Israeli war crimes
According to international law, war crimes are violations of "the laws and customs of war" that are committed by states during war conditions. They could be classified into three categories: (a) crimes against peace, (b) war crimes and (c) crimes against humanity.
(a) Crimes against peace are defined by international law as including the "planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of
aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances, or participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing".(4)
(b) War crimes are defined by international law as including "but not limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labour, or for any other purpose, of civilian population of the occupied territories or in the occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity".(5)
(c) Crimes against Humanity are war crimes committed by state armies against civilians. They include, according to international law, "murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war "(6)
Throughout the period 29 March-14 April the Israeli army carried out a number of violations inside Palestinian cities that clearly show distinctive features of war crimes. The Israeli army murdered an unknown number of Palestinian civilians, security personnel and armed Palestinians. Some were shot and killed in the streets or inside their houses, while others were killed as a result of fire by heavy machine guns, antitank rockets, bombardment and explosions. Israeli tanks bombarded at least one hospital in Jenin for two hours on 4 April. Its oxygen, water and electricity supplies were devastated to a point where it could not function as a hospital any more. In addition, an Israeli army bulldozer ploughed the street that leads to the hospital, making it inaccessible.(7) Other hospitals in Ramallah, Nablus, Bethlehem, Bayt Jala and Hebron were encircled with tanks and frequently had their water, electricity and telephone networks cut by the Israeli army. Moreover, Palestinian and Red Cross ambulances were denied the freedom to provide their emergency service to the wounded. Despite that, some Palestinian ambulances tried to provide medical help. Some of these ambulances were run over by tanks, others were expropriated by the army, while others still were shot at, sometimes stopped, searched and kept waiting for over one hour while carrying wounded civilians. The only ambulance owned by the Jenin Hospital was put out of order. For 12 days Red Cross and Palestinian ambulances were denied access to Jenin and Jenin refugee camp. Obviously, the army wanted to deny medical treatment for the wounded, making them bleed to death.
In addition, for the past 12 days the Israeli army has been laying a tight siege around the Jenin area and preventing the entry of relief agencies, medical and food supplies, journalists, United Nations Relief and Works Agency, and anti war demonstrators.
This systematic policy by the Israeli army logically leads us to conclude that the army is very anxious and determined to hide something from Israeli and world public opinion. It also reveals that the Israeli army aims, as a matter of policy, to maximize the Palestinian death toll. The murder of civilians and the systematic denial of medical treatment to the wounded and the sick lead directly to the murder of civilians. These are war crimes that are deliberate, highly immoral and brutally inhumane, and cannot be justified under any circumstances.
Plunder and wanton destruction
Other types of war crimes as defined by international law are the " plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity". During clashes and after the cessation of fire, Israeli tanks and Apache helicopter gunships bombarded and rocketed residential quarters in Nablus, Jenin and Jenin refugee camp. Tanks, military bulldozers, explosives and helicopter gunships demolished the old city of Nablus and the al-Yasmina quarter.
After the cessation of clashes, the Israeli army began a campaign of searches, devastation and plundering. Numerous private vehicles were either run over or damaged by passing tanks. Many commercial enterprises such as supermarkets, stores, banks, customers' safes, hotels, companies, workshops, money exchange bureaux and factories were devastated, ransacked and plundered by Israeli tanks and soldiers. In addition, cultural centres, Ramallah's only theatre, the Sakakini Cultural Centre, sports centres and human rights centres were also ransacked. Hospitals were encircled with tanks, besieged and bombarded. Tanks bombarded water sources and electricity grids. Tanks deliberately knocked down traffic lights, electricity and telephone poles. Underground networks of water pipes were dug out and cut by army bulldozers. The windows of offices and private houses were shot at and shattered. The doors of residential buildings and private houses were forcefully opened, mostly at night, through either the use of heavy hammers or dynamite. Owing to the daily rumbling of tanks, the city roads, pavements, trees, greenery and flowers were absolutely devastated.
In addition, a number of Palestinian ministries were ransacked and devastated, such as the ministries of education, agriculture, industry, health and social welfare.(8) Prior to destruction, the Israeli army expropriated documents, data and the computer servers of ministries and government offices. This destruction is in addition to the initial destruction of security centres and the Interior Ministry, which were rocketed and demolished inside the PNA compound.
Of course, war means devastation, destruction and a lot of rubble, and there has never been a "clean and noble" war. But, devastation and wanton destruction that takes place after the cessation of clashes cannot be justified by military necessity. On the other hand, it may have been necessary for a hidden agenda that the army wanted to implement.
It is imperative to observe that most of the wanton destruction inflicted by the Israeli invasion on Palestinian cities was systematically carried out to cause maximum damage to the civilian infrastructure. The Israeli army wanted to cause the maximum damage to the civilian infrastructure and to eliminate any economic enterprises that could provide employment and income to Palestinian civilians. The army intended also to lower the starting level of Palestinian independence, economic- and nation-building. The Israeli colonial bourgeoisie may also have had in mind the possible benefits to the Israeli economy that might accrue in the process of post-war reconstruction.
Deportation and ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing and genocide against an indigenous population are considered by the United Nations to be war crimes. Although a campaign of slow ethnic cleansing has been carried out by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip throughout the tenures of the Barak and Sharon governments, the largest campaign of ethnic cleansing was carried by the Sharon government in the Jenin refugee camp.
