Tag: War crime

Hugo Chávez accuses Israel of genocide

Rory McCarthy | The Guardian

9 September 2009

Hugo Chávez, the Venezuelan president, has accused Israel of genocide against the Palestinians, saying the offensive in Gaza early this year was unprovoked.

“The question is not whether the Israelis want to exterminate the Palestinians. They’re doing it openly,” he was quoted as saying in an interview with the French newspaper, Le Figaro.

“What was it, if not genocide? … The Israelis were looking for an excuse to exterminate the Palestinians.” His comments came after a tour of Middle Eastern and Arab countries.

Israel has maintained that the three-week Gaza assault was a response to rockets fired from Gaza by militant groups. However, several human rights groups have said that both Israel and Palestinian militant groups, notably Hamas, breached international law and should be investigated for possible war crimes.

A key UN report on the conflict, led by the respected South African judge Richard Goldstone, is due to be published within weeks.

New casualty figures for the Gaza offensive, compiled after months of research by an Israeli human rights group, show 1,387 Palestinians died, of whom more than half were not taking part in hostilities. The research from B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights organisation, challenges figures produced by the Israeli military, which argued that far fewer Palestinian civilians died.

B’Tselem said that its field researchers in Gaza interviewed witnesses and relatives of the dead, cross-checked information with Palestinian and international rights groups and with Israeli military statements. “B’Tselem did everything within its capability to verify the data,” the group said. It had asked to see an Israeli military list of fatalities but was refused. Israeli authorities also refused to allow Israeli and West Bank staff from B’Tselem to enter Gaza for the work.

The research found that 773 of those Palestinians killed were not taking part in hostilities; among them were 320 children under the age of 18. Field workers from the group visited the homes of the dead children, checking photographs, death certificates and other documents to establish the toll.

Another 330 of the dead were involved in the fighting and 248 were police officers killed at their police stations, most in a wave of air strikes on the first day of the conflict.

On the Israeli side, three civilians were killed by Palestinian militant rocket fire and 10 soldiers died, four of whom were killed accidentally by their own troops.

The Israeli military has released its own casualty figures for Palestinian deaths, saying 295 civilians were killed out of a total of 1,166 deaths, but has refused to publish its list of fatalities. The military said it believed that the B’Tselem report was “not based on facts or on accurate statistics”.

Although the military defended its conduct in the war, it has emerged that officers have started taking witness testimony from some Palestinians whose relatives were killed and injured. On Monday, Israeli military officers questioned Khaled Abed Rabbo, who saw two of his daughters shot dead by Israeli troops during the war. A third daughter was severely injured. The troops then demolished the family’s house, in Izbet Abed Rabbo, one of the worst damaged villages in Gaza.

Morality’s chief of staff

Gideon Levy | Ha’aretz

16 August 2009

Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi is a moral and ethical paragon who stands atop an organization that is no less moral or ethical. Last week, he broke his silence and proved his acute sensitivity to matters of conscience: “We have not one gram of tolerance,” the chief of staff said in a loud and clear voice, referring to those who had hazed soldiers. “We ought to view this incident as a reminder of the high ethical threshold expected of us,” he said in a clear and crisp voice, referring to the affair involving Brig. Gen. Imad Fares.

However, on the same day the chief of staff – who brags of his “high ethical threshold” – made his statements, a report commissioned by U.S.-based Human Rights Watch was made public. It stated that during Operation Cast Lead, the Israel Defense Forces killed 11 civilians, including five women and four children, who were carrying white flags, an act that has been characterized as a war crime. This should have been far more shocking, but we did not hear one word about it from the chief of staff. For this, he had kilograms of tolerance.

The IDF under Ashkenazi, who demanded that the army “scour with a steel comb every platoon and squad” in response to the hazing incident, did not investigate the killing of white-flag bearers. All of a sudden the IDF – whose spokesman, Brig. Gen. Avi Benayahu, launched a disgraceful delegitimization campaign against the rights group Breaking the Silence for daring to take shocking testimonials from soldiers – is backing an investigation of every tent. “We ought to encourage revelations,” the fearlessly investigating chief of staff said of those hectoring soldiers, as the IDF stifles any possibility of revealing suspicions of war crimes.

If only our camp were clean, clean of those who abuse soldiers, purged of the minor liars. Allowing a child to drive an IDF-issued all-terrain vehicle? Forbidden. Killing children carrying white flags? Allowed. Lying about allowing your wife to drive an army-issued car? Forbidden. Killing women? Allowed. Administrative minutiae – a wife driving her husband’s car, a son driving an ATV and the hazing of fresh recruits – are grave matters. Mistakenly killing civilians is permitted. This is the message.

