Globalizing Gaza: How Israel Undermines International Law

Jeff Halper

Operation Protective Edge was not merely a military assault on a primarily civilian population. As in its previous “operations” (Cast Lead in 2008-9 and Pillar of Defense in 2012), it was also part of an ongoing assault on international humanitarian law (IHL) by a highly coordinated team of Israeli lawyers, military officers, PR people and politicians, led by (no less) a philosopher of ethics. It is an effort not only to get Israel off the hook for massive violations of human rights and international law, but to help other governments overcome similar constraints when they embark as well on “asymmetrical warfare,” “counterinsurgency” and “counter-terrorism” against peoples resisting domination. It is a campaign that Israel calls “lawfare” and had better be taken seriously by us all.

The urgency of this campaign has been underscored by a series of notable legal setbacks and challenges Israel has incurred over the past decade or so, beginning with the indictment of Ariel Sharon in 2001 by a Belgian court over his involvement in the Sabra and Shatila massacres, for which he escaped trial. In the wake of Operation Defensive Shield in 2002, when Sharon’s government oversaw the demolition of hundreds of Palestinian homes in the West Bank, the utter destruction of virtually all the infrastructure of Palestinian cities, the death of 497 Palestinians and the arrest of 7000 people, Israel was accused of war crimes, but succeeded in foiling a UN investigation.


At daggers drawn with 'demonized flesh' (1)

Alan Ireland


The myth of nation: American Progress by
John Gast, circa 1872.

Murray Dixon and the specter of Christian Zionism

PART ONE - Christian Zionism: a 'heresy' defined

If Israel falls so does our salvation. ~ Dennis McLeod, director, Christian Friends of Israel NZ, in Challenge Weekly, August 7, 2006.

We are in a fight for our lives and with each passing day the world comes against us with more venom and hatred. There is a lying spirit at work in the world and in your nation that is demonizing Israel and perversly calling Palestinian terrorists innocent victims. We are fighting not only demonized flesh but powers and principalities, the father of lies. — Appeal by Christians in Israel.

But for the mention of Israel and Palestinian terrorists, one could be forgiven for thinking the above passage, with its reference to "demonized flesh", was written during the witch-hunting hysteria of the 17th century. In reality, it was written by a group of Christian Zionists in April 2002, to solicit demonstrative support for Israel in "it's (sic) hour of need". The 45 signatories to the appeal included Murray Dixon, of Israel Trust of the Anglican Church (ITAC). Among the others were representatives of such organizations as Jews for Jesus, Intercessors for Israel, and Trumpet of Salvation.

Readers of the Manawatu Standard in Palmerston North, New Zealand, have been introduced to Dixon on several occasions.

He is one of the people the paper turns to when it wants a comment from a local person or former local person with expertise in, or a personal connection to, a topic of interest or current event. On July 26, 2006, the paper described him as "rector of Christ Church, an Anglican church in the old city of Jerusalem". By July 28, he had become "vicar of a Jerusalem church". On both days, he was able to provide the paper with what were presented as glimpses of life in Israel during the opening days of the fighting with Hezb Allah in southern Lebanon.


Profile of a Rogue State

Stephen Lendman

America is unmatched globally. However, pound for pound, based on size, its policies, and regional threat, Israel stands out. Daily, its crimes against humanity continue.

On January 23, Jerusalem police arrested two Palestinian officials, Khaled Abu Arafeh and Mohammed Totah.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said both men were wanted for unspecified "Hamas activities" with no further comment.

Hamas, of course, is Palestine's legitimate government. Israel and America spuriously call it a terrorist organization. Hamas spokesman Mushir al-Masri said arresting both men was a "Zionist crime." Palestine's parliament hasn't functioned since Hamas and Fatah split in 2007.

Both men were arrested at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Sheikh Jarrah offices. For the past 18 months, they sought refuge there protesting Israel's illegal deportation orders after their ID cards were revoked.