After occupying Tulkarem, Qalqilya, Nablus and Jenin, the Israeli air force began carpet bombing the old city of Nablus and the Jenin refugee camp. In both the old city of Nablus and, especially, the Jenin refugee camp, the Israeli army met fierce Palestinian resistance that led to the killing of 13 Israeli soldiers in the Jenin refugee camp, in addition to two more dead soldiers in Nablus and Dura.(9)
On 9 April the Israeli army asked for a truce in the Jenin refugee camp in order to remove an unknown number of dead and wounded Israeli soldiers.(10) After getting the truce, the army went berserk. It began a massive campaign of demolishing refugee houses in the Jenin refugee camp, using in the process 30 army bulldozers.(11)
On the same day, it was reported that the residents of the old al-Yassaminah neighbourhood in Nablus were threatened by the army and forced to evacuate their houses "because it intends to demolish the entire neighbourhood".(12) On 11 April Israeli television showed an old Palestinian woman in Nablus who emotionally told a foreign television reporter: "They bulldozed the martyrs and threw them inside the sewage system so as to prevent the press from seeing and photographing."(13) On 14 April Abu Dhabi Television showed how a group of Palestinians were pulling out a woman from inside a sewage hole. She was still alive.(14)
On 10 April Palestinian sources confirmed that over 130 dead Palestinians were under the rubble of the Jenin refugee camp.(15) Then news began to filter out of the besieged Jenin refugee camp that the army began to carry out a massive campaign of ethnic cleansing. According to one source, the army evicted from the Jenin refugee camp "around 10,000 Palestinian refugees, out of a population of 15,000".(16) The evicted refugees were forced to go to the village of Rumana and other unknown locations. They resided inside schools, mosques and private houses, while other refugees slept in the open.
Already on 9 April "rumours" began to circulate out of a tight military siege that the Israeli army had dug a mass grave for dead Palestinians that were taken out of the Jenin refugee camp. According to a number of eyewitnesses, the army was seen smuggling out in trucks Palestinian corpses and "Israeli bulldozers began to dig out a mass grave in which over 300 corpses were buried".(17) In response, former Chief of Staff General Dan Shomron fiercely defended the Israeli army. In an interview with Israeli television, he declared: "We have the most ethical army in the world"(18) On 11 April a high-ranking Israeli officer emphatically declared: "There was no massacre. We neither used tanks or air force. If we wanted, we could have done it in one day"(19) In response to a question, the army spokesperson claimed that the reason for the tight siege on the Jenin refugee camp was that the army is busy trying to "neutralize booby-trapped Palestinian corpses "(20)
On 12 April two Arab members of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, along with the Adala human rights organization, petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court, which issued an interim order that forbade the army from transporting and burying Palestinian corpses inside Israel.(21)
During the army's campaign against the Jenin refugee camp news began to spread that the army does not take any Palestinian prisoners, that they shoot at anyone moving inside or outside their homes and that a tight military siege had been imposed by the army. During that time Israeli television interviewed a number of Israeli soldiers who took part in the invasion of Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin and the Jenin refugee camp. One soldier boasted by saying: "We demolished the entire city. Nablus was once a beautiful city"(22) The next day, General Sharon was seen in a meeting with soldiers in the Jenin area. One soldier asked Sharon: "Where will this lead us to?" He added: "When I take out, at midnight, a weeping child from his house, I feel I am creating the next terrorist!"(23) Sharon's response was: "We shall not withdraw from Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin or Bethlehem until we bring about the capitulation of the terrorists". (24)
On 14 April Israeli troops murdered Abu Jandal, a military commander of the Jenin refugee camp resistance who gave himself up along with an unknown number of fighters. Abu Jandal was shot and killed in cold blood inside one of the courtyards of Jenin. A strong fear exists that other prisoners who gave themselves up to the Israeli army would meet the same fate.(25)
Is Sharon a man of peace?
In the course of the Israeli invasion, and for a number of crucial days, antiwar and anti-Israeli demonstrations broke out in many Arab, Muslim, African, Asian, Latin American, European and American cities. Yet the American administration kept silent. When demonstrations in the Arab world began to become more intense and more critical of American support for Israel, the US administration broke its silence.
On 4 April American President Bush delivered a speech in which he severely criticized the beleaguered and captive Palestinian president and demanded from him to be tough on terror and terrorists. Then, President Bush demanded from Israel to stop and withdraw its forces. He concluded by saying that he will dispatch Secretary of State Colin Powell the following week to the Middle East.(26)
The Bush administration carried out what could be best described as political and diplomatic acrobatics that showed pretension of being against the aggressive Israeli invasion but not serious enough to stop it. It sent Powell on a diversionary tour that started with Morocco, then went to Egypt, Jordan, Spain and Israel, in order to provide the Israeli military machine with the necessary time to conclude its aggression.
