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Links April 04 09
- At Wired Sharon Weinberger has a major scoop: How To: Get a No-Bid Contract for Russian Choppers. Helicopters for Iraq – a shady Pentagon office, a $500 million no-bid contract to a dubious U.S. company. Hundreds of millions payed to a Russian company that does not deliver …
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William Pfaff compares the ‘Long War’ with Europe’s Thirty Years’ War.
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Realist Stephen Walt doesn't like the AfPak Muddle
- It is hard to get Urdu language books in Pakistan because they are 'Indian'. It is hard to get Urdu language books in India because … -
A funny story from Sepoy at Chapati Mystery.
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Did Israel really bomb Sudan? We don't think so. Even Debka doubts the story (and adds its own spin.)
- Pat Lang on Ambassador Feltman and Lebanon. As elections approach, Lebanon will heat up again.
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14 people get killed in a Mumbai like attack. Why isn't this called terrorism?
Please add your links, news and views in the comments.
Received from a good acquaintance:
Dear friends,
This is groundbreaking!
George Bisharat has broken through in the Saturday New York Times with a devastating op- ed detailing Israel’s violations of international law in Gaza. This is a potential turning point in Americans’ understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The New York Times will surely be flooded with letters. Please write your letter supporting Bisharat’s position today.
Letters to the editor should be under 150 words and include your name, address, and phone number(s) for verification purposes. Please send your letter to letters@nytimes.com today.
May justice prevail,
Sam
—
The New York Times
April 4, 2009
Op-Ed Contributor
Israel on Trial
By GEORGE BISHARAT
San Francisco
CHILLING testimony by Israeli soldiers substantiates charges that Israel’s Gaza Strip assault entailed grave violations of international law. The emergence of a predominantly right-wing, nationalist government in Israel suggests that there may be more violations to come. Hamas’s indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israeli civilians also constituted war crimes, but do not excuse Israel’s transgressions. While Israel disputes some of the soldiers’ accounts, the evidence suggests that Israel committed the following six offenses:
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Violating its duty to protect the civilian population of the Gaza Strip. Despite Israel’s 2005 “disengagement” from Gaza, the territory remains occupied. Israel unleashed military firepower against a people it is legally bound to protect.
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Imposing collective punishment in the form of a blockade, in violation of Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. In June 2007, after Hamas took power in the Gaza Strip, Israel imposed suffocating restrictions on trade and movement. The blockade — an act of war in customary international law — has helped plunge families into poverty, children into malnutrition, and patients denied access to medical treatment into their graves. People in Gaza thus faced Israel’s winter onslaught in particularly weakened conditions.
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Deliberately attacking civilian targets. The laws of war permit attacking a civilian object only when it is making an effective contribution to military action and a definite military advantage is gained by its destruction. Yet an Israeli general, Dan Harel, said, “We are hitting not only terrorists and launchers, but also the whole Hamas government and all its wings.” An Israeli military spokeswoman, Maj. Avital Leibovich, avowed that “anything affiliated with Hamas is a legitimate target.”
Israeli fire destroyed or damaged mosques, hospitals, factories, schools, a key sewage plant, institutions like the parliament, the main ministries, the central prison and police stations, and thousands of houses.
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Willfully killing civilians without military justification. When civilian institutions are struck, civilians — persons who are not members of the armed forces of a warring party, and are not taking direct part in hostilities — are killed.
International law authorizes killings of civilians if the objective of the attack is military, and the means are proportional to the advantage gained. Yet proportionality is irrelevant if the targets of attack were not military to begin with. Gaza government employees — traffic policemen, court clerks, secretaries and others — are not combatants merely because Israel considers Hamas, the governing party, a terrorist organization. Many countries do not regard violence against foreign military occupation as terrorism.
Of 1,434 Palestinians killed in the Gaza invasion, 960 were civilians, including 121 women and 288 children, according to a United Nations special rapporteur, Richard Falk. Israeli military lawyers instructed army commanders that Palestinians who remained in a targeted building after having been warned to leave were “voluntary human shields,” and thus combatants. Israeli gunners “knocked on roofs” — that is, fired first at corners of buildings, before hitting more vulnerable points — to “warn” Palestinian residents to flee.
With nearly all exits from the densely populated Gaza Strip blocked by Israel, and chaos reigning within it, this was a particularly cruel flaunting of international law. Willful killings of civilians that are not required by military necessity are grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, and are considered war crimes under the Nuremberg principles.
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Deliberately employing disproportionate force. Last year, Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, head of Israel’s northern command, speaking on possible future conflicts with neighbors, stated, “We will wield disproportionate power against every village from which shots are fired on Israel, and cause immense damage and destruction.” Such a frank admission of illegal intent can constitute evidence in a criminal prosecution.
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Illegal use of weapons, including white phosphorus. Israel was finally forced to admit, after initial denials, that it employed white phosphorous in the Gaza Strip, though Israel defended its use as legal. White phosphorous may be legally used as an obscurant, not as a weapon, as it burns deeply and is extremely difficult to extinguish.
