Abbas blocks ICC application, he needs to be replaced

Abbas blocks ICC application. Why?

In June, a recording was leaked in which Saeeb Erekat, the Palestinian Chief Prosecutor claimed that Abbas had promised the Israeli Premier Benyamin Netanyahu not to make the application to the International Criminal Court.

by David Hearst

A curious piece of theatre took place outside the Chief Prosecutor’s Office in the International Criminal Court in The Hague on August 5. This was 28 days into Israel’s attack on Gaza, just over half way through, and the Palestinian foreign minister banged the drum.

Riad al-Maliki told the media that there was “clear evidence of war crimes” in the attack and he was in The Hague to “get acquainted with the work of the ICC” and “find out what is really required… for Palestine to become a member of the court.”

Fellow Palestinian ministers scratched their heads. Maliki knew what to do. It had already been done six days before. I can reveal a legal application had been submitted to the ICC by the Palestinian Justice Minister Saleem al-Saqqa and the General Prosecutor of the Court of Justice in Gaza, Ismail Jabr on July 30.

The ICC was puzzled too. Inside the meeting, Fatou Bensouda and her deputy prosecutor James Stewart wanted to know whether the application they had received on July 30 from al-Saqqa and Jabr had been made in the name of the Palestinian Authority.

This was the chief remaining legal impediment, since the UN General Assembly voted to accept Palestine as an observer state at the UN.

Their jaws dropped when Maliki told them that al-Saqqa and Jabr were not acting on the authority of unity government, the Palestinian Authority, nor President Mahmoud Abbas.

Stewart confirmed the meeting in a letter to the pair’s french lawyers, which I have obtained.

He wrote:

On 5 August, 2014, I met the Minister for Foreign Affairs for Palestine HE Mr Riad Maliki where I provided clarifications he requested on the different mechanisms for a State to accept jurisdiction of the ICC and regarding the legal framework of the Rome Statute. At that meeting, I sought to confirm whether or not your communication dated 30 July 2014 was transmitted on behalf of the Palestinian Authority, as a result of which I did not receive a positive confirmation. Accordingly there is no legal basis for my Office to consider and/or treat the 30 July 2014 communication as emanating from a representative of Palestine endowed with the required full powers to seize the Court’s jurisdiction pursuant to article 12(3) of the Statute.

Maliki’s purpose in flying to The Hague in the middle of a devastating Israeli bombardment was to stop a legal application for Palestinian membership of the ICC going ahead. Why?

Consider the date – August 5. Two days after that, Hamas decided to put its signature to a Palestinian declaration to join the ICC, incurring the risk of coming under a war crimes action itself for indiscriminate rocket fire from Gaza. That decision was leaked to the Middle East Eye on August 11.

Abbas knew that once that decision was made public, he could not use other Palestinian groups as a fig leaf for his own reluctance to sign up to the ICC. Hamas’ move robbed him of that excuse. So he sent al- Maliki to the Hague to stop it.

Why again? That is harder to answer. The strategy of using the UN and accession to international bodies to advance Palestinian statehood is his. Why would he, of all people, be blocking it?

He knows that Israel is really concerned about a war crimes case starting and is already rushing moves to prevent this from happening. To forestall an impending ICC investigation Israel’s attorney general and military advocate are setting up their own investigations into the campaign on Gaza.

As The New York Times reported today:

The investigation process may also be intended to counter threats by the Palestinian leadership to join the International Criminal Court for the purpose of holding Israel accountable for its actions as an occupying power. The court generally only investigates cases where the country involved is unwilling or unable to investigate itself.

So Abbas is trying to apply the brakes at the very moment when signing the Rome Treaty of 2002 is a matter of urgency. Senior Fatah leaders have long suspected Abbas’ motives for delaying the ICC application. Abbas has consistently used accession to the ICC as a bargaining chip with Israel. Fatah official Nabil Shaath told the Palestinian news agency Ma’an that Abbas would activate its application to the ICC if the UN Security Council rejected a demand to set a three year deadline for Israeli withdrawal to its 1967 borders.

