That much said, local experts such as the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights believe that the recent major attacks on the Gaza Strip will be successfully prosecuted. “They were well-documented, televised and the world was paying attention,” a member of the Gaza City team commented. Their optimism may be somewhat misplaced, however: charges against Ariel Sharon and others in the past did not get past first base. The public exposure of large-scale atrocities, including the alleged use of white phosphorus bombs in enclosed civilian areas and widespread killing of hundreds of children, for which there is ample evidence, will be difficult to defend in theory, but the the founding texts of the International Criminal Court empowers the UN Security Council to suspend its work, so it is doubtful that prosecutions will proceed, unless the Obama administration demonstrates a new form of resolve. According to PCC, implicated Israelis have been warned internally against leaving its boundaries due to fears of arrest. There may be some truth in this: as reported, (Thus passim) Israel has publicly vowed to grant legal aid to indicted soldiers and officials.

French lawyer Gilles Dovers is handling the complaint in Paris calling for the ‘open investigation into war crimes’ committed by Israeli forces during three weeks in Gaza. Dovers said today that 500 complaints are being submitted by Arab, European and Latin American officials. Bolivia and Venezuela are preparing their own cases. Argentine international prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, is deciding whether to go ahead with an investigation. Fifteen specific names are now pending for prosecution in The Hague’s war crimes tribunal. Those listed for prosecution includes Ehud Barak, Amir Peretz, Binyamin Ben Eliezer, Avi Dichter, Carmi Gilon, Dan Halutz, Doron Almog, Ehud Olmert, Eliezer Shkedy, Gabi Ashkenazi, Giora Eiland, Matan Vilani, Moshe Bogi Yaalon, Shaul Mofaz and Tzipi Livni. You can read the allegations on: www.wanted.org.il

Today’s invitation to try at least 15 Israeli officials is being delivered by 30 international lawyers of several nationalities. In parallel, the intention of a group of French lawyers to file a complaint on behalf of French citizens of Palestinian origin to the French courts against Israeli officials is gaining attention in the cities of Paris and eastern France. Co-ordination with other lawyers in Belgium and Spain is underway as similar complaints against the Israeli officials are being made in Brussels and Madrid. Belgium is among the countries who issued charges against Ariel Sharon in the past. Moroccan lawyers also disclosed yesterday practical steps toward filing a lawsuit against “the perpetrators of war crimes” in Gaza. Six lawyers are working with the Minister of Justice of Morocco.

John J Kelly

These GBU-39 bunker busters weigh around 2.2 tons each. How many are in the 3000 ton shipment now en route to Israel and is Iran their final destination?

Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports that the US have cancelled plans to ship the 3000 tons of munitions from Greece  to Israel (that it wasn’t sending) ‘due to the Gaza conflict’. This confirms the earlier speculation that the weapons were not requisitioned for the Gaza operation. Before we all breathe a sigh of relief and applaud the new direction of the incoming Obama diplomats, however, the same report also says that the US will find a different way to deliver hundreds of uranium-tipped bunker-busting WMDs for the ‘missile defence system’ in Israel. According to Pentagon spokesman Lt Col Ryder: ”I can confirm that the U.S. munition shipment has been delayed and that EUCOM (U.S. European Command) is developing an appropriate course of action to deliver the items to the U.S. stockpile in Israel.”  (Reuters) For security reasons, he declined to elaborate further, but the fact that its existence is now out in the open means that the Obama administration in waiting is both aware of and has condoned this shipment.

Hilary/Chuckie. No regime change in the White House.

Meanwhile, here is a clue as to what it might be used for. As predicted, Secretary of State designate Hilary Clinton has adopted the mantle, demeanour and even some of the phrases of her highly successful predecessor, Condi ‘Peacemaker’ Rice: “As we focus on Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan, we must also actively pursue a strategy of smart power in the Middle East that addresses the security needs of Israel and the legitimate political and economic aspirations of the Palestinians,” Clinton said in prepared remarks for her confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. She went on to say that the United States must pursue a foreign policy that “effectively challenges Iran to end its nuclear weapons program and sponsorship of terror and persuades both Iran and Syria to abandon their dangerous behavior and become constructive regional actors.” (No mention of Israel’s ‘dangerous behaviour,’ which includes allegedly dropping white phosphorous onto civilian populations amongst other ‘legitimate acts of warfare’ copied from US ‘operations’ in Fallujah and elsewhere).

