Ha’aretz reports: A Spanish judge has opened a probe of seven current or former Israeli officials over a 2002 bombing in Gaza that killed a Hamas militant and 14 other people, including nine children.
Judge Fernando Andreu said the attack by Israel, which targeted militant Salah Shehadeh in a densely populated civilian area, might constitute a crime against humanity.
The judge is acting under a doctrine that allows prosecution in Spain of such an offense or crimes like terrorism or genocide even if they are alleged to have been committed in another country.
Andreu announced the probe in a writ issued Thursday. The people named in the suit include Dan Halutz, former Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff and Israel Air Force commander at the time, as well as Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, then defense minister and now the minister of infrastructure.
Meanwhile, Israel is preparing for a wave of lawsuits by pro-Palestinian organizations overseas against Israelis involved in the latest Gaza fighting, claiming they were responsible for war crimes due to the harsh results stemming from the IDF’s actions against Palestinian civilians and their property.
Senior Israeli ministers have expressed serious fears during following the war about the possibility that Israel will be pressed to agree to an international investigation of the losses among non-combatants during Operation Cast Lead; or alternately, that Israelis will be faced with personal suits, such as happened to Israeli officers who were accused of war crimes in Britain for their actions during the second intifada.
at last, a light of justice.
at last, a light of justice in this world. Thanks Spain.
Historically, the Spanish of course have a lot of experience and have been very successful in prosecuting Jews, so this investigation only makes sense.
Never mind that a fucked up antisemitic Spanish judge with no jurisdiction whatsoever thinks he can investigate an incident involving solely foreign nationals in a foreign territory.
Sven512: actually, the issue of jurisdiction is a tiny little bit more involved than what you suggest. War crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and the ultimate crime of agression can be adjudicated by ANY criminal court. Of course, there is the principle of subsidiarity which would grant the primary responsability for prosecuting these crimes in the countries in which they occured. In this case, that would have to be Palestinian courts in Gaza, but since I can already hear the screams of “oi veh!” and “anti-Semites!” and since Israel is unlikely to extreadite its war criminals to Gaza, well, you get the picture. The other option would be to have these war criminals judged in Israel itself, but since the executive power in Israel clearly does not give a damn about the courts and since civil courts cannot judge people in uniform, well, that ain’t gonna work either.
So having a Spanish judge slap an international arrest warrant on these SOBs is a very good option. Being the Ueber-terrorist state it is, Israeli is not a member of the ICC so that is not an option either.
And that is the beauty of it: ANY judge in ANY court in ANY country can charge these scumbags with warcrimes and his/her arrest warrant is valid *worldwide*.
See, the folks who drew up these laws knew what they were doing, and they knew all the methods which would be used by war criminals to avoid prosecution. And here is the ultimate goal: guys likes the Israelis or, say, Kissinger will, of course, never be really prosecuted. But one gutsy judge anywhere on the planet can ban these guys from ever leaving their country again. Look how Rumsfeld almost got caught in France: he had to run for his life, LOL!
So the butchers of Gaza will now only be safe at home or in the USA, same difference anyway…
Not a fitting punishment for their crimes, of course, but a good start.
The Saker
Yes, it’s true, Jews will soon only be safe in the US and in Israel. You must be thrilled, the final solution is getting closer.
I am German BTW, so I would like to apologize to you that my grandfather did not do a thorough enough job and we still have all these problems with them scumbags, ahem, Jews I mean. But your friends in “Palestine” are certainly on a good way and if all you anti-Semites really start working together, you should be able to finish the job my grandparents started in no time.
@Sven612: I am sorry to say this, but I think that you are an ugly Anti-Semite who is trying to blame ALL Jews worldwide for the actions of a few war criminals. Where I spoke of *war criminals* you speak of *Jews* – the typical way for Anti-Semites to lump together all Jews as if there even was such thing as “the Jews” while in reality there is the same diversity among Jewish people as there is among any other ethnicity or tribe.
This so SO typical of the Anti-Semite to speak of “the Jews” like when you write: Jews will soon only be safe in the US and in Israel.
You do not say “the Israeli war criminals”, you don’t even say “the Israelis, no you say “Jews” as if, say, Noam Chomsky or Norman Finkelstein are in any way threatened by being charged for war crimes.
This way of confusing the issues, of lumping together wholly different concepts, of deliberately twisting and obscuring the true issues – these are all the hallmarks of the ugly Anti-Semite you have them all. No wonder you have to hide behind an idiotically sounding Germanic nick like “Sven” – dude, you might as well have called yourself “Hitler” – that would have been more honest!
