International Criminal Court probing possible war crimes in Gaza conflict

[Hindustani78]

Friday, January 16, 2015 12:46PM EST
THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court launched a preliminary probe Friday that could clear the way for a full-scale investigation into possible war crimes in Palestinian territories -- plunging the court into the most politically charged conflict it has ever tackled.

Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said in a statement she will conduct the preliminary examination with "full independence and impartiality."

Potential cases Bensouda could take on include allegations of war crimes by Israel during last summer's Gaza war where the Palestinians suffered heavy civilian casualties. Israel's settlement construction on occupied Palestinian lands could also be examined.

The cases could also include alleged war crimes by Hamas, which controls Gaza, including the firing of thousands of rockets at Israeli residential areas from crowded neighbourhoods.

The prosecutor's announcement comes after the Palestinian Authority acceded to The Hague-based court's founding treaty and recognized its jurisdiction dating back to July, the eve of the last Gaza war. That move opened the door to an ICC investigation that could target possible crimes by both Israel, which is not a member of the court, and Palestinians.

A preliminary examination is not an investigation, but weighs information about possible crimes and jurisdiction issues to establish whether a full investigation is merited.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki welcomed the move and said the Palestinian Authority would co-operate.

"The Palestinian people called upon us to go to court and ask for an investigation and therefore we consider the announcement today as a historic event," he said.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman slammed the probe as stemming "entirely from political and anti-Israel considerations" and said he would recommend not co-operating. "This is a scandalous decision whose only goal is to try and damage Israel's right to defend itself against terrorism," he said.

Israel has accused Hamas, the Islamic militant group sworn to Israel's destruction that rules Gaza, of using Palestinian civilians as human shields by launching rockets and carrying out other attacks from within crowded neighbourhoods, putting them at risk in the event of an Israeli counterstrike, while purposely attacking civilians in Israel.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas signed documents to join the ICC a day after the U.N. Security Council rejected a resolution Dec. 30 that would have set a three-year deadline for the establishment of a Palestinian state on lands occupied by Israel.

Joining the ICC is part of a broader Palestinian strategy to pressure Israel into withdrawing from the occupied territories and agreeing to Palestinian statehood. Abbas had been under heavy domestic pressure to take stronger action against Israel after the 50-day war between the Jewish state and militants in Gaza over the summer, tensions over holy sites in Jerusalem and the failure of the last round of U.S.-led peace talks.

Israel retaliated to the Palestinian move to join the ICC by freezing the transfer of more than $100 million a month in taxes it collects for the Palestinians.

Bensouda cast the decision to open a preliminary probe as procedural following the Palestinians' recognition of the court. It is unclear how long the preliminary examination might take. Bensouda said "there are no timelines" set in the court's founding treaty.

The prosecutor is currently conducting eight preliminary examinations in Honduras, Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Colombia, Georgia, Guinea and Nigeria. Some have been going on for years.

Judges at the court must approve any request by the prosecution office for a full investigation.

Established in 2002, the court has struggled to live up to high expectations that it would end impunity for high-ranking perpetrators of atrocities in conflicts around the globe.

It has completed only three trials, ending in two convictions and an acquittal, all of rebel leaders from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The court has no police force to secure crime scenes, gather evidence and arrest suspects and has repeatedly had trouble gaining custody of indicted suspects such as Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who has been charged with genocide in the conflict-torn Darfur region of his country.

Associated Press writers Ian Deitch in Jerusalem and Mohammed Daraghmeh in Ramallah
International Criminal Court opens probe into possible war crimes in Palestinian territories | CTV News

 

[Solomon2]

Information Warfare: Palestinians Ignore Their Worst Enemy

January 20, 2015: The Palestinians have been trying to gain admission to the UN, even though do not have a functioning government and are in fact split into two entities with Hamas controlling Gaza and Fatah the West Bank. Undeterred the Palestinians are trying to gain admission to the ICC (International Criminal Court) so they can prosecute Israel for killing Palestinians. This, they believe, would enable anti-Israel Arabs and Westerners to weaken Israel and eventually destroy it.

