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War Crimes - the case against Israel

AMNESTY International has accused Israel of war crimes, saying it broke international law by deliberately destroying Lebanon's civilian infrastructure during its war with Hezbollah guerrillas.

The human rights organisation said the pattern and scope of the Israeli attacks, the high number of civilian casualties, widespread damage and statements by Israeli officials "indicate that such destruction was deliberate and part of a military strategy, rather than 'collateral damage'."

Amnesty, whose delegates monitored the fighting, said Israel violated international laws banning direct attacks on civilians and barring indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks.

"The scale of the destruction was just extraordinary," said Amnesty researcher Donatella Rovera, who visited Lebanon during the war and co-authored the report.

"There is clear evidence of disproportionate and indiscriminate attacks."

The group urged the United Nations to look into whether both combatants, Israel and Hezbollah, broke international law.
What's there to look into? Anyone with eyes can see that Israel is guilty of war crimes.

Even Dan Gillerman, Israel's Ambassador to the UN, admits that Israel used disproportionate force.

Is Hizbullah also guilty? Possibly, though I doubt it. The statement seems calculated more to deflect accusations of bias than to impart a suggestion of guilt.

And Amnesty is not alone.

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey at Pravda outlines the case against Israel in detail:
The State of Israel is hereby accused of committing War Crimes in the conflict with Hezbollah IN Lebanon (July 12th to August 12th 2006). We present and document four counts where the Geneva Convention has been seriously breached.

Presenting an article of this type involves running a gauntlet of death threats and hacking attacks, which appear on cue normally two to three days after the document is published. However, this is not an opinion article, neither is it an unwarranted attack borne through hatred. It is objective and it is fact: The case against Israel.

THE LAW
IV, Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 12th August 1949, Part I General Provisions, Article 3 states:

In the case of armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties, each Party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum, the following provisions:

(1) Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.

To this end the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons: (a) violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;

Article 10: The provisions of the present Convention constitute no obstacle to the humanitarian activities which the International Committee of the Red Cross or any other impartial humanitarian organization may, subject to the consent of the Parties to the conflict concerned, undertake for the protection of civilian persons and for their relief.

Part II. General Protection of Populations Against Certain Consequences of War

Article 18: Civilian hospitals organized to give care to the wounded and sick, the infirm and maternity cases, may in no circumstances be the object of attack but shall at all times be respected and protected by the Parties to the conflict.

Article 24: The Parties to the conflict shall take the necessary measures to ensure that children under fifteen, who are orphaned or are separated from their families as a result of the war, are not left to their own resources, and that their maintenance, the exercise of their religion and their education are facilitated in all circumstances. Their education shall, as far as possible, be entrusted to persons of a similar cultural tradition.
THE CASE
Count 1: Breach of Part I, Art. 3.1 (a)

In attacking civilians indiscriminately by deploying munitions against their homes, by strafing civilian vehicles and by deploying cluster bombs near hospitals, the Israeli Armed Forces did not provide humane treatment for persons not taking part in hostilities. The purposeful deployment of munitions against civilian structures, the most blatant of which was the attack on the Beirut power station, constituting an act of environmental terrorism, occasioned violence to life and person and acts of murder.

Count 2: Breach of Part I, Art. 10

Humanitarian agencies were not free to circulate because the IDF refused to respect humanitarian corridors, apart from which munitions were deployed against hospitals and even ambulances and funerals were fired on.

Count 3: Breach of Part II, Art. 18

Deploying cluster munitions against hospitals is in flagrant violation of this article

Count 4: Breach of Part II, Art. 24

Not only were no measures taken, the children in question were slaughtered in their homes.
* * *

As we all know, presenting legal cases in this day and age against certain states is an academic exercise because the execution of the law is made under the current New World Order by those who break it. (cf. Case of Slobodan Milosevic, illegally kidnapped and detained before his death under illegal custody after the proper provisions to guarantee his health were disregarded). In short, international law has been hijacked by a clique of criminal states who use and abuse international norms as they wish, the epitome of the unilateralist approach.
He convinced me. What do you think?

10 Comments:

At Wednesday, August 23, 2006, Blogger Parlicoot said...

I humbly suggest that some posters to this blog arrived here via GIYUS and so will swear black is white in their defence of Israel.