Abu Arafah served as Hamas minister for Jerusalem affairs. Totah's a Hamas PLC representative. Months earlier, Hamas legislator Mahmoud Atoun was arrested. He also sought ICRC refuge.

Hamas parliamentarians are repeatedly targeted. Around two dozen remain imprisoned. Twenty are uncharged under administrative detention. At one time, 40 Hamas PLC members were lawlessly incarcerated for belonging to the wrong party, not any crimes they committed.


Israeli Occupation, Colonialism and Apartheid: Crimes Against Humanity

Stephen Lendman

[Photo: A Palestine woman reacts over relatives moments after they were killed in a US/Israel missile strike outside their home in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza Strip, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2009. US/Israel mortar shells struck three U.N. schools where hundreds of Palestine people had sought refuge. The shells killed more than 40 people, many of them children. (The WE!)]

Colonialism and apartheid are especially serious international law breaches because they fundamentally violate core legal principles and values.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) affirmed self-determination as an essential principle of international law. All states must respect and promote it. Colonial occupation is in clear violation.

The 1960 Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples (the Declaration on Colonialism), condems "colonialism in all its forms and manifestations," including illegal settlements.

According to the 1973 International Convention for the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (the Apartheid Convention), this practice is state-sanctioned discriminatory "inhuman" racism "committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them."

Apartheid is an international crime. The above definition builds on the 1965 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD).

In addition, the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court calls apartheid a crime under the Court's jurisdiction. Israel is flagrantly guilty but yet to be held accountable.


The Greatest Depression

Stephen Lendman

One sign is the enormous worldwide financial shock, erasing nearly $8 trillion of equity wealth since late July. Another is teetering global economies, notably across Europe and America.

Still another is growing poverty, deprivation, and despair for millions without jobs, enough income, or futures. Combined they indicate Depression in its early stages and deepening.

In 2008, trends analyst Gerald Celente predicted it, saying:

"All levels of government will be caught up in the private sector collapse as tax bases shrink and tax revenues sharply decline. Attempts to make up shortfalls by raising taxes, tuition and tolls, and imposing higher user and license fees, will do little to resolve the problems, but will do a lot to infuriate citizens."

Indeed so disruptively across Europe - in Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Ireland, Britain and elsewhere with much more potentially anywhere for long denied social justice.

On August 6, rioting began in Tottenham, North London after police shot and killed Mark Duggan, a 29-year old father of four. It triggered other outbreaks on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday in Brixton, Enfield, Walthamstow, Islington, Hackney, Croydon, Lewisham, Peckham, Clapham, Ealing, central London, and Birmingham, Britain's second largest city.

They also spread to Liverpool, Manchester, and elsewhere as raging anger set Britain ablaze. On August 9, London Guardian writers Vikram Dodd and Caroline Davies headlined, "London riots escalate as police battle for control," saying:

"Buildings were torched, shops ransacked, and officers attacked with makeshift missiles and petrol bombs (as) youths laid waste to streets right across the city. The sheer number of incidents (rage) on a breathtaking scale."

Celente warned about it numerous times on a global scale, saying:

"When people lose everything and have nothing else to lose, they lose it."

In Britain, across Europe, and potentially anywhere under intolerable social conditions, a spark can ignite a firestorm, triggering anything from peaceful protests to violent rage.

Britain's ablaze from the latter. Since mid-July, Israel experienced the former, unprecedented nonviolent street protests for long-denied social justice.


Israeli Home Demolition Terrorism

Stephen Lendman

Co-founded (with Meir Marglit) and directed by Jeff Halper, the Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions (ICAHD) "is a non-violent, direct-action organization established in 1998 to resist Israeli demolition of Palestinian houses in the Occupied Territories."

ICAHD also helps rebuild homes. In addition, it resists "land expropriation, settlement expansions, by-pass road construction, policies of 'closure' and 'separation,' " as well as destruction of agricultural land and crops. It also works for peace, equity, and ending Israel's illegal occupation.

Access its web site through this link.

It estimates over 24,800 West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza houses demolished since 1967 (4,247 during Cast Lead, according to the UN).

