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A little R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Even for War Criminals?
By Eileen Fleming (about the author) Page 1 of 3 page(s)
For OpEdNews: Eileen Fleming - Writer
Olmert
was Prime Minister during Israel's Dec.-Jan. attack on Gaza that killed
1,400 Palestinians in Gaza and also during Israel's 2006 invasion of
Lebanon that killed 1,200. As Prime Minister and the top civilian
commander of Israel's armed forces, he was involved in and responsible
for planning and execution of both attacks.
On the outside 150 activists protested in the freezing rain and visibly armed SECURITY was highly present: University Police, the US Secret Service and Israeli security.
Video
and photography were banned inside the hall and media was forbidden to
cover the lecture, but activists creatively found ways to document the
happening in the hall and also unfurl an eight-foot-long banner that
read "Goldstone" in both English and Hebrew.
One of the
organizers of the protest, Hatem Abudayyeh, National Coordinating
Committee member of the United States Palestine Community Network said,
"The fact that there's people around the world who know about it, the
fact that PACBI [the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural
Boycott of Israel] sent us a letter of support and endorsement of our
action, the fact that there was coordination with the outside protest
and the inside disruption -- all of these components and aspects of the
action made it one of the more successful ones that we've done. There
is real change happening, whether it's the international response to
the Lebanon war or the international response to the Gaza war. The US
is the most powerful country in the world, Israel is a powerful
military as well, but the Palestinians have the world on their side."[1]
Ali
Abunimah wrote, "Crimes against humanity are defined as 'crimes that
shock the conscience.' When the institutions with the moral and legal
responsibility to punish and prevent the crimes choose complicit
silence -- or, worse, harbor a suspected war criminal, already on trial
for corruption in Israel, and present him to students as a paragon of
'leadership' -- then disobedience, if that is what it takes to break
the silence, is an ethical duty. Instead of condemning them, the
University should be proud that its students were among those who had
the courage to stand up.
"For the first time in recorded
history, an Israeli prime minister was publicly confronted with the
names of his victims. It was a symbolic crack in the wall of impunity
and a foretaste of the public justice victims have a right to receive
when Olmert is tried in a court of law.[2]
On September
15, 2009, the UN Fact Finding Mission led by Justice Richard Goldstone
released its report on Israel's Dec/Jan. assault on Gaza and "concluded
there is evidence indicating serious violations of international human
rights and humanitarian law were committed by Israel during the Gaza
conflict, and that Israel committed actions amounting to war crimes,
and possibly crimes against humanity." [3]
The 574- page
report analyzed, "36 specific incidents in Gaza, as well as a number of
others in the West Bank and Israel" conducted 188 individual interviews,
reviewed more 10,000 pages of documentation, and viewed some 1,200
photographs, including satellite imagery, as well as 30 videos. The
mission heard 38 testimonies during two separate public hearings held
in Gaza and Geneva, which were webcast in their entirety. The decision
to hear participants from Israel and the West Bank in Geneva rather
than in situ was taken after Israel denied the Mission access to both
locations. Israel also failed to respond to a comprehensive list of
questions posed to it by the Mission. Palestinian authorities in both
Gaza and the West Bank cooperated with the Mission.
"The
Mission found that, in the lead up to the Israeli military assault on
Gaza, Israel imposed a blockade amounting to collective punishment and
carried out a systematic policy of progressive isolation and
deprivation of the Gaza Strip. During the Israeli military operation,
code-named "Operation Cast Lead," houses, factories, wells, schools,
hospitals, police stations and other public buildings were destroyed.
Families are still living amid the rubble of their former homes long
after the attacks ended, as reconstruction has been impossible due to
the continuing blockade. More than 1,400 people were killed during the
military operation." [Ibid]
The report concluded "that the
Israeli military operation was directed at the people of Gaza as a
whole, in furtherance of an overall and continuing policy aimed at
punishing the Gaza population, and in a deliberate policy of
disproportionate force aimed at the civilian population. The
destruction of food supply installations, water sanitation systems,
concrete factories and residential houses was the result of a
deliberate and systematic policy which has made the daily process of
living, and dignified living, more difficult for the civilian
population [and] that Israeli acts that deprive Palestinians in the
Gaza Strip of their means of subsistence, employment, housing and
water, that deny their freedom of movement and their right to leave and
enter their own country [and] underlines that the loss of life and
destruction caused by Israeli forces during the military operation was
a result of disrespect for the fundamental principle of "distinction"
in international humanitarian law that requires military forces to
distinguish between military targets and civilians and civilian objects
at all times." [Ibid]
On 22 October 2009, Bay Area
residents attempted a citizen's arrest of Olmert, during his speech to
the World Affairs Council in San Francisco. Twenty-two were arrested
for verbally challenging Olmert and raised awareness and discomfort
levels in the audience by demanding he be tried for war crimes and
crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.
Olmert
has also faced feisty justice seeking Americans at Tulane University
and the University of Kentucky, because of the failure of the US
Government to do the right thing and if another veto is cast by the US
to shield Israel from accountability, the fire that is burning in many
Americans bellies for justice and in support of the Goldstone
recommendations, might well result in a second American revolution:
http://www.wearewideawake.org/
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