On 7 April a US White House spokesman described Sharon in clear Orwellian language, as "a man of peace".(27) This was a clear insult to human intelligence and memory. General Sharon's dark history reveal that on numerous occasions he has shown absolute disregard for: human life, human rights, peace initiatives, international law, international treaties, the UN Charter, UN accords and human rights conventions, as well as the laws and customs of war. In the 1948 war Sharon participated in the Zionist campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian civilians; in 1953, and as commander of the infamous Unit 101, Sharon demolished several houses on top of their Palestinian residents that resulted in the murder of 53 civilians; in the 1972, as commander of the Southern Region, General Sharon demolished thousands of refugee houses in the Gaza Strip and ethnically cleansed thousands of Palestinian refugees; in 1982, as defence minister, Sharon launched a bloody war of aggression against Lebanon and the Palestine Liberation Organization. In the course of the war extreme brutalities were committed by the Israeli forces, including an 80-day-long bombardment and rocketing of the besieged city of Beirut. But the most appalling of these brutalities was the massacre that was organized by Israel's top military commanders, headed by General Sharon. Today, Prime Minister Sharon is committing similar war crimes - aggression, murder, extra-judicial killings, plunder, devastation and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. How can such a general with such a dark record of war crimes be called "a man of peace"?
A possible Hague tribunal
According to international law, the laws and customs of war, and the United Nations Charter, the individuals who could be charged with war crimes may fall into any of the following categories:
Those who had personally committed some violation of the laws and customs of war;
Those who committed violation of the laws and customs of war under order from a superior;
Those who belonged to an organization declared to be criminal;
Those who planned or ordered "criminal" policies before or during the war;
Those who failed to prevent atrocities or criminal policies;
Those who planned, initiated or waged "illegal" war.(28)
The present Israeli political and military leaders could be charged by the international community and by the Hague tribunal of committing a number of war crimes. However, in order to bring the perpetrators of war crimes to justice, two conditions must be met:
(1) An international, competent and objective committee must be established by the international community. Its mandate must be clear and fully supported by a United Nations Security Council resolution, which will delegate it with the task of investigating the charges of war crimes that were committed by the Israeli army and the Israeli government;
(2) The international community, especially Western Europe and the United States, must realize that Israel cannot be given the chance of freely violating international law. Israel, like other states, must abide by international law and UN resolutions, and Israeli violations and wanton brutality must be prosecutable and punishable and cannot remain camouflaged and justified by the brutal Occidental blanket of "terror and self-defence".
Here, one must ask a question: why has the Israeli army systematically carried out a number of war crimes against the Palestinian civil society? In order to answer this question comprehensively and honestly, one must outline the background that connects the Oslo accords with Sharon's present invasion of the occupied territories. The following is an attempt to address the important issues.
Oslo and after
In 1993 Israel and the PLO signed the Oslo accords, according to which the two sides recognized each other. In 1994 the PLO was allowed by Israel to establish the Palestinian National Authority inside "autonomous zones", namely the cities and towns. Israel also agreed to allow the PNA to bring in about 40,000 security forces that were needed for policing the areas under its rule. According to the Oslo accords, the PNA was supposed to last five years (1994-19). In the beginning of the last year, permanent status negotiations between Israel and the PNA were supposed to take place. For ideological reasons, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu created an impasse in order not to start these negotiations.
In May 1999, Ehud Barak was elected prime minister. He refused to carry out any expansions of "A" as stipulated by the Oslo accords. Instead, Barak opted to go immediately to the permanent status negotiations, which is a stage to follow the interim period of autonomy. The logical consequences of the permanent status negotiations could have been total Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories, liquidation of the entire illegal colonial settlements inside the occupied territories and the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state. However, Barak wanted only partially to withdraw from the occupied territories, to control a strip of land around Palestinian territories under Israeli control for a limited period, to keep most of the colonial settlers inside three settlement blocks and to keep occupied East Jerusalem under full Israeli control. On the issue of the right of the Palestinian refugees to return, Barak did not yield.
Barak opts for colonial hegemony
The Oslo agreement was a camouflaged colonial solution to a colonial situation that was imposed on the Palestinians. It was definitely neither a peace agreement nor a historic compromise. Yet the ultra-nationalist Israeli Zionist right regarded Oslo as dangerous to the colonial project and was fiercely against it. After the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by an anti-Oslo Israeli rightist, Shimon Peres replaced Rabin. During the election campaign Peres wanted to act tough towards "the Arabs" so as to win right-wing voters. He, therefore, committed a massacre against Lebanese civilians. Israeli artillery bombarded "by mistake" a group of Palestinian refugees who found a temporary sanctuary inside a UN peacekeepers' camp. Over 100 Lebanese villagers were brutally killed by an Israeli shell. A UN video released by the UN secretary-general showed how a small Israeli pilotless plane was seen guiding the Israeli shelling, and so "the mistake" turned out to be a calculated killing of a mass of Arabs.
Peres paid for "his mistake" in the election ballots. The public moved further to the right and the ultra-nationalist Netanyahu was elected. Netanyahu began subverting the Oslo accords, and his right-wing provocations reached a pinnacle when he approved the opening of the tunnel under the al-Aqsa Mosque. Palestinians reacted with mass demonstrations; clashes ensued, leading to the death of 14 Israeli soldiers and over 100 Palestinian security personnel and civilians. His procrastination regarding the permanent status negotiations and his imposition of impossible conditions created an impasse with the Palestinian side. Netanyahu's policies led to a deadlock and later to his political demise.
General Barak managed to manoeuvre his way to become the leader of the Labour Party. He projected himself as a "peace candidate" campaigning against the rejectionist, right wing Netanyahu. The Israeli public moved a bit to the Zionist left and the Palestinian voters inside Israel helped defeat Netanyahu and bring a "man of peace" to the seat of Israel's prime minister.
