Posted on 04/22/2011 by RamallahOnline

What Future for the Goldstone Report? Beyond the Name

Richard Falk, 20 April 2011

Ever since it first struck the raw nerve of Israeli political consciousness I thought it misleading to associate the Goldstone Report so exclusively with its chair, Judge Richard Goldstone. After all, despite his deserved prominence as an international jurist, he was the least qualified substantively of the four members of the mission. Undoubtedly, part of the intensely hostile Israeli reaction of their highest political leaders had to do with the sense that Goldstone as a devoted Zionist had been guilty of betrayal, even of ‘a blood libel’ against the Jewish people, because he seemed to be elevating his fidelity to the ‘law’ above that of tribal loyalties, and according to Tel Aviv he should never have been mixed up with such a suspect entity as the UN Human Rights Council in the first place.

What should be observed, and stands out over time, is the degree of importance that even the extremist Israeli leadership attaches to the avoidance of further stains on their reputation as a law abiding political actor. This seems true for the Israeli leadership even when the assessing organization is the UN Human Rights Council that Israel, as well as the U.S. Government, never misses the chance to denounce and defame. Implicit in this Israeli search for vindication is their implicit acknowledgement that the UN is after all a major site of struggle in the ongoing legitimacy war being fought against Palestinian claims of self-determination. This acknowledgement of importance has been expressed more recently by Netanyahu’s inappropriate insistence that in view of the Goldstone retreat the UN retract the report in its totality.

This assessment was embarrassingly confirmed by the reaction of the U.S. Senate to Goldstone’s Washington Post op/ed of April 1st when two weeks lateron it unanimously passed a resolution calling on the UN “to reflect the author’s repudiation of the Goldstone report’s central findings, rescind the report and reconsider further Council actions with respect to its findings.” It also asked the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon, “to do all in his power to redress the damage to Israel’s repuation.” This ill-informed and inflammatory wording is quite extraordinary, starting with the reference to Goldstone as ‘the author’ of the report, thereby completely overlooking the reality that it was a joint effort, that his input was probably the smallest, and the other authors have reaffirmed their support for the entire report subsequent to the Goldstone retreat. What is mostly revealed by this Senate initiative is the blatant partisanship that is now unquestioned in official Washington. This unsubtle disregard for international law and the authority of the UN should at the very least encourage the Palestine Authority to seek other auspices for any future negotiations with Israel than what is provided by the U.S. Government.

It is probably true that if Goldstone had not been so vilified for his association with the report it would have likely experienced the same fate as thousands of other well documented UN reports on controversial issues. By lending his name to the fact-finding mission and its outcome Goldstone became an unwilling lightning rod, the target of vicious attacks but also heralded at the time by fair-minded persons around the world for his fidelity to the law even in the face of such hostile fire. In this regard Goldstone became a sacrificial scarecrow that failed in his appointed role of keeping the birds of prey at a safe distance. In effect, how could Israel attack one of their own if the assessment of their behavior produced findings of severe violations of international humanitarian law? How could such findings be avoided given the widely known characteristics of Operation Cast Lead? There is a double irony present: Goldstone was partly selected to head this sensitive undertaking because as a known supporter of Israel he would make it harder for Israel to complain about UN bias so as to deflect attention away from the message; but precisely because of the difficulty posed for Israel’s propaganda machine by Goldstone’s credibility the level of attack on him reached hysterical heights and evidently exerted such intense pressure that

he was eventually to an awkward and unprecedented partial repudiation of the report that pleases neither side.

Two other aspects of the situation are often neglected or misstated. First of all, several other respected international studies had already confirmed most of the conclusions reached by the time the Goldstone Report was released in September 2009. Other prior noteworthy reports on the international law issues including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, B’Tselem, Al Haq, and especially the comprehensive report of an earlier detailed and authoritative fact-finding team composed of internationally respected international law experts under the leadership of John Dugard, a leading South African jurist and former UN Special Rapporteur for Occupied Palestine carried out on behalf of the Arab League. Against such a background, in a substantive sense the Goldstone Report did not say anything that was not already well established by a highly credible accountability community of NGOs, journalists, and an array of UN humanitarian workers and civilians who were on the scene during the attacks. Such an overwhelming informed consensus is what makes such a mockery of this effort by the U.S. State Department and the Senate to seize on the Goldstone retreat as a new occasion to repudiate the report as a whole, and throw once more a blanket of impunity over Israeli defiance of international law.