In June, a recording was leaked in which Saeeb Erekat, the Palestinian Chief Prosecutor claimed that Abbas had promised the Israeli Premier Benyamin Netanyahu not to make the application.

Erekat allegedly said:

Abu Mazen [Abbas], if you want to move Netanyahu, work on the [application] documents for international institutions. He said: I made a commitment’ [not to apply to international institutions]. What commitment have you made? This isn’t your daddy’s farm! This is a nation, this is Palestine. This is bigger than individuals. He didn’t listen to me. I swear, I submitted my resignation twice.

Abbas and Netanyahu met again secretly in Amman days before the ceasefire was announced, although both sides have denied this. The sole subject of conversation was how to stop Hamas claiming victory.

Since then, Abbas reverted to blaming Hamas for the faltering unity government claiming they have not yet relinquished power to his ministers in Gaza. This, again, is a curious claim to make because the ministers themselves have stayed in Ramallah and have not tried to exercise their duties in Gaza. Neither has Abbas himself turned up.

In both the unity agreement and the ceasefire, Hamas handed Abbas important cards to play: the militant group accepted that PA troops could man the border with Egypt at Rafah, that Abbas ministers — all of whom are his appointees — could run Gaza, and that Abbas could take credit for the lifting of the siege of Gaza if and when a seaport is open and an airport built.

Hamas gave Abbas had the opportunity of playing the role of Palestinian President in Gaza itself. Instead the Palestinian president whose own mandate has run out, is trying now to rattle the unity agreement with Hamas to bits. Trying to counter the surge in Palestinian support for Hamas — Fatah members are flocking to join Hamas in the West Bank — is more important to him than ending the impunity Israel enjoys international law. Personal ambition which will never see the light of day — Abbas’s plan for an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank in three years — trumps the collective Palestinian search for justice.

Abbas is at least consistent. He is treating the ICC application in the same way as he initially tried to oppose the Goldstone Inquiry into a previous Israeli military campaign in Gaza.

Remember the outrage when the PA, under pressure from the US and Israel, abruptly halted its drive to take the Goldstone report, which accused both Israel and Hamas of war crimes, to the ICC. The PA had initially urged the UN human rights council to refer the issue to the UN Security Council, which could in theory ask the ICC to open a war crimes prosecution.

Later the Palestinian Papers revealed why this had happened. Senator Mitchell presented Erekat with a document containing language that would nullify the chance to prosecute Israeli officials for war crimes in Gaza at the ICC.Mitchell’s paper stated:

The PA will help to promote a positive atmosphere conducive to negotiations; in particular during negotiations it will refrain from pursuing or supporting any initiative directly or indirectly in international legal forums that would undermine that atmosphere.

Erekat, Abbas and the Palestinian Authority accepted this and agreed to call for a deferral of the UNHRC vote.

Palestinians are not blessed with their leaders but this is not the ICC’s fault. When The Guardian claimed that the ICC was coming under international pressure to avoid a war crimes investigation, Bensouda was rightly indignant.

She wrote:

…the statute is not one of the treaties that Palestine has decided to accede to, nor has it lodged a new declaration following the November 2012 general assembly resolution. It is a matter of public record that Palestinian leaders are in the process of consulting internally on whether to do so; the decision is theirs alone and as ICC prosecutor, I cannot make it for them.

Only too true. 

This article was first published on the Huffington Post on September 11th 2014.

_____________________________

David Hearst is Editor of Middle East Eye, a website which brings a fresh vision to the region. He was chief foreign leader writer of The Guardian, former Associate Foreign Editor, European Editor, Moscow Bureau Chief, European Correspondent, and Ireland Correspondent. He joined The Guardian, from The Scotsman, where he was education correspondent.

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Obama's Speech on ISIS, in Plain English

The president didn't answer the most important questions about his war in Iraq and Syria. 

Saul Loeb/Reuters

DAVID FRUMSEP 11 2014, 7:50 AM ET

Qua speech, Barack Obama’s address Wednesday on the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria was surprisingly terrible: a disorganized mess, insincere and unconvincing. To appreciate just how bad and bizarre it was, compare the president’s speech announcing a new air campaign in Iraq and Syria to Dwight Eisenhower’s 1958 statement on his decision to intervene in Lebanon with 14,000—14,000!—troops. The statement contains no chest-thumping about America’s leadership in science and medicine. No pivot to the auto industry and medical research. 

