The Solution to the Mideast Crisis: Boycott, Divest, and Sanction Israel

[WillowTree]

Israel's War Crimes

By Richard Falk

Editor's Note: This statement was issued December 27 in response to Israel's attack in Gaza by Professor Richard Falk, professor emeritus of international law and practice at Princeton University, and the United Nations special rapporteur for human rights in the Occupied Territories.

The Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip represent severe and massive violations of international humanitarian law as defined in the Geneva Conventions, both in regard to the obligations of an Occupying Power and in the requirements of the laws of war.

Israel's assault on Gaza is a massive violation of international law. Nations that have supplied weapons and supported the siege are complicit in the crimes.

Those violations include:

• Collective punishment: The entire 1.5 million people who live in the crowded Gaza Strip are being punished for the actions of a few militants.

• Targeting civilians: The airstrikes were aimed at civilian areas in one of the most crowded stretches of land in the world, certainly the most densely populated area of the Middle East.

• Disproportionate military response: The airstrikes have not only destroyed every police and security office of Gaza's elected government, but have killed and injured hundreds of civilians; at least one strike reportedly hit groups of students attempting to find transportation home from the university.

Earlier Israeli actions, specifically the complete sealing off of entry and exit to and from the Gaza Strip, have led to severe shortages of medicine and fuel (as well as food), resulting in the inability of ambulances to respond to the injured, the inability of hospitals to adequately provide medicine or necessary equipment for the injured, and the inability of Gaza's besieged doctors and other medical workers to sufficiently treat the victims.

Certainly the rocket attacks against civilian targets in Israel are unlawful. But that illegality does not give rise to any Israeli right, neither as the Occupying Power nor as a sovereign state, to violate international humanitarian law and commit war crimes or crimes against humanity in its response. I note that Israel's escalating military assaults have not made Israeli civilians safer; to the contrary, the one Israeli killed today after the upsurge of Israeli violence is the first in over a year.

Israel has also ignored recent Hamas diplomatic initiatives to re-establish the truce or ceasefire since its expiration on December 26.

The Israeli airstrikes today, and the catastrophic human toll that they caused, challenge those countries that have been and remain complicit, either directly or indirectly, in Israel's violations of international law. That complicity includes those countries knowingly providing the military equipment including warplanes and missiles used in these illegal attacks, as well as those countries who have supported and participated in the siege of Gaza that itself has caused a humanitarian catastrophe.

I remind all Member States of the United Nations that the UN continues to be bound to an independent obligation to protect any civilian population facing massive violations of international humanitarian law--regardless of what country may be responsible for those violations. I call on all Member States, as well as officials and every relevant organ of the United Nations system, to move on an emergency basis not only to condemn Israel's serious violations, but to develop new approaches to providing real protection for the Palestinian people.
Israel's War Crimes

By the way .. Falk is JEWISH

The ONLY one?

 

[DiamondDave]

Sure ..good luck with that .. especially since it worked so well in Iraq and Afghanistan and Vietnam.

Hey... land for peace with terrorist assholes does not work... these sub-humans don't want peace (and unfortunately for the everyday person living their life in Gaza, regardless of religion or background, they do want peace but will NEVER have it with Hamas in existence)... they want the elimination of Israel... and it is the racist, extremist likes of you that support this kind of action... you support the evil, and you do it proudly

Hamas is a cancer... and you fight cancer aggressively... with everything you have... those that support the likes of Hamas are equally a cancer, and I will fight you and the rest of your disgusting ilk that fit into that category

 

[Ravi]

BAC, do you approve of what Hamas is doing?

 

[BlackAsCoal]

The ONLY one?

Mad stupid.

I've been posting JEWISH voices against Israel's actions since they started their latest madness.

I just posted Klein and here you are talking about "only one."

.. mad stupid.

 

[DiamondDave]

BAC, do you approve of what Hamas is doing?

ravi... this racist continually dodges that question

 

[WillowTree]

Mad stupid.

I've been posting JEWISH voices against Israel's actions since they started their latest madness.

I just posted Klein and here you are talking about "only one."

.. mad stupid.

Hey! Chicken Shit why don't you answer Ravi's question?



Mad? Yes!

 

[jillian]

Mad stupid.

I've been posting JEWISH voices against Israel's actions since they started their latest madness.

I just posted Klein and here you are talking about "only one."

.. mad stupid.

because white racists don't keep black folk around who turn on the black community, eh?

jewhaters do the same thing.

 

[BlackAsCoal]

Hey... land for peace with terrorist assholes does not work... these sub-humans don't want peace (and unfortunately for the everyday person living their life in Gaza, regardless of religion or background, they do want peace but will NEVER have it with Hamas in existence)... they want the elimination of Israel... and it is the racist, extremist likes of you that support this kind of action... you support the evil, and you do it proudly

Hamas is a cancer... and you fight cancer aggressively... with everything you have... those that support the likes of Hamas are equally a cancer, and I will fight you and the rest of your disgusting ilk that fit into that category

One man's "terrorist" is another man's freedom fighter. We didn't fight "terrorists" in Iraq, we fought freedom fighters who fought against the fraudulent and illegal invasion of their country.

Perhaps you're to young/uninformed to remember when Israel favored Hamas over the PLO .. but I remember it well and I remember the arguments.

