Cooperation with ICC - a crime in Israel?
War Crimes Debate in Israel Heats Up Again
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Wed Oct 30,10:39 AM ET
Jim Lobe,OneWorld US
A three-month-old controversy in Israel over a peace group's efforts to collect
evidence of alleged war crimes committed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF)
against Palestinians intensified Tuesday when a senior member of the ruling
Likud Party submitted a bill in Israel's parliament that would make it a crime
for any Israeli citizen to provide assistance, documents or information to the
new International Criminal Court (ICC) at the Hague.
The bill, which was presented by Zeev Boim, chairman of the governing coalition,
attaches a 10-year prison
sentence to the proposed crime, and would ban any group found to be engaged in
the activities it covers.
The coalition government, which may collapse before the bill can be voted on by
all members of Israel's parliament, or Knesset, has not yet decided whether it
will support it, although its provisions appear consistent with recent demands
by the Minister of Justice, Me'ir Sheetrit, that a new law proscribing such
activities be enacted, according to Israeli analysts.
But submission of the bill itself raises the controversy, which has become a
major topic of talk shows and newspaper columns in Israel, to a new level.
"This bill betrays the memory of six million Holocaust victims," declared former
Knesset member and peace activist Uri Avnery. "After the Holocaust, the Jewish
people fought with all its strength for the creation of an International War
Crimes Court, and now the Sharon Government tries to destroy it. This is
tantamount to an admission that they have something to hide."
Israel is a signatory to the Rome Protocol that establishes the ICC-- the world's
first permanent international court to try war crimes, crimes against humanity,
and genocide--but has not yet ratified it. The Protocol took effect after its
ratification by 60 nations last spring, and the ICC is expected to begin its
work early next year.
The United States, which signed it in the last days of Bill Clinton's
presidency, renounced its signature last May and has sought a blanket exemption
from the ICC's scope. In addition, Washington is now actively seeking bilateral
commitments from countries around the world not to turn over U.S. troops or
officials to the ICC. Israel was among the first of a dozen nations that have
signed such an agreement with Washington which pledged in return not to turn
over any Israeli soldiers to the new court.
The proposed law is believed to be directed mainly against Gush Shalom, the
Israeli Peace Bloc, which last summer warned 15 senior IDF officers in writing
that certain operations they conducted against Palestinians as reported by the
Israeli media could be considered war crimes and that Gush Shalom was gathering
information about those incidents.
The reported incidents included summary executions, dropping bombs on
residential areas, indiscriminate destruction of houses, and punishing families
for the acts of one of their members. They also included incidents-- many of
which were detailed in a major new report released by the Israeli chapter of
Physicians for Human Rights in Jerusalem Tuesday--when the IDF prevented medical
help from reaching those injured or shot at.
"The primary purpose of the letters was to make clear to the commanders the
severity of such actions, in terms of Israeli and international laws, and to
persuade them to desist from these actions," according to Gush Shalom whose
letters also warned that the Israeli government's failure to prosecute such
cases in the future left open the possibility that they might be referred to the
ICC.
The letters set off a furious debate, with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news -
web sites) demanding that criminal action be pursued against Gush Shalom members
engaged in the project. An investigation by Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein,
however, concluded that the group's actions did not violate any existing law.
Sheetrit then called for a new law.
Gush Shalom has also been widely denounced as Israel's equivalent of Kapos, the
special Jewish police who helped the Nazis keep order in concentration camps,
and traitors guilty of "stabbing the army in the back."
The Boim bill was denounced Tuesday by Gush Shalom as "despicable" and
dangerous. If passed in its current form, the group said, it could be used to
prosecute human rights organizations for collecting evidence of abuses on the
pretext that their reports might be taken up by the ICC.
"It would turn Israel into an international outcast - a country which first
signed the Rome Treaty and would now forbid its own citizens on pain of dire
punishment from helping the same court," said spokesman Adam Keller, who
appealed to the Labour Party, which is considering leaving the governing
coalition, to oppose the bill.
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"Never underestimate the power of very stupid people in large groups."
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212.369.9197
ivo@balkansnet.org
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