If abusing soldiers is forbidden and abusing Palestinians is permitted, we are talking about two sets of morals. The result is a double standard and dehumanization. When Ashkenazi says, “As officers we are measured in our ability to serve as a worthy personal example,” he is referring to trifling matters, like the Fares farce (and now we can add to this the grotesque case of the stolen credit card). He is not referring to ethical issues or problems of conscience. The extreme care given to such trivial matters is a wonderful fig leaf for the IDF because it allows it to prove “morality” and whitewash all allegations of war crimes.

Fares, like Brig. Gen. Moshe (Chico) Tamir before him, committed minor sins. Tamir, he of the ATV, was involved in far more grievous actions, including the errant killing of civilians in Jenin and Gaza, acts for which nobody thought to demote him. When the IDF responds with such force against two accomplished officers – boy, are they ever accomplished; all our combat officers are automatically labeled with this tag – it tries to blur their real crimes and those of their colleagues.

The IDF Spokesman’s Office occasionally issues official statements that do not always jibe with the truth, though for this we will forgive. Maj. Avital Leibovich, an IDF spokeswoman, told Al Jazeera in English on Thursday that the IDF does not fire on children. Then how did hundreds of children die during Operation Cast Lead? Was it an act of providence? Nobody objected to her deceitful propaganda. But when Fares lies on the fateful question of who drove his car, his fate is sealed. We have yet to see an officer whose service was terminated due to the errant killing of Palestinians in Gaza, but when it comes to lying to a car-leasing company, that’s another matter. These are the standards by which morals are judged in the most moral army in the world. No other organization in Israel speaks so often about “morals” while committing so many flagrantly amoral acts.

The previous chief of staff, Dan Halutz, was tainted by his “light shudder on the wing” comment when asked what he felt after he dropped a bomb. And he was only referring to one bomb. He claimed that he was misunderstood. Ashkenazi is made of Teflon; nothing sticks to him, not even after the unbridled assault on Gaza and the mass killing of civilians with countless bombs. Now he can also be thought of as a sensitive chief of staff whose like we have not seen when it comes to morality. Oh, how shocked he was to hear of the wet towels that were hurled at soldiers’ backs.

University of JHB Prof lodges charges against War Criminal David Benjamin

Today, University of Johannesburg academic, Professor Farid Esack and Palestine Solidarity Committee members formally laid charges at the Johannesburg Central Police station against war criminal Lieutenant-Colonel David Benjamin.

This follows an application lodged on Monday by the Palestine Solidarity Alliance and others with the assistance of well-known international law professors John Dugard and Max du Plessis. The application calls on the National Directorate of Public Prosecutions to set in motion an investigation into war crimes committed by a number of Israelis linked to the Gaza massacre of December 2008-January 2009. South African-born Lieutenant-Colonel David Benjamin, who obtained his law degree from the University of Cape Town, has worked for the Israeli Occupation Forces for the past 17 years. As a member of the Israeli Army’s Military Advocates Corps, he provided legal advice to the Israeli military during the massacre.

Benjamin has been credited with giving the Israeli army the legal go-ahead for the use of white phosphorous in its attacks against Gaza in December 2008-January 2009. Israel’s use of white phosphorous in Gaza is illegal under international law; the Geneva Convention bars its use against civilian targets.

Benjamin, by his own admission, told Bloomberg News that the Gaza “campaign was a long time in the works, and we [the Military Advocates Corps] were intimately involved in the planning… Approval of targets which can be attacked, methods of warfare – it all has gone through us.”
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The charges are supported by overwhelming evidence, including reports from internationally known human rights organisations, and affidavits in excess of 3500 pages (available from the PSC). The massacre followed an 18-month siege and blockade which saw an occupied population experience starvation, deprivation, displacement and ongoing trauma on a horrendous scale that has shocked humanity. This seige continues.

The Gaza onslaught resulted in the deaths of 1400 Palestinians, the majority of whom were civilians. Of these approximately 40 % were women and children. More than 5400 Palestinians were seriously injured, many with the most horrific wounds, burns and amputations and countless others are psychologically, physically and mentally traumatised. This is in comparison to 10 Israeli soldiers killed (four by own fire and 2 Israeli citizens).