The prompt to "make your comments to even the picture" is a threat if ever I heard one.

 
At Wednesday, August 23, 2006, Blogger ian jaffe said...

Hizballah is guilty of war crimes by deliberately discriminating between civilain populations on the basis of race.. religion or faith (article 3(1) of the Geneva Convention. This breach of the Convention was demonstrated by Hassan Nasrallas apology for murdering two Israeli Arab children in the Israeli town of Nazareth - the obvious implication being that no apolgy was due for Israeli Jews being murdered.

 
At Wednesday, August 23, 2006, Blogger srknl said...

Oh, the Zionist lovers and "anti-muslimites" have found this website and are bombarding this blog with their side of the story.

Well, the thing is they have their side of the story and we have ours, they have their perception of truth and we have ours. They have their facts and we have ours. They will believe in what they want to believe and we in what we want to believe and those are 2 totally different beliefs and points of views and facts.

The sad thing is this really shows there is no chance of peace cause everyone feels agrieved and wants to take revenge or to put it politically correctly "have the right to defend themselves".

The sad thing is the muslims are technologically and PR wise and unfortunately unity wise weaker so I guess we will have to take the beating for now, both physically and on our image.

No hope and no chance of peace ... SAD !!!

 
At Wednesday, August 23, 2006, Blogger gnostalgia said...

ariel975 said:

You are being childish, You are using the same propagandist methods as your superiors.

Superiors? Who are our superiors?

Again Israel belonged to the Jews long before any of the 98% Muslims set foot in this area.

That is absurd but the fact that many Israelis believe that and believe they have a moral and spiritual right to this land, based on that afore mentioned "superiority" simply shows Arabs that they have good reason to feel threatened. We are well aware of the exact dimensions of the mythical "Greater Israel" that you try to delude us all into thinking is yours.

It is even more absurd to claim Israel by birthright because most of the Jews in control of Israel now are reform Jews of European descent. They are not even Hebrews. So give us a break with this pack of distortions and lies.

As for Gaza, Israel never gave back a damn thing. Israel still occupies and controls all of Gaza and the West Bank and commits atrocities on those lands on a daily basis. These events are undisputed facts. Are these also some religious priviledge based on your superiority?

We must deal with the situation with the facts at hand.
6 million Jews are here to stay and so are the Palestinians and the other Islamic Countries.
This is the first step towards Peace. The second step is for the Islamic countries to stop preaching hatred and implementing terror.


I'm down with the first one but the second is yet another absurd distortion. You are claiming that Israel and the US are not responisble for preaching hatred and implementing terror? Ridiculous. See. You are kidding yourself if you think there can ever be peace without the truth coming out. That truth is that Israel must take responsibility for it's actions and end it's oppression and occupations of lands that DO NOT belong to them.

Waiting for the Islamic world to agree to your lies about them and allow themselves to be enslaved by that lie is insane. They will not stop fighting because death is preferable to giving in to the Israelites insane world of a superior Jew and a worthless and enslaved Goyim who line up for slaughter and injustice without resistence. Fuck that.

 
At Wednesday, August 23, 2006, Blogger gnostalgia said...

What do you expect Israel to do in these circumstances?

Have a temper tantrum and slaughter thousands of innocent people. Kill babies with phosphorus weapons, turn a million people into refugees. That's the kind of atrocity that I expect from Israel.

Israel illegally crosses the border into Lebanon and commits murder, theft and sabotage on a daily basis. Those two so called "kidnapped" soldiers did not begin this conflict. Israel did.

Israel does not want peace. It wants pieces.

There is no excuse for the crimes of Israel, no excuse for it's brutal occupation of Palestine, no excuse for it's destruction of Lebanon. All the rhetoric in the world won't change that. Israel is a racist facist apartheid state. There is certain proof of this.

People have the moral and legal right to resist occupation and the illegal acts of the occupying force.

 
At Wednesday, August 23, 2006, Blogger gnostalgia said...

The other problem is the Muslim view of logic and thought process hasn't advanced for thousands of years; they are still living so far in the past it will take thousands of years for them just to advance to the "modern" thought processes of the ancient Roman empire (which incidentally fell, also).