Eisenhower simply explained what had been done, and why.

There was no such declarative clarity in Obama’s speech last night. Has any past president announced military action with such ambivalence and unease? “Mr. President,” one imagines a reporter shouting, “how sure are you that you’re doing the right thing?” “On a scale of 1 to 10?” Obama replies. “About a 6.”

The real fault in the address, however, was not its delivery or its writing, but rather its content. The president spoke to the nation without answering the most important questions that such a speech raises.

Q: Why are we fighting ISIS? Is the group a threat to the United States or American allies?
A: No, not really.

“ISIL poses a threat to the people of Iraq and Syria, and the broader Middle East—including American citizens, personnel, and facilities. If left unchecked, these terrorists could pose a growing threat beyond that region, including to the United States. While we have not yet detected specific plotting against our homeland, ISIL leaders have threatened America and our allies.”

In plain English: The threat is to Syria and Iraq, both Iranian client states. The threat beyond the region is completely hypothetical and rhetorical.

Q: Do we have a plan to defeat ISIS?

A: Again, no, not really.

“We cannot do for Iraqis what they must do for themselves, nor can we take the place of Arab partners in securing their region.”

In plain English: Without competent forces on the ground, U.S. airpower alone won’t decide anything.

Q: If the U.S. isn’t fighting the ground war, does it have capable allies who will?

A: Nope.

“We will also support Iraq’s efforts to stand up National Guard units to help Sunni communities secure their own freedom from ISIL’s control. Across the border, in Syria, we have ramped up our military assistance to the Syrian opposition.”

In plain English: We’re desperately casting about for allies who aren’t Hezbollah or Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

Q: Won’t Iran’s ayatollahs and Syria’s Assad regime end up the real winners?

A: Um, are we on the record?

“[W]e cannot rely on an Assad regime that terrorizes its people—a regime that will never regain the legitimacy it has lost. Instead, we must strengthen the opposition as the best counterweight to extremists like ISIL, while pursuing the political solution necessary to solve Syria’s crisis once and for all.”

It will take more than a line or two to translate those sentences into plain English. Note the beauty of:

“We cannot rely on an Assad regime… .” Not: “We will not work with the Assad regime.” Not: “The Assad regime will not be the beneficiary of our military campaign against ISIS.” And certainly not: “I remain committed to my statement of August 18, 2011 that Syria’s Assad must step down.” Instead, the/ president’s words about legitimacy delivered a strange compliment to Bashar al-Assad, implying that his regime had been legitimate at some point in the past.

How does this war benefit America? The question was unanswered because it is unanswerable.

As for Iran, Hezbollah, and the Revolutionary Guards—they got no mention at all, even as an Iranian armored brigade has crossed the border into Iraq to fight ISIS on the ground in defense of its client in Baghdad.

Q: What ultimately are you hoping to achieve?

A: It’s complicated.

“We stand with people who fight for their own freedom, and we rally other nations on behalf of our common security and common humanity. … [This strategy] is consistent with the approach I outlined earlier this year: to use force against anyone who threatens America’s core interests, but to mobilize partners wherever possible to address broader challenges to international order.”

In plain English: We don’t really have a plan. We don’t have a definition of success. We see some evildoers and we’re going to whack them. They deserve it, don’t they?

And sure, ISIS does deserve it. The group is a nasty collection of slavers, rapists, thieves, throat-slitters, and all-around psychopaths. The trouble is: so are the people fighting ISIS, the regimes in Tehran and Damascus that will reap the benefits of the war the president just announced. They may be less irrational and unpredictable than ISIS. But if anything, America’s new unspoken allies in the anti-ISIS war actually represent a greater “challenge to international order” and a more significant “threat to America’s core interests” than the vicious characters the United States will soon drop bombs on.

The question before the nation is, “What is the benefit of this war to America and to Americans?”