The second element that should be kept in mind, but is rarely ever acknowledged even by those who stand 100% behind the report is that it was not, as the media mostly claimed, unduly critical of Israel. On the contrary, in my view, the report was one-sided, but to the benefit of Israel. Let me mention several evidences of leaning toward Israel: the report proceeds on the basis of Israel’s right of self-defense without bothering to decide whether in a situation of continuing occupation a claim of self-defense is ever available under international humanitarian law, although Israel was entitled to rely on force to the extent necessary to uphold specific security interests arising from the rocket attacks. Furthermore, the report did not examine whether the factual conditions prior to the attacks supported any security claim considering the success of the truce to cut rocket fire to almost zero in the months preceding the attacks, a truce that had held until Israel provocatively broke it on 4 November 2008 by conducting a lethal raid within Gaza. Beyond this the claimed security justification seemed artificially fashioned to serve as a rationalization for the Israeli aggressive and unlawful all out military assault against Gaza that was mostly motivated by a series of Israeli claims that were quite independent of security in Gaza. The real goals were as follows: to destroy Hamas; to induce the return of the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, to punish Gazans for voting in favor of Hamas back in 2006. In addition, it was clear that the IDF had been planning Operation Cast Lead for six months prior to launching the attack on 27 December 2008, and for a variety of reasons other than securing southern Israel against rockets: striking hard at Gaza before Obama took office, influencing in Kadima’s favor the Israeli domestic elections that were about to take place, restoring confidence in the IDF after its failures in the Lebanon War of 2006, and sending a message to Iran that Israel would not hesitate to use overwhelming force whenever its interests dictated and without restraint.

The Goldstone Report did appropriately emphasize the severe Israeli departures from the law of war by attacking with disproportionate and indiscriminate force against a crowded, mainly urbanized society. But it failed to emphasize a distinctive feature of the attacks—the denial to the civilian population of Gaza of the option to leave the war zone and become refugees, at least temporarily. To keep civilians, especially children, the aged, and the disabled, so confined leaves permanent psychic wounds as has been reported by many post-attack studies and residents of Gaza, but is not disclosed by the casualty figures that count only the dead and the wounded. Part of the public horror of Operation Cast Lead resulted from the 100:1 ratio of war dead, which is a vivid confirmation of the defenseless plight of the Gazan population and the helplessness of Hamas protectors when confronted by the Israeli war machine. Despite this indicator of one-sidedness, the casualty comparison dramatically understated the real losses to the Palestinians. If the psychologically damaged are added to the Palestinian total and the friendly fire victims are subtracted from the Israeli side, reducing their total deaths from 13 to 6 or 7 the ratio of losses is gigantically uneven. In view of this one-sidedness, together with Israel’s initiation of the attacks and its role as occupying power, the report gave excessive emphasis to Hamas violations of international humanitarian law, which should have been noted, but not treated, as was the case, as virtually symmetrical with those of Israel. To treat as balanced that which is so manifestly unbalanced is to falsify the relevant reality.

As has been pointed out in the media, including by Goldstone, his retraction was limited to the admittedly important issue of whether Israel intentionally targeted civilians as a matter of policy. Even this limited retraction is unconvincing because it rests so heavily on Israel’s self-investigations, which the post-Goldstone UN fact-finding mission jointly headed by an American judge, Mary McGowan Davis and the Swedish judge, Lennart Aspergen, found in their recent report failed to meet international standards. As mentioned previously, the retraction by Goldstone was also seriously undermined by the joint statement of the three other members of the Goldstone mission who publically reaffirmed the report in its totality, which never made the sweeping accusation of Israel that Goldstone retracted!