Israeli political and military personnel who planned, ordered or executed these possible offenses should face criminal prosecution. The appointment of Richard Goldstone, the former war crimes prosecutor from South Africa, to head a fact-finding team into possible war crimes by both parties to the Gaza conflict is an important step in the right direction. The stature of international law is diminished when a nation violates it with impunity.
George Bisharat is a professor at the University of California Hastings College of the Law.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/04/opinion/04bisharat.html
Posted by: Parviz | Apr 4 2009 15:08 utc | 22
Hey, folks —
First, i’d like to apologize to Lizard for being such an ass. I’m sensitive to certain stimuli, one of which happens to be anything relating to an implied Palestinian/Arab mentality. I suffer from a hyperactive brain, and reading Lizard’s comments i jumped from “Shooter in the U.S. targeting immigrants” to “Palestinian driving bulldozers in Israeli mid-day traffic”.
That’s my fault, and i shood’a curbed it. If it’s any use, Apr. 6 is my birthday and i’z 40 years old, then — and it wasn’t a happy day.
However, i think also part of the reason for my sensitivity is that i’m an expat. As an expat, it seems patently obvious to me that any citizen targeting immigrants for assassination — whether native or emigre — is making a political statement.
My comments should’ve been kinder to Lizard, and i’ve been humbled by his magnanimity. Thank you, L.
But having said that, i stand by my point. It was perhaps arcane, but here it is spelled out:
Some Palestinian guy is riding around on a glorified lawnmower, trashing mid-day traffic and destroying cars, and he’s gunned down. The U.S. media reports him as a “terrorist” — and i’m outraged.
41 year old Vietnamese immigrant guns down a room-full of new U.S. immigrants, and he’s called a crazy-man. No connection to terrorism is implied, nor even any gesture made in that direction.
That’s a double standard.
Now, my hyper-active brain can extend this double-standard out to quite a few relevant situations that are breathing and pulsing as-we-speak:
Iraqi gunners, suicide-bombers, and general gunned-down-by-Halliburton-mercs-teenagers would seem rather similar, in many (if not most) cases.
Afghani and Palestinian suicide bombers would, too.
Any Palestinian murdered just outside their house, or on a bulldozer would certainly qualify.
So, while i am truly sorry that i popped off like i did, in such a short manner, i don’t really feel as if what i was trying to say is invalidated.
And as an expat, i can easily see how a Vietnamese immigrant might listen in on Limbaugh, or Hannity, and buy into the whole right-wing, flag-waving “i’m better than the ‘Spics” gamble — and, when mentally imbalanced, take it upon himself to lash out at the perceived “lowlifes” who, so clearly, are undermining his/her beloved, newfound utopia.
Because most Americans are only between one-to-three generations native, they have a hard time seeing these things for what they are. My ancestors were Indian, Jamestown British, Georgia Prisoners and French Trappers; they were also Southern Socialist and Rebel Nationalists. I have a unique perspective on U.S. history that is shared by very few, and so i’m a rather difficult character to corral. My temper can be very, very long, or very, very short — it really just depends on which degree the sun rises, and nothing else.
So to Lizard: i’m sorry. But really: asserting that a murderous scheme aimed against new emigres is a-political is, really, non-sensical. It doesn’t matter if the guy’s a psychopath or not; clearly, what he fixated upon was their political standing. Yes, he was insane; but is there any other way you could possibly describe a Palestinian who, in protest, jumps up on a bulldozer? I think not, but the unfortunate truth is that our media more or less reports it as such.
To the rest of you: I’m sorry. I shouldn’t’ve clouded these waters with my bile, and i really do regret it. But beyond the bulldozer example, i’d like to point out:
The real problem, here, is that hopeless, spiritually desecrated people are used to carry bombs into the heart of civilian areas. The concept is really not so different from asking a young, bristling man to ride a rocket over a foreign country and drop bombs — in one case, death is guaranteed, in the other, extremely likely. In either, one is murdering a great many innocent people who have no way of fighting back.
That, essentially, is my frustration: let us say the Mullahs take advantage of hopeless people. Then in that case, what is really the difference between the young man who drops from the sky into a suicide mission, and the young woman who blows herself up in a crowded square? Really, nothing. Both are directed to kill themselves in defense of country; both do so, knowing they will not return (in the case of a rocket-rider, the certainty may be in question, but it’s equally unconsidered).
So really, the difference between a terrorist and a crazy person is this, and only this:
a terrorist is asked to take this action on behalf of their community/society/country.
A crazy person does it for themselves.
In acknowledging this — with this — we must recognize one more thing:
(and it is a thing Israel does not want recognized)
A terrorist is a member of a military, and is no different than a G.I. Private —
and that is the answer to b’s question:
This isn’t called terrorism because it was a crazy person, acting on his own. But what that implies is this:
Terrorists are military folk, fighting on behalf of their people and country. Each one is at least as honorable, dedicated, and respectable as the flag-draped corpses of uniformed grunts the U.S. military sends home each week.
And that’s why i got angry.
I’m sorry i was such an asshole, but:
fuck me —
i’m an angry son of a bitch.
(second try — sorry for the re-post)
Posted by: china_hand2 | Apr 8 2009 18:25 utc | 82
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