``What we're seeing in Gaza now, is pretty much slow-motion genocide against the 1.5 million Palestinians who live in Gaza.... If you read the 1948 Genocide Convention, it clearly says that one instance of genocide is the deliberate infliction of conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of a people in whole or in part,'' stated Francis A. Boyle, professor of International Law at the University of Illinois in Champaign. ``And that's exactly what has been done to Gaza, since the imposition of the blockade by Israel; then the massacre of 1,400 Palestinians, two-thirds of whom were civilians, in Operation Cast Lead. And that also raises the element in the Genocide Convention, of murder, torture, and things of that nature.''
........Few international figures can speak in as much detail about the decades-long fight against Israeli war crimes, and the political blocks to prosecuting them, than Professor Boyle, who has led successful campaigns at the United Nations to bring war criminals--for example, those who committed crimes against the citizens of Bosnia-Herzogovina in the 1990s Balkan War--before an international tribunal.
Even before ``Operation Cast Lead,'' Boyle had proposed that the UN General Assembly establish an International Criminal Tribunal for Israel (ICTI) as a ``subsidiary organ'' under UN Charter Article 22. Boyle's proposal has been endorsed by Malaysia and Iran, and supported in General Assembly debates by some dozen Arab and Muslim nations.
........Boyle told {EIR}, ``I think that I was probably the first lawyer ever to file a lawsuit against a major Israeli war criminal--that was back in about 1986, when I represented several women who were next of kin of the victims of the massacre of Sabra and Shatila, and I sued General Yaron, whose forces were occupying the Sabra and Shatila camps, and the whole massacre took place under his direction and control.''
``...Eventually I lost the lawsuit, when the Reagan Administration entered the lawsuit through the State Department, and claimed that Yaron, since he was being admitted to the country and accredited as Israel's military attache@aa to Washington--which we tried to stop, and indeed, we held up for quite some time--had diplomatic privileges and immunities, could not be sued.''...
...Since then, he has followed ``all the lawsuits against Israeli war criminals'' internationally, ``and they've really taken off, and they will take off'' further. In the U.S. he says, ``because of the pretty much Zionist control and domination of the American judiciary, none of these lawsuits have gotten anywhere,'' he says, but ``abroad, they are making progress....
``I advise the Belgian lawyers. They filed another lawsuit, 20 years later [in 2002], against Yaron, Sharon, Elie Hobeika, and [Gen. Rafael] Eitan for the massacre at Sabra and Shatila,'' which was a criminal case.... the 2002 case came to an end {only after the Belgian law was changed by the Parliament under pressure}--because someone else had sued U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld under the same law. Rumsfeld threatened Belgium and NATO unless that law was rescinded, and Parliament killed it.
``But, at this point, it doesn't matter: The genie is out of the bottle. Twenty-five years ago, or so, when I filed that lawsuit [over Sabra and Shatila], there weren't too many lawyers qualified to do that work. Today, with the expansion of the human rights community, you have all sorts of lawyers qualified to do that work, and they're doing it.'' Asked about recent arrest warrants issued in Britain against Israeli officials, Boyle exclaimed, ``That's starting now! They're going after them in Britain; they're going after them in Belgium....
``... I think, eventually, we're going to get one of these people, just like the human rights lawyers in Britain got General Pinochet. Indeed, now we know, that before Israeli government officials travel abroad, they have to get legal advice as to where they can travel...
...Nearly 30 years after Boyle's first lawsuit, U.S. policy still gives Israel impunity for war crimes, beginning with Gaza.
``In the Obama Administration, they are continuing to aid and abet the genocidal Israeli policies against the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza,'' ... the U.S. ``pressured the Egyptians to build a steel wall on the border of Gaza, to cut off Gaza, to stop the tunnels that were bringing food, relief supplies, medicines, and everything else to the people,'' he revealed. And it was done with the assistance of U.S. Army engineers. This ``makes a mockery of the claim by the Obama Administration and the alleged efforts by Senator Mitchell, to reconvene the Middle East peace negotiations,'' he said...
``When President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton called for Netanyahu to freeze the settlements, and Mitchell did, too, Netanyahu stood up to them and forced them to back down....
...According to Boyle, Obama had already decided on the track of ``toeing the line'' for Israel during the 2008 campaign, when in response to Republican John McCain's claim that he was ``soft'' on supporting Israel, Obama promised Jewish voters in Florida that he would appoint Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff. ``Now, Emanuel is an agent of the AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee], which, in turn, is an agent of the Israeli government.... [David] Axelrod is a Zionist; Dennis Ross is now at the White House, he's a Zionist.... [Most of] the cast of characters there in the White House ... are Zionists,'' Boyle said. ``Fortunately, Senator Mitchell, in charge of these negotiations, is not. But I really don't know how much freedom Senator Mitchell has to do anything under these circumstances.''
....There are international actions in the works to use every possible avenue to stop the war crimes against the Palestinians, and Boyle is involved in many of them.
``Right after Operation Cast Lead ended, I did advise Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President,'' says Boyle, ``to send in a declaration, under Article 12, paragraph 3, of the Rome Statute for the International [Criminal] Court, accepting the jurisdiction of the Court, and requesting prosecution of the Israelis, high-level Israeli officials, for what they did to the people of Gaza. And President Abbas did do this....