Rest assured Diamond Dave, there ain't a motherfucking thing you can do to me .. nothing. Feel free to "fight" me all you want .. I'm going to continue to speak truth as I see it regardless of whatever the hell you do.

I stand with lots of JEWISH voices and almost an entire planet. I could care less that you don't agree.

 

[WillowTree]

One man's "terrorist" is another man's freedom fighter. We didn't fight "terrorists" in Iraq, we fought freedom fighters who fought against the fraudulent and illegal invasion of their country.

Perhaps you're to young/uninformed to remember when Israel favored Hamas over the PLO .. but I remember it well and I remember the arguments.

Rest assured Diamond Dave, there ain't a motherfucking thing you can do to me .. nothing. Feel free to "fight" me all you want .. I'm going to continue to speak truth as I see it regardless of whatever the hell you do.

I stand with lots of JEWISH voices and almost an entire planet. I could care less that you don't agree.

Itty bitty insignificant Anti American Twit! IBIAAT... that sums it up pretty much!

 

[DiamondDave]

One man's "terrorist" is another man's freedom fighter. We didn't fight "terrorists" in Iraq, we fought freedom fighters who fought against the fraudulent and illegal invasion of their country.

Perhaps you're to young/uninformed to remember when Israel favored Hamas over the PLO .. but I remember it well and I remember the arguments.

Rest assured Diamond Dave, there ain't a motherfucking thing you can do to me .. nothing. Feel free to "fight" me all you want .. I'm going to continue to speak truth as I see it regardless of whatever the hell you do.

I stand with lots of JEWISH voices and almost an entire planet. I could care less that you don't agree.

The funny thing is, you racist idiot, is that here is no "truth as you see it"... there is only the truth... facts are funny like that... what you have is a warped OPINION in your support of terrorists

I can 'favor' the Gambino Family over the Manson family... still does not take away from the FACT that they are both disgusting and murderous criminal groups... and you can add hamas to that list as well.. for it is a FACT that they are

As stated... even when given land for peace.. a terrorist is not satisfied... unfortunately Israel is finding this out, as Europe had to find out the hard way with Hitler.... it is not freedom Hamas wants.... it is the elimination of Israel.... freedom and the freedom to live their family lives are what the general populace that is living in Gaza may want.. unfortunately they are held as much under terror and at bay by Hamas, as Israel is.... but Israel has the ability to hit back and hit back hard... and by every right they should... and hopefully they will, and be ever stringer in that effort and with that resolve


**edit addition**
And not to mention that your whole "illegal" argument for battling Saddam's Iraq was blown out of the water the very first time he and his regime violated a cease-fire agreement.... and the 'freedom fighters' in Iraq are the ones actually fighting against the insurgents and terrorist assholes in order to ensure that the government that is being set up based on a system of freedom is having a chance to succeed

 

[Ravi]

ravi... this racist continually dodges that question

Racist or a coward. Or both.

 

[DiamondDave]

Racist or a coward. Or both.

Both

and see ravi... there are things even we, on opposite ends of a political spectrum, can agree on

 

[BlackAsCoal]

BAC, do you approve of what Hamas is doing?

Good question.

I don't approve of their attacks as much as I understand their necessity .. just as I didn't approve of the riots and violence of our own history as much as I understood their necessity.

The Palestinians are an oppressed people whose daily lives are severely impacted by an oppressive Israel. Shortages in life's basic needs are an everyday part of Palestinian life. They fight against a nuclear armed nation backed by a powerful America. In spite of Israel being in violations of maoe UN sanctions than any nation in history, the lives Palestinians and their children remain miserable. I understand the plight and I honor the willingness to fight back against such odds.

There is only one solution to the ME .. Israel will be made to conform to UN Resolutions one way or another. If at that point Israel remains under attack the world will turn it's anger towards the arabs.

Sounds like peace to me.

 

[Ravi]

Both

and see ravi... there are things even we, on opposite ends of a political spectrum, can agree on

In reality most of us probably agree on a lot of things that never get discussed here.

 

[BlackAsCoal]

ravi... this racist continually dodges that question

Fuck you asshole.

Post where you asked me that question and I didn't answer.

Neither you or anyother zionist here has answered how our blind support of Israel outweighs the many disadvantages it brings to this nation.

Not one of you.

And, for the umpteenth time .. there is no race called Jews. It's a religion dummy.

 

[BlackAsCoal]

Both

and see ravi... there are things even we, on opposite ends of a political spectrum, can agree on

Just proves there are dumb people of both sides of the political divide.

 

[Truthmatters]

Its really wierd how so many Americans value Israel over our own interests.

 

[BlackAsCoal]

Racist or a coward. Or both.

Exactly what is there "cowardly" about my position?

If I was a coward I'd go along to get along and would not be firmly planted in what I believe.

What is scary about you?

 

[WillowTree]

Its really wierd how so many Americans value Israel over our own interests.

What's really really weird is how many so called Americans advocate for the destruction of an entire race of people. makes my stomach roll.

 

[BlackAsCoal]

Its really wierd how so many Americans value Israel over our own interests.

Exactly .. then call themselves "patriots."

They run like pussies from the question of how this benefits America.