It classifies demolition types as:

punishment for actions associated with the structures (about 8.5%);
administrative for lacking building permits (about 26%);
land-clearing/military demolitions for any reason, including achieving IDF goals or accompanying extrajudicial assassinations (about 65.5%); and
other undefined reasons.

In fact, Israel's demolition and displacement policies are serious international law breaches for any reason. Nonetheless, they continue as official state policy to steal Palestinian land for Israelis, an issue Western media ignore, as well as other Israeli crimes of war and against humanity.


In Ramadan, where is the story of Islam and the Muslims?

Bouthaina Shaaban
Middle East Monitor


Prof. Bouthaina Shaaban

The noise made by the publication of photos on Facebook by Israeli soldier, Abergil Eden, showing off her being a jailer of handcuffed and blindfolded Palestinian civilians, shows once again that there is a new kind of Western wars against Muslim nations. These wars started when Europe waged its wars to occupy Palestine under the slogan of 'regaining the holy land' and culminated with settler colonialism waged under the slogan of returning to the 'promised land'. In an article about the subject, Dan Murphy writes, "Israeli soldier Facebook photos: Youth culture and rules of war collide" (Christian Science Monitor, 17 August 2010). In a subtitle, the article stresses that the photos violated Israeli army and international rules concerning taking photographs of prisoners.

The soldier did not seem to know what is wrong with posting these photographs; something also done by other Israeli soldiers, while international war circles found that the 'incident' highlights the difficulties faced by western armies – always in the act of aggression – in 'controlling the flow of photos and information in the age of YouTube, Wikileeks and digital cameras. This 'incident' brings to mind the scandal of publishing photos of torturing Iraqi civilians by the soldiers of 'American democracy' in Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo and tens of other secret prisons in which the murderers of the 'free world' practice all kinds of torture against kidnapped 'suspected' innocent people.

Wikipedia recently published thousands of documents about the acts of genocide committed by NATO forces against unarmed civilians in Afghanistan and the consequences of such acts on decisions taken by the Pentagon, the White House and the Congress. The Guardian published an op-ed entitled "Wikipedia editing courses launched by Zionist groups" (18 August 2010) about Two Israeli groups which set up training courses in Wikipedia editing with aims to 'show the other side' over borders and culture. This means that Israel, as usual, wants to control the news about Israeli crimes of torture, assassination and oppression against Palestinian civilians so that the world finds it difficult to know about what Israel is doing in terms of ethnic cleansing, displacement, house demolishing, murder, torture and humiliating the native population. The reason is that the open information space, despite Zionist attempts to control it, has started to expose their crimes in Palestine and also expose the false official western position regarding them.


Israeli Academic Freedom at Risk

Stephen Lendman


Dr. Ilan Pappe

Born in Haifa, the son of German-Jewish immigrants who fled during the Nazi period, noted historian Ilan Pappe left Israel in summer 2007, telling London Guardian writer Chris Arnot he began "feeling for a while like public enemy No. 1" for his anti-Zionist views and supporting a boycott against Israeli universities, saying:

"I supported (it) because I believe that without pressure, Israel will not end the occupation....I believe that things would change only if Israel receives a strong message that as long as the occupation continues it would not be a legitimate member of the international community, and that until then its academics, doctors and authors would not be welcome. A similar boycott was imposed on South Africa. It took 21 years, but it eventually led to the end of Apartheid."

Now chairing Britain's Exeter University's history department, he explained by the time he left, the Knesset publicly condemned him and Israel's education minister, Yuli Tamir, wanted him sacked.

In addition, death threats came by mail, email and phone, and his picture once appeared in Israel's "biggest-selling newspaper at the centre of a target," the caption reading: "I'm not telling you to kill this person, but I shouldn't be surprised if someone did."

An environment this hostile got him to leave, the same one today afflicting other Israeli academics, opposing policies they don't accept, nor should anyone respecting the rule of law, democratic freedoms, and equal justice, endangered species in Israel for Jews - non-existent for Occupied Palestinians and Israeli Arab citizens.


