A British lawyer working on behalf of Palestinian families has begun proceedings for the arrest of the Israeli defence minister, General Shaul Mofaz.
The lawyer, Imran Khan, has submitted a 17-page letter to the director of public prosecutions outlining allegations of war crimes against Mofaz. The allegations include instructions given by Mofaz while he was chief of staff to torture and assassinate Palestinians, and to demolish houses.
The proceedings against Mofaz are worrying to the Israeli authorities. An article in the 30 October 2002 issue of the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, which was not translated into English, points out that many countries that signed the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court have integrated parts of it into their penal code, creating a real threat to Israeli war criminals.
"A universal jurisdiction exists in many European countries and the real fear in Israel now is from such internal tribunals. These contrast with international tribunals like the International Criminal Court, which is neither effective nor operational, its judges and prosecutor having not yet been elected," Ha'aretz said.
The testimonies of Israelis are seen by the Israeli authorities as posing the greatest danger for Israeli war criminals. It is, therefore, not surprising that the Israeli parliament is now considering a law that would prohibit Israeli peace activists and soldiers from cooperating with war crimes tribunals or initiating proceedings against war criminals
Given that a situation of escalating genocide already exists in Palestine and that ethnic cleansing is the most probable scenario in Israel and the occupied territories, there is a sound factual basis for initiating proceedings against the Israeli military junta for committing genocide.*
In fact, Mofaz should be charged not just because of his role in the atrocities in Jenin. He and his successor, General Moshe Ya'alon, are the central figures in provoking and escalating the present Palestinian intifada, or uprising, in order to pave the way for the mass expulsion of Palestinians. Ya'alon's definition of the Palestinian threat as a cancer and of his military measures against it as "chemotherapy" make his aspirations very clear. ("There are all kinds of solutions to cancerous manifestations. Some will say it is necessary to amputate organs. But, at the moment, I am applying chemotherapy." - Ha'aretz, 30 August 2002)
The imminence of expulsion is acknowledged even by the military commentator of Ha'aretz, Ze'ev Schiff - widely seen as the unofficial spokesman for the opposition inside the Israeli military establishment - who also views the Israeli efforts to prevent the Palestinians from harvesting their olive crops in this context. (Ha'aretz, 30 October 2002)
Proceedings against the Israeli military junta should be instituted in all the countries that have signed the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as part of the efforts to stop ethnic cleansing in Palestine. Through such proceedings, we can at least put more pressure on the Israeli war criminals and make THE WORLD realize that ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians is not an "anti-Jewish conspiracy theory" and that those who suppress or deny the evolving catastrophe are in fact colluding in this sinister scheme which endangers not only the Palestinians, but all the inhabitants of Western Asia, including the Jewish ones.
* Shraga Elam is an Israeli investigative journalist based in Zurich and author of a highly-praised book in German on the collaboration of the Zionist leadership with the Nazis. The book, Hitlers Faelscher: wie juedische amerikanische und Schweizer Agenten der SS beim Falschgeldwaschen halfen [Hitler's Forgers: How Jewish, American and Swiss agents helped the SS with laundering faked money], is published by Uberreuter Verlag and can be purchased here.
(as amended by the procés-verbaux of 10 November 1998 and 12 July 1999)
For the purpose of this Statute, "genocide" means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
1. For the purpose of this Statute, "crime against humanity" means any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack:
(a) Murder;
(b) Extermination;
(c) Enslavement;
(d) Deportation or forcible transfer of population;
(e) Imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law;
(f) Torture;
(g) Rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity;
(h) Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender as defined in paragraph 3, or other grounds that are universally recognized as impermissible under international law, in connection with any act referred to in this paragraph or any crime within the jurisdiction of the Court;
(i) Enforced disappearance of persons;
(j) The crime of apartheid;
(k) Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health.