An Israeli War Crimes Tribunal (ICTI) May be the Only Deterrent to a Global War

By Francis A. Boyle

December 31, 2008 "Global Research" -- -- The United Nations General Assembly must immediately establish an International Criminal Tribunal for Israel (ICTI) as a "subsidiary organ" under U.N. Charter Article 22. The ICTI would be organized along the lines of the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY), which was established by the Security Council.

The purpose of the ICTI would be to investigate and prosecute Israeli war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide against the Peoples of Lebanon and Palestine--just as the ICTY did for the victims of international crimes committed by Serbia and the Milosevic Regime throughout the Balkans.

The establishment of ICTI would provide some small degree of justice to the victims of Israeli war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide against the Peoples of Lebanon and Palestine--just as the ICTY has done in the Balkans. Furthermore, the establishment of ICTI by the U.N. General Assembly would serve as a deterrent effect upon Israeli leaders such as Prime Minister Olmert, Foreign Minister Livni, Defense Minister Barak , Chief of Staff Ashkenazi and Israel´s other top generals that they will be prosecuted for their further infliction of international crimes upon the Lebanese and the Palestinians.

Without such a deterrent, Israel might be emboldened to attack Syria with the full support of the Likhudnik Bush Jr. Neoconservatives, who have always viewed Syria as "low-hanging fruit" ready to be taken out by means of their joint aggression. If Israel attacks Syria as it did when it invaded Lebanon in 1982, Iran has vowed to come to Syria´s defense.

And of course Israel and the Bush Jr administration very much want a pretext to attack Iran. This scenario could readily degenerate into World War III.

For the U.N. General Assembly to establish ICTI could stop the further development of this momentum towards a regional if not global catastrophe.

Francis A. Boyle is a graduate of the University of Chicago and Harvard Law School. He has advised numerous international bodies in the areas of human rights, war crimes, genocide, nuclear policy, and bio warfare. He received a PHD in political science from Harvard University.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan´s harsh criticisms of Israel´s Gaza assault have met disapproval in numerous circles while having been welcomed in others. We interviewed Sedat Laciner - Head of USAK, Ankara-based Turkish think tank, on the PM´s reaction to Israel´s Gaza assault and this reaction´s effects on Turkey-Israel relations in the long run. Laciner shared his analysis and criticisms toward Turkish policies on Israel and Palestine throughout history. He also gave his predictions for the future of Turkey-Israel relations. We also asked Laciner about the prior principles of Turkey in its relations with Israel and about the hidden risk in these two countries´ problematic relations.

Q: The Prime Minister´s remarks following Israel´s Gaza assault received reactions from abroad and were widely criticized by different circles. How would you evaluate these criticisms?

S.L.: "PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan´s recent comments on Israel´s Gaza assault have been labeled "anti-Semitic´ by some Israeli and Jewish critics. According to these criticisms, PM Erdogan is an Islamist politician and an anti-Israeli. Some Jewish have writers claimed that Turkey-Israel relations will be damaged as a result of the PM´s reaction. Some Israeli newspapers and members of some US-based Jewish think-tanks even furthered their claims and threatened Turkey by saying PKK terrorism will increase due to Turkey´s stand on the Gaza assault. Regarding these claims, Turkey has been receiving great support from Israel on numerous grounds, including combating PKK terrorism.

First, since reactions towards Israel´s Gaza assault were huge in Turkey, it is misleading to limit these reactions merely to PM Erdogan´s and his Justice and Development Party´s (AK Party) stance. Israel´s attack received tremendous reactions from all political parties, including leftists as well as those on the right. None of the political party leaders in Turkey criticized Israel less than the PM Erdogan. Moreover, Turkish press -including socialist, leftist-nationalist, rightist-nationalist, and pro-Kurdish, together with conservatives or fundamentalists condemned Israel for conducting a huge massacre in Gaza. For instance, Cumhuriyet, a leftist-nationalist newspaper which is known for being a harsh opponent of PM Erdogan, published caricatures in which Israeli soldiers were shown as Hitler.