Both Netanyahu and Barak followed policies that continued Israel's retraction from the Oslo process. The right-wing Netanyahu signed the Hebron agreement, which led to the partition of Hebron, giving 80 per cent of the city to the Palestinians and keeping 20 per cent under the army's control. However, Netanyahu refused, for ideological reasons, to start the permanent status negotiations. He withdrew from a small proportion of territory, which was thereby transferred to the PNA. Barak the "man of peace" did not withdrew from one inch but started permanent status negotiations with the PNA that went nowhere.
The demise of the Oslo accords
Camp David II was a Barak-manufactured attempt to impose his colonial conditions on the Palestinians. It offered the Palestinians part of the illegally-occupied Palestinian territories, a fictitious and fractured sovereignty, and colonial subjugation. Barak desired a continuation of the colonial project (Israeli settlement blocks) and a "Zionistan" entity for the Palestinians. After realizing that the Palestinians could not capitulate to his hegemonic colonial conditions, Barak halted the permanent status negotiations and started a war against the Palestinian people. It began with Sharon's provocative visit to al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem. Accompanied by 2,000 Israeli police, General Sharon marched provocatively inside the courtyard of the al-Aqsa Mosque. This act expressed the ultra-rightist position of colonial monopoly of Jerusalem and rejection of the Oslo accords. It was meant to provoke Palestinian mass demonstrations, a matter that was used as justification by Barak to start the army's onslaught. After this, the Israeli police and border guards reacted with massive firepower that led to the killing near the mosque of eight Palestinian demonstrators in one day. Israeli snipers wounded over one hundred demonstrators. This provoked more mass demonstrations that were met with more firepower. Palestinian civilians were killed inside West Bank and Gaza Strip cities, villages and refugee camps. Israeli border guards and police also gunned down 12 Palestinian demonstrators, citizens of Israel. Barak was determined to impose his conditions through the use of firepower, tanks and an aggressive war.
Palestinian civilians reacted with more demonstrations, and the numbers of those killed by the Israeli army began to increase. Mass demonstrations developed into a popular uprising, which the army did not like. Then armed clashes began to take place between armed Palestinians and the Israeli army. This militarization of the popular uprising was a development that Israel helped to create.
As the political option was liquidated by Barak, and in reaction to the mass killing and maiming of civilians, Palestinian Islamists began to carry out commando operations inside Israeli cities. To which the Israeli army retaliated with maximum firepower. F-16 bombers and Apache helicopter gunships began to target Palestinian security installations. This went on for months, and was escalated more by Barak's government. A hit list of "wanted" Palestinian leaders and activists was drawn up and those on it were targeted for assassination. The Israeli government approved this illegal policy of extra-judicial killings and the army began to implement it. The Israeli policy of targeted killings provoked more Palestinian suicide bombings that resulted in the death of Israeli civilians. The Israeli government retaliated with more air raids and more targeted killings of Palestinian activists. Exploiting the impact of the suicide bombings, the Israeli army began a slow ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip that was implemented through the eviction of hundreds of Palestinian civilians, the levelling of their agricultural land and the demolishing of their houses. Tanks were stationed at the entrances of Palestinian cities and towns.
As is typical of colonial societies, ultra-right-wing nationalism began to engulf the majority of the Israeli people. Racial violence by Israeli Jews aimed against Palestinian civilians began to take place inside Israeli streets. Around 2,000 anti-Arab Israeli settlers attacked one Palestinian neighbourhood of Nazareth, a Palestinian city located inside the state of Israel. Barak and his government was, in the public eye, unable to put an end to the fire it had ignited. Later on it was replaced by the ultra-right-wing General Ariel Sharon.
Concluding remarks
The right wing government of Israel has clearly shown that it is ready to commit war crimes in order to continue its colonial subjugation of 3.2 million Palestinians. It uses the issue of "terror" to avoid paying the price of decolonization. It enjoys outright support from the American administration and the complicity of the European and Arab regimes.
However, the war which is taking place now inside the occupied Palestinian territories is a stage in the conflict between the colonial Israeli army and the Palestinian national movement. It has a history of massive colonial violence aimed at subjugating a nation and its meagre resources to the sole benefit of the colonial Zionist. The Israeli army acted in the past, and acts now, as a tool in defence of colonial hegemony and interests.
The Palestinian national movement embodies the national aspirations and rights of a colonized indigenous people.
The American "mini security agreements" that concentrate on the issues of "terror" and the security of Zionist colonial hegemony and attempt to frustrate Palestinian national struggle cannot camouflage the real issues. For the past 35 years Zionist settler colonialism has been trying to patch up its rule over the indigenous Palestinian people. The Zionist colonial bourgeoisie has continued and expanded its colonial settler project inside the occupied territories. It refuses to pay the price of decolonization and continues to manoeuvre and pretend to want "peace".
The present stage in the Zionist-Palestinian conflict has proved beyond any doubt that Zionist settler colonialism contradicts in absolute terms genuine, true and lasting peace. Settler colonialism cannot coexist with genuine peace because it is a grossly unjust, brutal, racist and militaristic political system. On the other hand, the Palestinian national movement is determined to continue the national struggle. The Palestinian people are strongly determined to liquidate Zionist colonial hegemony, to win their right to self-determination and to establish a fully sovereign and truly independent state of Palestine.