``Just recently the ICC prosecutor, [Luis] Moreno-Ocampo, did make a public statement to the effect that he is investigating this, for two reasons: 1) to determine, do the Palestinians have sufficient government and state capacity to make this declaration; and then, 2) were war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Israel against the Palestinians part of Operation Cast Lead?
``That statement by Moreno-Ocampo was [issued] before the Goldstone Report came out, and Goldstone determined that, in fact, Israel had committed war crimes and crimes against the Palestinians.... ``Right now, as we speak, the Council of Foreign Ministers of the League of Arab States has proposed a resolution to be submitted to the Security Council for Palestine to be admitted as a UN member-state, with the 1967 boundaries. ``Admission to the UN is done by the General Assembly, but it must be upon recommendation by the Security Council. The problem there, is, of course, it could be subject to a veto by the Obama Administration. I don't know what position they are going to take on this: I would hope they are going to abstain. Certainly, the votes for the admission of Palestine to the United Nations are there.
``Right now, today, the State of Palestine is recognized bilaterally {de jure} by about 126 states. It has all the rights of a UN member-state, except the right to vote; it has state membership in the League of Arab States, the Islamic Council Organization [ICO], and then, also, in the advisory proceedings by the World Court on Israel's [Separation] Wall, the State of Palestine was invited to participate in a state capacity....
.....``Back in 2000, I did call for the establishment of the Israeli disinvestment campaign, and have worked quite hard to push that. That's a grassroots movement. Certainly in my lifetime, which goes back to civil rights for African-Americans, the only progressive change we have ever seen in this country is by a grassroots movement by the common, ordinary, everyday people of America. And, as of 2000, the Palestinians did not have a grassroots movement in their support, so I decided to set one off, and it's doing quite well. Indeed, it's take off worldwide.''
...On one issue--the Jewish settlements in the occupied lands--Israel has {already} been found, by an international court, to be in violation of international law. This has caused a firestorm of reaction from Israel, and its apologists, like Harvard's Alan Dershowitz...
The settlements are ``clearly illegal and criminal,'' said Boyle. ``All the settlements, as the World Court ruled in the advisory opinion on the [Separation] Wall, all these settlements violate the Fourth Geneva Convention, and a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention is a war crime. All these so-called settlers are committing war crimes, except the children, who are obviously not old enough to formulate a criminal intent.
``Indeed, Alan Dershowitz began attacking the World Court for this ruling and attacking their credibility, and this, that, and the other.
``Well, Dershowitz is not a trained international lawyer; he's not a trained human rights lawyer. I debated him once, and he sort of gratuitously conceded that I was the expert on these subjects. ``But in any event, what Dershowitz was not aware of, was that in the advisory committee proceedings, the American judge, Thomas Buergenthal, {who is a Holocaust survivor, himself}, joined the ruling--he dissented against a lot of other things by the World Court [International Court of Justice]--but Judge Buergenthal ruled that the settlements violate the Fourth Geneva Convention. And to Judge Buergenthal's credit--I've known him for many years; I have a lot of respect and admiration for him--he made this ruling.
``So, in other words, Dershowitz was attacking the integrity of a Holocaust survivor. But of course, that doesn't surprise me: He attacked [Prof.] Norman Finkelstein's mother; he also attacked Prof. Israel Shahak, one of the leaders of the peace movement in Israel, himself a Holocaust survivor....
``..... Dershowitz admitted, publicly, that he is part of a Mossad committee that authorized the assassination of Palestinians.
``You can find that article on counterpunch.org, by Prof. [Liquat Ali] Khan. Well, the Palestinians are all protected persons under the Fourth Geneva Convention, and for Dershowitz to authorize their murder is a war crime. So, Dershowitz is a {prima facie} war criminal, who should be prosecuted himself. [Footnote 2]
``And there he is, teaching at the Harvard Law School, and advocating torture, crimes against humanity, war crimes against the Palestinians. As you know, he said, `Well, we should just be obliterating their villages. You know, if they do this, there's a terror bombing here, we [should] destroy one of their villages.'
``And, of course, Dershowitz also advocates torture here, in America. The guy's shameless.
``I remember, [when] I started [at Harvard], Dershowitz started as an assistant professor, and his first big case was defending a pornographic film star in `Deep Throat.' Dershowitz likes to present himself as some great defender of the First Amendment.... Well, as Catherine McKinnon has, I think, taught us all, pornography is a form of violence against women: It's a human rights matter. So, it doesn't surprise me that Dershowitz started his career defending pornographers and pornography, and was and still is greatly proud of it--and now he moves on to defending war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and in addition, over the years, became a war criminal himself..
Footnote 1. http://www.derechos.org/human- rights/mena/doc/boyle2.htmlFull story
Footnote 2. Prof. Liquat Ali Khan, ``The Harvard Law Professor Who Sat On An Israeli Assassination Target Review Panel: The Jihad of Alan Dershowitz,'' {Counterpunch}, Sept. 30, 2004. http://www.counterpunch.org/khan09302004.html
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