These acts of barbarity did not spare the innocent lives of a besieged occupied people. It is common knowledge that Israel attacked and destroyed schools, places of worship, shelters, hospitals and United Nations installations, such as the UNWRA school and relief aid warehouses. Israel’s offensive destroyed about 22,000 buildings and is estimated to have caused 1.9-billion US dollars worth of destruction. The actions are abhorrent and profoundly in breach of international humanitarian law and constitute evidence of international crimes.

The Israeli attack and bombardment of Gaza has been extensively documented and horrific scenes of death, injury and destruction of the civilian population were televised to the world. Evidence collected from eye-witnesses and those injured as well as United Nations and other investigative reports, including the testimony of Israeli combat soldiers and physicians (including South Africans) provide compelling proof that suggests Israelis have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity.

All credible humanitarian and human rights organisations, including Amnesty International, and the Red Cross, and respected individuals such as the professors of law Richard Falk and our own John Dugard, also condemned these actions as war crimes.

All of these actions are war crimes under international law, and Benjamin is, therefore, a war criminal. South Africans should feel outraged to have such a war criminal visiting our country, with the express purpose, according to the host organisation, Limmud, of providing South African audiences with the Israeli army’s justification for their war crimes.

Issued by the Palestine Solidarity Committee.

Israel asks Spain to stop funding group that reported IDF ‘crimes’ in Gaza

Barak Ravid | Ha’aretz

02 August 2009

Israel on Thursday asked the government of Spain to halt its funding for the human rights group Breaking the Silence, which has been critical of the Israel Defense Forces’ conduct during January’s Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. Similar requests have been made of Britain and The Netherlands.

Senior Foreign Ministry officials have said that at this stage the ministry has no intention to take action concerning other non-governmental organizations that receive funding from foreign governments. There is no intention, the ministry stressed, to act against organizations working for peace or coexistence.

During the past year, Spain has provided tens of thousands of euros to fund patrols run by Breaking the Silence in Hebron. In a meeting with the director of international cooperation at the Spanish Foreign Ministry, the Israeli deputy ambassador asked Spain to reexamine its funding for NGOs dealing with the Arab-Israeli conflict; Israel noted this funding is disproportionate to that for human rights organizations in Arab countries.

The contacts in Spain are part of a wider Foreign Ministry effort over the past two weeks concerning Breaking the Silence following its publication of a report on Cast Lead. The ministry and the defense establishment were angered that the report was not given to the government or the IDF before its release.

Israel pushes Dutch to freeze funds for group exposing ‘IDF crimes in Gaza’

Barak Ravid | Ha’aretz

26 July 2009

Following protests by Israel, the Netherlands will reevaluate its funding of an organization that alleged that Israeli troops used Palestinians as human shields in Gaza.

Acting on instructions from the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem, the Israeli ambassador to the Netherlands, Harry Knei-Tal, met last week with the director-general of the Dutch Foreign Ministry and complained about the Dutch embassy’s funding of Breaking the Silence.

The Israeli ambassador suggested that the Netherland’s funding of the organization should be terminated. “The Dutch taxpayer’s money could be better used to promote peace and human rights,” a source quoted Knei-Tal as saying.

According to sources familiar with the situation, Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen – considered one of Israel’s staunchest supporters in the European Union – did not know that the embassy in Tel Aviv was funding Breaking the Silence. He learned about it after the organization’s funding sources were published in an article in The Jerusalem Post.

Sources say Verhagen reproached senior figures in the Dutch Foreign Ministry upon learning this and gave instructions to launch an internal investigation on the matter. It showed that the embassy in Israel gave Breaking the Silence 19,995 euros to help put together its 2009 report, which discusses Operation Cast Lead and was released earlier this month. Had this figure been five euros higher, it would have required approval from The Hague.

The director-general of the Dutch Foreign Ministry told the Israeli ambassador that in light of the probe, funding for Breaking the Silence would be reevaluated because of the political sensitivities of the issues covered by the organization.

Breaking the Silence, which was founded by Israeli army veterans, has collected what it says are damning testimonies from soldiers who took part in the January offensive against Hamas in Gaza. The report contains almost 30 anonymous testimonies.

An Israeli diplomat said that in the meeting last week, Knei-Tal said Israel was a democratic country and that such funds should go to places without democracy. Breaking the Silence was a legal and legitimate organization, he said, according to sources, but its funding by the Dutch was unreasonable “in light of the political sensitivities.”

According to a senior Israeli official: “A friendly government cannot fund opposition bodies. We are not a third world country.”

The director-general of the Dutch Foreign Ministry said Spain had also funded Breaking the Silence. A diplomat in Jerusalem said Breaking the Silence had also been funded by the British government. Israel has not yet approached Spain or Britain on the matter.