According to international law, war crimes are violations of "the laws and customs of war" that are committed by states during war conditions. They could be classified into three categories: (a) crimes against peace, (b) war crimes and (c) crimes against humanity.
(a) Crimes against peace are defined by international law as including the "planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of
aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances, or participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing".(4)
(b) War crimes are defined by international law as including "but not limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labour, or for any other purpose, of civilian population of the occupied territories or in the occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity".(5)
(c) Crimes against Humanity are war crimes committed by state armies against civilians. They include, according to international law, "murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war "(6)
Throughout the period 29 March-14 April the Israeli army carried out a number of violations inside Palestinian cities that clearly show distinctive features of war crimes. The Israeli army murdered an unknown number of Palestinian civilians, security personnel and armed Palestinians. Some were shot and killed in the streets or inside their houses, while others were killed as a result of fire by heavy machine guns, antitank rockets, bombardment and explosions. Israeli tanks bombarded at least one hospital in Jenin for two hours on 4 April. Its oxygen, water and electricity supplies were devastated to a point where it could not function as a hospital any more. In addition, an Israeli army bulldozer ploughed the street that leads to the hospital, making it inaccessible.(7) Other hospitals in Ramallah, Nablus, Bethlehem, Bayt Jala and Hebron were encircled with tanks and frequently had their water, electricity and telephone networks cut by the Israeli army. Moreover, Palestinian and Red Cross ambulances were denied the freedom to provide their emergency service to the wounded. Despite that, some Palestinian ambulances tried to provide medical help. Some of these ambulances were run over by tanks, others were expropriated by the army, while others still were shot at, sometimes stopped, searched and kept waiting for over one hour while carrying wounded civilians. The only ambulance owned by the Jenin Hospital was put out of order. For 12 days Red Cross and Palestinian ambulances were denied access to Jenin and Jenin refugee camp. Obviously, the army wanted to deny medical treatment for the wounded, making them bleed to death.
In addition, for the past 12 days the Israeli army has been laying a tight siege around the Jenin area and preventing the entry of relief agencies, medical and food supplies, journalists, United Nations Relief and Works Agency, and anti war demonstrators.
This systematic policy by the Israeli army logically leads us to conclude that the army is very anxious and determined to hide something from Israeli and world public opinion. It also reveals that the Israeli army aims, as a matter of policy, to maximize the Palestinian death toll. The murder of civilians and the systematic denial of medical treatment to the wounded and the sick lead directly to the murder of civilians. These are war crimes that are deliberate, highly immoral and brutally inhumane, and cannot be justified under any circumstances.
Plunder and wanton destruction
Other types of war crimes as defined by international law are the " plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity". During clashes and after the cessation of fire, Israeli tanks and Apache helicopter gunships bombarded and rocketed residential quarters in Nablus, Jenin and Jenin refugee camp. Tanks, military bulldozers, explosives and helicopter gunships demolished the old city of Nablus and the al-Yasmina quarter.
After the cessation of clashes, the Israeli army began a campaign of searches, devastation and plundering. Numerous private vehicles were either run over or damaged by passing tanks. Many commercial enterprises such as supermarkets, stores, banks, customers' safes, hotels, companies, workshops, money exchange bureaux and factories were devastated, ransacked and plundered by Israeli tanks and soldiers. In addition, cultural centres, Ramallah's only theatre, the Sakakini Cultural Centre, sports centres and human rights centres were also ransacked. Hospitals were encircled with tanks, besieged and bombarded. Tanks bombarded water sources and electricity grids. Tanks deliberately knocked down traffic lights, electricity and telephone poles. Underground networks of water pipes were dug out and cut by army bulldozers. The windows of offices and private houses were shot at and shattered. The doors of residential buildings and private houses were forcefully opened, mostly at night, through either the use of heavy hammers or dynamite. Owing to the daily rumbling of tanks, the city roads, pavements, trees, greenery and flowers were absolutely devastated.
In addition, a number of Palestinian ministries were ransacked and devastated, such as the ministries of education, agriculture, industry, health and social welfare.(8) Prior to destruction, the Israeli army expropriated documents, data and the computer servers of ministries and government offices. This destruction is in addition to the initial destruction of security centres and the Interior Ministry, which were rocketed and demolished inside the PNA compound.
Of course, war means devastation, destruction and a lot of rubble, and there has never been a "clean and noble" war. But, devastation and wanton destruction that takes place after the cessation of clashes cannot be justified by military necessity. On the other hand, it may have been necessary for a hidden agenda that the army wanted to implement.
It is imperative to observe that most of the wanton destruction inflicted by the Israeli invasion on Palestinian cities was systematically carried out to cause maximum damage to the civilian infrastructure. The Israeli army wanted to cause the maximum damage to the civilian infrastructure and to eliminate any economic enterprises that could provide employment and income to Palestinian civilians. The army intended also to lower the starting level of Palestinian independence, economic- and nation-building. The Israeli colonial bourgeoisie may also have had in mind the possible benefits to the Israeli economy that might accrue in the process of post-war reconstruction.
Deportation and ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing and genocide against an indigenous population are considered by the United Nations to be war crimes. Although a campaign of slow ethnic cleansing has been carried out by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip throughout the tenures of the Barak and Sharon governments, the largest campaign of ethnic cleansing was carried by the Sharon government in the Jenin refugee camp.
