Israel Objects to Palestinian Statehood to Avoid War Crimes Investigations A WikiLeaks cable reveals drones were used in Gaza, as well as Israel's true reasons for objecting to PA statehood by John Glaser, September 02, 2011
A secret State Department diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks has revealed that one of the primary reasons behind Israeli objections to Palestinian statehood is that lack of statehood keeps Palestinian territories outside the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which prosecutes war crimes.
Military Advocate General for the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) Avichai Mandelblit met with US Ambassador James B. Cunningham in February of 2010 to discuss investigations into allegations of misconduct during Israel’s attacks on Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009, called Operation Cast Lead.
Mandelblit noted to Cunningham that Palestinian Authority Justice Minister Ali Kashan had requested that ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo investigate alleged Israeli war crimes in the occupied territories since 2002, up to and including Operation Cast Lead. The cable reads: “Mandelblit said several legal opinions had been delivered to Ocampo noting that the ICC had no legal jurisdiction due to the PA’s lack of statehood…”
The dialogue is unusually blunt, since Israel’s public objections to Palestinian statehood at the United Nations, to be voted upon this month, have been mundane and political in nature.
After requesting multiple times that the US “state publicly its position that the ICC has no jurisdiction over Israel regarding the Gaza operation,” Mandelblit “warned that PA pursuit of Israel through the ICC would be viewed as war by the GOI [Government of Israel].”
Mandelblit seems to deflect allegations of war crimes, not by denying they took place, but by dismissing them via a legal technicality. Accompanying Mandelblit was IDF Head of the International Law Department Col. Liron Libman who “noted that the ICC was the most dangerous issue for Israel,” reads the cable.
Mandelblit also dismissed the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, called the Goldstone report after its chief judge, which found both Israel and Hamas guilty of war crimes. “The GOI hopes that eventually Goldstone would ‘vanish,’” the cable reads. He also pointed to the IDF’s own investigations of the conflict, but dismissed the possibility of an independent “commission of inquiry to review IDF investigations,” saying “nobody thinks we should do it.”
The cable also reveals the first official recognition found within the WikiLeaks cables of Israel’s use of unmanned drone aircraft in Operation Cast Lead. In a bombing by one of these drones, up to 16 civilians were killed. “A UAV [drone aircraft] shot at two Hamas fighters in front of the mosque,” reads the cable, “and 16 casualties resulted inside the mosque due to an open door through which shrapnel entered during a time of prayer.”
In a cable from a year earlier in February of 2009, Israeli Ambassador Benny Dagan admitted to US official Robert J. Silverman that “The current strategy is to use disproportionate force to respond to attacks by Hizballah and Hamas, noting it may take repeated strikes in both cases.”
Up to 1,400 Palestinians were killed in attacks by Israeli forces during Operation Cast Lead between, while some 5,000 were injured. Hundreds of those killed, up to half by some estimates, were unarmed civilians, including some 300 children, more than 115 women and some 85 men over the age of 50. Billions of dollars of infrastructure damage and numerous incidents of IDF attacks on civilian facilities, among other crimes.
That area is a disaster which will never see peace in our lifetimes. How many peace talks and billions of dollars have we wasted trying to come to some solution to help them. We have to come to grips that we did all we could do but have failed, the time has come where we need to say to hell with them figure it out on your own. This conflict I truly believe is about money not borders, both sides play the victim card and they know they can receive money by keeping the conflict alive. What is sickening is the propaganda used here in America to keep us pumping money into that region. We have idiots like Glenn Beck who say if Israel falls so does America, what a croc of $hit. The last 2 months of his show and even to this very minute he is on this Restoring Courage tour to promote how we must continue to help and fund this area. The pro-Palestinian side is just as nuts in pushing propaganda, more than once I seen these groups post altered videos showing atrocities that distorted the facts as to what took place.
"In the beginning of a change, the Patriot is a scarce man, brave, hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a Patriot."
I've said it before and I'll say it again....Israel never should have given up one square inch of land to these bullies who thought they were going to gang up on Israel and take over...to the victor goes the spoils. The so called "right of return" would completely alter the demographics of Israel and their Arab enemies know it....the same Arab enemies who used their Palestinian "brothers" in this effort...who now want to invade Israel via flooding the country with "displaced" Palestinians because they cannot beat them militarily.
Let their Arab brethen carve out a territory for the Palestinians in their own desert....
I've said it before and I'll say it again....Israel never should have given up one square inch of land to these bullies who thought they were going to gang up on Israel and take over...to the victor goes the spoils. The so called "right of return" would completely alter the demographics of Israel and their Arab enemies know it....the same Arab enemies who used their Palestinian "brothers" in this effort...who now want to invade Israel via flooding the country with "displaced" Palestinians because they cannot beat them militarily.
Let their Arab brethen carve out a territory for the Palestinians in their own desert....
that would require ALOT of Dr. Phil counseling......although it would make for good TV?....nah....just blow it off the earth.... I dont know about you but they are getting to be like the annoying kid in the back of class when your trying to pay attention and you wish you could just turn around and peg 'em with a giant textbook(or laptop of today)....
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
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