Another reason why Erdogan´s reaction was well-received in Turkey stems from the opposition parties´ severe criticisms of him. Erdogan was blamed for not taking concrete actions, but just speaking through the leader of Nationalist Action Party (MHP) Devlet Bahceli. Bahceli also demanded the withdrawal of security agreements between Turkey and Israel as a reaction to Israel´s Gaza assault. Alike others, Deniz Baykal, leader of The Republican People´s Party (CHP) criticized Israel´s actions for being "inhumane´. Baykal claimed the Turkish Grand National Assembly (Turkish Parliament) should condemn Israel, and prepared a draft proposal to implement it as a parliament decision. Yet, the implementation of this proposal was impeded by Erdogan´s party, AKP. All political parties gave more or less similar reactions, however, only Erdogan´s stance received much criticism as a result of his position as the Turkish PM.

Erdogan´s actions during the Gaza crisis are other implications of his not being an anti-Semitic. During the crisis period Turkey did not take any position threatening its economic and political relations with Israel nor did it value the backings of some circles to do the opposite. Even military agreements between the two states were kept in this period as they were in the past."

Q: Then what is the reason behind PM Erdogan´s harsh criticisms toward Israel?

S.L.: "First, Turkish PMs have always been among the PMs who criticized Israel severely. Turkey is a unique country who can criticize both Israel and Palestine at the same time and can also tell their misdeeds directly. For instance Bulent Ecevit, who was one of the leftist PMs of Turkey, blamed Israel for committing genocide in 2001. Erdogan, on the other hand, never used the word "genocide´ during Gaza crisis. There have always been some problems in Turkey-Israel relations regarding the Palestine issue. The degradation of Turkey´s Israeli Embassy from an embassy to a charge d´affaires, and its being limited to this position for a long time, is a case in point. While Turkey and Israel had these problems, nevertheless Turkey is the first country, among the ones whose population is overwhelmingly Muslim, to recognize Israel. Moreover, Turkey is an extraordinary instance among the Muslim countries respecting Israel´s right to exist and defending it as well. As Israel´s ambassador to Ankara had previously stated, Turkey-Israel relations reached its peak during the AKP governance. Currently, Turkey is the only country in the Middle East who has military collaboration with Israel. To sum up, PM´s reaction to Gaza crisis is not a unique reaction, thus, it cannot be judged as an implication of increasing anti-Semitism in Turkey.
It is very obvious that Israel´s Gaza assault was condemned around the world as it was in Turkey. Technological developments made the disproportional use of military power and abuse of human rights more visible to world. Israel may have caused as many civilian losses in previous Palestine and Lebanon assaults as it did in this Gaza assault, however, the rise of technology made hiding abuses impossible. Only one fourth of the people killed in the assault were Hamas members; more than half were women and children, three fourths were civilians, and more than one fifth was composed of children and babies. No just cause can legitimize such a picture.

In other words, one has to seek the reasons for PM Erdogan´s or other Turkish politicians´ reactions in misdeeds of Israel army in Gaza not in Turkey´s circumstances."

Q: Do you think Israel will try to punish Turkey for its reactions? Does it affect the two countries´ relations?