She added that the incoming Obama administration would take no options off the table when dealing with Iran over its nuclear ambitions but a policy review was being done over how to tackle Iran. (Reuters). Where have we heard the ominous phrase ‘take no options off the table’ before? Bombing Iran looks more certain as time goes on. Welcome to Armageddon. It’s just down the road from Iraq. Ask one of the horsemen for directions.

John J Kelly

The contents of this article, which can be viewed in full at the link below, are summarised here with no endorsement or comment by Thus Magazine or guarantees as to their accuracy, save that, where indicated, attributed sources or comment in the public domain has been checked.

This piece, which contains some elements of conjecture, alleges that 3000 tons of ‘ammunition’ is destined to sail from Greece to Israel to arrive by 31 January. The US have not denied the existence of this shipment. The size and conjectured nature of the shipment make it highly unlikely that this was or is part of the ongoing Gaza ‘operation.’ This adds weight to the growing fear that the assault on Gaza is a prelude to a larger engagement by Israel on one or more fronts with its neighbours, but particularly with Iran. Given that the armaments possesed by Hamas (and Hizbollah) are of a relatively primitive order, and their defences scarcely merit ‘bunker-buster’ uranium-tipped missiles (especially at this stage of the operation) the article speculates that this ‘unusually large’ consignment of heavy ‘ammunition’ is destined for an Israeli attack on Iran. The US has allegedly refused support for an Israeli attack on Iran, stating as recently as September 2008 that Israel would need to give ‘prior warning’ before attacking Iran and that Israeli warplanes flying through Iraqi airspace en route to Iran would run the risk of being shot down by US forces. However, Iraqi President Nouri Al-Maliki would now make that call, were it deemed necessary to do do, drawing Iraq into conflict with Iran, were one to arise.

The article also claims that in early January 2009, the Pentagon dispatched over 100 military personnel to Israel from US European Command (EUCOM) to assist in setting up a new sophisticated X-band early warning radar system, part of the military aid package to Israel approved by the Pentagon in September 2008, and is designed to track and destroy missiles from Iran. Meanwhile, Russia has recently opened talks to supply its trading partner, Iran, with S-300 surface-to-air missiles, opening up the real prospect of a new cold war should Israel proceed with its actions, which will require US approval, notwithstanding the ‘independent’ status of Iraq since the US controls the missile defence system and is supplying the armaments.

The entire article may be read here: Global Research, January 11, 2009.

To repeat: Thus Magazine takes no responsibility for the accuracy of its content.

Vengeful sky, Sunday 11 January, Gaza.

Tony Blair has come back from yet another much-needed holiday and New Year at his multi-million pound country seat, formerly owned by that other consummate actor, Sir John Geilgud, to go through the motions with beacon of democracy, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, earning his corn with insights such as: ”I am hopeful we can put an agreement together but it’s going to have to be worked on very hard and it’s got to be credible.” Amazing. We all thought an agreement that was knocked together and was entirely incredible would have done the trick, Tony. His sudden frenzy of diplomacy may be connected to criticism from various quarters, including the Telegraph and Sunday Times that he and the ‘Quartet’ have been remarkable for their absence since hostilities commenced (as pointed out by Thus on 27 December 2008). His headquarters – a floor of the appropriately named American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem, which he rarely visits, are maintained at a cost of £700,000 per year, allegedly funded by none other than the UN Development Programme. Meanwhile, the world’s most lucrative after-dinner speaker (who’d listen to him before dinner?) will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom from George W Bush as a reward for his unwavering toadying during the Iraq farrago, for the WMD Yellow Cake jape that helped start same, for the jumper he knitted for W and for walking like a cowboy during and after their meetings. Tommy Franks, Dick Cheney, Kissinger, Rumsfeld and other apocalypse jockeys have also received this prized gong. Who says war crime doesn’t pay?

38 more people died in Gaza on Sunday 11 January, 2008. As predicted, in what Israel terms as the 'final phase' or 'endgame' reservists are trundling into Gaza to have a crack at the shocked and awed locals. The body count is now 900 with 4100 wounded and rising. Seven Palestinians, including two women and two children, were killed this morning. 1500 should be just enough to secure another Intifada. Foreign minister Tzipi Livni, who told the world there was no humanitarian crisis in Gaza then went on to cement one, said on Israeli army radio "I am not going to negotiate with Hamas and don't need them to sign anything for me. What they said is meaningless." So that's alright then. In other words, massacre away.

