* Israeli War Crimes Tribunal-- at the University of Michigan (see "Michigan Daily" article, also below.)
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"An Israeli War Crimes Tribunal (ICTI) May be the Only Deterrent to a Global War"
By Francis A. Boyle
On the Web at:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21579.htm
December 31, 2008
"Global Research" -- -- The United Nations General Assembly must immediately establish an International Criminal Tribunal for Israel (ICTI) as a "subsidiary organ" under U.N. Charter Article 22. The ICTI would be organized along the lines of the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY), which was established by the Security Council.
The purpose of the ICTI would be to investigate and prosecute Israeli war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide against the Peoples of Lebanon and Palestine-- just as the ICTY did for the victims of international crimes committed by Serbia and the Milosevic Regime throughout the Balkans.
The establishment of ICTI would provide some small degree of justice to the victims of Israeli war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide against the Peoples of Lebanon and Palestine--just as the ICTY has done in the Balkans. Furthermore, the establishment of ICTI by the U.N. General Assembly would serve as a deterrent effect upon Israeli leaders such as Prime Minister Olmert, Foreign Minister Livni, Defense Minister Barak , Chief of Staff Ashkenazi and Israel's other top generals that they will be prosecuted for their further infliction of international crimes upon the Lebanese and the Palestinians.
Without such a deterrent, Israel might be emboldened to attack Syria with the full support of the Likhudnik Bush Jr. Neoconservatives, who have always viewed Syria as "low-hanging fruit" ready to be taken out by means of their joint aggression. If Israel attacks Syria as it did when it invaded Lebanon in 1982, Iran has vowed to come to Syria's defense.
And of course Israel and the Bush Jr administration very much want a pretext to attack Iran. This scenario could readily degenerate into World War III.
For the U.N. General Assembly to establish ICTI could stop the further development of this momentum towards a regional if not global catastrophe.
--Francis A. Boyle is a graduate of the University of Chicago and Harvard Law School. He has advised numerous international bodies in the areas of human rights, war crimes, genocide, nuclear policy, and bio warfare. He received a PHD in political science from Harvard University.
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Israeli War Crimes Tribunal
At the University of Michigan--
"Jewish, Palestinian students face off"
By Laura Deneau
Michigan Daily Staff Reporter
November 21, 2000, Page 1.
Full article on the Web at:
http://www.pub.umich.edu/daily/2000/nov/11-21-2000/news/02.html
While tensions mounted yesterday on the Diag, a confrontation between students supporting Israel and students supporting Palestine ended in a calm consideration of future gatherings.
The Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee originally organized a reading of alleged war crimes committed against Palestinians, Iraqis, Jews and South Africans.
But after requests from the American Movement for Israel to cancel the event, members of the ADC invited members of AMI to attend the event.
While Palestinian students listed the alleged crimes, members of the two groups started shouting at one another. After one Israeli supporters said that the war crimes being read were "all a lie," a brief scuffle broke out.
Rackham student Amer Zahr, a member of the ADC, called on the crowd to be peaceful. "We're not here to compare pain for pain. We're not here to compare death for death," he said.
The bombing of an Israeli school bus on the Gaza Strip yesterday increased the tension between the two groups.
"It's a little hypocritical to have a tribunal when just this morning there was a terrorist attack on an Israeli school bus," said Israel-Michigan Political Affairs Committee chairman Eric Bukstein, an LSA junior. "Students on campus need to realize that this is a sensitive situation and there are many sides to the conflict," he said.
ADC members said they held their "war-crimes tribunal" in an attempt to educate students about the state of Israel and give a Palestinian perspective to the recent violence in the Middle East.
"This isn't an attack against any Jewish students but against the state of Israel and the principles of Zionism," Norah Rabiah, ADC president said.
Nursing junior Elise Erickson said that there is a discrepancy between the portrayals of Israelis and Palestinians in the media.
"When an Israeli dies you see pictures of the family, ... when a Palestinian dies you see a mob. We're here to fill in the gap," Nursing junior Elise Erickson, the Michigan Student Assembly's health issues chairwoman, told the crowd.
"There's a long history that people in the United States don't hear about," Erickson said.
ADC members said the sources of their information come from public documents and other information not reported in the mainstream media they have gathered in the past two weeks.
Many students in support of Israel argued that the information presented was taken out of context....
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"Israel's War Crimes"
by Richard Falk, United Nations special rapporteur for human rights in the Occupied Territories
"The Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip represent severe and massive violations of international humanitarian law as defined in the Geneva Conventions, both in regard to the obligations of an Occupying Power and in the requirements of the laws of war.
• Collective punishment: The entire 1.5 million people who live in the crowded Gaza Strip are being punished for the actions of a few militants.
• Targeting civilians: The airstrikes were aimed at civilian areas in one of the most crowded stretches of land in the world, certainly the most densely populated area of the Middle East.
• Disproportionate military response: The airstrikes have not only destroyed every police and security office of Gaza's elected government, but have killed and injured hundreds of civilians; at least one strike reportedly hit groups of students attempting to find transportation home from the university.
"Earlier Israeli actions, specifically the complete sealing off of entry and exit to and from the Gaza Strip, have led to severe shortages of medicine and fuel (as well as food), resulting in the inability of ambulances to respond to the injured, the inability of hospitals to adequately provide medicine or necessary equipment for the injured, and the inability of Gaza's besieged doctors and other medical workers to sufficiently treat the victims.
"Certainly the rocket attacks against civilian targets in Israel are unlawful. But that illegality does not give rise to any Israeli right, neither as the Occupying Power nor as a sovereign state, to violate international humanitarian law and commit war crimes or crimes against humanity in its response. I note that Israel's escalating military assaults have not made Israeli civilians safer; to the contrary, the one Israeli killed today after the upsurge of Israeli violence is the first in over a year.
"Israel has also ignored recent Hamas diplomatic initiatives to re-establish the truce or ceasefire since its expiration on December 26.
"The Israeli airstrikes today, and the catastrophic human toll that they caused, challenge those countries that have been and remain complicit, either directly or indirectly, in Israel's violations of international law. That complicity includes those countries knowingly providing the military equipment including warplanes and missiles used in these illegal attacks, as well as those countries who have supported and participated in the siege of Gaza that itself has caused a humanitarian catastrophe.
"I remind all Member States of the United Nations that the UN continues to be bound to an independent obligation to protect any civilian population facing massive violations of international humanitarian law--regardless of what country may be responsible for those violations. I call on all Member States, as well as officials and every relevant organ of the United Nations system, to move on an emergency basis not only to condemn Israel's serious violations, but to develop new approaches to providing real protection for the Palestinian people."
Richard Falk, professor emeritus of international law and practice at Princeton University, is the United Nations Human Rights Rapporteur in the Occupied Territories and a member of The Nation editorial board. He is the author of many books, including The Costs of War: International Law, the UN, and World Order After Iraq.
Editor's Note: This statement was issued December 27 in response to Israel's attack in Gaza by Professor Richard Falk, United Nations special rapporteur for human rights in the Occupied Territories and a longtime member of The Nation's editorial board.
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Israel in Gaza: Irrationality
Wallace Shawn: It is not rational to believe that the Palestinians in the occupied territories will be terrorized by force and violence, by cruelty, by starvation or by slaughter into a docile acceptance of the Israeli occupation.
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