I can firmly tell you that our glorious HASBARA BRIGADE (denounced by that other notorious Anti-Semite Richard Silverstein in the Guardian, see here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/09/israel-foreign-ministry-media) will never let the likes of you succeed in using the Jews worldwide as the “intellectual human shields” for the butchers of Gaza to hide behind.
You want to make ALL Jews worldwide to pay for the abominations committed by a few Israelis thugs, we want exactly the opposite: have the guilty punished and let the innocent live in peace.
;-)
The Saker
@everybody else: ain’t these guys funny? I am actually quite glad to have them post their stuff here as it goes a long way towards showing their pathological – and intellectually mediocre – nature. LOL!
Ahhh, good old Joseph Goebbels would be proud of you.
The fact that Israel exists today must be great for you guys. Now you can conveniently call yourselves Israel critics. And the fact that you and your friends at the anti-Semitic UN are solely focused on Israel is certainly only a coincidence.
What I don’t understand is (and maybe you can help me understand): Why do you still hide the fact that you dislike Jews? Hasn’t that become completely acceptable nowadays? Why do you have to play this charade of “I only criticize Israel, that has nothing to do with them being Jewish”, when it is obvious that you do not give a rat’s ass about the Palestinians that are being mistreated by Egypt, Jordan and all their other Arab brothers. You only care when it is Jews that allegedly mistreat them. Why don’t you just start being honest? You have nothing to worry about, the vast majority of the world’s population is firmly on your side.
@Sven512: back again, eh? Frankly, I get the impression that you simply paste here stuff which you post on any and all blogs seen as critical of Israeli war crimes. You latest post is so “generic” in nature that it reminds me of a mass mailed cover letter, addressed to all and nobody in particular. I suppose that you are just too lazy, or worse, to actually read a thread and post on topic.
So here is what I offer to you: if you want to post something even vaguely in line with the article being discussed here, or with any of my comments, then I will answer. But your cut-n-paste nonsense is not worthy of much of a reply other than a shrug.
Lastly, may I ask you a small question? How old are you? I am just curious so, humor me, and answer this simple question, ok?
The Saker
Why should I be interested what an anti-Semite has to say about Israel or its leaders? Your ranting about the “butchers” and “scumbags” is very predictable. I am just interested to see what makes anti-Semites like you tick and why you still play those games of pretending to be somehow objective and non-racist.
And BTW, my age is irrelevant, since any three year old who is not stupid, ignorant or anti-Semitic understands, that Israel has every right to do what it is doing.
@Sven512: neat – you actually responded in some partinent way. Ok, then I will answer you too.
1) ‘Butchers’ and ‘scumbags’: these are, I think the correct terms for folks willing to bomb an giant concentration camp for electoral purposes. I think of all war criminals as butchers and scumbags. That is how I felt about Saddam, that is how I feel about a guy like Saakashvili and that is how I feel about the Israelis responsible for the blockade and war on Gaza.
2) What makes anti-Semites like me tick. Oh, again the old canard about anti-Semites (and “self-hating Jews” I suppose). Dude, if loathing war criminals is anti-Semitic then anti-Semitism is a virtue. As Michal Neumann so aptly put it, your ridiculous way of using the word ‘anti-Semite’ makes it meaningless. Still, I know what you mean. You mean “people who do not like Jews”. Let me tell you what makes these people tick: the boundless arrogance of Jews who somehow came to believe that any criticism of their actions can be simply dismissed as ‘anti-Semitism’. Think about it, Israel is the ONLY officially racist state left on the planet (it even calls itself a “Jewish state” an excludes 20% of its own citizens in the process) and criticizing that, or Israeli war crimes, is anti-Semitic?!
That kind of intellectual terrorism worked in the 80s and 90s, but today the mask has fallen, the vast majority of the planet sees Israel, and the Jews who support it, exactly for what it is. Israel is the real pariah state, loathed by all for its racism, human rights violations, war crimes and boundless arrogance.
Not only does Israel not have any right to do what it does, it does not even have any right to *exist*, at least not as long as it stubbernly persist in being an ethnically pure state for only one religion.
South Africa’s Apartheid ended up on the trash heaps of history and so will the “Jewish state of Israel”. You can kid yourself about it as the Afrikaaners did, but that will only hasten the inevitable outcome.
It’s over. The Big Lie of the Zionist propaganda has crashed, courtesy of the one place which it could not control: the Internet. Your Hasbara brigade is truly a lame and half-baked attempt to damage control. Too little, too late.
Sure, like a guy falling off a high rise who says “so far so good” while passing the 12th floor, you can kid yourself and think that you will somehow not crash on the sidewalk. But it’s too late for that and doing this now only gives the rest of us a good laugh ;-)