The world has largely tut-tutted as it watched the economic siege of Gaza move to ‘shock and awe’ air raids and now to ground troop massacres in a grotesque echo of Iraq. Whether Livni, Barak or Netanyahu, the odds have shortened on Israel’s chances of forcing the real ‘endgame’ – attacking Iran on the pretext of thwarting its nuclear ambitions, using the 20,000 weapons of mass destruction helpfully supplied by the US last year. Only a lunatic or a nihilist would see this as positive for peace in the Middle East or for enhancing Israeli security, but the evidence of this continued barbarity shows that there are plenty of these around. Not that anyone cares any more, but strictly for the record, here are some highlights from the Fourth Geneva Convention:

Civilians are not to be subject to attack. This includes direct attacks on civilians and indiscriminate attacks against areas in which civilians are present.

There is to be no destruction of property unless justified by military necessity.

Civilians must not be subject to outrages upon personal dignity.

Civilians must not be subject to collective punishment and reprisals.

Civilians must not receive differential treatment based on race, religion, nationality, or political allegiance.

Warring parties must not use or develop biological or chemical weapons and must not allow children under 15 to participate in hostilities or to be recruited into the armed forces.

The last part of the Convention relates directly to the alleged activities of Hamas: “The presence of a protected person may not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations.” (Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, August 12, 1949, 6 U.S.T. 3516, 75 U.N.T.S. 287, art. 28). Tony, you’re a lawyer (and your wife is a human rights lawyer). Advise your Israeli Neocon friends that they might be breaking the law, and while you’re at it, please turn yourself in to the ICC. A whip round at Bilderberg will provide sufficient funds for Cherie to defend you (and make sure you get off) then someone can make a film about it.  Strike that last part, someone already has.

John J Kelly

Hopeless in Gaza, John Keane, 2002

Despite the early optimism of UK Foreign Minister, David Miliband, who greeted last night’s UN Security Council Resolution for an immediate ceasefire as ‘the world speaking with one voice,’ the problem was – it wasn’t. Although the vote was carried 14-0, the US, as predicted (Thus passim) abstained. Israel, which doesn’t care much for the UN anyway (Thus passim) resumed its bombing this morning with a vengeance, carrying out at least 50 air strikes into Gaza. Outrageously, Hamas also rejected the ceasefire resolution. According to the BBC: Ayman Taha, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza, said: “even though we are the main actors on the ground in Gaza, we were not consulted about this resolution and they have not taken into account our vision and the interests of our people.” Run that one by me again, Ayman. What part of ‘immediate ceasefire to avoid humanitarian tragedy’ don’t you understand? The term ‘criminal sociopaths’ (Thus passim) springs to mind, this time appended by ‘idiot’.

Meanwhile, witnesses told the UN that about 30 Palestinians died earlier this week as Israeli forces shelled a house in Gaza City into which Israeli soldiers had previously moved more than 100 people, half of them children. According to the BBC, Israel said the allegations, reported by Allegra Pacheco of UNHCR, into the shelling of the house in the Zeitoun district were being investigated (but reject the claims). International Red Cross (ICRC) witnesses say they were denied ambulance access to the incident by Israeli soldiers. The UNHCR state )the obvious) that, if true, this incident is a war crime. The UNHCR have also accused Hamas of atrocities – using civilians as human shields – and repeated the calls for journalists, NGOs and independent observers to be allowed access. Israel has rejected this call, claiming that there are plenty of journalists in Gaza and citing the Orwellian reason that the closure of the crossings from Israel to Gaza makes it problematic to allow access. 

Since the current conflict began on 27 December, it is estimated that 770 Palestinians and 14 Israelis have been killed (seven by ‘friendly fire.’) Over 250 civilian deaths have been of children and teenagers. When the Israelis implement ‘Phase 3′ of this action, sending in 7000 reservists on the ground, it is likely that deaths and injuries will at least double (history indicates the probability of more ‘friendly fire’ and random massacres when the trigger-happy territorials get pushed into combat. Given that Israel and Hamas have ignored the authority of the UN, and opinion polls in Israel and the US are reacting favourably to the massacre, this seems likely. Good morning, Vietnam.

