Israel is guilty of assault upon the whole Palestinian people. It might thus seem a marginal issue to pursue acts of brutality and murder against individuals. But it is these individual crimes which go together to make up the full and terrible picture of the repression and abuse of a luckless population. It is also these individual acts of violence which can be brought to the specific attention of a world, increasingly appalled at Zionist behavior and depressed by Washington’s slavish support for the Sharon regime.
The repression of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza has been carried out with a brutality that is totally unacceptable behavior from any civilized nation. Now a group of human rights campaigners, both Jewish and Palestinian, is working in Israel to bring a range of Zionist crimes before the new International Criminal Court in the Hague. They are focusing on a few incidents when the Israeli military has behaved barbarously. Such crimes include the arbitrary destruction of the homes of family members of suspected militants and the official program of assassination of militant leaders. They are also likely to embrace the casual violence meted out to unfortunate Palestinians at Israeli road blocks. The latest of a long series of such crimes came about when a Palestinian taxi driver was shot in the head and paralyzed by an Israeli trooper at one such road block. Many have died in this manner or when soldiers fired into crowds of demonstrators, often murdering children.
The reaction from the Sharon government to the human rights campaigners has been entirely predictable. The accusations, it says, are politically motivated. Such a view is absurd in a conflict in which virtually everything has a political content. Greater Israel and the Palestinians are seeking simply justice with the final creation of an independent Palestinian state.
In truth, the idea that Israeli soldiers, officials and politicians could be called to the bar of international justice in The Hague to defend themselves against a wide range of accusations is, of course, filling the Sharon regime with alarm. It underlines also the reasons for the reluctance of the United States to accept the existence of an International Criminal Court, which will inevitably one day be called upon to investigate allegations against US citizens. Washington’s current campaign to conclude bilateral agreements around the world, committing signatories to not handing over US citizens to the international court, is as dishonorable as Norway’s refusal this week to have anything to do with the scheme, is honorable.
On past form, as when the Palestinians sought to bring a war crimes action against Sharon for his unleashing of Christian militias in the Sabra and Shatila massacres of Palestinians in Beirut in 1982, the Zionists are likely to mount a counterattack, seeking to indict Palestinian militants over the bomb attacks. If that were to happen, the Zionists will be admitting the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice. That would make matters difficult for their sponsors in Washington. However, if Israel follows the United States and ignores the International Criminal Court, those of its citizens who are accused face the likelihood of being picked up on international warrants, the minute they set foot outside Israel.