That was the question the speech left unanswered. And the ominous suspicion left behind is that the question was unanswered because it is unanswerable—at least, not answerable in any terms likely to be acceptable to the people watching the speech and paying the taxes to finance the fight ahead.

Related Story

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Russia: "Pointless sanctions hurt all but the US" French MP Thierry Mariani says

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Jewish mentality-Starve or surrender: Cut off all food and water to Gaza, says Israeli general

A Palestinian boy stands in his family’s damaged home as people inspect the remains of another house, destroyed by an Israeli air strike in the central Gaza Strip, 23 August. (APA images / Ashraf Amra)

Source

Israeli Major-General Giora Eiland has urged that all food and water be cut off to Gaza’s nearly 1.8 million Palestinian residents – a major war crime and precisely the “starve or surrender” policy which the United States has condemned when used in Syria.

Eiland, the Israeli government’s former national security advisor, argues that Gaza should be considered an enemy “state.”

“Since Gaza is in fact a state in a military confrontation with us, the proper way to put pressure on them is to bring to a full stop the supplies from Israel to Gaza, not only of electricity and fuel, but also of food and water,” he wrote in a Hebrew-language op-edon Mako, a website affiliated with Israel’s Channel 2 television.

“A state cannot simultaneously attack and feed the enemy, while he is shooting at you, because this gives the other country a breathing space – and again I am referring to Gaza as a country, because the regime there is supported by its people,” Eiland adds.

Israel legally obliged to supply Gaza population

Eiland appears to believe that the fiction that Gaza is a sovereign “state” would somehow lessen culpability for what would amount to massive war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Under Article 55 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, “the Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring the food and medical supplies of the population; it should, in particular, bring in the necessary foodstuffs, medical stores and other articles if the resources of the occupied territory are inadequate.”

Under international law, Israel’s 2005 “disengagement” from Gaza has not ended its military occupation of the territory because Gaza remains under the “effective control” of Israel.

Yet Israel has long violated its obligation by deliberately restricting the basic needs of Gaza’s population and deliberately destroying their food sources including agricultural land, poultry and dairy farms.

While Eiland’s proposal calls to cut all food and water, strictly regulating the food intake of Palestinians in Gaza to achieve political ends has long been the Israeli occupation’s actual policy.

Israel’s deliberate attacks on Gaza’s civilian infrastructure have created a “water disaster,” already depriving every single person of access to a safe and secure supply of water.

Israel’s brutal siege is precisely what the Palestinian resistance in Gaza is currently fighting to end.

Possible genocidal intent

Eiland recently argued in Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel’s largest newspaper, that because they elected Hamas, the people of Gaza as a whole “are to blame for this situation just like Germany’s residents were to blame for electing Hitler as their leader and paid a heavy price for that, and rightfully so.”

General Eiland’s call – which may amount to incitement to genocide as well as to war crimes and crimes against humanity – is only the latest exterminationist proposal from an Israeli leader.

Moshe Feiglin, deputy speaker of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, for instance, recently called for the population of Gaza to be moved to concentration camps and then expelledso that Gaza could be resettled with Jews.

“Starve or surrender” mirrors Syria policy

The United States government, Israel’s chief sponsor, has not expressed any criticism of Eiland’s proposals, nor done anything to end Israel’s siege. However, it views “starve or surrender” as a grave crime when used against opposition-held areas by the government in Syria.

This has been the case in several areas including Yarmouk refugee camp where,Amnesty International has said, the Syrian government is “using starvation as a weapon of war to achieve its ends.”

Last month, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution demanding that “all Syrian parties to the conflict,” including the government and the opposition, “shall enable the immediate and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance directly to people throughout Syria,” immediately “removing all impediments to the provision of humanitarian assistance.”

By contrast, the so-called “international community,” led by the United States, has supported and justified Israel’s siege of Gaza for almost eight years.

With thanks to Daniel Shunra for translation.

