Netanyahu to Form Committee to Tackle Int’l Lawsuits

Netanyahu to Form Committee to Tackle Int’l Lawsuits

07/05/2009 A ministerial committee headed by Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman will be appointed to lead the Israeli struggle against lawsuits filed around the world against military and defense establishment officials, ministers and Israeli public figures.

The Israeli government is slated to approve the appointment of the committee during Sunday's cabinet meeting. The committee's main objective will be to foil, by any means, any such legal proceedings.

The committee will be continuing the work started by the intra-ministerial team appointed for this purpose by the previous government, headed by then-Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann.

But the Netanyahu government takes international lawsuits very seriously, and will appoint a broader and "heavier" committee to tackle them. The committee will include eight ministers and the attorney general.

The committee's first mission will be to face the reopening of a Spanish investigation against six Israeli figures including Binyamin Ben-Eliezer and Dan Halutz into the 2002 assassination of Hamas official Salah Shehadeh, in which 14 civilians were killed.

Israeli sources have called the renewed investigation a "cynical move".

The committee will be headed by Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, and will include Attorney General Menachem Mazuz, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Interior Minister Eli Yishai, Justice Minister Yaakov Ne'eman, Deputy Premier and Minister for Regional Development Silvan Shalom, Welfare and Social Services Minister Isaac Herzog, Minister of Information and Diaspora Yuli Edelstein and Minister Yossi Peled.

The proposal to have the committee formed will be filed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. According to the proposal, committee will have the following authority: "To deal with the diplomatic and political aspects arising from the State of Israel and its citizens' exposure to the proceedings of international lawsuits, including the aspects pertaining to dealing with individual lawsuits. The committee will discuss the various options for promoting understanding and agreement with countries around the world to minimize and prevent the abuse of universal authorities. The committee will have at its disposal experts from the field of international law, the field of politics, and the field of PR on the international plane."

Barak: I Will Work to Have Spanish Lawsuit Annulled
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05/05/2009 Commenting on the Spanish court's decision to proceed with an investigation against Israeli officials suspected of crimes against humanity, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said he would appeal to the top Spanish offices to have the lawsuit annulled. "There is no army as moral as the Israeli army," he added.

Several Israeli officials voiced their objections on Monday to Spanish judge Fernando Andreu’s announcement that he plans to continue a war-crimes probe into the involvement of Israeli politicians and military officials in the 2002 bombing of Hamas resistance senior official Salah Shehadeh’s residence which killed him and another 14 people mostly women and children.

Barak said he would turn to the Spanish government with a request to prevent the probe. “I do not doubt that the people involved in the assassination acted with a clear mind and a single goal, to protect the citizens of Israel.”

The Israeli justice ministry lashed out at the Spanish decision as “judicial terrorism” and accused the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, which initiated proceedings, of exploiting the Spanish judiciary to distort Israel’s image and advance a political agenda against it.

DICHTER “SURPRISED”
Former minister Avi Dichter, a suspect in the probe, said Monday, “I'm surprised that in a country like Spain a judge finds it difficult to distinguish between war on terror and what he terms 'crimes against humanity.'” “The death of innocent civilians is unfortunate”, Dichter alleged, but the fault lies with “terrorists who turn civilians into a human shield.”

However, Dichter said he was not overly concerned regarding the probe, despite the fact that Andreu could issue an arrest warrant for his arrest that would be valid throughout the European Union. “I can buy Belgian chocolate here and watch Spanish soccer games on television,” he said.

WHO GAVE SPAIN THE RIGHT TO JUDGE?

Dichter's fellow suspect, Major-General Doron Almog, expressed outrage at the ruling. “What is Spain to get involved in an internal affair? What moral high ground do they have? What superior justice do they have? Who gave them the right to judge between us and the Palestinians, or to decide what's legal and what isn't?”

Both Almog and Dichter warned that similar cases were likely to follow the Spanish case. Other EU nations, including Britain, allow court cases involving foreign nationals on foreign soil.

Alon Ben-David, an Israeli military analyst, said that Israel knows how to contain a matter like this. “Had the Israeli government took a step in the appropriate time, the probe wouldn’t have reached to the court. But the stone entered the well and we need many wise men to get it out,” he added.

The suspects named by Andreu are then-Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, former Israeli occupation forces Chief Moshe Yaalon, then-Air Force Commander Dan Halutz, former GOC Southern Command Doron Almog, Giora Eiland, then-head of the Israeli National Security Council and Mike Herzog of the Defense Ministry.