After occupying Tulkarem, Qalqilya, Nablus and Jenin, the Israeli air force began carpet bombing the old city of Nablus and the Jenin refugee camp. In both the old city of Nablus and, especially, the Jenin refugee camp, the Israeli army met fierce Palestinian resistance that led to the killing of 13 Israeli soldiers in the Jenin refugee camp, in addition to two more dead soldiers in Nablus and Dura.(9)
On 9 April the Israeli army asked for a truce in the Jenin refugee camp in order to remove an unknown number of dead and wounded Israeli soldiers.(10) After getting the truce, the army went berserk. It began a massive campaign of demolishing refugee houses in the Jenin refugee camp, using in the process 30 army bulldozers.(11)
On the same day, it was reported that the residents of the old al-Yassaminah neighbourhood in Nablus were threatened by the army and forced to evacuate their houses "because it intends to demolish the entire neighbourhood".(12) On 11 April Israeli television showed an old Palestinian woman in Nablus who emotionally told a foreign television reporter: "They bulldozed the martyrs and threw them inside the sewage system so as to prevent the press from seeing and photographing."(13) On 14 April Abu Dhabi Television showed how a group of Palestinians were pulling out a woman from inside a sewage hole. She was still alive.(14)
On 10 April Palestinian sources confirmed that over 130 dead Palestinians were under the rubble of the Jenin refugee camp.(15) Then news began to filter out of the besieged Jenin refugee camp that the army began to carry out a massive campaign of ethnic cleansing. According to one source, the army evicted from the Jenin refugee camp "around 10,000 Palestinian refugees, out of a population of 15,000".(16) The evicted refugees were forced to go to the village of Rumana and other unknown locations. They resided inside schools, mosques and private houses, while other refugees slept in the open.
Already on 9 April "rumours" began to circulate out of a tight military siege that the Israeli army had dug a mass grave for dead Palestinians that were taken out of the Jenin refugee camp. According to a number of eyewitnesses, the army was seen smuggling out in trucks Palestinian corpses and "Israeli bulldozers began to dig out a mass grave in which over 300 corpses were buried".(17) In response, former Chief of Staff General Dan Shomron fiercely defended the Israeli army. In an interview with Israeli television, he declared: "We have the most ethical army in the world"(18) On 11 April a high-ranking Israeli officer emphatically declared: "There was no massacre. We neither used tanks or air force. If we wanted, we could have done it in one day"(19) In response to a question, the army spokesperson claimed that the reason for the tight siege on the Jenin refugee camp was that the army is busy trying to "neutralize booby-trapped Palestinian corpses "(20)
On 12 April two Arab members of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, along with the Adala human rights organization, petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court, which issued an interim order that forbade the army from transporting and burying Palestinian corpses inside Israel.(21)
During the army's campaign against the Jenin refugee camp news began to spread that the army does not take any Palestinian prisoners, that they shoot at anyone moving inside or outside their homes and that a tight military siege had been imposed by the army. During that time Israeli television interviewed a number of Israeli soldiers who took part in the invasion of Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin and the Jenin refugee camp. One soldier boasted by saying: "We demolished the entire city. Nablus was once a beautiful city"(22) The next day, General Sharon was seen in a meeting with soldiers in the Jenin area. One soldier asked Sharon: "Where will this lead us to?" He added: "When I take out, at midnight, a weeping child from his house, I feel I am creating the next terrorist!"(23) Sharon's response was: "We shall not withdraw from Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin or Bethlehem until we bring about the capitulation of the terrorists". (24)
On 14 April Israeli troops murdered Abu Jandal, a military commander of the Jenin refugee camp resistance who gave himself up along with an unknown number of fighters. Abu Jandal was shot and killed in cold blood inside one of the courtyards of Jenin. A strong fear exists that other prisoners who gave themselves up to the Israeli army would meet the same fate.(25)
Is Sharon a man of peace?
In the course of the Israeli invasion, and for a number of crucial days, antiwar and anti-Israeli demonstrations broke out in many Arab, Muslim, African, Asian, Latin American, European and American cities. Yet the American administration kept silent. When demonstrations in the Arab world began to become more intense and more critical of American support for Israel, the US administration broke its silence.
On 4 April American President Bush delivered a speech in which he severely criticized the beleaguered and captive Palestinian president and demanded from him to be tough on terror and terrorists. Then, President Bush demanded from Israel to stop and withdraw its forces. He concluded by saying that he will dispatch Secretary of State Colin Powell the following week to the Middle East.(26)
The Bush administration carried out what could be best described as political and diplomatic acrobatics that showed pretension of being against the aggressive Israeli invasion but not serious enough to stop it. It sent Powell on a diversionary tour that started with Morocco, then went to Egypt, Jordan, Spain and Israel, in order to provide the Israeli military machine with the necessary time to conclude its aggression.