Only half satirically, I would think that the Goldstone Report might be time to rechristen the Goldstone Report as the Chinkin Report or blandly let it be henceforth be known as the ‘Report on Israeli and Hamas War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity during Operation Cast Lead.’ Whatever the name, the main allegations have been confirmed over and over again, and it is now up to the governments making up the UN General Assembly and Security Council to show the world whether international criminal accountability and the International Criminal Court is exclusively reserved for sub-Saharan African wrongdoing!

Many have asked whether the Goldstone retraction will doom the future of the report. In my view rather than performing a funeral rite Goldstone miscalculated, and has given the report a second life. It may still languish in the UN System, thanks to the geopolitical leverage being exerted by the United States to ensure that Israeli impunity is safeguarded once more, but this new controversy surrounding the report has provided civil society with renewed energy to push harder on the legitimacy agenda that has been animating the growing Palestinian global solidarity movement. Never before has the Goldstone Report received such sympathetic attention even from American mainstream sources. Astonishingly, even the NY Times columnist, Roger Cohen, chided Goldstone for trying belatedly to distance himself from the report, going so far as to suggest that his behavior has contributed a new verb ‘to Goldstone’ to the language of politics. “Its meaning: to make a finding, and then partially retract it for uncertain motive.” Cohen’s formal definition—“to ‘Goldstone’: (Colloq.) To sow confusion, hide a secret, create havoc.”

History has funny ways of reversing expectations. Just as most of the world was ready to forget the allegations against Israel from the ghastly 2008-09 attacks on Gaza and move on, Richard Goldstone inadvertently wakes us all up to a remembrance of those morbid events, and in the process, does irreparable damage to his own reputation while trying to redeem himself in certain circles.

It is up to persons of conscience to seize this opportunity, and press hard for a more even handed approach to the application of the rule of law in world politics. There is much righteous talk these days at the UN and elsewhere about the ‘responsibility to protect,’ contending that the Qaddafi threats directed at Libyans civilians justified a No Fly Zone and a full fledged military intervention from the air undertaken with UN blessings and NATO bombs and missiles, but not even a whisper of support for providing the still beleaguered people of Gaza with a No Fly Zone despite frequent violent incursions by Israel and a debilitating unlawful blockade that has lasted almost four years, a severe form of collective punishment that directly violates Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. This blockade continues to block the entry of building materials needed in Gaza to recover from the devastation caused more than two years ago.

IV..20…2011

Richard Falk

Richard Falk is an international law and international relations scholar who taught at Princeton University for forty years. Since 2002 he has lived in Santa Barbara, California, and taught at the local campus of the University of California in Global and International Studies and since 2005 chaired the Board of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. Visit his blog at https://richardfalk.wordpress.com/ for more articles. This article was posted with permission from the author.

Posted on 03/27/2011 by RamallahOnline

Who is Embarrassing the United Nations?

Jerusalem Entrance (Photo: Nick Marouf)

Dr. Lawrence Davidson, 27 March 2011

On 23 March 2011 the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the United Nations Rapporteur Richard Falk (Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University) told the world organization’s Human Rights Council that the “continued pattern of settlement expansion in East Jerusalem combined with the forcible eviction of long-residing Palestinians are creating an intolerable situation..” In fact, he continued, the present process “can only be described in its cumulative impact as ethnic cleansing.” Falk concluded by asking the UN Human Rights Council to request an investigation by the International Criminal Court into whether Israeli actions in the West Bank amount to “colonialism, apartheid and ethnic cleansing inconsistent with international humanitarian law.”

This is not a particularly startling or rare point of view. There are many well versed Israelis, including several reporters for Haaretz (such as Amira Hass and Gideon Levy), who would probably agree with Falk’s position. There are millions of people around the world who are willing to actively boycott Israel due to, in part, its illegal settlement policies. And, the UN Human Rights Council itself has, in the past, repeatedly condemned Israeli settlement policies in the West Bank of Palestine.

