Israel may face UN court ruling on Gaza conflict

Communitarian Network founder Amitai Etzioni is a leading voice in the growing consensus over the ineffectiveness of the UN's soft power. To centrist PeaceHawks like Etzioni, the need to combine the authority of the UN with the military and financial power of the USA is the most pressing global security issue in the world.

What if the Zionist state and their entire history of inhumane attacks on Arab civilians was just one of many British theosophical tools used to manipulate human social evolution into a British-Dutch synthesized world government system? There is enough evidence pointing in that direction to justify further inquiry.

Are there other possible solutions to the Hegelian conflict in Gaza besides taking the case before the UN court?

Yes, there are. We don't need to grant the UN Court Supreme Communitarian powers over Israel. The United States funds Zionism. The only reason communist Israel ever survived was the same reason the communist USSR survived: American tax dollars. Israel has the military power to destroy Gaza because the US people give it to them (and it has the nuclear power because Zionist spies steal American military secrets). Wouldn't cutting off their automatic, yearly US tax money supply (and paying closer attention to Israeli dual nationals working in US Top Security areas) be a lot more cost and life efficient than using more US tax dollars and more US-NATO soldiers to enforce a UN ruling that has no hard authority without our military and tax backing?

Are we all so gullible that we will finance senseless wars of destruction and then finance the interventions to stop the senseless wars, interventions that will in turn usurp our supreme national law and place us all under the control of a global communitarian justice system? Why would free, educated people appoint the same PeaceHawks who start and manage wars of aggression to write the global peace process?

The Case Against Pinochet was the first big test of UN Communitarian Supremacy of law. The UN's Case Against Israel is not pilot test. It's the real deal.

From Peter Meyer's elist:

(3) Israel may face UN court ruling on Gaza conflict

From: Kenneth Rasmusson Date: 14.01.2009 03:13 PM

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/14/israel-gaza-un-court-palestine

14 January 2009

Israel may face UN court ruling on legality of Gaza conflict

by Afua Hirsch, legal affairs correspondent

Israel faces the prospect of intervention by international courts amid growing calls that its actions in Gaza are a violation of world humanitarian and criminal law.

The UN general assembly, which is meeting this week to discuss the issue, will consider requesting an advisory opinion from the international court of justice, the Guardian has learned.

"There is a well-grounded view that both the initial attacks on Gaza and the tactics being used by Israel are serious violations of the UN charter, the Geneva conventions, international law and international humanitarian law," said Richard Falk, the UN's special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories and professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University.

{The surname Falk also just happens to be Etzioni's German birth name ~ Niki}

"There is a consensus among independent legal experts that Israel is an occupying power and is therefore bound by the duties set out in the fourth Geneva convention," Falk added. "The arguments that Israel's blockade is a form of prohibited collective punishment, and that it is in breach of its duty to ensure the population has sufficient food and healthcare as the occupying power, are very strong."

A Foreign Office source confirmed the UK would consider backing calls for a reference to the ICJ. "It's definitely on the table," the source said. "We have already called for an investigation and are looking at all evidence and allegations."

An open letter to the prime minister signed by prominent international lawyers and published in today's Guardian states: "The United Kingdom government ... has a duty under international law to exert its influence to stop violations of international humanitarian law in the current conflict between Israel and Hamas."

The letter argues that Israel has violated principles of humanitarian law, including launching attacks directly aimed at civilians and failing to discriminate between civilians and combatants.

The letter follows condemnation earlier this week from leading QCs of Israel's action as a violation of international law, and a vote by the UN's human rights council on Monday on a resolution condemning the ongoing Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip.

"The blockade of humanitarian relief, the destruction of civilian infrastructure, and preventing access to basic necessities such as food and fuel are prima facie war crimes," a group of leading QCs and academics, including Michael Mansfield QC and Sir Geoffrey Bindman, wrote in a letter to the Sunday Times.

Israel has already been found to have violated its obligations in international law by a previous advisory opinion of the ICJ, and is likely to vigorously contest arguments that it is an occupying power. It previously stated that occupation ceased after disengagement from Gaza in 2005.

Its stance raises questions as to the utility of an advisory opinion by the ICJ after Israel rejected its finding in a previous case, which found the wall being constructed in the Palestinian territories to be a violation of Israel's obligations under international humanitarian law.

Questions are also being raised as to whether the international criminal court, which deals with war crimes and crimes against humanity, would have any jurisdiction to hear cases against perpetrators of the alleged crimes on both sides of the conflict. Neither Israel nor the Palestinian territories are signatories to the Rome statute, which brings states within the jurisdiction of the ICC.

More likely, experts say, is the establishment of ad-hoc tribunals of the kind created to deal with the war in the former Yugoslavia and the genocide in Rwanda.

"If there were the political will there could be an ad-hoc tribunal established to hear allegations of war crimes," Falk said. "This could be done by the general assembly acting under article 22 of the UN charter which gives them the authority to establish subsidiary bodies."