On 7 April a US White House spokesman described Sharon in clear Orwellian language, as "a man of peace".(27) This was a clear insult to human intelligence and memory. General Sharon's dark history reveal that on numerous occasions he has shown absolute disregard for: human life, human rights, peace initiatives, international law, international treaties, the UN Charter, UN accords and human rights conventions, as well as the laws and customs of war. In the 1948 war Sharon participated in the Zionist campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian civilians; in 1953, and as commander of the infamous Unit 101, Sharon demolished several houses on top of their Palestinian residents that resulted in the murder of 53 civilians; in the 1972, as commander of the Southern Region, General Sharon demolished thousands of refugee houses in the Gaza Strip and ethnically cleansed thousands of Palestinian refugees; in 1982, as defence minister, Sharon launched a bloody war of aggression against Lebanon and the Palestine Liberation Organization. In the course of the war extreme brutalities were committed by the Israeli forces, including an 80-day-long bombardment and rocketing of the besieged city of Beirut. But the most appalling of these brutalities was the massacre that was organized by Israel's top military commanders, headed by General Sharon. Today, Prime Minister Sharon is committing similar war crimes - aggression, murder, extra-judicial killings, plunder, devastation and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. How can such a general with such a dark record of war crimes be called "a man of peace"?
A possible Hague tribunal
According to international law, the laws and customs of war, and the United Nations Charter, the individuals who could be charged with war crimes may fall into any of the following categories:
Those who had personally committed some violation of the laws and customs of war;
Those who committed violation of the laws and customs of war under order from a superior;
Those who belonged to an organization declared to be criminal;
Those who planned or ordered "criminal" policies before or during the war;
Those who failed to prevent atrocities or criminal policies;
Those who planned, initiated or waged "illegal" war.(28)
The present Israeli political and military leaders could be charged by the international community and by the Hague tribunal of committing a number of war crimes. However, in order to bring the perpetrators of war crimes to justice, two conditions must be met:
(1) An international, competent and objective committee must be established by the international community. Its mandate must be clear and fully supported by a United Nations Security Council resolution, which will delegate it with the task of investigating the charges of war crimes that were committed by the Israeli army and the Israeli government;
(2) The international community, especially Western Europe and the United States, must realize that Israel cannot be given the chance of freely violating international law. Israel, like other states, must abide by international law and UN resolutions, and Israeli violations and wanton brutality must be prosecutable and punishable and cannot remain camouflaged and justified by the brutal Occidental blanket of "terror and self-defence".
Here, one must ask a question: why has the Israeli army systematically carried out a number of war crimes against the Palestinian civil society? In order to answer this question comprehensively and honestly, one must outline the background that connects the Oslo accords with Sharon's present invasion of the occupied territories. The following is an attempt to address the important issues.
Oslo and after
In 1993 Israel and the PLO signed the Oslo accords, according to which the two sides recognized each other. In 1994 the PLO was allowed by Israel to establish the Palestinian National Authority inside "autonomous zones", namely the cities and towns. Israel also agreed to allow the PNA to bring in about 40,000 security forces that were needed for policing the areas under its rule. According to the Oslo accords, the PNA was supposed to last five years (1994-19). In the beginning of the last year, permanent status negotiations between Israel and the PNA were supposed to take place. For ideological reasons, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu created an impasse in order not to start these negotiations.
In May 1999, Ehud Barak was elected prime minister. He refused to carry out any expansions of "A" as stipulated by the Oslo accords. Instead, Barak opted to go immediately to the permanent status negotiations, which is a stage to follow the interim period of autonomy. The logical consequences of the permanent status negotiations could have been total Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories, liquidation of the entire illegal colonial settlements inside the occupied territories and the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state. However, Barak wanted only partially to withdraw from the occupied territories, to control a strip of land around Palestinian territories under Israeli control for a limited period, to keep most of the colonial settlers inside three settlement blocks and to keep occupied East Jerusalem under full Israeli control. On the issue of the right of the Palestinian refugees to return, Barak did not yield.
Barak opts for colonial hegemony
The Oslo agreement was a camouflaged colonial solution to a colonial situation that was imposed on the Palestinians. It was definitely neither a peace agreement nor a historic compromise. Yet the ultra-nationalist Israeli Zionist right regarded Oslo as dangerous to the colonial project and was fiercely against it. After the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by an anti-Oslo Israeli rightist, Shimon Peres replaced Rabin. During the election campaign Peres wanted to act tough towards "the Arabs" so as to win right-wing voters. He, therefore, committed a massacre against Lebanese civilians. Israeli artillery bombarded "by mistake" a group of Palestinian refugees who found a temporary sanctuary inside a UN peacekeepers' camp. Over 100 Lebanese villagers were brutally killed by an Israeli shell. A UN video released by the UN secretary-general showed how a small Israeli pilotless plane was seen guiding the Israeli shelling, and so "the mistake" turned out to be a calculated killing of a mass of Arabs.
Peres paid for "his mistake" in the election ballots. The public moved further to the right and the ultra-nationalist Netanyahu was elected. Netanyahu began subverting the Oslo accords, and his right-wing provocations reached a pinnacle when he approved the opening of the tunnel under the al-Aqsa Mosque. Palestinians reacted with mass demonstrations; clashes ensued, leading to the death of 14 Israeli soldiers and over 100 Palestinian security personnel and civilians. His procrastination regarding the permanent status negotiations and his imposition of impossible conditions created an impasse with the Palestinian side. Netanyahu's policies led to a deadlock and later to his political demise.
General Barak managed to manoeuvre his way to become the leader of the Labour Party. He projected himself as a "peace candidate" campaigning against the rejectionist, right wing Netanyahu. The Israeli public moved a bit to the Zionist left and the Palestinian voters inside Israel helped defeat Netanyahu and bring a "man of peace" to the seat of Israel's prime minister.
