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Sherlock

International criminal court urged to investigate Gaza 'crimes'

The Hague
© United Photos/ReutersThe Palestinian foreign minister, Riad al-Malki (centre) visits the international criminal court in The Hague.
Senior British lawyers write to ICC calling on it to launch preliminary inquiry into abuses committed during conflict


Senior British lawyers have written to the international criminal court (ICC) in The Hague, urging it to investigate "crimes" committed in Gaza, including the destruction of homes, hospitals and schools.

The letter was sent by Kirsty Brimelow QC, the chair of the Bar Council's human rights committee, and was signed by a host of senior British barristers and law professors.

Addressed to the ICC prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, it calls on the court to launch a preliminary inquiry into abuses committed during the conflict.

"The initiation of an investigation would send a clear and unequivocal message to those involved in the commission of these crimes that the accountability and justice called for by the United Nations on the part of victims are not hollow watchwords," the letter states.

"It would bring about an end to the impunity which has prevailed in the region to date, fuelling ever increasingly brutal cycles of violence. The international community cannot continue to act simply as witness to such bloodshed and extreme civilian suffering."

Attention

US presidential executive order details detention of suspected sick people

Executive Orders
© Participant Media
The powers currently claimed by the federal government conceivably allow for situations where any communicable disease - even influenza - can become the basis for a large-scale military-enforced federal quarantine in which civil rights are suspended, civilian movement is restricted, and citizens are involuntarily detained - perhaps indefinitely.

On July 31st, 2014, President Obama expanded the list of communicable diseases for which the federal government is prepared to institute a quarantine. Together, with the expansions made by previous presidents, the list includes the widest set of potential triggers for suspending American rights that the country has yet seen.

It wasn't always this way. The federal government's first role in disease control was to modestly provide assistance to state-managed efforts, limited to port entry situations. Foreigners entering the USA could be checked for disease and temporarily held for a time, if necessary. This was arguably a function of border security and a valid role of the federal government under the U.S. Constitution.

However, like most government programs, it was followed by considerable "mission creep." After decades of centralizing power, checks at the border evolved into the potential for mass-suspension of Americans' rights anywhere inside the USA. The U.S. Surgeon General now has the broad and vague ability to invent regulations that "in his judgement are necessary to prevent the introduction, transmission, or spread of communicable diseases." He can enforce a quarantine in a manner he sees fit, up to and including the "apprehension and detention" of individuals - whether they are suspected of being sick or not.

Flashlight

Collective punishment in Gaza has always been Israel's policy

palestinian flag
© Paolo Pellegrin/Magnum
Three days after the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched the current war in Gaza, he held a press conference in Tel Aviv during which he said, in Hebrew, according to the Times of Israel, "I think the Israeli people understand now what I always say: that there cannot be a situation, under any agreement, in which we relinquish security control of the territory west of the River Jordan."

It's worth listening carefully when Netanyahu speaks to the Israeli people. What is going on in Palestine today is not really about Hamas. It is not about rockets. It is not about "human shields" or terrorism or tunnels. It is about Israel's permanent control over Palestinian land and Palestinian lives. That is what Netanyahu is really saying, and that is what he now admits he has "always" talked about. It is about an unswerving, decades-long Israeli policy of denying Palestine self-determination, freedom, and sovereignty.

Comment:


Stormtrooper

UK 'reviewing' £8bn worth of arms sales to Israel, Ministers claim military equipment not used in Gaza

tank
© Atef Safadi/EPAAmong the export licences granted to 130 British arms-makers, one is for a company selling components for Israel’s main battle tank.
The British government is reviewing the sale of £8bn in arms and military goods to Israel to see whether each licence is appropriate in light of the conflict in Gaza, Downing Street has said. Ministers said they would not stop licensing military equipment to Israel outright because they believed the country had a "legitimate right to self-defence".

The contracts - mostly for cryptographic software and military communications, but also weapon parts - will be individually examined to ensure they are not being used for internal repression or the provocation of conflict. Downing Street confirmed it was conducting the review after David Cameron gave his strongest comments yet on the crisis, saying the UN was right to condemn the shelling of schools as a "moral outrage".

The prime minister, however, stopped short of Ed Miliband's outright opposition to Israel's incursion into Gaza, and made it clear that the British government blamed Hamas for provoking the conflict.

"We are currently reviewing all export licences to Israel to confirm that we think they are appropriate," the prime minister's deputy official spokesman said.

Whistle

IDF leak: Sniper fire against civilians fleeing Shuja'iyya bombing massacre was 'revenge' - Whistleblower arrested after revealing this on Facebook

Eran Efrati
© UnknownEran Efrati
Former combat soldier and company sergeant of the Israeli army turned whistle-blower Eran Efrati, aged 28, was arrested by the Israeli authorities and questioned concerning his research regarding the use of illegal weapons in Gaza.

On Tuesday, July 29, Efrati announced on Facebook that he received information from sources within the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) revealing what he claims to be the real reason for the Shuja'iyya massacre which occurred nine days prior on July 20: namely that civilians were targeted and killed by Israeli soldiers as punishment for the death of soldiers in their units.

Comment: Shujayea: Massacre at Dawn - This is what Israel's 'war' looks like: Exclusive footage from inside Gaza




Arrow Up

Ole! Spain halts arms exports to Israel over Gaza war

press tv
An Israeli soldier holds a weapon near the Gaza Strip (file photo).
The Spanish government has decided to "temporarily halt" all arms and military exports to Israel in the wake of Tel Aviv's offensive in the Gaza Strip, a Spanish daily reports.

