In today's Baltimore Sun George Bisharat urges the Obama Administration to support the UN war crimes investigation into the war in Gaza. He argues this is not only important in terms of holding Israel accountable for that war, but to save the idea of international law itself. From the article "A step toward ending Israel's impunity":
Such elastic definitions of "combatants" defy well-settled
international law. Yet Daniel Reisner, the former head of the
International Law Division of the Israeli Military Advocate General,
recently claimed: "If you do something for long enough, the world will
accept it. The whole of international law is now based on the notion
that an act that is forbidden today becomes permissible if executed by
enough countries … International law progresses through violations.". . .
Israel's attempted legal innovations are simply bad for humanity, and
our response to them should be: "No thanks." For too long we have
indulged that country, bestowing it $3 billion annually in military aid
since 1973 and repeatedly vetoing resolutions in the U.N. Security
Council holding Israel accountable for its serial violations of
international law.Times are changing, and our policies must
now change as well. The Obama administration should back the Goldstone
mission in word and in deed. The United Nations Human Rights Council,
which appointed Mr. Goldstone, is often derided by Israel's defenders
for its focus on Israeli human rights abuses. In fact, that relatively
toothless body would have little role in this issue were the Security
Council not so derelict – because of U.S. obstructionism – in its
duties. Mr. Goldstone (who happens to be Jewish, and has ties to
Israel) holds impeccable credentials and repute for great personal
integrity. He is the right person to start salvaging international law
from the damage it has suffered in recent years.International law protects weak and strong alike, and we ignore its continuing abuse at our peril.
Also, check out this interesting profile of Richard Goldstone from the Los Angeles Times.
Racism??? What racism??
What happens when yeshiva kids from Brooklyn go live in Israel
Settlers to Ethiopian troops: Niggers don't expel Jews
04.12.2009 | Ynet
By Danny Adino Ababa
“Niggers don’t expel Jews! This isn’t what we brought you to Israel for!” are just some of the degrading slurs Border Guard officers reported hearing from masked settlers.
During the violent clashes between Israeli forces and settlers in Hebron on Tuesday “a bunch of veiled people started yelling at us: Who are you to expel us from our home? An Ethiopian does not expel a Jew! A nigger does not expel a Jew!” one Border Guard officer of Ethiopian descent recounted.
“I just didn’t know what to do with myself,” he said.
And it turns out this was not the only such incident to take place. Another officer reported that while arriving to make an arrest about a week and-a-half ago, a group of youths verbally attacked him saying, “Who told you to come and evacuate us? You Ethiopians. What are you, this State’s niggers? Olmert’s niggers?”
The officers said they were deeply offended by these remarks, but stressed that the ones making them were settler youths coming from outside of Hebron, and not the residents of the Jewish settlement or Kiryat Arba, who have treated them with respect.
Border Guard sources reported that racist remarks were also made against Druze soldiers. “We knew that this would happen so we instructed our officers in advance,” said a source.
“We harshly condemn those extremists that bring a bad name to an entire public by using racial slurs against Border Guard fighters that spend night and day protecting residents of the West Bank.”
“As part of the preparations for the mission the fighters were instructed to ignore such comments and carry out their mission with the utmost professionalism.”
Zvi Zinger contributed to this report
I think Israeli officials deserve war crimes trials as much as the next guy, where "the next guy" includes people like Bush, Milosevic, Saddam, Bashir (or whoever it is in the Sudan), Palestinian terrorist planners (the ones who plan suicide bombings against teenagers, for instance). If we're going to have war crimes trials for anyone, then justice should be blind.
But I'm not sure we should have them. If it doesn't make sense to have them for the Sudanese leadership, because it would get in the way of a peaceful settlement, then by the same logic it might get in the way if we tried to prosecute the Israelis. Helena Cobban made this point at her blog, and she's a pretty harsh critic of Israeli war crimes.
Not that this is going to happen anyway–war crimes trials of this magnitude only happen if the US says they can, and it won't support this. So we'll be back to the old double standard.
"International law protects weak and strong alike, and we ignore its continuing abuse at our peril."
Were Russia, China, Britain and the U.S. charged with violating International Law when I wasn't looking?
International Law doesn't apply to the big and powerful.
the jewish state of the jews is part of jewry. hold jewry accountable.
Actually, we hold you accountable.