Under Fire Again.

After Hamas’ refusal of the extension of the 72 hour-long ceasefire, raids on the Gaza Strip started again and it is said that the Israeli government is thinking again of a wide land military operation in the Strip. Rockets started to be fired also by Hamas into Israel (allegedly, the reason why Israel started bombing the Strip again).
Of course, the responsibility of the failure of the long-lasting negotiation process is attributed to Hamas, none calling on Israel to assume its responsilibilty as well. Indeed, on newspapers, you’ll read that Hamas refused to prolonge the ceasfire that Israel was willing to concede, therefore exacerbating the situation and putting at risk the life of the civilian population, already living in desperate conditions.
Though, the situation is not as simple as media and international commentators depict. Indeed, while Israel was eager to extend the ceasefire, it was not willing to discuss the main issues at stake for a stable and long-lasting settlement of the situation in the Gaza Strip. No one of Palestinian’s requests has been discussed during the talks in Cairo. Hamas’ refusal of the ceasefire is, therefore, a desperate attempt to make the rights of the Palestinians been heard. As widely explained, Hamas wants the end of the blockade, the opening of the borders, free movement of people and goods between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and the construction of a sea port and an airport.
These are not only requests of national aspirations, but also and mainly of survival.
The fact that Israel has never considered those demands shows that it has never been genuinely interested in ending the attack on the Strip and that defeating Hamas has never been in its military obectives either.
Moreover, Ofir Gendelman, Netanyahu’s spokerson, declared on Twitter:
“Israel will not negotiate under fire. Israel will act to protect its citizens while making every effort not to harm civilians in Gaza”.
Let me ask you a question Mr. Gendelman: so, why Palestinians, living under occupation and siege in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, should negotiate with their jailers and accept whatever Israel decide to concede? Aren’t also Palestinians under fire?
And, if targeting Hamas and its militia is your primary objective, why are you also raiding West Bank towns and why did you kill a Palestinian teenage playing in front of his house in a refugee camp near Hebron?
Israeli tactics are always admirable. Their reconstruction of the reality is admirable. Though, at a thorough consideration of facts, nothing of what they say is credible. The problem is that the world believes only what is easier to believe.
The army is again bombing Gaza and, in the mean time, Israeli lawmakers are seeking U.S. help to avoid war crimes charges before the ICC.
Negotiations are at a stalemate.
And those paying the price of world’s injustice are Palestinians.
#StopArmingIsrael

