Spain, don’t succumb to Israeli pressure,
prosecute war criminals
By Khalid Amayreh
Occupied Jerusalem
xpis.ps, October 10, 2008
The Israeli government has been quietly pressing (and pressuring) Spain
to reconsider issuing warrants for the arrest of high-ranking Israeli
army officers accused of committing war crimes in the occupied
Palestinian territories.
Earlier this year, a lawsuit was filed at the National court of Spain
with the aim of issuing an arrest warrant against seven Israeli military
officials.
The seven included former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, former
Defense Minister Benyamin Benalizer, former Shin Beth Chief Avi Dichter,
former Chief of Staff Moshe Ya’alon, former Air Force Commander Dan
Halutz, Operation Branch Commander Giora Eiland and Southern Command
Chief Doron Almog.
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), which filed the lawsuit,
urged the Spanish Judicial authorities to issue an international arrest
warrant against the seven in connection with their role in the bombing
of an apartment building in Gaza on 22 July, 2002, in which a
Hamas chief was killed along with his family and 15 other civilians,
including 11 children.
The National Court of Spain has accepted the case for further
examination, the first step towards launching a formal prosecution.
If the case is successful, those charged would be arrested upon entering
Spanish territory and stripped of the diplomatic immunity some of
them currently enjoy.
According to Israeli media sources, Tzipi Livni, now acting Foreign
Minister who is also slated to become Prime Minister, has asked
Spain’s Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos to use his
influence to deactivate legal considerations that would enable the
Spanish Justice system to “hound” visiting Israeli officials
accused of committing war crimes.
Well, Spain is well-advised to refuse to succumb to Israeli pressure in
this regard. The reasons for that are many:
First, this is not a political issue; it is first and foremost a legal
and moral issue involving the premeditated murder of innocent people. We
are talking about hundreds, even thousands, of innocent men, women and
children killed knowingly and deliberately by the Israeli army
which acted on direct instructions and orders from the likes of Ya’alon,
Halutz and Benalizer. Comprehensive records containing full details of
these crimes are readily available as they have been meticulously
documented by human rights groups operating in Palestine.
The helpless, unwept victims owe it to the conscience of humanity to
make the accused stand trial for their crimes. If they are found not
guilty, they will be set free; but if they are found guilty, they should
be made to pay for their crimes.
Hence, Spain must uphold the moral authority of its justice system and
see to it that alleged Israeli war criminals setting foot on Spanish
soil are treated no better and no worse than any other criminals.
Criminals are criminals regardless of their ethnic background or
religious affiliation. And it shouldn’t matter if the suspects are
citizens of a powerful or a powerless state.
Second, there is a large mass of evidence that would indict these
alleged war criminals.
Ariel Sharon is undoubtedly a certified war criminal. He lived all his
life as a war criminal. He was a war criminal as a soldier, as Platoon
commander, as a Defense Minister and as a Prime Minister. Sharon
had ordered the mass murder of hundreds of Egyptian Prisoners of War.
However, his role in the genocidal massacres of Sabra and Shatilla near
Beirut in September, 1982, accorded him the status of a war
criminal par excellance. But he doesn’t have to stand trial now, if only
because he, now in a vegetative stage for the third consecutive year,
is being punished sufficiently by God.
As to Benalizer, this man too is a war criminal for ordering murderous
operations that caused the death of numerous innocent people including
children. In 2001, Benalizer boasted about killing so many Palestinians
without drawing negative reactions from the world community.
“The world is now preoccupied with the events in America (9/11). This
means that we can behave as we see fit with the Palestinians,” he said
gleefully.
In addition, Benalizer okayed the bombing of an apartment building at
Hay-al-Daraj in downtown Gaza more than six years ago. Then an Israeli
warplane dropped a 2000 ib. bomb on the house of Sheikh Salah Shehadeh,
a commander of Hamas military wing. The bombing killed fifteen
civilians, along with Shehadeh, the majority of them young children.
Israeli officials involved in that monstrous crime also
included Ya’alon, then chief of staff of the Israeli army, who knew that
Shehadeh’s wife and daughters were close to him during the bombing.”
This is the same Ya’alon who several months later called Israel’s
Palestinian victims “ a cancer,” saying that “now I will be content with
chemotherapy” and implying that “if the chemotherapy didn’t work,” then
He would have to adopt the Hitlerian therapy.
As to Halutz, the Israeli air-force commander in 2002, he too boasted
about the Hay-al-Daraj carnage. A reporter asked him what he felt when
he dropped the bomb, Halutz retorted that he felt a small movement
under his seat when the bomb fell. In a separate interview, he said he
had no compunctions or guilty feelings knowing that innocent children
were killed.
“I sleep well at night, I have a clear conscience.”
In their hearts, Israeli officials and Israelis in general realize that
most of their actions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and also in
Lebanon can be classified as war crimes.
Some Israeli spokespersons try to prevaricate and create confusion by
claiming that Israeli soldiers kill innocent Palestinians knowingly but
not deliberately. Well, what is the difference between killing knowingly
and killing deliberately. Even the Nazis didn’t have the Chutzpah to
make such a claim.
Besides, when the number of innocent victims is so vast, as in Gaza,
even intent becomes irrelevant.
It is for these reasons that the Spanish authorities must not
allow the integrity of the Spanish justice system to be compromised
by diplomatic pressure exerted by Israel’s supremacist
leaders who harbor the racist belief that what applies to the rest of
humanity doesn’t apply to Jews.
To be sure, no one is suggesting that Spain play the role of world
judge or world policeman.
However, Spain is a sovereign state and has the right to bar suspected
war criminals from entering its territory.
This is the least civilized countries can do to discourage and
prevent the recurrence of more war crimes and crimes against humanity.
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