John J Kelly

Look at the mess we’re in. Europe faces two acute crises that threaten both our interests and our values. The Gaza war is a negation of every principle for which Europe claims to stand. It directly affects our vital interests, not least because the latest round of Palestinian suffering (compounded by the Palestinians’ own divided and irresponsible leadership) will further inflame the anger of muslims living in Europe. The Russian-Ukrainian gas dispute has already resulted in elderly citizens of some east European member states shivering in unheated apartments. If protecting our people from dying of cold is not a vital interest, I don’t know what is. And this conflict, too, mocks European ideals of conflict-resolution by peaceful negotiation under the rule of law.

So how does Europe respond? Ludicrously, it has been represented in the Middle East by not one but two separate missions, an official EU one led by the Czech foreign minister, since the Czech Republic has just taken over from France the still-rotating six-monthly presidency of the EU, and another consisting of the king-emperor Nicolas Sarkozy, who clearly so much liked being president of Europe for the last six months that he feels Europe and the world cannot possibly do without him. To adapt Louis XIV: ‘L’Europe, c’est moi’.

At a moment when the United States is suspended between an outgoing president who won’t do anything to stop the slaughter and an incoming president who feels he can’t yet, Europe has a chance to show what it can do. So here it is: weak, divided, hypocritical (arms exports) and still as infuriatingly pompous and vacuously self-aggrandising as it was in the early 1990s, when the foreign minister of Luxembourg descended on disintegrating Yugoslavia and cried ‘the hour of Europe has come’. Like the Bourbons, the EU seems to have forgotten nothing and learned nothing. The official EU delegation’s demand for an instant ceasefire was simply rebuffed. Sarkozy, to his credit, has at least worked urgently with the state on Gaza’s southern border, Egypt, to come up with a concrete plan. But even if Israel agrees to some version of the Egyptian plan, it will be for its own combination of operational and political reasons, and/or because effective pressure comes from Washington.

We were winning this game until they unsportingly turned the gas off

Ach Europa! sighed the German writer Hans Magnus Enzensberger some twenty years ago, with affectionate exasperation. Ach Europa! I cry in 2009, more in anger than in sorrow. While the human suffering caused by the Russian-Ukrainian gas dispute is less acute than that in Gaza, Europe’s failure here is even more culpable. For all its economic power, Europe can not stop the Gaza tragedy without help from the US. Not true in respect of Russian gas. If we had done what the experts have been urging since the last Russian pipeline throttling and had begun to create a single European market in natural gas; if 27 EU member states consistently acted as one in the positions they take with both Russia and Ukraine; then we would never have descended to this sorry mess. As it is, when I hear officials of the European Commission huffing and puffing – this is ‘unacceptable’, they say, ‘Russia must…’ – I not merely anticipate but inwardly almost share the contemptuous reaction of Gazprom and Vladimir Putin.

 Why can’t we Europeans get our act together when it comes to dealing with the rest of the world? On our own continent, we have done great things: we have almost completed the most ambitious enlargement in the history of the Union; we have just marked the tenth anniversary of the Euro. In external policy, we are little further on than we were a decade ago. And time is not on our side. As powers such as China and India rise, the relative power of Europe inevitably decreases – so pooling our resources is to some extent simply running to keep up. Global warming and nuclear proliferation will not wait on our endless internal debates.

There are two keys to getting our act together: institutional and political. In the last decade, we’ve paid too much attention to the institutional, too little to the political. Institutions matter. For all his faults, Sarkozy did show over the last half-year the kind of impact that an energetic, confident presidential figure representing Europe could make. Better still to have a president and a high representative both appointed for a longer period, as envisaged in the Lisbon Treaty. Less visibly, it would help to have a single ‘external action service’ of officials and diplomats whose business it is systematically to identify European interests, values and instruments on all the main external issues (Israel-Palestine, Russian gas, you name it).

So some say: these events show that we really need the Lisbon Treaty, therefore the Irish must have a second referendum and come back again with the right answer. That seems to me both anti-democratic in principle and unlikely to succeed in practice. If I were Irish, I would feel both bullied and condescended to, and therefore still more inclined to say ‘no’. Rather, we should be thinking what institutional changes really are essential to having a more effective external policy, and how these can be achieve under or added to the existing treaties that make up the EU’s cumulative constitution.

