Opinion Editorials, January 2015

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War crimes suspects lead Paris anti-terror march

 Again, you simply couldn’t make it up!

Seventeen dead at the hand of Muslim terrorists. And how many thousands of Muslims slaughtered in their homelands by the French military?

I sat down to watch the Paris march commemorating Charlie Hebdo with curiosity, for this important outpouring of ordinary people’s fears and resolve had been hijacked by the French government in a nauseating attempt to deodorise some of its terror-dealing friends by hosting and parading them at the head of the march.

Beyond the pale

Haaretz reported that top terror leader and foaming crackpot Binyamin Netanyahu had tweeted: “The attack on France is an attack on us all. Free people everywhere must unite to confront radical Islamist terrorism and to protect ourselves against this threat to our common civilisation.”

Our common civilisation? Netanyahu’s regime is so far, far outside our civilisation that it is never likely to be part of it – unless Israel learns to respect international law and the freedom of other people, which doesn’t seem to be part of its DNA. We say such people are “beyond the pale” – strangers to the rules of normal society and human decency.

Ex-Mossad asset, former Israeli foreign minister and now Hatnuah party leader Tzipi Livni, who was responsible for the Operation Cast Lead terror spree and now passes for a peace negotiator, remarked on the Paris shooting: “We [Israelis] feel the same anger when terror hits us – and that is why we will not accept any attempt to sue our soldiers in The Hague.”

Exactly the same could be said by Hamas, and with much greater justification, about Israel’s crazed terror attacks on Gaza’s civilians and the slaughter – not just mass-murder but mega-slaughter on an industrial scale – of innocent women and children cheered on by Israeli crowds watching in deckchairs from the tops of nearby hills. Livni is an A-list psychopath steeped in terror and violence. Her father Eitan and her mother were both prominent members of the Irgun, the terrorist outfit that bombed the King David Hotel, the headquarters of the British mandate government, in 1946 killing 91.

They [Netanyahu and company] should have been arrested as soon as they landed in Paris, clapped in irons and dragged to The Hague – that’s if France had the slightest intention of honouring its obligation under the 1949 Geneva Conventions.

Netanyahu was coming to the march accompanied by his foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, and economy minister, Naftali Bennett. Lieberman has been described variously as “a virulent racist”, “neo-fascist” and “certified gangster”. He is tarred with the war crimes brush by choosing to live in an illegal squat or “settlement” on stolen Palestinian land. And Bennett has sworn: “I will do everything in my power to make sure they [the Palestinians] never get a state.”

This toxic trio come from East European families. It is unlikely they can show direct descent from the Jews of the Holy Land 2,000 years ago, so what claim have they to Palestine’s lands and resources?

They should have been arrested as soon as they landed in Paris, clapped in irons and dragged to The Hague – that’s if France had the slightest intention of honouring its obligation under the 1949 Geneva Conventions. Like all other countries that think themselves civilised, France is under solemn oath to seek out those suspected of having committed grave breaches of the conventions and bring them, regardless of nationality, to justice. In other words, there should be no hiding place for the world’s worst criminals.

The principle that no one, regardless of creed or nationality, should feel able to commit war crimes with impunity has been jettisoned by Britain too, so that Israeli thugs need no longer fear arrest if travelling to London.

When it came to the march, there was Netanyahu pushing to the front of the parade and centre-stage, linking arms and occasionally waving to the crowds as if he was God’s gift to mankind.

What a marvellous opportunity for the people’ Assassination Bureau (if only there was such a thing) to rid the world of some of the undesirables that international law seems unable to reach.

UK Prime Minister David Cameron stated: “We’ll march together for our values.” Whose values? Surely not French values – “liberty, equality, fraternity” – as these are denied by Netanyahu and some of President Hollande’s other guests at the march.

The tainting of such an occasion was surely an affront to the memory of those who died and a rude finger-up to international law. But the brave people of Paris seemed to rise above it. The impertinence of Hollande, Netanyahu and Cameron served to remind us how far the political class in France, and indeed Britain, has sunk since World War II.

State terror is OK, apparently

Here’s a flavour of the Tel Aviv regime’s war crimes of the last 10 years and why their mad dogs should never have been allowed onto the streets of Paris.

When Israel “disengaged” from Gaza in September 2005 (i.e. pulled out its ground troops and squatters) it signed an Agreement on Movement intended to maintain and develop Gaza’s economy and set the scene for a viable Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. It was drawn up by the US, sponsored by the Quartet and launched by Condoleezza Rice (US secretary of state) and Javier Solana (EU high representative) in Jerusalem on 15 November 2005.

It promised to give the Palestinian people freedom to move, to trade, to live ordinary lives, an airport and a seaport.

But when Israel says “disengage” it doesn’t mean disengage at all. Quite the opposite. It did not return control to the Palestinians. Israel continues to this day to occupy Gaza’s airspace and coastal waters, seal the exits and slap on an ever-tighter blockade just because the Zionist regime didn’t like the result of the 2006 democratic election won by Hamas. It went ballistic when a US/Israel backed coup by Hamas’s rival, Fatah, was thwarted and Hamas booted Fatah out of Gaza.

In June 2008, Egypt brokered a new deal to end hostilities and the blockade, but there was still no easing up after four and a half months. On 4 November that year, an Israeli incursion killed seven members of Hamas. That was the end of the deal, and Operation Cast Lead began shortly afterwards.

Having pulverised Gaza over Christmas and the New Year, and slaughtered 1,400 Palestinians in the process, including 391 women and children, Israel declared its military objectives met and called a unilateral ceasefire.

Israel’s next military offensive against Gaza, in November 2012 (Operation Pillar of Cloud), began with the assassination of Ahmed Jaabari, the commander of the military wing of Hamas whom Israel knew to be a key player in ongoing negotiations for a long-term truce. In this offensive Israel killed another 170 Palestinians in Gaza, including 50 women and children.

It ended with an agreement in which Israel promised to cease military incursions into Gaza by land, sea and air, cease the targeting of individuals, and “open the crossings and facilitate the movement of people and transfer of goods, and refrain from restricting residents’ free movement and targeting residents in border areas”. It fulfilled none of these things.

This brought us to the sickening horror of last summer when Israel launched Operation Protective Edge, slaughtering more than 2,200 people including 513 children, and causing massive destruction to vital infrastructure, much of it paid for by Western taxpayers. Since then Israel has obstructed rebuilding, prolonging the misery and aggravating an already serious public health crisis. With so many families made homeless by Israel’s onslaught children are shivering to death with the onset of winter.

Of course, Netanyahu’s regime won’t be picking up the tab. No, it will be rewarded with major reconstruction and supply contracts. And invited to freedom marches and shopping trips to Europe’s capitals.

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editor@aljazeerah.info & editor@ccun.org