[News] From Qana to Gaza, Israel issues denials and smears investigations of its crimes

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190305-from-qana-to-gaza-israel-issues-denials-and-smears-investigations-of-its-crimes/?#.XH5rnHSy4tE.facebook 



   From Qana to Gaza, Israel issues denials and smears investigations of
  its crimes

Professor Kamel Hawwash - March 5, 2019
------------------------------------------------------------------------

I wrote 
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190212-the-eu-documents-israeli-crimes-now-it-must-do-something-about-them/> 
recently about an EU report on the growth of illegal Israeli settlements 
and argued that the EU was diligent in documenting Israel’s-breaches of 
international law but that it has singularly failed to bring it to 
account, even when it has demolished EU-funded projects.

A more recent report commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) 
investigated the actions of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) at the 
nominal border with Gaza since 30 March last year, which marked the 
beginning of the Great March of Return protests. For almost 50 weeks, 
Israeli snipers have gunned down, with deliberate, chilling precision, 
Palestinian men, women and children.

The “Report of the independent international commission of inquiry on 
the protests in the Occupied Palestinian Territory – A/HRC/40/74 
<https://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/RegularSessions/Session40/Documents/A_HRC_40_74.docx>” 
acknowledges that the peaceful protests “were civilian in nature, with 
clearly stated political aims.” The protesters asked to be allowed to 
return to the homes from which they have been expelled from 1948 
onwards, and for a lifting of the siege on Gaza. Instead of meeting 
their peaceful and legitimate demands from the outset, Israel has killed 
over 200 Palestinians, including journalists and medics, and maimed 
dozens of young men, who now have to face life as amputees, rather than 
sportsmen.

The irony here is that Israel complained about Malaysia’s 
<https://www.trtworld.com/opinion/palestinians-aren-t-spared-the-horrors-of-occupation-for-the-sake-of-sport-23718> 
decision to ban the Israeli Paralympics team from competing in the 
country, while the IDF was making its own sickening contribution to 
future Palestinian Paralympics teams.

The UNHRC’s report makes for gruesome reading. Israeli soldiers are 
accused of “intentionally firing on civilians, who were neither directly 
participating in hostilities, nor posing an imminent threat.” The report 
warns that, “These serious human rights and humanitarian law violations 
may constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity.”

Israel’s reaction was predictable and follows a long line of denial and 
smearing of any report which accuses it of wrongdoing. According to a 
Foreign Ministry spokesman 
<https://mfa.gov.il/MFA/PressRoom/2019/Pages/Israel-rejects-UNHRC-report-Feb-28-2019.aspx>, 
“This report was born in sin, in a politically biased, one-sided 
resolution that determined the outcome before the investigation even 
started.” He went on to lay the blame on Hamas: “[Hamas] has declared 
war on Israel and calls to kill Jews. Hamas is orchestrating the attacks 
and using civilians in Gaza as human weapons to assault Israel and 
Israeli civilians. Hamas exploits the civilians in Gaza as human shields 
for terrorists.” As usual when such allegations are made, no evidence is 
produced to back them up, nor is the legitimate right to resist military 
occupation ever mentioned.

The spokesman went on to smear the UNHRC and the report’s three authors: 
“The HRC becomes an accomplice of a terrorist organisation, supporting 
Hamas’s aggression against Israel and the oppression of the people of 
Gaza.” The three individuals, he alleged, lack any understanding in 
security matters, without a relevant professional background.

*UN: Israel intentionally shot children, medics in Gaza protests 
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190228-un-israel-intentionally-shot-children-medics-in-gaza-protests/>*

Israel’s apologists came out in force to condemn the report, including 
US President Donald Trump’s Special Envoy Jason Greenblatt. “This COI 
report is another manifestation of the UNHRC’s clear bias against 
Israel,” he tweeted 
<https://twitter.com/jdgreenblatt45/status/1101516224767365120>, “which 
remains the only country that the Council dedicates an entire standing 
agenda item to targeting.”

Such condemnation of investigations into Israel’s crimes and smearing of 
investigation teams and the bodies that form them is not new. The UNHRC 
set up an investigation into Israel’s 2014 military offensive against 
the Gaza Strip which lasted for 50 days, resulting in over 2,000 
Palestinians being killed and causing extensive destruction.

The Report of the Independent Commission of Inquiry on the 2014 Gaza 
Conflict – A/HRC/29/52 
<https://www.ohchr.org/en/hrbodies/hrc/coigazaconflict/pages/reportcoigaza.aspx> 
accused both Hamas and Israel of committing war crimes. “Israel does not 
commit war crimes,” claimed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he 
rejected the report 
<https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/06/22/israel-reaction-to-un-human-rights-report-gaza/29115263/>. 
“Israel defends itself against a terrorist organisation that calls for 
its destruction and carries out many war crimes.” He accused the 
commission of being “notoriously biased” against Israel.

