Israeli War Crimes 2-24-2021

 

24, February 2021                              Israeli War Crimes

In a landmark decision the International Criminal Court ruled that it now has the authority to investigate alleged Israeli war crimes in the Palestinian territories. Israel has long argued the court has no jurisdiction over the Occupied Territories because Palestine is not an independent state. But the ICC judges rejected that argument. Successive US administrations and their proxies in Congress have long shielded Israel’s criminal behavior. The ICC’s chief prosecutor alleged that, “war crimes have been or are being committed in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.”

Raji Sourani, the award-winning human rights lawyer and director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza, past winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award and the Right Livelihood Award, welcomed the ICC’s decision. The ICC’s probe is expected to look at Israel’s 2014 assault on Gaza, in which 2,100 Palestinians died. Gaza resident Tawfiq Abu Jama lost 24 members of his extended family in the assault.

Predictably, Prime Minister Netanyahu, mired in his own corruption scandal, used the “anti-Semitic, shied to deflect criticism.  There is no doubt Jews suffered appalling atrocities fleeing the Germans in World War 2, but it is time that Netanyahu and his supporters stop accusing legitimate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. Israel should also stop using ancient Biblical texts to justify their brutal pogrom of Palestine. To allege God plays a game of losers and winners is a violation of the basic tenets of all religions. This was reinforced by the great spiritual master, Nanak, who stated unequivocally, that all men  (and women) are equal in the eyes of God.

Furthermore, the mantra that Israel is a “Jewish and democratic state” is patently absurd. Palestinians do NOT enjoy the same rights as Jews. Example, Israel has the highest vaccination rate in the world but does NOT offer the same lifesaving remedy to the Palestinians. Israel has become a pariah to much of the free world with the exception of the US and a handful of Arab states who are notorious for clamping down on human rights. Israel and these Arab states have much in common. Let us hope the ICC will expose and prosecute Israel’s many crimes. For more go to, http://callforsocialjustice.blogspot.com/