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US has no reliable Syrian partner on the ground

For US, finding right allies in Syria will be tough

BY HANNAH ALLAM

McClatchy Washington BureauSeptember 11, 2014

The citizen journalism image provided by Edlib News Network, ENN, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows rebels from al-Qaida affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra, also known as the Nusra Front, waving their brigade flag as they step on the top of a Syrian air force helicopter, Jan. 11, 2013. (AP Photo/Edlib News Network ENN, File)

ANONYMOUS — AP

WASHINGTON — In an effort to map out the ideological spectrum of Syria’s various rebel groups, Turkish and American officials used a color-coded scheme: green for trusted friends, red for clear-cut enemies and yellow for those in the middle.

That middle section turned into a point of contention when it became clear that the Turks were willing to work with groups that were anathema to the United States, including al Qaida’s Nusra Front and the hard-line Ahrar al Sham. Turkish officials seemed to be gambling that they could build a moderate rebel force by nudging groups in the middle toward the green, friendly category.

“We said, ‘Yes, sure, OK, but a number of the groups that you’re working with, which you consider open to persuasion, we consider beyond the pale. And we will not work with them, and we’d rather you not work with them and we think they need to be blocked from transiting your borders,’ ” Francis Ricciardone, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey until last month, recalled Thursday in a media call arranged by the Atlantic Council foreign policy institute, where he’s now the director of the Middle East program.

“We ultimately had no choice but to agree to disagree,” Ricciardone said.

U.S. officials haven’t publicly acknowledged previously knowing that Turkey was providing assistance to Nusra, which the State Department designated a foreign terrorist organization in December 2012. Turkey’s Foreign Ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Now the schism with Turkey, never resolved, is resurfacing in a more public way with President Barack Obama’s pledge to build a “moderate” Syrian rebel force as he wades deeper into the Middle East’s turmoil. When the United States and Muslim partners such as Turkey or Saudi Arabia clash over the very definition of “moderate,” who gets to decide the makeup of a coalition-backed rebel force? And no matter what it’s called, is Obama ready to accept the risk of backing a movement that’s widely viewed as too small, too weak and too untrustworthy to win?

“These are serious questions that are not yet resolved,” Ricciardone said. And, he added, “they might not be resolvable.”

Analysts who closely follow Syria are divided as to whether the problems can be overcome or will hobble the whole effort, but there’s agreement that finding an acceptable Syrian partner is the least developed and most elusive part of the president’s ultimate goal of destroying the Islamic State.

Obama’s 14-minute address Wednesday night sidestepped his strategy’s Achilles’ heel: 

No matter how effective U.S. airstrikes are in taking out Islamic State leaders, there’s simply no acceptable Syrian partner on the ground to complement the American role in the sky. The president made no mention of specific factions that would be involved in the coalition’s fight against Islamic State militants, and it’s not at all clear whom he meant when he referred to “the opposition.”

“If you really want to defeat them and get them out of territory, you’re going to need partners on the ground, and it’s unclear whether we will ever find one in Syria,” said Dalia Dassa Kaye, the director of the Center for Middle East Public Policy for the Virginia-based RAND Corp. research institute.

The Obama administration has followed a long arc in its search for a Syrian partner, first in the effort to unseat Syrian President Bashar Assad and, now, in the more pressing campaign to defeat the Islamic State. As recently as last month, Obama was quoted as disparaging the Syrian rebels as “doctors, farmers, pharmacists and so forth,” and saying:

it was a “fantasy” that they could overthrow Assad.

In the early days of the conflict, U.S. officials insisted they’d work only with the nonviolent, political Syrian opposition. When the dissidents proved to be embarrassingly disorganized and lacking in credibility with ordinary Syrians, U.S. officials moved on to supporting the “moderate” Syrian rebels. Commanders complain, however, that the Americans never took the mission seriously; shipments of packaged meals and medical supplies were derided as “biscuits and Band-Aids.” The rebels wanted heavy weapons and air cover.

The administration homed in on the Supreme Military Council, which it touted as an umbrella for U.S.-friendly rebel fighters, though in reality it held very little power on the ground and, in several cases, rebels under its banner were caught coordinating with Nusra and other jihadist groups, including the Islamic State under its previous name, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Despite intelligence assessments that raised serious doubts about these rebels’ capabilities and loyalties, Secretary of State John Kerry told congressional hearings last September that the Syrian rebel movement had “increasingly become more defined by its moderation.” The opposition, Kerry told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “is getting stronger by the day.”

