestine lodged a declaration recognizing the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court in accordance with Article 12(3) of the Court’s Statute on 22 January 2009.

Following all parties’ proven failure to fulfil their obligations to effectively investigate the crimes committed in the context of Operation Cast Lead, the ICC represented the most appropriate forum to pursue accountability. This was in fact one of the key recommendations of the UN Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, which triggered a complex (and as yet uncompleted) follow-up process at the UN level.

The conclusions of the UN Fact-Finding Mission regarding the suspected commission of international crimes during Operation Cast Lead were substantiated by a number of reports from independent human rights organisations, such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and FIDH, as well as the Report of the Fact-Finding Commission mandated by the Arab League. The Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC received hundreds of complaints and requests by victims of the attacks on the Gaza Strip seeking the urgent opening of independent investigations at the international level. PCHR and its partners submitted numerous case files on victims’ behalf to the Office of the Prosecutor.

PCHR believes that the ICC Prosecutor has completely failed to address this issue in an appropriate manner.

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Stephen Lendman

Established by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on July 1, 2002, it's mandated to prosecute individuals for genocide and aggression, as well as crimes or war and against humanity.

Instead, it functions solely as an imperial tool. It supports wealth and power. It targets independent states Washington and other Western nations oppose. In the process, it lets America and rogue NATO powers get away with murder.

Chief prosecutor Jose Luis Moreno Ocampo is complicit in their crimes. Now he's done it again. On April 3, Haaretz headlined, "ICC rejects Palestinian bid to investigate Israeli war crimes during 'Cast Lead' Gaza operation," saying:

On Tuesday, Ocampo rejected the PA's request. His reasoning was spurious. He claimed under the Rome Statute, "only internationally recognized states can join the court." His official statement said:

ze="2">■ "(T)he current status granted to Palestine by the United Nations General Assembly is that of 'observer,' not as a 'Non-member State,' (and only) relevant bodies at the United Nations" or group of states that make up the court may decide if Palestinians can become part of the Rome Statute.

■ "(T)he Office has assessed that it is for the relevant bodies at the United Nations or the Assembly of States Parties to make the legal determination whether Palestine qualifies as a State for the purpose of acceding to the Rome Statute and thereby enabling the exercise of jurisdiction by the Court."

■ "The Rome Statute provides no authority for the Office of the Prosecutor to adopt a method to define the term 'State.' "

Fact check

Palestine IS a state. Over 140 nations recognize it, well over the required General Assembly's two-thirds majority. In the late 1980s, Francis Boyle drafted Palestine's declaration of independence.

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James Bamford

The NSA's new super-secret 1-million-square-foot data center
in Utah. Photo: Name Withheld (Wired)

"What is especially troubling is that both companies have had extensive ties to Israel, as well as links to that country’s intelligence service, a country with a long and aggressive history of spying on the U.S."

In fact, according to Binney, the advanced analytical and data mining software the NSA had developed for both its worldwide and international eavesdropping operations was secretly passed to Israel by a mid-level employee, apparently with close connections to the country. The employee, a technical director in the Operations Directorate, “who was a very strong supporter of Israel,” said Binney, “gave, unbeknownst to us, he gave the software that we had, doing these fast rates, to the Israelis.”

Because of his position, it was something Binney should have been alerted to, but wasn’t.

“In addition to being the technical director,” he said, “I was the chair of the TAP, it’s the Technical Advisory Panel, the foreign relations council. We’re supposed to know what all these foreign countries, technically what they’re doing…. They didn’t do this that way, it was under the table.” After discovering the secret transfer of the technology, Binney argued that the agency simply pass it to them officially, and in that way get something in return, such as access to communications terminals. “So we gave it to them for switches,” he said. “For access.”

But Binney now suspects that Israeli intelligence in turn passed the technology on to Israeli companies who operate in countries around the world, including the U.S. In return, the companies could act as extensions of Israeli intelligence and pass critical military, economic and diplomatic information back to them.

“And then five years later, four or five years later, you see a Narus device,” he said. “I think there’s a connection there, we don’t know for sure.”

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