Both Netanyahu and Barak followed policies that continued Israel's retraction from the Oslo process. The right-wing Netanyahu signed the Hebron agreement, which led to the partition of Hebron, giving 80 per cent of the city to the Palestinians and keeping 20 per cent under the army's control. However, Netanyahu refused, for ideological reasons, to start the permanent status negotiations. He withdrew from a small proportion of territory, which was thereby transferred to the PNA. Barak the "man of peace" did not withdrew from one inch but started permanent status negotiations with the PNA that went nowhere.
The demise of the Oslo accords
Camp David II was a Barak-manufactured attempt to impose his colonial conditions on the Palestinians. It offered the Palestinians part of the illegally-occupied Palestinian territories, a fictitious and fractured sovereignty, and colonial subjugation. Barak desired a continuation of the colonial project (Israeli settlement blocks) and a "Zionistan" entity for the Palestinians. After realizing that the Palestinians could not capitulate to his hegemonic colonial conditions, Barak halted the permanent status negotiations and started a war against the Palestinian people. It began with Sharon's provocative visit to al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem. Accompanied by 2,000 Israeli police, General Sharon marched provocatively inside the courtyard of the al-Aqsa Mosque. This act expressed the ultra-rightist position of colonial monopoly of Jerusalem and rejection of the Oslo accords. It was meant to provoke Palestinian mass demonstrations, a matter that was used as justification by Barak to start the army's onslaught. After this, the Israeli police and border guards reacted with massive firepower that led to the killing near the mosque of eight Palestinian demonstrators in one day. Israeli snipers wounded over one hundred demonstrators. This provoked more mass demonstrations that were met with more firepower. Palestinian civilians were killed inside West Bank and Gaza Strip cities, villages and refugee camps. Israeli border guards and police also gunned down 12 Palestinian demonstrators, citizens of Israel. Barak was determined to impose his conditions through the use of firepower, tanks and an aggressive war.
Palestinian civilians reacted with more demonstrations, and the numbers of those killed by the Israeli army began to increase. Mass demonstrations developed into a popular uprising, which the army did not like. Then armed clashes began to take place between armed Palestinians and the Israeli army. This militarization of the popular uprising was a development that Israel helped to create.
As the political option was liquidated by Barak, and in reaction to the mass killing and maiming of civilians, Palestinian Islamists began to carry out commando operations inside Israeli cities. To which the Israeli army retaliated with maximum firepower. F-16 bombers and Apache helicopter gunships began to target Palestinian security installations. This went on for months, and was escalated more by Barak's government. A hit list of "wanted" Palestinian leaders and activists was drawn up and those on it were targeted for assassination. The Israeli government approved this illegal policy of extra-judicial killings and the army began to implement it. The Israeli policy of targeted killings provoked more Palestinian suicide bombings that resulted in the death of Israeli civilians. The Israeli government retaliated with more air raids and more targeted killings of Palestinian activists. Exploiting the impact of the suicide bombings, the Israeli army began a slow ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip that was implemented through the eviction of hundreds of Palestinian civilians, the levelling of their agricultural land and the demolishing of their houses. Tanks were stationed at the entrances of Palestinian cities and towns.
As is typical of colonial societies, ultra-right-wing nationalism began to engulf the majority of the Israeli people. Racial violence by Israeli Jews aimed against Palestinian civilians began to take place inside Israeli streets. Around 2,000 anti-Arab Israeli settlers attacked one Palestinian neighbourhood of Nazareth, a Palestinian city located inside the state of Israel. Barak and his government was, in the public eye, unable to put an end to the fire it had ignited. Later on it was replaced by the ultra-right-wing General Ariel Sharon.
Concluding remarks
The right wing government of Israel has clearly shown that it is ready to commit war crimes in order to continue its colonial subjugation of 3.2 million Palestinians. It uses the issue of "terror" to avoid paying the price of decolonization. It enjoys outright support from the American administration and the complicity of the European and Arab regimes.
However, the war which is taking place now inside the occupied Palestinian territories is a stage in the conflict between the colonial Israeli army and the Palestinian national movement. It has a history of massive colonial violence aimed at subjugating a nation and its meagre resources to the sole benefit of the colonial Zionist. The Israeli army acted in the past, and acts now, as a tool in defence of colonial hegemony and interests.
The Palestinian national movement embodies the national aspirations and rights of a colonized indigenous people.
The American "mini security agreements" that concentrate on the issues of "terror" and the security of Zionist colonial hegemony and attempt to frustrate Palestinian national struggle cannot camouflage the real issues. For the past 35 years Zionist settler colonialism has been trying to patch up its rule over the indigenous Palestinian people. The Zionist colonial bourgeoisie has continued and expanded its colonial settler project inside the occupied territories. It refuses to pay the price of decolonization and continues to manoeuvre and pretend to want "peace".
The present stage in the Zionist-Palestinian conflict has proved beyond any doubt that Zionist settler colonialism contradicts in absolute terms genuine, true and lasting peace. Settler colonialism cannot coexist with genuine peace because it is a grossly unjust, brutal, racist and militaristic political system. On the other hand, the Palestinian national movement is determined to continue the national struggle. The Palestinian people are strongly determined to liquidate Zionist colonial hegemony, to win their right to self-determination and to establish a fully sovereign and truly independent state of Palestine.
posted by Goyanimal | 11:07 AM
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