Several months later, the Supreme Military Council all but collapsed – and the U.S. was forced to halt aid – when its fighters were overrun that December by rival Islamists, who seized the group’s warehouses, including the U.S.-donated equipment inside.

Since that humiliation, the Obama administration has moved to a much quieter effort, working directly with about a dozen individual commanders in northern Syria and some 60 smaller groups in the south, rebel leaders told McClatchy earlier this month. The groups report to the CIA. Meanwhile, the old Free Syrian Army types complain that they can no longer get the Americans to take their calls.

“There is no united rebel leadership,” said Joshua Landis, the director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, whose blog, Syria Comment, chronicles the civil war.

“The rebels often fight among each other, and most are extremely regional and clan- or village-based. This lack of unity has been the main problem facing the West from the start of the rebellion, because there is no ‘government in waiting’ to replace Assad.”

As if to underscore the complexities of the U.S. task in building a “moderate” Syrian rebel force, the opposition coalition that the United States recognizes as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people put out a statement this week mourning the deaths of dozens of key figures in Ahrar al Sham, an ultraconservative Islamist rebel force that the State Department has considered designating a terrorist organization because of its al Qaida-like ideology. The men died in a mysterious explosion during a high-level meeting.

Ricciardone, the veteran diplomat, said the Turks were willing to work with Ahrar leaders but that the United States “had extreme reservations about our ability to trust them” and wouldn’t agree to arm them.

Yet the Syrian Opposition Coalition, the closest thing Obama has to an alternative to the Assad government, called the explosion that killed the jihadists a deliberate attempt to “silence the voice of moderation.” Only in polarized Syria, with the Islamic State skewing the curve, could such a group seriously be considered mainstream. And, analysts warn, the tug toward radicalism will only increase the longer the conflict festers.

“These things don’t naturally break towards the middle. They break towards the extremes,” said former CIA director Michael Hayden, who was also on the Atlantic Council’s media call. “Doing this, finding that center, reinforcing that center, is more difficult now than it would’ve been six, 12, 18 or 24 months ago.”

ROY GUTMAN CONTRIBUTED TO THIS REPORT FROM BAGHDAD.

Email: hallam@mcclatchydc.com; Twitter: @HannahAllam

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Baghdadi 'Mossad trained'

Posted on » Tuesday, July 15, 2014

WASHINGTON: The former employee at US National Security Agency (NSA), Edward Snowden, has revealed that the British and American intelligence and the Mossad worked together to create the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Snowden said intelligence services of three countries created a terrorist organisation that is able to attract all extremists of the world to one place, using a strategy called "the hornet's nest". NSA documents refer to recent implementation of the hornet's nest to protect the Zionist entity by creating religious and Islamic slogans. According to documents released by Snowden, "The only solution for the protection of the Jewish state "is to create an enemy near its borders". Leaks revealed that ISIS leader and cleric Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi took intensive military training for a whole year in the hands of Mossad, besides courses in theology and the art of speech.. הגולם קם על יוצרו: "ארה"ב הקימה את דאעש, ישראל את חמאס" ממשל אובמה סייע להקמת ארגון דאעש במטרה להילחם בצבא אסד, ממשלת ישראל סייעה לחמאס כדי שאלה ירסנו את פת"ח, ארה"ב סיפקה נשק לאפגנים בשנות ה-80 כדי להילחם ברוסים – ובכל פעם התוצאה העגומה לא אחרה לבוא והידיד הפך לאויב. שי לוי תוהה מתי האומות ישנו גישה ובמקום אסטרטגיה של חימוש אויב אחר, ייגשו למשימת חיסול הטרור מבפנים שי לוי | פז"ם | פורסם 10/09/14 13:57:19 More القناة الإسرائيلية الثانية : "داعش" صنيعة الولايات المتحدة ، و أبو بكر البغدادي هو من كان برفقة السيناتور "جون ماكين" في ريف حلب River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian    The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

IDF Soldiers Denounce Israeli High Crimes Against Peace

by Stephen Lendman

Netanyahu is a world class thug. He's a war criminal multiple times over. He heads Israel's fascist government.