The decision to impose an arms embargo on Israel was reached last Thursday during a session of an inter-ministerial committee on arms manufacturing which is comprised of representatives from the prime minister's office, ministries of economy, defense, foreign affairs and finance, El Pais said in a report released on Tuesday.
Spain provides Israel with missile parts, fuses from hand grenades, mortar parts, electro-optical equipment and fire control systems
The decision to suspend arms exports is not definite and will be reviewed at the next committee session in September.

Spain is the second country to stop arm sales to Israel in the past 24 hours as the British government also said on Monday that it is reviewing all arms export licenses to Israel to assure that the arms are being put to "appropriate" use.

The Israeli military aggression has taken the lives of more than 1,880 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and wounded over 9,600 others in Gaza since July 8.

International bodies and human rights groups say civilians account for the majority of the victims of the ongoing Israeli war. Women and children make up the bulk of the civilian casualties there.

The UN Human Rights Council recently passed a resolution, calling for an independent probe into Israel's war crimes in Gaza.

Star of David

Best of the Web: The virtue & necessity of deconstructing 'anti-semitism'

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Those of us who dare to criticize Israel's centrality in American life are at a real disadvantage. We are disgusted by what we see, but contemporary protocol requires us to show respect and tolerance to the very people who inspire the disgust in the first place. Worse still, our tormentors have no reciprocal obligation for civility. The deck of cards in this dispute is stacked. Saying the wrong word, uttering an incorrect phrase, and one can be tarred as a disreputable 'Anti-Semite', which has become the scarlet letter of our time.

Have Jews been mistreated, shunned, defamed and killed? Certainly. Have Jews done the same? Most definitely. And to make matters worse, they're still at it. Unfortunately, 'post-Holocaust' rules of discourse now dictate extreme rhetorical deference on this subject. This favors the opposition. There are linguistic land-mines everywhere. And they're been laid out almost exclusively by the other team. Fortunately, one Jewish blogger has recently provided the non-Jewish world with a 19-point guide on what NOT say about Jews and Israel if you wish to avoid the stigma of 'anti-Semitism'.

Magnify

9/11 probe closing in on a desperate Israel

WT tower destruction
© news.nationalgeographic.com9/11: World Trade Center south tower collapsing.
Why is Israel committing suicide?

Netanyahu's genocidal onslaught in Gaza has done more to delegitimize the Zionist entity than the work of all the world's anti-Zionists put together. Yet the Israeli military cannot stop the Palestinian resistance; from an Israeli standpoint, the hecatomb in Gaza serves no military or strategic purpose.

Is Israel insane?

That is a rhetorical question. The real question is: WHY is Israel lashing out like a nation gone mad?

Comment: Finally the facts are beginning to surface and the American public will see the tragedy of 9/11 for what it really was... a horrible manipulation to further psychopathic agendas and pull the wool over the eyes of a shocked nation in mourning. If you haven't already, read 9/11The Ultimate Truth by Laura Knight-Jadczyk and Joe Quinn. It's all there.


Bad Guys

Dutch foreign minister Timmermans: Violence by Israel on Gaza is 'unacceptable'

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© ANPDutch foreign minister Frans Timmermans
Foreign minister Frans Timmermans says the violence being wreaked by Israel on Gaza is 'unacceptable'.

In an opinion piece in the NRC on Tuesday, Timmermans calls for an independent inquiry into the bombardment of UN schools and a hospital.

He writes that the Israeli bombardment and the Hamas rockets 'only increase the hate, the fear and the hopelessness'.

However, he does not point the finger of blame, saying that only once the fighting stops can the underlying reasons for the violence be dealt with.

Comment: It seems that recent protests in the Netherlands, during which protesters asked Timmermans to 'stop the apartheid', and a petition (of 40,000 signatures) that called on the Dutch government to impose sanctions on Israel (which was personally handed over to Timmermans five days ago), may have contributed to Timmermans finally speaking out against the violence committed by Israel. It remains to be seen however whether Timmermans, or the Dutch government, will take any action against Israel. Currently this seems unlikely as the Netherlands seems to be more involved with banning protests, and supporting the West's agenda in Iraq.


Bad Guys

Senior intelligence officers: Obama should release evidence

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Preface: With the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine turning a local civil war into a U.S. confrontation with Russia, former high-level U.S. intelligence veterans released a statement today urging President Obama to release what evidence he has about the tragedy and silence the exaggeration and rush to judgment. (The whole post is a must-read; but we at Washington's Blog have added bolding for emphasis.)


Signatory Bill Binney - the former senior technical director at the NSA, and a man who battled the Soviet Union for decades - tells Washington's Blog:
In my analytic efforts to predict intentions and capabilities down through the years, I always made sure that I had multi-factors verifying what I was asserting. So far, I don't see that discipline here in this administration or the IC [i.e. the United States intelligence community].

Comment: A voice of sanity from former intelligence officers in a sea of lies, deception and spin. But I wouldn't hold my breath ... What the authors don't (want to?) realise, is that the treatment of the Obama administration (and many others before him) with the facts on the ground are deliberate. The agenda behind is not to find the truth, but to use (or even better set up) situations, in which a hegemonial agenda can be pushed - in this case the isolation of Russia, which at this stage is the only country left that can oppose Washington militarily; to prevent Russia and China to leave their old enmity behind; and to save the dollar hegenomy.