Nonetheless, Israeli officials found Falk’s statement highly insulting. Soon after the Rapporteur made his presentation to the Human Rights Council, Israel’s envoy to the UN mission in Geneva, Aharon LeshnoYaar, labeled Falk an “embarrassment to the United Nations.” He went on to explain that “Israel doesn’t participate (sic) with Falk” and that when Falk speaks in a UN venue he, Yarr, “leaves the room.” (As an aside, Ambassador Yaar does not like a number of Americans. For instance, he does not like the documentary film maker Michael Moore because the man makes his money in a capitalist society while being critical of aspects of capitalism. According to Yaar, that makes Moore a hypocrite).

It would seem that in order to be a good diplomat, a reliable representative of your government, you have to be able to twist facts in a juvenile way. You know, in the way kids manipulate information to excuse some bad act, even when they have been caught at it in real time. Ambassador Yaar’s behavior is a good example of this. The United Nations Human Rights Council has passed resolutions condemning Israeli behavior toward the Palestinians over 20 times. Given that record you can safely apply the old saying, “where there is smoke there is likely to be fire.” Yet, how do loyal diplomats like Yaar react? They often: 1. Yell loudly and repeatedly that the fellow pointing out their sins is bias. So, he is anti-Semitic (alas, Dr. Falk is Jewish), and that is why he keeps pointing fingers in our direction, Or, 2. The other guy made me do it. Those Palestinians (allegedly) hit me first. How come you never yell at them? Or, 3. (Particularly in the case of Israel) God made us do it and so, if you don’t like it, go argue with God. And, finally, when the fellow who has seen you commit the nasty deed over and again insists that you are the culprit, you get up and run out of the room with your hands over your ears.

While Yaar and the rest of the Israeli establishment engage in these practices and complain about the bias of their critics, the consequences of their governmental policies is to institute bias against the Palestinians wherever they exercise authority. In the recent past there has been a spate of such actions . Thus, the Israeli Knesset has recently passed two bills along these lines. One, known as the “Nakba Bill,” institutes a fine on “local authorities and other state-funded bodies for holding events marking the Palestinian Nakba Day….” Nakba is the term the Palestinians, who constitute more than 20% of Israel’s citizens, use for the catastrophe that led to there loss of a homeland as a consequence of the creation of Israel. The other bill “formalizes the establishment of admission committees to review potential residents of Negev and Galilee towns that have fewer than 400 families.” The bill is designed to keep such towns wholly Jewish by preventing Palestinians from taking up residence. As one Arab Israeli noted, “this is a racist law, a law against Arabs.”

Yaar makes no reference to this sort of bias, but only to the alleged bias of those who point out Israeli bias. No doubt, over time, diplomats and politicians come to believe their own excuses. Like naughty children, they don’t know what double standards mean, and end up creating an alternate world of fabrications. Unlike most children who eventually grow up, professionals like Yaar come to dwell in this alternate world more or less at will. In fact, the ability to do so has been part of the standard job description for a career in diplomacy and politics for a very long time. Back in 1909 the Austrian satirist Karl Kraus asked “How is the world ruled and how do wars start?” His answer was, “Diplomats tell lies to journalists and then believe what they read” (Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, 2001, p. 445, #18).

Almost at the same time as Ambassador Yaar was describing Richard Falk as an “embarrassment to the United Nations,” Ahmed Tibi, an Arab Israeli member of the Knesset, debating the racist laws cited above, told his Jewish colleagues the following, “You must read Jewish history well and learn which laws you suffered from…Do you need an Arab on the stand to remind you of your history?” The Knesset’s reaction? Loud and repeated yelling about how bias and insulting Tibi was. “Go back to Ramallah” they told him.

Now, just who is an embarrassment to the United Nations, an organization which began its life back in the late 1940s by, among other things, the issuance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? Is it Richard Falk, a man who has dedicated his entire professional life to the fight for a better world, governed by humane laws? Or is it Aharon LeshnoYaar and the political establishment he represents? For anyone beyond childhood, and with accurate information, the answer ought to be obvious.