He wages genocidal war on Palestine. Operation Protective Edge (OPE) is the latest example. It was war without mercy.

Mass slaughter and destruction were horrific. James Petras calls Israel a "genocidal state."

"Citizens and soldiers, criminals and professionals, torturers and sociopaths…coexist within the same person," he says.

Exterminating Palestinians is official policy. It's consciously pursued. It's done with "savage enthusiasm."

It enjoys full Western support. Washington backs its killing machine. Israelis alone have rights. 

Palestinians are used, abused, mass slaughtered and exterminated. Rogue states operate this way. Israel and America are the world's worst.

They partner in each other's crimes. They operate extrajudicially. They wage war on humanity.  

They claim a divine right to do what they damn please. They get away with it because who'll stop them. Humanity may not survive their madness.

On Friday, 43 IDF reservists and former army intelligence members published an open letter. They addressed Netanyahu and top military officials. 

They gave their ranks, first names only or initials. They included a reserve major and two captains. 

They kept their identities secret. They did so to avoid certain recrimination. Israel accepts no criticism. It goes all-out to suppress it.

Signatories denounced Israeli high crimes against peace. They condemned longstanding collective punishment.

They henceforth refuse to serve. They want no part of Israel's killing machine. They were clear and unequivocal, saying:

"There's no distinction between Palestinians who are, and are not, involved in violence."

"Information that is collected and stored harms innocent people. It is used for political persecution and to create divisions within Palestinian society by recruiting collaborators and driving parts of Palestinian society against itself."

"We cannot continue to serve this system in good conscience, denying the rights of millions of people."

"Those among us who are reservists, refuse to take part in the state's actions against Palestinians." 

"We, veterans of Unit 8200 (Israel's NSA equivalent), reserve soldiers both past and present, declare that we…refuse to continue serving as tools in deepening the military control over the Occupied Territories."

"It is commonly thought that the service in military intelligence is free of moral dilemmas and solely contributes to the reduction of violence and harm to innocent people." 

"However, our military service has taught us that intelligence is an integral part of Israel's military occupation over the territories."

Information collected and stored "harms innocent people."

"It is used for political persecution and to create divisions within Palestinian society by recruiting collaborators and driving parts of Palestinian society against itself."

Unit 8200 signatories admitted spying on Palestinians' sexual "preferences." 

They did so to blackmail them. To enlist collaborators against their own people.

"We call for all soldiers serving in the Intelligence Corps, present and future, along with all the citizens of Israel, to speak out against these injustices and to take action to bring them to an end."

Daniel is a reserve captain. He said gathering signatures took about a year.

"There were fears of how people, and friends from the unit, might respond - if they knew that it was I and if they didn't know," he said.

"I don't feel comfortable in my conscience continuing to serve, and instead of dealing with the dilemmas and the ramifications, I chose to take a more evasive route," he said.

He calls it a "gray-market dodge." He used it for three years.

"Now, later on, we feel that evasion is wrong, and that we have to take responsibility," he explained. 

"In the end, I served there for seven years. I believed in what we did there - and for all those reasons." 

"I must take responsibility for what I see as the perpetuation of the cycle of violence. We hope that people will think critically about these things."

An IDF spokesman said Unit 8200 "worked since the day it was established to gather intelligence that allows the army and security agencies to perform their tasks, and each day it helps protect the citizens of the State of Israel."

He lied claiming no knowledge of crimes signatories revealed. It's "unknown in the Intelligence Directorate," he said.

Former Unit 8200 commander, Brigadier General Hanan Gefen (Res.) accused the signatories of a grave breach of trust," saying:

"If this is true and if I were the current unit commander, I would put them all on trial and would demand prison sentences for them, and I would remove them from the unit."

"They are using information that reached them in the course of their duties to promote their political position."

One signatory said he "thinks that all of us who signed the letter did so because we understood that we are unable to sleep well at night."