Ultimately, the institutions are only means. Where there’s a political will, there’ll be an institutional way. Where there isn’t the political will, the best institutional arrangements in the world won’t do the trick. At this point, it is customary for elder statesmen and stateswomen – a resource with which our continent is richly over-endowed – to start bewailing the lack of ‘leadership’ in today’s Europe. (It was so much better, we understand, in their day.) Actually, I don’t think our current leaders are such a bad bunch. Yes, they all want to grandstand and profile themselves on the world stage: what politician doesn’t? The deeper problem is not in these political stars but in ourselves. It’s our fault for rewarding their vanity.

So long as we, the people, in countries across the European Union do not wake up and demand that our leaders get their collective act together, in the interest of each and all, they will have no domestic political incentive for doing so. They may (or, in the case of British Conservatives, may not) intellectually accept the long-term case for a stronger, more coherent European voice in the world, but while they are politicians in office this insight will be trumped by considerations of short-term political advantage.

It is up to us, the citizens of Europe, to change their calculation of advantage. That means we ourselves have to wake up to the dangerous world we’re in: a world in which we now face a long struggle to maintain the relatively prosperous, free and civilised way of life we have built up over the last fifty years. Unless and until we Europeans do thus gather our strength, our American, Chinese and Russian ‘friends’ will be richly justified in their contempt.

Timothy Garton Ash is Professor of European Studies at Oxford University, a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author, most recently, of Free World.

A version of this article appears in The Guardian, January 8 2009

Israel is feeling “no real pressure” from the world to end the operation in the Gaza Strip, and the amount of time the international community will sit relatively quietly on the sidelines depends on how things develop, senior diplomatic officials said Sunday. According to the officials, one errant IDF shell could bring to a dramatic end what has been described as “greater understating than you can imagine” for Israel’s actions.” HERB KEINON, Jerusalem Post, Monday 29 December 2008.

No Arab, No Terror, by John Keane, The Inconvenience of History series, 2003

This article from today’s Jerusalem Post : Jerusalem: No international pressure to end op demonstrates the urgent need to send a clear public signal to Israel that its behaviour makes it a pariah in the international community and a threat to world peace. Dancing around the handbags is not an option. While it is true that the Christmas holidays meant that the liberal media was caught on the hop – The Guardian’s 27 December front page concerned the English High Street sales and the movements in Gaza were relegated to a couple of columns in the international section, for example – the world is now catching up. As the undemocratically-compromised US media shows itself broadly in favour of the genocide, up to and including the ‘food aid’ malarky (Thus passim) Israeli citizens should be made fully aware that the rest of the world won’t be fooled again. The Jerusalem Post article notes (disapprovingly) the disapproval of Tayyip Erdogan, Turkish Prime Minister (Thus passim). It also notes, approvingly, the tepid criticism from the EU and the unco-ordinated early statements from the UN, (now followed, as predicted, by a weak statement from the Security Council). The modus operandi of previous Israeli state terror campaigns has been to seek tacit approval from the US, start bombing and withdraw with no apologies or retribution when ‘objectives’ have been met, to muted protest from the western ‘powers’. There are moderate and balanced voices in the Israeli media prepared to describe this tragedy relatively objectively, such as Amos Harel of Haaretz:

The events along the southern front which commenced at 11:30 on Saturday morning are the closest thing there is to a war between Israel and Hamas. It is difficult to ascertain (geographically) where and for how long the violence will reach before international intervention forces a halt to the hostilities. However, Israel’s opening salvo is not merely another “surgical” operation or pinpoint strike. This is the harshest IDF assault on Gaza since the territory was captured during the Six-Day War in 1967.

“Palestinian sources in Gaza report that 40 targets were destroyed in a span of three to five minutes. This was a massive attack much along the lines of what the Americans termed “shock and awe” during their invasion of Iraq in March 2003. Simultaneous, heavy bombardment of a number of targets on which Israel spent months gathering intelligence. The military “target bank” includes dozens of additional targets linked to Hamas, some of which will certainly come under attack in the coming days.