Israel gets accused of war crimes a lot, but proving it is another matter. Israel commanders and troops have long complained about the government giving into anti-Israel groups and investigating soldiers for “war crimes.” These charges never stick but the troops feel that after risking their lives to halt the rocket attacks coming out of Gaza they don’t deserve this sort of harassment, especially since the Palestinians regularly praise terrorists, even those that kill children, as heroes. Israeli soldiers follow rules, Palestinian terrorists do not.

It is believed that if the Palestinians do gain access to the ICC their attempts to prosecute Israel for war crimes will backfire. That’s because far more Palestinians are killed by other Palestinians (and other Arabs) than by Israelis. For example over 2,500 Palestinians have been killed in the Syrian Civil War since 2011. Hundreds were tortured to death and more than that were executed, often in gruesome ways, for being on the wrong side or for “blasphemy”. In Gaza hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in factional fighting or executed by Hamas for various offenses (like disagreeing with Hamas rule.) In the last half century more far more Palestinians have been killed by Arabs than Israelis. This would appear to be a more significant target for ICC investigation than the much smaller number of Palestinians killed by Israelis. Arab countries block such investigations in the UN and ICC, usually with success.

So why do Arab or Palestinian killers get ignored while Israeli troops get investigated? Part of the reason is because Israel does investigate when their troops or police are suspected of misbehavior against Palestinians For example in early December 2014 Israel announced it was opening investigations into eight incidents from the 50 day war with Hamas in July and August. These incidents were cited by Palestinians as Israeli war crimes. But investigations tend to show that they was no such thing.

Part of the problem is that Palestinians cannot accept the fact that Hamas fired thousands of rockets into Israel and deployed thousands of gunmen against a smaller force of Israeli troops who entered Gaza during the 50 Day War yet at the end of it all there were over 2,000 dead Palestinians (most of them Hamas members) and only 73 dead on the Israeli side (six of them civilians and one of those a foreign worker). To Palestinians this was clear evidence that the Israelis must have done something really, really evil to achieve such an outcome and whatever they did must be a war crime.

The political theater at the UN, where Palestinian supporters (mainly other Moslem states) ignore the Palestinian worship of terrorism while declaring Israeli efforts to defend itself a war crime means that there is automatic support for just about anything the Palestinians want. But the fact remains that other Palestinians and Arabs in general are a greater threat to Palestinian lives than Israel.

All this is made worse by the growing anti-Israel attitudes in the West. The Palestinian accusations, and willful ignorance of Palestinians killed by Arabs has been increasingly supported in the West, especially among leftist political groups, who automatically agree with the Palestinians that Israel must be doing something wrong. Israel points out that their Arab and Western critics would, and do, respond as Israel does when attacked by nearby terrorists but that fact is ignored. Well, not completely. Many Arabs, especially Arab diplomats who know a lot about Israel and the Palestinians, privately agree with the Israelis. But to openly point out the reality of the situation in the Moslem world will get you death threats, or worse. In the West it’s safer to point out the obvious although in leftist political circles the pro-Palestinian supporters can be loud and even a little violent at times. In Europe this has led to more tolerance of anti-Semitic violence and more European Jews moving to Israel (and elsewhere). The anti-Israel situation in Europe is largely the result of millions of Moslems moving to Europe (often as refugees) in the last few decades. The Moslems tend to cluster together and leftist politicians seek the support of Moslems by backing positions favored by Moslems (like the destruction of Israel). The leftist politicians are often placated by introducing, or just supporting anti-Israel proposals in the UN. These have little chance of passing, but show Moslem voters in Europe that they are being served.

The Israelis have learned two things about such accusations; they are almost always false and they fall apart on close examination. The Palestinians are not dismayed by these failures and often come to believe their own lies. But the Israelis continue to win by investigating the war crimes accusations and uncovering more Palestinian deceit and self-delusion. Yet Israeli troops feel they are collateral damage in these investigations and are not happy about it. The pain of these falsely accused soldiers may not be in vain because if the true facts of the situation got more media attention it might result in more efforts to halt the slaughter of Arabs by Arabs, which is and always have been the biggest threat to Arabs.

 

[Superboy]

That thing's controlled by the US, is it not?