International Criminal Court considering charging Israeli officials

Daniel Pipes is an infamous Neocon, insane Zionist, holds dual citizenship (Israeli and American), and is a totally rabid racist who has been spreading outrageous lies about Islam and Arabs for many years. He and his website have no credibility whatsoever.

I can't wait to see them charged for their war crimes. I can only imagine what the list will be.

You know you really should read the WHOLE article. And note exactly what HUman Rights Watch says. And then note that the guy who runs the ICC promised "objectivity," for a reason, because people like you are not objective.

"Hamas has appropriated Gaza and doesn't recognize PA authority," an Israeli official said, requesting anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic.

"If the residents of Gaza do not recognize the jurisdiction of the PA, how can the PA bring a case of alleged war crimes committed in Gaza jurisdiction?" the official said.

West Bank Palestinians have won cases in the Israeli justice system, such as disputes with the Israeli Defense Ministry over the route of a barrier being built to separate Israel and Palestinian territory, Israeli officials said.

i can't believe Israel is being charged for war crimes and no one talks about the main group that started it all...charging Israel with war crimes isn't going to solve anything..if anything it will give the terrorists who started this a victory. The Palestinians along with the Israelis have to clean up hamas. The only reason why there is genocide talk is because the terrorists position themselves among innocent people. And when Israel tries to get rid of the one rocket man out of a thousand innocent people/children they inevitably kill and injure many of these innocent people. The terrorists know that there rocket attacks aren't much and they can't defeat Israel with them...but if they keep firing these rockets and if they position themselves and there weapon tunnels among innocent people in Gaza...Israel will retaliate and therefore kill many because and the whole world will just see the thousands that died instead of the few that started it all..see the terrorists know that if they attack in the desert or some random location they will Israel will retaliate..they will die and it will be a victory for Israel...the enemy isn't dumb and they aren't going to win by weapons..they are going to use psychology and strategic positioning to get the rest of the world in doubt when a country defends herself.

Take no prisoners! Isn't that what Israel did?

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"About a dozen nations worldwide, including the United Kingdom, Spain and Belgium, have laws bestowing "universal jurisdiction" over genocide, war crimes, torture and other similar offenses. These states try cases irrespective of the nationalities of the parties or the location of the alleged offenses when they are grave enough to be considered crimes against all humanity. They offer another potential venue for the prosecution of suspected Israeli war criminals.

Yet when Belgium permitted litigation against former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and others for their roles in the 1982 massacres of Palestinians in Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut, the U.S. brought withering pressure, threatening to move NATO headquarters from Brussels if the case were not shut down. It was halted, shortly thereafter, by Belgian parliamentary legislation.

Thus, perhaps the "court of last resort" is that of international civil society, whose tools for nonviolent enforcement include boycotts, divestment and sanctions. That route, once so effective in helping to end apartheid in Africa, offers a powerful model for those seeking justice in Israel/Palestine today. Israel is both sensitive to Western opinion and dependent on trade and would likely respond to ostracism.

Ending Israel's impunity should be a priority for us all. Palestinians clearly bear the brunt of Israel's violence. Israelis face a future of endemic conflict in a region that will never bow to pure might. We Americans suffer by acting as Israel's principal enabler and accomplice, isolating ourselves from much of the world and multiplying our enemies. International law - which protects the powerful and weak alike - is diminished when one nation tramples basic legal principles without consequence.

Two years ago, I was contacted by the sister of a U.N. peacekeeper who had been killed along with three colleagues in a July 2006 Israeli artillery strike on their observer post in Lebanon. She sought my guidance in pushing for accountability for her innocent brother's death. Israel never acknowledged any culpability, and the woman's quest continues.

We have kept in touch. Before the latest cease-fire in Gaza, she poignantly remarked: "I'm watching with growing horror and can't help wonder: What if accountability had been practiced in prior years?"

The answer should be clear. It is time, now, to act."

Published on Friday, February 6, 2009 by The Seattle Times
Hold Israel Accountable for Gaza

by George E. Bisharat

"The boss has lost it," many Israeli military and political officials, and people on the street, were reportedly joking after their army's recent devastation of the Gaza Strip. As Israeli journalist Uri Avnery observed, the jest means that: " ... in order to deter our enemies, we must behave like madmen, go on the rampage, kill and destroy mercilessly."

In fact, the "boss has lost it" is an unselfconscious admission of policies that violate international law, and could at some point be used against Israeli leaders in a criminal prosecution.

Evidence suggests that Israel may have committed at least seven serious offenses during its Gaza invasion: launching a war of aggression (because Israel itself triggered the breakdown of a six-month truce, and therefore did not have a valid claim of self-defense); deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure; deliberate killings of civilians; collective punishment; illegal use of weapons, including white phosphorous; preventing care to the wounded; and disproportionate use of force.

These constitute grave breaches of customary and conventional international law, and some amount to war crimes. Hamas' indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israeli civilians were also war crimes, but did not justify Israel's violations.

What is the likelihood that Israel leaders faced with allegations of war crimes will ever be investigated and brought to justice?

Israel has not accepted the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, formed in 2002 to try crimes against humanity and other serious international crimes, and thus its nationals cannot be prosecuted there. Meanwhile, the International Court of Justice, the main judicial organ of the United Nations, deals only with states - and Palestinians do not have a state.

Normally, the United Nations Security Council could establish a special international criminal tribunal, as it did following genocide in Rwanda and ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia. But any effort to investigate allegations of Israeli war crimes faces the certainty of a U.S. veto. Since 1970, the United States has vetoed resolutions censuring Israel 41 times."
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If there is any justice left in this world them Israhell should be charged and brought to bear the full punishment allowed for Genocide and Aparthied.