This is hilarious. This kind of racism is quite ignorant. I'm not a Muslim btw. I am Lebanese American and highly educated in American and British universities and most of the people you are discussing with are Americans, some of them lawyers.

That said, Muslim Arabs understand the western mind far better than we will ever understand their world. That is why they can't be defeated and enslaved like the rest of the world has been. They have power. So who is really superior in intellect and whose logic and thought process is less advanced? Your bigotry and self worship blinds you to the intelligence and strength of spirit of these amazing people. They still have their dignitity and a connection to the earth that you will never comprehend and that you will never conquer.

 
At Wednesday, August 23, 2006, Blogger gnostalgia said...

I also notice how these Israeli apologists and trolls never address the point that refute their weak arguments. They ignore all these points because they can't refute them. They know they are here to lie and obfuscate. In response to intelligent discourse they just publish more bigoted insults and baiting material and think we get mad instead of laugh at the absurdity of it.

Face it. You won't win the internet war. The truth will out...eventually. We "primitive" "backwards" Arabs have computers and we know howto use them. Gasp!

More importantly, Arabs are not the only people who have US and Israel's number. The western world is also waking up from the Jewish media's dreamtime. It's about damn time.

 
At Wednesday, August 23, 2006, Blogger Stern Gang said...

The Israeli war crimes are obvious; not only are they substantiated by the logistical and physical evidence they are also, supported by the premeditated nature of these absurd acts against civilians by the very statements made by the Israeli government during and after the war on Lebanon. Israel sought to displace Lebanese civilians and destroy Lebanon's infrastructure in order to put pressure on the civilian population and the government.

Amnesty International in its report said that it would addresss the actions taking by Hizballah in a subsequent report. There is no measure of hipocracy in examining the specific war crimes committting by Israel in light of the forthcoming analysis on Hizballah.

Israel is the premier military power in the region -- having possession of disproportionate and ultimate capablities of violence. An entire country was obliterated by the Israeli warmachine, while they've tried to frame this outrage in a context of self-defense. Israel continues to play the victim role when in fact they have always been the capable aggressor.

Did some Hizballah actions during the war contravene the conventions of legal miltary conduct? Obviously, some instances of transgression exist. Justice always involves a balancing of culpability. Since Israel utilized a disproportionate amount of violence and was in a better position to mitigate not only the level of destruction but also the escalation of violence. Therefore, Israel holds more liability.

Unfortunately, Israel is not a member of the ICC (International Criminal Court?) and the United Nations is a moot venue to seek justice precisely because the US usually, wields its veto power to shield Israel from having to meet its responsibilities and face repercussions for its crimes.

Nevertheless, Israel's war on Lebanon can and is being judged in the court of world opinion. We in the world have found Israel guilty as charged. Israel's condemnation is not limited to Arabs. Europeans, Central and South Americans as well as Asians nations have all expressed their repugnance with Israel's heavy hand in its destruction of the lives of many thousands in Lebanon. The fact that we can't look to international governmental bodies to seek redresss to Israel's crime doesn't limit our power to hold it accountable. The people of the world can begin to withdraw support from Israel by refusing to purchase its products and services. The all-powerful State of Apartheid South Africa came crashing down on similar grass- roots opposition to its racist bantustan policies. We have a precedent and a blue print to go forward.

Isreal must learn that its dominance of violence will not find it peace and only moderation can lead the way to a brighter future that dims the fires of hate on all sides.

I truly, hope that peace can somehow reign in the middle east however, I am certain there can never be any peace without justice.

 
At Thursday, August 24, 2006, Blogger srknl said...

Oded,

Are you saying that Israel suffered as much as Lebanon did in this war but is not crying about it to the world like Lebanon is??

Given, I do not live in that area and am ignorant of many facts but that is something i do not and can not believe that Israel suffered just as badly as Lebanon but is not crying about it.

With most of the western mainstream media being under Zionist control and fighting the Israel and Zionist propoganda war and running the PR programme for them, I refuse to believe that they would show more death and destruction in Lebanon and not show or broadcast the Israeli destruction to let the world see that Hizbollah is causing such havoc in Israel.

The truth of the matter is that it was a totally dispropotionate war and that fact cannot be disputed.

 
At Friday, August 25, 2006, Blogger gnostalgia said...

A Palestinian Entity? What is a Palestinian Entity?

 

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