“Like the U.S. assault on Iraq and the Israeli response to the abduction of IDF reservists Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser at the outset of the Second Lebanon War (the “night of the Fajr missiles,” a reference to the IAF destruction of Hezbollah’s arsenal of medium-range Fajr missiles), little to no weight was apparently devoted to the question of harming innocent civilians. From Israel’s standpoint, Hamas, which persistently fires rockets while using the civilian population as cover, had plenty of opportunities to save face and lower their demands. In stubbornly continuing to launch rockets during the course of recent weeks, it brought this assault on itself. (Read full article here).

The Hamas leadership are incompetent sociopaths who are treating their own constituents as pawns in this deadly game (witness the reports that they are not allowing the wounded access to Egyptian aid).  Sending rockets into civilian complexes, occupied by whoever, is unpardonable, as is suicide bombing and all its derivatives. But, like the US in Fallujah, for example, the ‘contest’ is grotesquely unequal. We expect a degree of compassion and forethought from one of the world’s most civilised and formerly-oppressed peoples. Yet, over the past eight years in particular, this wayward and dysfunctional offspring of Kissinger diplomacy has more or less rampaged as it pleased with a toy box full of the latest weaponry from its doting US parents, the Neocon Nutter family. Indeed, Israeli forces trained and equipped the hapless Georgian clients (2nd largest recipients of US aid after Israel) in their stupid assault on South Ossetia last August, which only now has the spin apparatus managed to turn into a Russian offensive. Nearer to home, Israel has twice trashed the Lebanon, scorched the West Bank, built a grotesque wall reminiscent of Berlin and any number of concentration camps and sewn the seeds of a generation of terrorists by half-starving the disenfranchised people of Gaza, whom it is now indiscriminately bombing prior to re-annexing their miserable territories. The ‘justification’ for all these acts is the ‘War on Terror.’ The reality is that Israel needs land for its immigrant settlers. It is easily the best-equipped military force in the region (with or without nuclear capability, which it has and has threatened to use) and long ago stopped worrying about security.

Except that last year’s land invasion of Lebanon did not go according to plan. A series of blunders and savage resistance from Hizbollah led to a withdrawal, which the incumbent government fears will be met with disapproval at the polls in February’s Israeli elections.

The Jerusalem Post is largely right in its assessment of the level of Western disapproval to date. AIPAC was so sure of its position that its offices were closed until today. But now China and others have joined the howls of protest, and even the UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband has hinted that he is . . . erm . . . less than happy with the slaughter side of things, there is a chance that Israel’s bloodlust can be tempered if enough people are brave enough to say ‘genug ist genug.’

It’s a small thing, but Avaaz have launched a petition, which you can sign here:

Thus will move on now that the regular news sources have come back from their holidays, but silobreaker.com is a good source of aggregated news and opinion for agnostics. The full force of AIPAC will be brought to bear on the world’s media and will intensify as this ‘conflict’ – or turkey shoot – enters its next stage. For light relief, I’ll be reviewing ‘Defiance’ and ‘Waltz with Bashir’ over the next couple of days.

Hopeless in Gaza 2, Nativity 2003, John Keane, the Inconvenience of History, 2003

The US and its ‘allies’ pursued an aggressive ‘war’ counter to the 4th Geneva Convention against Iraq on the spurious justification that Iraq had ignored a UN resolution. Israel is in breach of more than 65 UN Resolutions, but the most significant, Resolution 446, passed in 1979 with abstensions from the UK, Norway and the US, lies at the heart of this current outrage and is key to the continuing Middle East conflict. Notwithstanding that the US has subsequently decided to adhere by UN Resolutions as and when it suits, it should be noted that Professor Richard A Falk and members from the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights were detained by Israeli officials for 30 hours at Ben Gurion airport on December 15, 2008 and refused permission to travel to the West Bank and Gaza to document human rights conditions before being deported to Geneva. Professor Falk, an international lawyer and expert on both Nuremberg and the Geneva Convention, had intimated that Israel’s siege of Gaza was counter to international law and had urged prosecution at the ICC in the Hague. He described Israel’s siege of Gaza last year, when it was still not comparable in its severity to the current situation, as follows:

Is it an irresponsible overstatement to associate the treatment of Palestinians with this criminalised Nazi record of collective atrocity? I think not. The recent developments in Gaza are especially disturbing because they express so vividly a deliberate intention on the part of Israel and its allies to subject an entire human community to life-endangering conditions of utmost cruelty. The suggestion that this pattern of conduct is a holocaust-in-the-making represents a rather desperate appeal to the governments of the world and to international public opinion to act urgently to prevent these current genocidal tendencies from culminating in a collective tragedy.