Following an escalation of violence in November 2012, a UN report 
<https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/RegularSession/Session22/A.HRC.22.35.Add.1_AV.pdf> 
criticised armed Palestinian groups and the IDF. The latter, it 
insisted, “did not consistently uphold the basic principles of conduct 
of hostilities, namely, the principles of distinction, proportionality 
and precautions.” The report documented a number of cases, including one 
which took place on 18 November, in which an Israeli air strike targeted 
without prior warning a three-storey house belonging to the Al-Dalou 
family in Al-Nasser neighbourhood, in central Gaza City. The strike 
killed 12 people, including five children and four women. Again, Israel 
brushed aside criticism and no individual Israeli was held accountable.

Following the 2008/9 Israeli military offensive on Gaza, the UN 
published the Goldstone Report 
<https://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/12session/A-HRC-12-48.pdf> 
on the devastating events which took place between 27 December 2008 and 
17 January 2009 and which resulted in over 1,300 Palestinians being 
killed. The report accused both Israel and Palestinian armed groups of 
war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Israel’s reaction was predictable. The Foreign Ministry 
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/oct/16/gaza-war-crimes-un-vote> 
said that, “Israel rejects the one-sided resolution adopted in Geneva by 
the UN human rights council and calls upon all responsible states to 
reject it as well… [The resolution] provides encouragement for terrorist 
organisations worldwide and undermines global peace.” It also accused 
the UNHRC of anti-Israel bias.

Israel’s siege and attack on the Jenin refugee camp in April 2002, which 
lasted for 10 days and killed dozens if not hundreds of Palestinians 
(the figures are disputed) again brought accusations of war crimes 
against Israel. The Israeli government refused to allow a UN team to 
carry out a field investigation, resulting in the UN producing a report 
based on available evidence. “In sum, the Israeli occupying forces have, 
without a doubt, committed serious violations of international 
humanitarian law,” the report 
<https://unispal.un.org/DPA/DPR/unispal.nsf/0/FD7BDE7666E04F5C85256C08004E63ED> 
concluded. “Also, without a doubt, war crimes, including grave breaches 
of the Fourth Geneva Convention, have been committed by Israel, the 
occupying Power, in several Palestinian cities, including in the Jenin 
refugee camp.” However, the report disputed the Palestinian claim of a 
massacre, a decision which was welcomed by the Israeli government. 
Furthermore, the report was judged as “seriously flawed” by human rights 
organisations and Britain’s /Independent/ newspaper 
<https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/un-issues-seriously-flawed-report-on-jenin-killings-9002043.html>, 
which were able to corroborate many of the allegations against the 
occupation state. No Israeli has ever been held accountable for any 
violations.

It is possible to go back further in time to another Israeli atrocity to 
demonstrate the lack of accountability for crimes committed by the IDF. 
On 18 April 1996, Israeli forces shelled a UN compound in Qana, in 
Southern Lebanon, where 800 Lebanese civilians had taken refuge; 106 
people were killed in the attack. Israel claimed that this was due to 
technical issues rather than deliberate targeting of a UN facility. 
However, the subsequent UN investigation concluded, “While the 
possibility cannot be ruled out completely, it is unlikely that the 
shelling of the United Nations compound was the result of gross 
technical and/or procedural errors.” The UN also found that “Contrary to 
repeated denials, two Israeli helicopters and a remotely piloted vehicle 
were present in the Qana area at the time of the shelling.” Amnesty 
International 
<https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/76000/mde150732006en.pdf> 
called for an independent investigation arguing, “It is not enough that 
the Israeli army investigates themselves. Israel has a history of either 
not investigating civilian deaths, or conducting similarly flawed 
inquiries.”

Now here we are, 23 years on and the UN’s most recent report again calls 
on Israel to investigate its own crimes, even though everyone knows that 
Israel never finds its own people guilty; always dismisses reports 
carried out by independent investigators as biased and one-sided; denies 
entry to the investigation teams; and refuses to cooperate. It claims to 
apply the highest standards of self-regulation but no one has ever been 
held fully accountable for any crimes, despite the thousands of deaths, 
the tens of thousands of injuries and the tens of thousands of homes 
that have been destroyed by Israelis since Qana, never mind the other 
massacres which have occurred since 1948.

It is time for Israel to be held to account for its actions, for the 
sake of those who have suffered at its hands. If international law is to 
have any credibility at all, we need to ensure that all UN member states 
pay due respect to human rights and the quest for justice through due 
legal process.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not 
necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 https://freedomarchives.org/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20190305/8d37bac6/attachment.htm>