Posted on 01/29/2011 by RamallahOnline

US Ambassador’s bid to get Falk sacked from UN opens a can of worms

Stuart Littlewood, 29 Jan 2011

Mention Richard Falk and you think of an honourable man who cares deeply about injustice, particularly the trampled rights of Palestinians under the evil jackboot.

Mention Susan Rice, US Ambassador to the United Nations, and what comes to mind?

The BBC reported in December 2008: “During her stint in the Clinton White House, she was described as ‘brilliant’ but also ‘authoritarian’ and ‘brash’. According to the New York Times, she acknowledges ‘a certain impatience at times’.”

She is also said to be “unwilling to consider opinions that differ from her own”.

Ambassador Rice has just demanded that Falk, the UN Human Rights Council’s special rapporteur in the Palestinian territories, step down from his UN position. “In my view, Mr. Falk’s latest commentary [an entry in his blog about the media and 9/11] is so noxious that it should finally be plain to all that he should no longer continue in his position on behalf of the UN.”

Falk’s crime was saying that the US administration’s reluctance to address the awkward gaps and contradictions identified by several scholars in the official explanations of 9/11, only fuels suspicions of a conspiracy. And he suggested that “what may be more distressing than the apparent cover up is the eerie silence of the mainstream media, unwilling to acknowledge the well-evidenced doubts about the official version of the events: an al Qaeda operation with no foreknowledge by government officials”.

Fair comment, you might think. And carefully worded to cause no offence.

But Reuters reported that UN Watch, an advocacy group affiliated with the American Jewish Committee, had written to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon similarly demanding that he “strongly condemn Mr. Falk’s offensive remarks — and … immediately remove him from his post”.

The report added that UN Watch had targeted Falk in the past and frequently criticised the Human Rights Council for berating Israel while ignoring rights violations by developing countries.

The American Jewish Committee also called on the UN to immediately dismiss Falk for publicly endorsing “the slander of conspiracy theorists”. Executive Director David Harris said: “We agree wholeheartedly with the US Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Susan Rice, who stated that Mr Falk’s comments are ‘despicable and offensive’ and, like her, urge the UN to remove him from his position. Falk has long been a conspiracy-ridden and harmful figure who surely does not serve the best interests of the UN.”

UN Watch claims to have won “global condemnation” of Falk. Its website trumpets: “After UN Watch exposes noxious remarks, UN official Richard Falk [is] roundly condemned by UN Chief, US Gov’t, and media worldwide.”

“Noxious”… that’s Rice’s word. Could they be sharing the same scriptwriter?

UN Watch diligently sets down who said what…

Thursday, Jan. 20: UN Watch takes action and files complaint with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, demanding he condemn Richard Falk, the U.N Human Rights Council’s permanent investigator on “Israel’s violations of the principles of international law,” for his latest remarks suggesting that the US government — and not Al Qaeda terrorists — destroyed the World Trade Center. The protest came as part of UN Watch’s 3-year campaign to expose and combat Falk’s denial and justification of Hamas and Al Qaeda terrorism, and his material support for 9/11 conspiracy theorists. At the daily U.N. press briefing, when Matthew Lee of Inner City Press asks for a response, the Secretary-General’s spokesman says they don’t comment on independent experts.

Friday, Jan. 21: The New York Daily News picks up the story and publishes editorial: “When will the lunacy reach such heights that UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon realizes his so-called Human Rights Council is wrecking what little reputation the world body has left? … Ignore those jetliners crashing into the towers, is Falk’s advice. Who are you going to believe, your own eyes or him and his friends? Ban should ring down the curtain on this grotesque buffoonery. He should force out Falk forthwith…”

Monday, Jan. 24: The United Nations sends letter to UN Watch with unprecedented condemnation of a UN Human Rights Council official: “The Secretary-General condemns [Falk's] remarks. He has repeatedly stated his view that any such suggestion is preposterous — and an affront to the memory of the more than 3,000 people who died in the attack.” UN Watch immediately releases the letter to the public, and calls for the UN to fire Falk.