S.L.: "If Israel chooses to end its relations on Armenian Issue and combating PKK terror, or if it tries to punish Turkey as a result of Gaza reaction, that would be mortal wrong for Tel Aviv. Some pro-Israeli writers´ comments unfortunately carry intimidation against Turkey. These people imply that some Jewish parliamentarians in the American Parliament will shift their support from Turkey´s thesis to Armenian allegations. These writers loudly declare their threats and state that Israel and American Jews will no longer support Turkey´s cause against PKK terror. The first concrete implication of these threats was seen in Turkey´s initiation to buy Heron TP unmanned air vehicles from Israel. It is stated that Turkey´s import of these vehicles, which are used against PKK, was impeded by Israel. In case Israel follows a punishment strategy, Turkey can collaborate with other countries to meet its needs in combating terrorism. To clarify, Israel does not give any weapons for free or donate them to Turkey. Thus, the claim that Israel seriously supports Turkey is weak. Let them be leftists or rightists, a large amount of Turkish people believe that Israel supports PKK terror. Mossad´s interactions with PKK terrorists and its efforts to help to the establishment of a Kurdish state are among the claims which commonly take place in Turkish press. Even if these claims are not true, Israel´s serious support in Turkey´s fight against terrorism is hard to believe. Israeli critiques are exploiting that support which is in fact inexistent.

Considering the Armenian issue, Jewish American politicians´ contributions to Turkey´s cause is undeniable. However, if this contribution is grounded on selfish interests without any principal bases, public explanation of this case will be troublesome for American politicians. On the other hand, Turkey´s Israel policies are placed on its principles and values, not merely on its interests. Indeed, interests are highly important, yet, protecting the interests of a country without principles would be very hard.
Second, Israel´s support in the Armenian issue should not be overvalued. For instance, numerous Jewish American associations signed a bulletin against Turkey´s cause on Armenian issue in last summer. Moreover, the fate of any Armenian proposal in the American Congress depends more on the changes in USA-Turkey relations than the decisions of Jewish deputies in the American Congress. If Israel and Jewish American senators´ support is grounded in such cheap reasons, end of this support would not harm Turkey."

Q: What do you think about the recent Davos affair?

S.L.: "In Davos, I think there is a great conspiracy. If you prefer an Armenian moderator for such a sensitive issue and in a highly sensitive time, it means that you try to spoil Turkish - Israeli relations. The moderator, David Ignatius, is a diaspora Armenian and he is a fanatic in Turkish and Israeli issues. He is a well-knon pro-Israel columnist and has written essays against Turkey and Mr. Erdogan. In Davos Israeli President raised his voice and blamed Turkey although PM Erdogan was kind and soft at the beginning. Mr. Ignatius and Mr. Peres´ unexpected anger prooked Erdogan."

http://www.turkishweekly.net/news/63898/is-the-turkish-pm-anti-semitic-interview-with-sedat-laciner-.html