The Message of the Bulldozers

Jeff Halper


Shocking footage of the abuse of Palestinian residents, by settlers
and Israeli soldiers, has been exposed by these cameras. (Intifada
-Voice of Palestine
)

On the day before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan began, at 2:30 in the morning, workers sent by the Israeli authorities, protected by dozens of police, destroyed the tombstones in the last portion of the Mamilla cemetery, an historic Muslim burial ground with graves going back to the 7th Century, hitherto left untouched. The government of Israel has always been fully cognizant of the sanctity and historic significance of the site. Already in 1948, when control of the cemetery reverted to Israel, the Israeli Religious Affairs Ministry recognized Mamilla “to be one of the most prominent Muslim cemeteries, where seventy thousand Muslim warriors of [Saladin’s] armies are interred along with many Muslim scholars. Israel will always know to protect and respect this site.” For all that, and despite (proper) Israeli outrage when Jewish cemeteries are desecrated anywhere in the world, the dismantlement of the Mamilla cemetery has been systematic. In the 1960s “Independence Park” was built over a portion of it; subsequently an urban road was built through it, major electrical cables were laid over graves and a parking lot constructed over yet another piece. Now some 1,500 Muslim graves have been cleared in several nighttime operations to make way for…..a $100 million Museum of Tolerance and Human Dignity, a project of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. (Ironically, Rabbi Marvin Hier, the Wiesenthal Center’s Director, appeared on Fox News to express his opposition to the construction of a mosque near Ground Zero in Manhattan, because the site of the 9/11 attack “is a cemetery.”)

The month-long period between Netanyahu’s July 6th visit to Washington and the start of Ramadan has provided Israel with a window to “clear the table” after a frustrating hiatus on home demolitions imposed by the “old,” mildly critical Obama Administration – although there is no guarantee that Israel will not demolish during Ramadan, especially if it wants to exploit the period until the November elections, knowing that until then Obama will not overtly oppose anything it does in the Occupied Territories. In fact, the process of demolishing Palestinian homes never ceased. On June 6th, for example, a year after the demolition of more than 65 structures and the forced displacement of more than 120 people, including 66 children, nine families of Khirbet Ar Ras Ahmar in the Jordan Valley, totaling 70 people, received a new round of “evacuation orders.” A week later the Israeli High Court ordered the Civil Administration to “step up enforcement against illegal Palestinian structures” in Area C, the 60% of the West Bank under full Israeli control.


Terrorists United Against Peace—Illusion Versus Reality

William A. Cook

A confluence of news stories emerged this past week that, if related, shed an unusual light on the deteriorating crisis in the mid-east, most especially on Palestine and Iran. On June 27th, Ha’aretz made this observation about discussions at the G-8 meeting in Ontario: “World leaders ‘believe absolutely’ that Israel may decide to take military action against Iran to prevent the latter from acquiring nuclear weapons,” citing a statement made by Italy’s PM Silvio Berlusconi. Indeed, he went on to say that “Israel will probably act preemptively.” So engaged were the representatives of the G-8 that they issued a statement “calling on Iran to ‘respect the rule of law’ and to ‘hold a transparent dialogue’ over its nuclear ambitions.” Their statement went on to say that Iran should show a ‘commitment to international law’.

On July 7th, Newsmax, in an article titled “Lieberman: US Prepared to Strike Iran to Stop Nuclear Weapons” states: “The United States may be forced to launch an attack on Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities if diplomatic efforts and economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic fail, Sen. Joseph Lieberman said Wednesday after a meeting with Israeli officials in Jerusalem.”

On July 11th, Ali Asghar Soltaniyeh told Press TV that “over a 100 countries in the general conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency have condemned Israel for not cooperating with the IAEA. The Zionist regime has refused to sign the Non Proliferation Treaty and it is believed that the regime has about 200 nuclear warheads capable of being mounted on long-range missiles and a stockpile of chemical and biological weapons.”. How are these stories related?


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