Tuesday, Jan. 25: US Ambassador Susan Rice condemns Falk and echoes UN Watch’s call for him to be fired: “Mr. Falk’s comments are despicable and deeply offensive, and I condemn them in the strongest terms… The United States is deeply committed to the cause of human rights and believes that cause will be better advanced without Mr. Falk and the distasteful sideshow he has chosen to create.” Ambassador Eileen C. Donahoe, the US envoy to the Human Rights Council, also speaks out.

On the same day, in a Geneva address to the member and observer states of the Human Rights Council, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon repeats his condemnation of Falk: “Recently, there was a Special Rapporteur who suggested there was an ‘apparent cover-up’ in the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States. I want to tell you, clearly and directly. I condemn this sort of inflammatory rhetoric. It is preposterous – an affront to the memory of the more than 3,000 people who died in that tragic terrorist attack.” Click for Video

SUCCESS: UN Watch’s campaign led to the unprecedented international condemation of Richard Falk, who exploits his UN position to justify and deny Hamas and Al Qaeda terrorism. It sparked dozens of news stories worldwide, as shown in the sample below. All of this succeeded in finally puncturing Falk’s undeserved halo as a “human rights expert.” For the first time ever, the UN itself had condemned Falk, and in the strongest terms. As a result, Falk’s credibility in the international arena is now at zero.

What’s remarkable is how twitchy these people get at the slightest possibility that someone will lift the lid on 9/11, their hysterical protests serving only to deepen already serious suspicions.

Incidentally UN Watch’s founder, chairman and executive director are all Jewish, the latter having worked at Israel’s Supreme Court.

Let’s go back to July 14 last year and remarks made by Ambassador Rice during a reception for Israeli Ambassadors Gabriela Shalev and Daniel Carmon held by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
http://usun.state.gov/briefing/statements/2010/144672.htm

“Today, I mostly want to talk about my very dear friend, Ambassador Gabriela Shalev,” said Rice. “She’s truly one of my favorite people…

“Gabi and I had the opportunity to work closely together on a series of important issues, from dealing with the deeply flawed Goldstone Report to seeing through the passage by the Security Council of the toughest sanctions resolution to date against Iran. She has been a lioness in defense of Israel’s security and its legitimacy — working tirelessly to ensure that Israel has the same rights and enjoys the same responsibilities as any other UN member state.

“We will continue to work together to seek a lasting and comprehensive peace that meets Israel’s security needs and creates a viable, sovereign Palestinian state. We will continue to strengthen Israel’s qualitative military advantage so that Israel can always defend itself, by itself, against any threat or possible combination of threats. And, as the President pledged, we will continue US efforts to combat all international attempts to challenge the legitimacy of Israel — including and especially at the United Nations.”

Having revealed herself as another handmaiden to the Zionist cause, Rice’s attack on Falk for breaking the ridiculous taboo and questioning the US administration’s refusal to hold a proper independent inquiry into 9/11 only raises questions about her own suitability for an important position at the UN.

Meanwhile, there are millions of us out here who are right behind Richard Falk because he stands for justice. We are not amused by growing indications that the official story of 9/11 doesn’t add up. Nor are we too pleased by the realisation that it was used to prod our own governments into sacrificing troops and treasure to a couple of unlawful, unwinnable wars that have caused mega-deaths and endless suffering to innocent civilians, trashed our good name abroad and made us vulnerable to reprisals at home… just to advance the crazed ambitions of the US-Israeli axis.

In short, if there’s the slightest doubt we want to know the truth.

Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood is an industrial marketing specialist turned writer-photographer. In 2005 he was invited to write and shoot pictures for a book about the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. ‘Radio Free Palestine’ was published in 2007. For details please see www.radiofreepalestine.co.uk.

The Author is a regular contributor to RamallahOnline.com. Find more Articles by Stuart Littlewood on RamallahOnline.

Posted on 12/08/2010 by RamallahOnline

A disgrace: British ministers who legislate for war criminals to walk free in London

Stuart Littlewood, 7 Dec 2010

Professor Richard Falk put it most eloquently: “The idea of Nuremberg after World War Two was that crimes against the peace, crimes against humanity and war crimes are also offences against the whole of international society…” The law that was applied to surviving German criminals of World War Two would not be respected unless those who sat in judgment upheld it in relation to their own behaviour.