Is an Israeli Jewish sense of victimization perpetuating the conflict with Palestinians? By Akiva Eldar A new study of Jewish Israelis shows that most accept the ´official version´ of the history of the conflict with the Palestinians. Is it any wonder, then, that the same public also buys the establishment explanation of the operation in Gaza? A pioneering research study dealing with Israeli Jews´ memory of the conflict with the Arabs, from its inception to the present, came into the world together with the war in Gaza. The sweeping support for Operation Cast Lead confirmed the main diagnosis that arises from the study, conducted by Daniel Bar-Tal, one of the world´s leading political psychologists, and Rafi Nets-Zehngut, a doctoral student: Israeli Jews´ consciousness is characterized by a sense of victimization, a siege mentality, blind patriotism, belligerence, self-righteousness, dehumanization of the Palestinians and insensitivity to their suffering. The fighting in Gaza dashed the little hope Bar-Tal had left - that this public would exchange the drums of war for the cooing of doves. "Most of the nation retains a simplistic collective memory of the conflict, a black-and-white memory that portrays us in a very positive light and the Arabs in a very negative one," says the professor from Tel Aviv University. This memory, along with the ethos of the conflict and collective emotions such as fear, hatred and anger, turns into a psycho-social infrastructure of the kind experienced by nations that have been involved in a long-term violent conflict. This infrastructure gives rise to the culture of conflict in which we and the Palestinians are deeply immersed, fanning the flames and preventing progress toward peace. Bar-Tal claims that in such a situation, it is hard even to imagine a possibility that the two nations will be capable of overcoming the psychological obstacles without outside help. Scholars the world over distinguish between two types of collective memory: popular collective memory - that is, representations of the past that have been adopted by the general public; and official collective memory, or representations of the past that have been adopted by the country´s official institutions in the form of publications, books or textbooks. The idea for researching the popular collective memory of Israeli Jews was raised by Nets-Zehngut, a Tel Aviv lawyer who decided to return to the academic world. At present he is completing his doctoral thesis in the International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution at Columbia University´s Teachers College. The study, by him and Bar-Tal, entitled "The Israeli-Jewish Collective Memory of the Israeli-Arab/Palestinian Conflict," examines how official collective memory in the State of Israel regarding the creation of the 1948 refugee problem has changed over time. Bar-Tal became enthusiastic about the idea and, with funding from the International Peace Research Association Foundation, he conducted a survey in the summer of 2008 among a representative sample of 500 Jewish Israeli adults. The study demonstrated that widespread support for the official memory testifies to a lower level of critical thinking, as well as belief in traditional values, high identification with Jewish identity, a tendency to delegitimize the Arabs, and support for taking aggressive steps against the Palestinians. In a telephone interview from New York, Nets-Zehngut says it is very clear that those with a "Zionist memory" see Israel and the Jews as the victims in the conflict, and do not tend to support agreements or compromises with the enemy in order to achieve peace. This finding, he explains, demonstrates the importance of changing the collective memory of conflicts, making it less biased and more objective - on condition, of course, that there is a factual basis for such a change. Bar-Tal, who has won international awards for his scientific work, immigrated to Israel from Poland as a child in the 1950s. "I grew up in a society that for the most part did not accept the reality that the authorities tried to portray, and fought for a different future," he says. "I have melancholy thoughts about nations where there is an almost total identity between the agents of a conflict, on the one hand, who nurture the siege mentality and the existential fear, and various parts of society, on the other. Nations that respond so easily to battle cries and hesitate to enlist in favor of peace do not leave room for building a better future." Bar-Tal emphasizes that the Israeli awareness of reality was also forged in the context of Palestinian violence against Israeli citizens, but relies primarily on prolonged indoctrination that is based on ignorance and even nurtures it. In his opinion, an analysis of the present situation indicates that with the exception of a small minority, which is capable of looking at the past with an open mind, the general public is not interested in knowing what Israel did in Gaza for many years; how the disengagement was carried out and why, or what its outcome was for the Palestinians; why Hamas came to power in democratic elections; how many people were killed in Gaza from the disengagement until the start of the recent war; and whether it was possible to extend the recent cease-fire or even who violated it first. "Although there are accessible sources, where it is possible to find the answers to those questions, the public practices self-censorship and accepts the establishment version, out of an unwillingness to open up to alternative information - they don´t want to be confused with the facts. We are a nation that lives in the past, suffused with anxiety and suffering from chronic closed-mindedness," charges Bar-Tal. That describes the state of mind in 2000, when most of the pubic accepted the simplistic version of then-prime minister Ehud Barak regarding the failure of the Camp David summit and the outbreak of the second intifada, and reached what seemed like the obvious conclusion that "there