They're not alone. Breaking the Silence calls itself "an organization of veteran combatants who have served in the Israeli military since the start of the Second Intifada and have taken it upon themselves to expose the Israeli public to the reality of everyday life in the Occupied Territories."

"We endeavor to stimulate public debate about the price paid for a reality in which young soldiers face a civilian population on a daily basis, and are engaged in the control of that population’s everyday life."

"Soldiers who serve in the Territories witness and participate in military actions which change them immensely." 

"Cases of abuse towards Palestinians, looting, and destruction of property have been the norm for years, but are still explained as extreme and unique cases." 

"Our testimonies portray a different, and much grimmer picture in which deterioration of moral standards finds expression in the character of orders and the rules of engagement, and are justified in the name of  Israel's security."

Breaking the Silence was established to "demand accountability (for Israeli crimes) in the Occupied Territories perpetrated by us in our name." 

Yehuda Shaul is a Breaking the Silence co-founder. Israeli actions during Operation Protective Edge were "unthinkable a few years ago," he said.

Entire neighborhoods were destroyed. So were families in them. Noncombatant men, women and children ere willfully targeted. They were murdered en masse in cold blood.

"From one operation to the next, Israel and the IDF are just going down the drain," said Shaul.

"As a country, the moral low we reached in the previous operation is the point from where we start the next one." 

"This is how it continues. Operation Protective Edge continued where Operation Cast Lead ended."

Israeli strategy reflects madness. It's "insane," said Shaul. "Everything we do is right, and everything they do is wrong."

Palestinians are considered subhumans. Israelis ignore their suffering. 

"It is almost a crime in Israel to have empathy (for them), even though you are talking about women and children," said Shaul.

Israeli soldiers "think a lot about right and wrong." They knowingly perform duties contrary to their moral principles, Shaul believes.

They cross one red line after another. Only after multiple times do they fully understand how they breached their moral code.

At the same time, they acclimate. They get used to doing things they know are wrong.

(T)he atmosphere in Israel (is) very bad" today, said Shaul. Even worse than during previous conflicts.

There's "no space for question marks, absolutely no space."

"I am not just talking about the media. There were many anti-war protestors beaten up in Tel Aviv and Haifa by gangs so they had to be taken to the hospital. And the police did nothing to protect them."

At the same time, Israeli officials called for destroying entire Gazan communities. Their voices drown out sane ones.

Critical ones "hardly get any platform these days," said Shaul. They're largely shut out.

Things today are worse than ever. Police state apparatus rules govern. Dissent is verboten.

Militarized occupation persists. Gaza is a perpetual battleground. An entire population is vulnerable.

"We continue to build settlements, said Shaul. "We increase our military rule over the Palestinians." 

"Israel is not heading for a way out. We are digging ourselves in. We are doing everything we can to maintain the occupation."

To deny Palestinians rights they deserve. To brutalize them. To eliminate them. To exterminate them. 

To make Israel ethnically pure. To do it over the corpses of Palestinian men, women, children, infants, the elderly and infirm.

To wage genocidal war against them. To get away with it because who'll intervene responsibly.

Breaking the Silence was founded in March 2004. Today it has over 1,000 members. 

They speak out courageously. They tell their own stories.

They reject Israeli lawlessness. They believe Israel's greatest threat is itself. Its militarized occupation.

Its settlement enterprise. Its institutionalized racism. Its treating Palestinians like subhumans.

Its waging wars without mercy to exterminate them.

"(T)he treatment of the Palestinians is the biggest threat to Israel," Shaul maintains. "It undermines (its) legitimacy."

Israeli policy shouldn't be "either us or them. It is exactly the opposite."

Israel's security "depends on a sovereign Palestinian state beside us and on giving dignity and rights to the Palestinians." 

"In Israel, we are now in a fight over the heart and the soul of our society." 

"The questions are: who are we as a society? What country do we want to live in?" 

"The question is whether dropping all these bombs on families is something acceptable in our eyes or not."

Israel systematically spurns all international human rights laws, norms and standards. Morality isn't its long suit. Accountability is long overdue.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. 

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com. 

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs. 

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour 

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   

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