The UN Special Rapporteur was speaking in London at a parliamentary briefing on Universal Jurisdiction, the principles of which the British government intends to undermine for the benefit of its Israeli friends.

“Universal jurisdiction is part of the struggle against impunity for the Israeli military and the country’s political leaders,” said Falk. “That impunity has been possible both because Israel itself doesn’t impose accountability on those who perpetrate violations of international criminal law and because the US, and to some extent European countries, have given a geopolitical insulation to Israel in relation to its responsibilities as a sovereign state.”

The UN’s Goldstone report and the international law panel appointed after the Gaza flotilla incident also raised the issue of impunity and accountability. Falk feels that the most effective way of implementing international law is now through the activism of civil society and through national legal institutions.

Universal Jurisdiction is a good tool for the job. A private individual may apply to a magistrate for an arrest warrant if he has serious evidence. The Attorney General’s consent is needed for the prosecution to go ahead, but even if that consent is withheld the magistrate may still issue a warrant if he considers there are reasonable grounds for suspecting the war crime was committed and admissible evidence is presented which establishes this.

The beauty of the private warrant is that it can be issued speedily.

The bringing of a private prosecution for a criminal offence is an ancient right in common law and, in the words of Lord Wilberforce, “a valuable constitutional safeguard against inertia or partiality on the part of the authority.”

Lord Diplock, another respected Lord of Appeal, called it “a useful safeguard against capricious, corrupt or biased failure or refusal of those authorities to prosecute offenders against the criminal law”.

And that’s precisely what we’re up against – a capricious, corrupt and biased administration that wants to let ‘friendly’ war criminals off and protect them from arrest while they visit Britain. The government argues that foreign politicians, no matter how blood-soaked, should never be made to feel unwelcome and that the current law impedes Britain’s ability to use its diplomatic powers. In future the Director of Public Prosecutions will consider each application at the arrest warrant stage.
As protestors point out, this is a recipe for political interference and delay, which will enable suspects to slip away – the “inertia and partiality” Wilberforce warned about.

In short, the overriding principle that no-one, regardless of nationality, should feel able to commit war crimes with impunity, is being sacrificed so that the likes of Tzipi Livni, the former Israeli foreign minister who was responsible for launching the murderous assault on Gaza’s civilians nearly two years ago (an atrocity she was later reported to be proud of and happy to repeat), and other Israeli psychopaths need not fear arrest if they come here.

Meanwhile mountains of evidence of Israel’s war crimes are just waiting to be tested in court.

The UK, like all other countries that think themselves civilised, is under an obligation to enact legislation necessary to provide effective penal sanctions for grave breaches of the Geneva Convention. In other words, there should be no hiding place for the world’s vilest criminals.

But Britain’s heart isn’t in it. Thanks to Wikileaks, we now know that the Foreign Office colluded with America to circumvent our obligation under the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM), which Britain signed along with 107 other countries. Leaked US embassy papers show that David Miliband, our previous foreign secretary, approved a ‘temporary exemption’ allowing the US to carry on storing cluster bombs offshore at Diego Garcia (a British territory) and transfer them onto US aircraft stationed on the island, hiding the arrangement from parliamentary scrutiny.

Wikileaks also revealed http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/dec/03/wikileaks-cables-us-special-relationship that Conservative party politicians lined up before the general election to promise they would run a “pro-American regime”.

Britain’s barmy army of ‘Israel-firsters’

Running a pro-American regime means running a pro-Israel regime, since American policy is dictated by the all-powerful pro-Israel lobby. Stephen Walt, whose book exposed it, told Al Jazeera in the run-up to the US elections: “Almost all of the major candidates are falling over themselves to demonstrate how deeply committed they are to America’s special relationship with Israel. Hardly a word of criticism is directed at anything Israel does and that is due to the activities of the lobby.”

John Mearsheimer, co-author of the book, said: “If you look at who is pushing the US to use military force against Iran, the two driving forces are Israel and the Israel lobby.”