is no partner" with whom to negotiate. Bar-Tal: "After the bitter experience of the Second Lebanon War, during which the memory of the war was taken out of their hands and allowed to be formed freely, the country´s leaders learned their lesson, and decided that they wouldn´t let that happen again. They were not satisfied with attempts to inculcate Palestinian awareness and tried to influence Jewish awareness in Israel as well. For that purpose, heavy censorship and monitoring of information were imposed" during the Gaza campaign. The professor believes that politicians would not have been successful in formulating the collective memory of such a large public without the willing enlistment of the media. Almost all the media focused only on the sense of victimization of the residents of the so-called "Gaza envelope" and the south. They did not provide the broader context of the military operation and almost completely ignored - before and during the fighting - the situation of the residents of besieged Gaza. The human stories from Sderot and the dehumanization of Hamas and the Palestinians provided the motivation for striking at Gaza with full force. Nets-Zehngut and Bar-Tal find a close connection between the collective memory and the memory of "past persecutions of Jews" ("the whole world is against us," and the Holocaust). The more significant the memory of persecution, the stronger the tendency to adopt Zionist narratives. From this we can understand the finding that adults, the religious public and those with more right-wing political views tend to adopt the Zionist version of the conflict, while young people, the secular public and those with left-wing views tend more to adopt critical narratives. The atmosphere in the street and in the media during the weeks of the Gaza war seems to have confirmed the central finding of the study: "The ethos of the conflict is deeply implanted in Jewish society in Israel. It is a strongly rooted ideology that justifies the goals of the Jews, adopts their version, presents them in a very positive light and rejects the legitimacy of the Arabs, and primarily of the Palestinians," notes Bar-Tal. For example, when asked the question, "What were the reasons for the failure of the negotiations between [Ehud] Barak and [Yasser] Arafat in summer 2000?" 55.6 percent of the respondents selected the following answer: "Barak offered Arafat a very generous peace agreement, but Arafat declined mainly because he did not want peace." Another 25.4 percent believed that both parties were responsible for the failure, and about 3 percent replied that Arafat did want peace, but Barak was not forthcoming enough in meeting the needs of the Palestinians. (Sixteen percent replied that they didn´t know the answer.) Over 45 percent of Israeli Jews have imprinted on their memories the version that the second intifada broke out only, or principally, because Arafat planned the conflict in advance. Only 15 percent of them believe the viewpoint presented by three heads of the Shin Bet security services: that the intifada was mainly the eruption of a popular protest. Over half those polled hold the Palestinians responsible for the failure of the Oslo process, 6 percent hold Israel responsible, and 28.4 percent said both sides were equally responsible. Among the same Jewish public, 40 percent are unaware that at the end of the 19th century, the Arabs were an absolute majority among the inhabitants of the Land of Israel. Over half of respondents replied that in the United Nations partition plan, which was rejected by the Arabs, the Arabs received an equal or larger part of the territory of the Land of Israel, relative to their numbers; 26.6 percent did not know that the plan offered the 1.3 million Arabs a smaller part of the territory (44 percent) than was offered to 600,000 Jews (55 percent). Bar-Tal claims that this distortion of memory is no coincidence. He says that the details of the plan do not appear in any textbook, and this is a deliberate omission. "Knowledge of how the land was divided could arouse questions regarding the reason why the Arabs rejected the plan and make it possible to question the simplistic version: We accepted the partition plan, they didn´t." However, his study shows that a larger percentage of the Jewish population in Israel believes that in 1948, the refugees were expelled (47.2 percent of respondents), than those who still retain the old Zionist version (40.8 percent), according to which the refugees left on their own initiative. On this point, not only do almost all the history books provide up-to-date information, but some local school textbooks do as well. Even on the television program "Tekuma" ("Rebirth," a 1998 documentary series about Israel´s first 50 years), the expulsion of the Arabs was mentioned. Nets-Zehngut also finds a degree of self-criticism in the answers relating to the question of overall responsibility for the conflict. Of those surveyed, 46 percent think that the responsibility is more or less evenly divided between Jews and Arabs, 4.3 percent think that the Jews are mainly to blame, and 43 percent think that the Arabs and the Palestinians are mainly to blame for the outbreak and continuation of the conflict. It turns out, therefore, that when the country´s education system and media are willing to deal with distorted narratives, even a collective memory that has been etched into people´s minds for years can be changed. Bar-Tal says he takes no comfort in the knowledge that Palestinian collective memory suffers from similar ills, and that it is also in need of a profound change - a change that would help future generations on both sides to regard one another in a more balanced, and mainly a more humane manner. This process took many decades for the French and the Germans, and for the Protestants and the Catholics in Northern Ireland. When will it finally begin here, too?

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1060061.html

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