July 31, 2006
A Lawless World: How Israel
Gets Away with Murder
"I think it would be a mistake to
ascribe moral equivalence to civilians who die as the direct result of
malicious terrorist acts, [and those who died because of] Israel's military
action." John Bolton, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations
“I am shocked and deeply
distressed by the apparently deliberate targeting by Israeli Defense Forces of
a U.N. Observer post in southern Lebanon,”
Kofi Annan, United Nations
Secretary-general
"All that is necessary for evil
to triumph is for the good people to do nothing."
Edmund Burke (1729-1797) British
statesman
The list of war crimes and of crimes
against humanity perpetrated by the government of Israel is very long and
getting longer by the day.
The last series of crimes took place when Israel, a country
of 6 million people, bombed the population of Lebanon, in mid-July 2006, using
artillery-fired cluster munitions in populated areas of Lebanon, a more or less
defenseless country of 3.8 million people. It is well known that cluster
munitions cannot be used in populated areas without huge loss of civilian life.
The organization Human Rights Watch believes that the use of cluster munitions
in populated areas may violate the prohibition on indiscriminate attacks
contained in international humanitarian law. Also, Lebanon's President Emile
Lahoud has accused Israel of using
phosphorous bombs and laser bombs against civilians and children, in its
attacks against Lebanon.
In
Lebanon, Israeli military forces have been bombing villages, homes, apartment
buildings, bridges, highways, -firing at buses and ambulances and at Red Cross medics,
and even deliberately murdering United Nations observers, in a
demonstrable example of disproportionate and criminal use of military force.
No argument of self-defense could ever be evoked to justify such
widespread killing and destruction. The right of self-defense does not allow a
country to use the pretext of small border skirmishes to launch an all-out
asymmetrical war of aggression against a weaker country. This was the argument
used by Nazi Germany to attack other countries, such as Norway and Poland, in
the late 1930's.
That argument was rejected by the Nuremberg Tribunal, which proclaimed anew the 1837 Caroline Clause of
international law, that reserves the right of self-defense
only to situations when the requirements of self-defense are "overwhelming, leaving no
choice of means, and no moment for deliberation,” and the act of self-defense "must be limited by that necessity, and kept clearly
within it.”
In order words, the exercise of the right of self-defense must meet the double
test of urgent necessity,
i.e. when there is an impossibility of negotiations and other methods to
resolve a conflict, and of proportionality, i.e the military means deployed must be
proportional to the pending threat.
Nevertheless,
contrary to all evidence, the U. S. Congress,
in an obvious move to circumvent
the U.S. Arms Export Control Act
which makes it an obligation for foreign countries receiving weapons from the
U. S. to use them solely for defensive purposes or to maintain internal
security, voted a resolution, on July 20, 2006, proclaiming that Israel was
using weapons for "defensive purposes." In the Senate, the vote was unanimous; in the
House, the vote was 410 to 8.
At Nuremberg, in 1946, the American government, through its
chief prosecutor, Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, took the following
position: "Our position is that whatever grievances a nation may have,
however objectionable it finds the status quo, aggressive warfare is an illegal
means for settling those grievances or for altering those conditions." In other words, a war of
aggression is never permissible under international law. [By the way, such
observations also apply to the Bush-Cheney administration and its war of
aggression in Iraq. This is a question that I will cover in a special article
next week.]
As recently as 1981, the United States government, under President
Ronald Reagan, reaffirmed its commitment to international law and to the
validity of the Caroline Clause as a firmly established element of
international law. Indeed, on June 7, 1981, when Israel launched a strike
against Iraq's Tamuz 1 reactor that was under construction, this was an example
of an unlawful act of preventive war, forbidden by the Caroline Clause. On June
19, 1981, with American support, Resolution 487 of the U.N. Security Council
was adopted unanimously. It condemned Israel because it considered that its
unilateral move endangered peace and was contrary to international law, besides
being a clear violation of the Charter of the United Nations. The fact that the
Bush-Cheney administration does not follow in President Reagan's footsteps, and
has condoned the Olmert's government decision to bomb and invade Lebanon
indicates how extreme and lawless the current American administration is.
The
United Nations Charter has also incorporated this jurisprudence about
international self-defense, in its article 51, which affirms a country's "inherent right of individual or
collective self-defense"
against a major armed attack, but only until the Security Council has taken
measures to restore peace and security. In other words, under traditional
international law (Caroline Clause), under the standard of the Nuremberg
Tribunal and under the U. N. Charter, the right of self-defense cannot be used
as a pretext to launch an unlimited open war against another country. The
argument used by the Olmert Israeli government to launch a war of destruction
against the sovereign country of Lebanon, after a relatively minor border
skirmish, is a red herring that would most likely be rejected by a court of
law.
Because
of all of this, allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity against
the Israeli government are serious and cannot be dismissed out of hand. They
are numerous, well-documented and very compelling. It is a fair assessment that
Israeli leadership could be brought before an international tribunal and
accused of violating international law and humanitarian law. Indeed, articles 48, 51 and 57 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions
make it a crime to carry indiscriminate attacks against a civilian population.
That is precisely what the Israeli government has done against the civilian
population of Lebanon, resulting in as many as 600 civilian deaths, one third
of them children.
In
Gaza, the Israeli army has also destroyed power stations and has imposed a
blockade on the civilian population, depriving them of the means of
subsistence. In other words, Israel has turned Gaza into an open-sky prison for
its inhabitants. In Lebanon, the Israeli army has pummeled the civilian airport
of Beirut, and destroyed roads, bridges, power and water supply stations all
over the country. Both instances represent deliberate destruction of civilian
economic infrastructures and are in direct violation of article 54 of the 1977 additions to the Geneva
Conventions and are considered war crimes.