In a series of private meetings with British Conservatives, leaked US cables tell how foreign secretary-in-waiting William Hague offered a “pro-American” government. Hague also said the entire Conservative leadership were, like him, “staunchly Atlanticist” and “children of Thatcher”. He said whoever enters 10 Downing Street as prime minister soon learns of the essential nature of the relationship with America. “We want a pro-American regime. We need it. The world needs it.”

The US diplomat Richard LeBaron commented: “The UK’s commitment of resources – financial, military, diplomatic – in support of US global priorities remains unparalleled.”

Hague is, in his own words, “a longstanding friend of Israel and someone who joined Conservative Friends of Israel at the age of 15″. He once said: “The unbroken thread of Conservative Party support for Israel that has run for nearly a century from the Balfour Declaration to the present day will continue.”

Liam Fox, now defence minister, was quoted on the Conservative Friends of Israel website as saying: “…We must remember that in the battle for the values that we stand for, for democracy against theocracy, for democratic liberal values against repression – Israel’s enemies are our enemies and this is a battle in which we all stand together or we will all fall divided.”

Fox, Hague and David Cameron were known for their subservience to Israel long before they took power. In 2006 The Jewish Chronicle reported on the backers bankrolling David Cameron’s bid for power, providing a fascinating insight into how the pro-Israel lobby infiltrates government and destroys the principles of integrity and accountability so necessary in public life. When Cameron became Conservative leader he proclaimed: “The belief I have in Israel is indestructible – and you need to know that if I become Prime Minister, Israel has a friend who will never turn his back on Israel.”

CFI’s Parliamentary Chairman and Chairman of the Defence Select Committee,
James Arbuthnot, addressed the following remarks to Parliament praising Israel: “Everyone in this House should have an interest in Israel, because it is a country that embodies the values that we should stand for. Israel [has] become a bastion of the rule of law, democracy, free speech, business enterprise and family values. If that is not what this country also stands for, I am disappointed.”

Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel brazenly state that their first aim is “to maximise support for the State of Israel within the Liberal Democrats and Parliament”.

“You discredit the rule of law”

Our last foreign secretary, David Miliband, actually apologised to Tzipi Livni and Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman for the arrest warrant issued against Livni in London a year ago. He promised Lieberman to begin working immediately to change the UK laws.

But the general election overtook him. Miliband’s grovelling promise was echoed by his replacement, Hague, who announced: “We have had good discussions with Israeli ministers on Universal Jurisdiction where the last government left us with an appalling situation where a politician like Mrs Livni could be threatened with arrest on coming to the UK…” He said it was “completely unacceptable… We have agreed in the coalition about putting it right, we will put it right through legislation that will be introduced… The Justice Secretary will bring into the House of Commons adding to legislation going through the House of Commons later this year and I phoned Mrs Livni amongst others to tell her about that and received a very warm welcome for our proposals”.

At the same time he insulted the public’s intelligence by saying: “The UK is committed to upholding international justice and all of our international obligations. Our core principle remains that those guilty of war crimes must be brought to justice.”

During a recent trip to Israel Hague had the door slammed in his face by the petulant racist regime, cancelling strategic talks in order to ratchet up the pressure.

Even the Zionists’ 63-year record of land thieving, piracy, ethnic cleansing, indiscriminate slaughter, mass abductions and imprisonment, torture, everyday terror and wholesale contempt for international law and human rights, isn’t enough to diminish the blind loyalty of our high-placed elected servants to the thugs of Tel Aviv.

In the fight to preserve Universal Jurisdiction and some semblance of honour, we can see how the odds are stacked. The corruption, bias and inertia the law lords warned of run deep. I leave the last word to Richard Falk, who makes the point that if a country like Britain, with its proud constitutional tradition, applies international criminal law only to those its leaders don’t like at the time – for example, Saddam Hussein or Slobodan Milosevic – “you discredit, in a fundamental way, the rule of law which really does depend on equals being treated equally.

“If that is not done then double standards become very manifest; it also has the effect of saying that geopolitics and foreign policy always trump the law.”