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<div style="display: block;" id="reader-header" class="header"> <b><small><small><a
href="http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/7/could-israel-finally-be-held-accountable.html"
id="reader-domain" class="domain"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/7/could-israel-finally-be-held-accountable.html">http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/7/could-israel-finally-be-held-accountable.html</a></a></small></small></b>
<h1 id="reader-title">Could Israel finally be held accountable?
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<div id="reader-credits" class="credits">Audrey Bomse</div>
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<p>In a highly unusual pretrial chamber ruling on July
16, International Criminal Court (ICC) judges reversed
<a target="_blank"
href="http://www.icc-cpi.int/en_menus/icc/press%20and%20media/press%20releases/pages/otp-statement-06-11-2014.aspx">a
decision by the court’s chief prosecutor, Fatou
Bensouda</a>, not to investigate Israel’s assault on
a Gaza-bound flotilla in 2010, which left 10 people
dead.</p>
<p>The judges said she committed “errors of fact,”
reached “simplistic conclusions” by ignoring war
crimes complaints and the “unnecessarily cruel
treatment of the ships’ passengers” and failed to
seriously consider the possibility that the deaths and
injuries caused by Israeli navy commandos were “<a
target="_blank"
href="http://www.icc-cpi.int/en_menus/icc/press%20and%20media/press%20releases/Pages/PR1133.aspx">systematic
or resulted from a deliberate plan or policy to
attack, kill or injure civilians</a>.”</p>
<p>But Bensouda on Monday said she would not launch a
full criminal investigation into allegations of war
crimes against Israeli military and political leaders
and naval forces. She has appealed the judges’ ruling,
which Israeli politicians and commentators denounced
as <a target="_blank"
href="http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/ICC-orders-its-prosecutor-to-consider-Mavi-Marmara-war-crimes-allegations-against-IDF-409265">shocking</a>.
Yonah Jeremy Bob <a target="_blank"
href="http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/ICC-orders-its-prosecutor-to-consider-Mavi-Marmara-war-crimes-allegations-against-IDF-409265">wrote
in The Jerusalem Post</a>, “The decision puts the
ICC the closest it has ever been to intervening
directly in the Israeli-Arab conflict.”</p>
<p>It is now up to an ICC appeals court to decide
whether to end Israel’s impunity. Upholding the
pretrial chamber’s decision would pave the way for
considering the Palestinian Foreign Ministry’s
submissions presented to the ICC in June, after
Palestine’s accession in April to the Rome Statute,
which established the ICC. The dossier provides
extensive evidence regarding Israel’s brutal 2014
assault on Gaza, its treatment of Palestinian
prisoners and the <a target="_blank"
href="http://mondoweiss.net/2015/07/israeli-settlements-dodges">expansion</a>
of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.</p>
<p>No Israeli official has been held accountable for
Israel’s indiscriminate attacks during its 2014 Gaza
offensive, in which 2,251 Palestinians were killed —
most of them civilians, including more than 500
children. No serious investigation has been initiated
to date. <a target="_blank"
href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/06/israel-probe-gaza-offensive-lawful-legitimate-150615032007899.html">Israel’s
internal report </a>published last month adopts the
official narrative, which whitewashes and justifies
the crimes by blaming the victims. In light of the
legal cover by Israel’s judicial system, the ICC
offers the only avenue for possible accountability.</p>
<p>The court’s decision on Bensouda’s appeal could go a
long way in determining the future of the ICC, which
is criticized as a venue to investigate and prosecute
mainly African human rights violators. The court has
ignored allegations of war crimes and crimes against
humanity committed by Western leaders. If
international law is to function as an impediment to
violence and high crimes, it must function
evenhandedly. The ICC has a chance to show that can
happen.</p>
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<p class="subHeading section">
</p>
<h2 class="subHeading-title">Israel’s assault on Gaza</h2>
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<p>Since 2008, the Israeli military has launched three
lethal assaults on Gaza, killing thousands of people.