Moreover,
let us keep in mind that Israel is a repeat delinquent in its propensity to
attack and kill civilians. —That worsens its case. For example, on April
18, 1996, the Israeli government of Shimon Peres launched rockets and bombs on
a United Nations camp, in Cana, a
village located southeast of the Lebanese city of Tyre, killing 106 people,
and injuring 116, among them four
United Nations soldiers seriously hurt. Incredibly, Cana is the same Lebanese
village that the Israelis destroyed a second time, on Sunday, July 30, 2006,
slaughtering 56 people, at least 34 of them children. —In 1996, this was no accident as it
was no accident either in 2006. In both cases, the world was witnessing
murderous crimes against humanity.
History
repeats itself. —In 1996, after U.N. Secretary-General B. Boutros-Ghali
said he was shocked and horrified at Israel's shelling of the United Nations
post, the Bill Clinton administration rebuked him. Soon afterwards, the Clinton
administration made it known that it opposed the reelection of Boutros-Ghali
for a second term. —In 2006, the Bush-Cheney administration blocked a U.
N. resolution of blame against Israel for its killing in Lebanon. In fact, both
George W. Bush and Ehud Olmert laughed at U. N. Secretary General Kofi Annan
when he called for a stop to the killing. Now that Mr. Annan has denounced the
recent acts of Israeli rampage, it is to be expected that the Bush-Cheney
administration will do its utmost to undermine his authority,.
Regarding these more recent Israeli killings of civilians in
Lebanon, the U. N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and former Canadian
Supreme Court Justice, Louise Arbour, has said: “... under
international criminal law,
[those responsible] may incur personal criminal responsibility for these
actions." —But,
as a law professor put it, “In my opinion, yes, there appear to have
been war crimes committed
[in Lebanon] related to civilians, but the reality is there won’t be
any prosecutions.”
Indeed, neither Israel nor Lebanon is a party to the new International Criminal Court
and it is improbable that the U. N. Security Council would exercise its power
to refer cases to it because of the expected opposition and veto of the United
States. Indeed, the American government has been complicit to Israel's war
crimes for a very long time, using its veto at the U. N. countless times.
That is the crux of the problem with international law: How
to indict and punish the guilty parties of barbaric crimes against humanity,
when they are in power?
On the one hand, it is obvious that those who plan and carry
out acts of so-called stateless terrorism, that result in the killing of
civilians are criminals who should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law,
once they are caught. The fact that such terrorists belong to illegal
organizations and
often hide in remote areas, should not place them out of reach of the law. On
the other hand, it is also true that when established states engage in state terrorism
and start murdering civilians, their leaders can be more easily identified and
could ultimately be brought to justice.
It was easy to do so at the Nuremberg trials, for instance, because the
Germans and the Japanese had been defeated and their leaders were in prison.
But, what if the alleged war criminals are not in prison and are rather heavily
armed, as it is clearly the case with Israeli politicians and generals?
Moreover, what about a situation where they are protected and shielded from
prosecution by powerful interests, such as the case with the Bush-Cheney
administration when it protects Israeli politicians and military personnel from
international prosecution?
Well,
the world is not completely at the mercy of war criminals. The international
community could begin by ostracizing the countries that have alleged war
criminals as leaders, if such countries refuse to indict and judge them.
Indeed, it has been proposed many times that countries or rogue states whose
leaders do not respect any international standard of morality and who engage in
crimes against humanity should be suspended or even excluded from the United
Nations. At the very least, the General Assembly should pass a vote of blame
against any country systematically violating the basic principles contained in
the U. N. Charter, the principles contained in the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, or who engage in repeated violations of international and humanitarian
law.
In the case of Israel, its very admission into the United Nations
on May 11, 1949 (General Assembly resolution 273), was conditional to its
respect of the obligations contained in the U. N. Charter and to its
fulfillment of U. N. Resolution 194 of December 11, 1948, which calls for the
Palestinian refugees to be able to return to their homes or be justly
compensated.
In
reality, the United Nations—and international law for that
matter—have been paralyzed by article 27 of the U. N. Charter which
creates a permanent right of veto for a few countries, a privilege that has
been used and abused by some to
prevent the U. N. from ensuring that the principles of its Charter be
respected by its own members. —Article 27 of the U. N. Charter is an
important source of instability and lawlessness in the world.
In its present form, the United Nations is in no position to
exclude those countries that are guilty of not respecting its principles.
Moreover, the absolute veto clause for some countries is responsible for the
inability of the U. N. Security Council to take necessary and concrete measures
“to maintain international peace and security,” as called for in Article 51 of
the U. N. Charter. —As human affairs go, however, the world would
probably have to suffer a great cataclysm before proceeding with the needed
reform of the world body and the establishment of a truly effective international criminal system.
Rodrigue Tremblay is professor emeritus of
economics at the University of Montreal and can be reached at rodrigue.tremblay@yahoo.com.
He is the author of the book 'The New American Empire'.
Visit his blog site atwww.thenewamericanempire.com/blog.
Author's Website: www.thenewamericanempire.com/
______________________________________________
Posted on July 31, 2006, at 6:30
a.m.
Email to a friend:
http://www.TheNewAmericanEmpire.com/tremblay=1030
Send contact, comments or commercial
reproduction requests (in English or in French) to:
N.B.:
Messages may be published in our weblog, unless you request otherwise.
Please register to receive free emails
on new postings of articles.
Send an email with the word
"subscribe" to:
bigpictureworld@yahoo.com
(Home: TheNewAmericanEmpire.com)
© 2006 by Big Picture World Syndicate, Inc.