You can read Resolution 446 here:

The Security Council,

Having heard the statement of the Permanent Representative of Jordan and other statements made before the Council,

Stressing the urgent need to achieve a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East, affirming once more that the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 12 August 1949 1/ is applicable to the Arab territories occupied by Israel since 1967, including Jerusalem:

1. Determines that the policy and practices of Israel in establishing settlements in the Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied since 1967 have no legal validity and constitute a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East;

2. Strongly deplores the failure of Israel to abide by Security Council resolutions 237 (1967) of 14 June 1967, 252 (1968) of 21 May 1968 and 298 (1971) of 25 September 1971 and the consensus statement by the President of the Security Council on 11 November 1976 2/ and General Assembly resolutions 2253 (ES-V) and 2254 (ES-V) of 4 and 14 July 1967, 32/5 of 28 October 1977 and 33/113 of 18 December 1978;

3. Calls once more upon Israel, as the occupying Power, to abide scrupulously by the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention, to rescind its previous measures and to desist from taking any action which would result in changing the legal status and geographical nature and materially affecting the demographic composition of the Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem, and, in particular, not to transfer parts of its own civilian population into the occupied Arab territories;

4. Establishes a Commission consisting of three members of the Security Council, to be appointed by the President of the Council after consultations with the members of the Council, to examine the situation relating to settlements in the Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem;

5. Requests the Commission to submit its report to the Security Council by 1 July 1979;

6. Requests the Secretary-General to provide the Commission with the necessary facilities to enable it to carry out its mission.

7. Decides to keep the situation in the occupied territories under constant and close scrutiny and to reconvene in July 1979 to review the situation in the light of the findings of the Commission.

The siege of Gaza, refusal to accept the opinion of UN officials, followed by sustained bombardment, followed by a ground offensive and occupation is reminiscent of a recent unfortunate and genocidal US military misadventure, based on the pretext of pursuing a war on terror. Can anyone remember which one? I wonder if they are related.

John J Kelly

Moment, by John Keane, from the Inconvenience of History series (2003)

Forget about sending aid – the previous post has unfortunately been rendered redundant by the news that Israel has attacked Hamas-run security compounds in Gaza, killing hundreds of civilians and wounding others – including the almost-obligatory deaths of two small girls allegedly killed by Hamas – in the process. See Gaza attacks. Although rocket attacks have unquestionably increased over the past few weeks, and Israel warned of retaliation after the truce expired last week, this latest disproportionate outrage should be met with the strongest possible condemnation. But we know it won’t, especially by the governments of the US and its European client, the UK, both of whom have characteristically equivocated for fear of upsetting AIPAC and other power brokers. The EU reaction as ever, has been milky in the extreme.

Here’s one reason for the diplomatic cough. In an uncanny parallel with the funding of the USSR irritants, the Afghan Mujaheddin which morphed into the Taliban, Hamas was originally created and supported by Mossad, the Israeli ‘Intelligence’ service, to destabilise the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). Both Hamas and its grim cousin, Hezbollah, believe they ultimately stand to gain from a petulant and bloody escalation. This horrible (but democratically elected) Golem is unquestionably responsible for stirring up the witches’ brew of tension and hatred which ensures that the Middle East will remain in flames this year, but let’s even up the imbalance and call the whole felafel what it is: the Nazification of Israel by evil puppets of a discredited neocon oligarchy, supported by neo-liberal intellectual midgets. Or is that a trifle rude and undiplomatic?

If Israel begins the promised ground offensive, which Shimon Peres claimed as recently as last Thursday was not an objective, but is now a realistic proposition, then the rest of the free world should commence a complete boycott of Israel, and not cease until these belligerent idiots have been brought to the negotiating table. Hamas (Gaza) and Hezbollah (Lebanon) are terrorist organisations, to be sure, but continued US support for what can only be termed as state terrorism is the oxygen of this genocidal conflict. The word democracy should be bleeped whenever State Department officials pontificate on the news. “Middle East Peace Envoy” Tony Blair and his simian cronies should be forced to pay for and to attend the funerals of every victim. And I’m a reasonable, moderately Zionist sort of guy.

John J Kelly