Monday, February 2, 2009

Lawsuit against Israeli Officials via Spanish National Court

Benjamin Ben-EliezerThe Spanish National Court begun assessing charges brought against former Israeli authorities by a Palestinian human rights group in June 2008. Judge Fernando Andreu evaluated the case and decide to investigate the War Crimes committed by those Israeli.

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) had filed a lawsuit against former Israeli defense minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer and other high-ranking officials for approving the military operations in 2002. On July 22, 2002, IMichael Herzogsrael dropped a one-ton bomb over the 4 story building in the Gaza Strip and assassinated Salah Shehadeh (one of "celebrity" leader of the Hamas). Thus killed Salah Shehada and seventeen civilians, including his wife, his daughter, his guard, eight children (including a 2-month infant), two elderly men and two women. This bom also inflict injury to seventy seven people in al-Daraj neighborhood, eleven houses were completely destroyed and thirty two houses damaged. The list submitted by the PCHR also included Ben-Eliezer's former military advisor Michael Herzog, former chief of staff Moshe Ya'alon and former air force commander Dan Halutz.

In response to the news, the Israeli defense minister has vowed to halt a Spanish probe into the alleged war crimes of former Israeli military officials. Ehud Barak said he would do everything in his power to block an inquiry against former Israeli defense minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer and six other officials. "The minister intends to fight vigorously against the accusations in Spain and do everything possible to get the investigation dismissed," reads the statement.


Here is how the then IDF Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon described the operation and execution:
Israeli's targeted killings[Shehada] clung to the civilian population because he understood our sensitivities. In quite a few cases, we avoided attacking him because his wife was with him, or his daughters. Shehadeh had six daughters. More recently, we made things easier for ourselves and said that even if his wife is with him, we will attack him. Moreover, a discussion began about whether it would not be right to attack him even if his daughters were with him. But we made a decision against that. We decided that we would not harm his daughters.

On the Saturday evening before the attack, we held a discussion. It was clear to us that in order to knock down the building, we would need a ton [of
Moshe Ya'alon explosives], and the question was whether we would use one bomb of a ton or two of half a ton. Our experience was of dropping 160 bombs in the Palestinian arena without a single innocent civilian being killed, but the concern was that two bombs raised the statistical risk of a miss.

So I sent the air force to do its homework and they came back to me with the answer that a one-ton bomb was more certain. The assessment was that the result would be the destruction of Shehadeh's house and damage to the empty
neighboring building, and shattered windows in the area and tin siding that would be sent flying from the tin shacks. People wounded, not killed. In retrospect, though, it turned out that the neighboring house was not empty. The execution of the air force was perfect, but the intelligence gap in regard to the neighboring house caused a hitch. Six children were killed in that house.

The Israeli then Prime Minister Sharon considered the air strike a great success . Officials statements says that they regretted the loss of civilian lives but pointed out that Shehada was responsible for those deaths since he routinely positioned himself among innocents. Rather than set up a military camp, Shehada hid among civilians in order to make it more difficult for Israel to target him. They futher put the weight that the practice is expressly forbidden by international law and that law further holds the party who involves the civilians responsible for their casualties, not the attacker.
Well using the same analogy, if ay Iraqi people decided to assassinate Bush al Dubya (of illegal fame war in Iraq) in the restaurant where he dine or the hotel that he stay and cause many civilian casualties. Could we blame put the blame on this lame duck Dubya, 'cause he routinely positioned himself in civilian restaurant, civilian hotel and any other public places? The same also goes to says, if anybody tries to assinated Sharon himself or anybody on that stature by crook, and inflict many casualties in the proceses, perhap Sharon would like to calm down the relative of the decease to blame him instead and spare the attacker. Reality take precedence eh mister??

BTW, similar cases have previously been filed in Israeli courts, but the reason, rights and justice never serve for those occupied people.
Truth, justice and the Israeli way!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why cant the world see that Israel is practicing colonialism but unlike the colonial powers that granted independence to the colonised nations after the war, and were granted free ruling and democracy,even Hong Kong, the last British colony, was handed back to China, but nothing happened for Palestine and nobody in the world so far is bothered to do anything or something.. I know what is said in the Quran and I am waiting for all that to happen to the Yahudis, for Allah is great.
ps: thanks for your comment and for admitting that you have indeed commited a cardinal sin!

ipv6 said...

Do you ever heard of the Jews lobby? A powerfull Jews lobbies I and their cohort. This guys are good I must say. Not to mention a particular Christian Wing in the US and their not so secret objective to make sure the existent of Jewish state in Jerusalem for their spiritual sense(doctrine). Instead of merely (die) waiting why not doing something, no matter how small that be like signing the petition perhap. After all, that what we (Muslim) should do than just mumbling the same phrase and tsk tsk.

ps:you should weight the whole comment. ;)

 
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