Israel knew that its military campaigns would cause
significant civilian fatalities and injuries, destroy
civilian property and damage infrastructure and the
environment. There is strong evidence that Israel was
applying the Dahiya doctrine, a military strategy
that, <a target="_blank"
href="http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/12session/A-HRC-12-48.pdf">according
to the United Nations Human Rights Council</a>,
involves “the application of disproportionate force
and causing of great damage and destruction to
civilian property and infrastructure and suffering to
civilian populations.”</p>
<p>Such attacks violate the principle of proportionality
and distinction, which forbids the deliberate
targeting of civilians or civilian property. Nearly
10,000 Palestinians were wounded during the 51-day
assault on Gaza. Israel forces <a target="_blank"
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/06/world/middleeast/un-reports-dire-impact-on-children-in-gaza-strip.html">bombed</a>
142 schools, including six U.N. schools where
civilians took refuge, the coordinates of which were
repeatedly <a target="_blank"
href="http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2014/230160.htm">communicated</a>
to Israeli officials. Israeli soldiers shot and killed
fleeing civilians and those working to recover the
bodies of the dead. Israeli warplanes repeatedly
bombed Gaza’s only power plant, destroyed one-third of
Gaza’s hospitals, <a target="_blank"
href="http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=48395">29
ambulances</a> and 14 primary health care clinics,
demolished 41 mosques and damaged an additional 120.</p>
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<p class="pullQuote-quote">Nothing symbolized more the
horror that was unleashed on the people of Gaza than
the repeated shelling of U.N. facilities harboring
civilians who had been explicitly told to seek a
safe haven there. </p>
<p class="pullQuote-attributer">United Nations
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon </p>
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<p>There is no question that Israel willfully caused
wanton destruction, great suffering and serious injury
to body and health. Tens of thousands of Palestinians
<a target="_blank"
href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/08/03/world/middleeast/assessing-the-damage-and-destruction-in-gaza.html">lost
their homes</a>. Damage to sewage and water
infrastructure <a target="_blank"
href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/04/us-mideast-gaza-reconstruction-idUSKBN0G40PS20140804">affected</a>
two-thirds of the people of Gaza. UNICEF <a
target="_blank"
href="http://www.democracynow.org/2014/8/4/disgraceful_criminal_act_israel_condemned_as">said</a>
the Israeli offensive has had a “catastrophic and
tragic impact” on children in Gaza; about 373,000
children had traumatic experiences and needed
psychological help. The U.N. Relief and Works Agency
has warned about a <a target="_blank"
href="http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=48395#.Vbjng0JViko">public
health catastrophe</a>.</p>
<p>“The massive death and destruction in Gaza have
shocked and shamed the world,” U.N. Secretary General
Ban Ki-moon <a target="_blank"
href="http://www.un.org/sg/statements/index.asp?nid=7913">said
last year</a>. “Nothing symbolized more the horror
that was unleashed on the people of Gaza than the
repeated shelling of U.N. facilities harboring
civilians who had been explicitly told to seek a safe
haven there. These attacks were outrageous,
unacceptable and unjustifiable.”</p>
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<p class="subHeading section">
</p>
<h2 class="subHeading-title">Holding Israel accountable</h2>
<div class="text section">
<p>Ban and former U.N. High Commissioner for Human
Rights Navi Pillay have called for accountability and
justice. And there is a growing body of evidence
compiled by U.N. agencies and other nongovernmental
organizations that strongly suggest Israel’s crimes in
Gaza fall under the ICC’s jurisdiction.</p>
<p>In a report released on Wednesday, London-based
advocacy group Amnesty International said, “<a
target="_blank"
href="http://www.amnestyusa.org/research/reports/black-friday-carnage-in-rafah-during-2014-israelgaza-conflict">Israeli
forces carried out war crimes</a>” during its
offensive in Gaza’s Rafah. “There is strong evidence
that Israeli forces committed war crimes in their
relentless and massive bombardment of residential
areas of Rafah in order to foil the capture of Lt.
Hadar Goldin, displaying a shocking disregard for
civilian lives,” said Philip Luther, the director of
the Middle East and North Africa program at Amnesty
International. “They carried out a series of
disproportionate or otherwise indiscriminate attacks,
which they have completely failed to investigate
independently.”</p>
<p>The National Lawyers Guild Palestine subcommittee
recently sent its <a target="_blank"
href="http://www.nlginternational.org/report/Neither_facts_nor_law_support_Israeli_self-defense_claim_submission_to_ICC.pdf">revised
submission</a> to Bensouda, based on new reports and
materials highlighting why Israeli’s self-defense
claims are false and are not supported by fact or any
law. Another <a target="_blank"
href="http://www.breakingthesilence.org.il/protective-edge">report
</a>by Breaking the Silence, an advocacy group made up
of current and former Israeli soldiers, includes
dozens of testimonies that show the Israeli military
did not meet its obligations to protect civilians in
wartime. A similar report by the U.N. Independent
Commission of Inquiry in Gaza also contains evidence
of <a target="_blank"
href="http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/CoIGazaConflict/Pages/CommissionOfInquiry.aspx">possible
war crimes</a> and concludes that the mass
destruction and killing inflicted by Israeli forces
“may have constituted military tactics reflective of a
broader policy, approved at least tacitly by
decision-makers at the highest levels of the
government of Israel.”</p>
<p>To be clear, Israel is not the only liable party. Any
investigation into war crimes and crimes against
humanity committed by Israeli officials should also
look into whether U.S. officials aided and abetted
these crimes. The U.S. Congress, Presidents George W.
Bush and Barack Obama and key members of their
administrations — who provided financial assistance,
weapons and other military support to Israel — were
all aiders and abettors of Israel’s crimes in the Gaza
Strip. For example, on July 20, 2014, in the midst of
its offensive in Gaza, Israel, apparently running
short on military supplies, <a target="_blank"
href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2014/07/u-s-has-sold-ammunition-to-israel-since-start-of-gaza-conflict/">requested</a>
additional ammunition, including 140-mm tank rounds
and 40-mm illumination grenades from the United
States. Three days later, the U.S. Defense Department
authorized the transfer of munitions stored in Israel
to the Israeli authorities. In early August, Congress
<a target="_blank"
href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/congress-backs-225m-bill-to-replenish-israels-iron-dome-missile-defense/">passed</a><u>
</u>an appropriation of $225 million for Israel’s Iron
Dome missile defense system without a debate; Obama
immediately signed the bill.</p>
<p>A full criminal investigation by the ICC would send a
clear message to all involved either in committing or
in aiding and abetting Israel’s egregious crimes
against Palestinian civilians and civilian
infrastructure that they could be held accountable for
their involvement. This could help end the continuing
breaches of international law and the impunity that
has underpinned Israel’s ever-intensifying aggression,
which has caused and continues to cause extreme
suffering to Palestinians. A full probe by the ICC
prosecutor into Israel’s actions and the role of its
American enablers would be a first step toward
redeeming the court’s tainted reputation.</p>
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<p class="editorialPolicy-box"> The views expressed in this
article are the author's own and do not necessarily
reflect Al Jazeera America's editorial policy.
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