The loneliness of Palestinians and the Impunity of Israel

Article 6 of the Rome Statute:
For the purpose of this Statute, “genocide” means any of the following acts committed
with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious
group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring
about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
This article of the Rome Statute frequently comes to my mind when I think about what happened in Palestine 66 years ago and when the Gazans are attacked by the Israeli army. The term genocide is a strong term and care should be taken when used, because it can be misleading and it can lose its meaning. That’s the reason why I never used it before. Though, I would like to consider it in this post. The term was coniated for the first time, sarcastically, in the aftermaths of the Holocaust and it has been codified in the 1948 Genocide Convention. A thorough analysis of the Convention and its legal implications is beyond the scope of this post, suffice here to say that even though its application seems nowadays too narrow, there could be some room for interpretation in the Palestine case and in the Gaza Strip in particular.
First, as it appears from the text of the Rome Statute, there should be a national, ethnical, racial or religious group: none doubts that Palestinians are a national group and even if some love to argue that they are not, Palestinians constitute of course an ethnical and religious group.
Second, the criminal act should be one of those listed above: we witnessed in the last month the occurring of the first two, which are killing and causing of serious bodily and mental harm to the population. Killing is an intentional act (premeditation is not a condicio sine qua non). As for the serious bodily or mental harm, they can be caused through “enslavement, starvation, deportation, detention in ghettos, transit camps and concentration camps in conditions designed to cause degradation, deprivation of the rights as human beings and to suppress them and cause them inhumane suffering and torture” (A-G of Israel vs. Eichmann). Given that this interpretation is nowadays dated and it is specifically related to the Holocaust case, we can well adapt it to the situation of the Gaza Strip, which reminds me a part of this stating of the District Court of Jerusalem. Indeed, the population of the Gaza Strip is trapped in a limited portion of land, which is the most dense populated on earth, and it is deprived of its humanity, because none of its rights is recognized. Moreover, the 7-year long blockade can be intended as “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”, where this criminal conduct is not result-based (which means that the destruction of the group can even not occur), but only requires that the conditions are calculated to achieve the result. Additionally, “conditions of life” include but are not restricted to “deprivation of resources indispensable for the survival, such as food or medical services, or systematic expulsions from home” (Art 6 (c), n. 4 ICC Elements of Crime). Indeed, the Israeli government allows only limited quantities of food and medical services to enter in the Strip, not only in time of peace, but also in times of war when food and medical materials are even more needed, given the high number of casualties and damages.
Then, the conduct should take place “in the context of a manifest pattern of similar conduct directed against the group” OR that conduct “could itself effect such destruction”. Therefore, the conduct must be clear, being insufficient few isolated crimes, or it should be itself able to destroy the group. Now, it seems to me clear that the conduct of the Israeli army and government is planned and organized, other than being criminal; and, it seems also to me that bombing the most dense area in the world is a conduct which could itself destroy the group or relevant parts of it.
The main obstacle in this article, for the case under analysis, is the mental element: there should be the intention to commit one of the prohibited acts (such as killing) and the special intent to commit genocide, i.e. destroy a group as such. The mental element of genocide requires to prove that each individual, leader, foot soldier had the special intent to destroy the group as such. It is a stringent requirement, which can lead to nowhere in a process and that can jeopardize the application of this article in the issue at stake.
Though, when a soldier executes the orders of his direct superiors and strikes a bomb on a school, doesn’t he know that he is going to kill civilians, which constitute a protected group, being them homogeneous in terms of ethnicity and nationality? When the Israeli government prevents medical drugs and other equipment needed for the survival of the civilian population, is it not aware that the lack of this material could cause the death of hundreds of civilians? Aren’t these conducts planned in order to achieve in the long term the destruction of this group?
It might be difficult, long and time consuming to think about the Palestine case in terms of genocide, but it’s an effort we should do if we want to be heard and if we want to achieve justice.
Even more importantly, we should think and define which crimes, falling under the jurisdiction of the ICC, have been committed in the last month. Indeed, a 72 hours truce, supposed to end tomorrow, has been reached on the 5th of August, when Israel withdrew its land troops declaring that its “declared” objective, which was destroying the tunnels dug by Hamas leaders, was achieved. The truce allowed the civilian population to go back to their homes, if any, given that almost everything has been destroyed, turning Palestinians refugees for, maybe, the fifth time, if not more. Be that truce indispensable and desired as it may, it shows once again the aggressiveness and the disrespect Israel has towards Palestinians. It decides when and how it wants to stop bombing Palestinians and it declares to the world that it did so because the objective was achieved, therefore not losing any support in the international arena.
How hypocrite Israel and the international community are. One month of bombing and in the Gaza Strip and killings in the West Bank, more than a thousand people killed and injured and several hundred thousands of Palestinians displaced; the majority of the killed people were civilians and more than a quart were children; schools and hospitals were targeted on the assumption that Hamas was hiding weapons there; infrastructures were destroyed and it is likely that Gazans will not be able to import the materials needed for the reconstruction of basic infrastructures and buildings.
Was Israel really acting in self-defence? Were the objectives disarming Hamas, founding militants and destroying tunnels? Couldn’t these results be achieved differently? Were the means of peaceful resolution of controversies experienced? Proportionality was the guidance? And, more importantly, couldn’t this situation simply avoided?
I’m not that sure that Israel reacted in self-defence, given the largeness of the attack, because it was an attack and not a war, a conflict or an operation of self-defence. Self-defence entails an armed attack: when an armed attack is not conducted by a regular army (Hamas is not a regular army), self-defence might be legitimate only if the attack is conducted on a significant scale. I seriously doubt that the launch of rockets by Hamas can be considered an attack which occurred on a “significant scale”, given that the areas hit by those rockets were those closer to the border and that the casualties on the civilian side were very limited. Additionally, an armed response to an attack should be then authorized or enforced by the UN Security Council, which never intervened when Israel was attacking the Gaza Strip.
Operation Protective Edge cannot neither be named as a “conflict” or a “war”, terms voluntarily used in the media and by politicians to mislead us. A war or a conflict, indeed, presume that two equal parties openly engage in an armed confrontation. Now, of course Hamas is not equal to Israel: there’s a huge military and economic disproportion between the two. That’s why what happened in this month in the Gaza Strip is not a war and not even a conflict. When media and politicians talk about war and conflict in the Gaza Strip, they do that because they’re biased. They want us to believe that Israel and Hamas are equally powerful and that Hamas can really threaten the fourth most powerful army in the world. Unfortunately, we’re not all so idiot to believe that. The imbalance of power is evident to everyone, as it’s evident to almost everyone that the principle of self-defence codified by the UN Charter is far from the one applied by Israel, with the world-wide support of the Western accomplice countries.
Talks between Palestinian and Israeli negotiators are now taking place in Cairo, Egypt and the outcomes are highly unpredictable. The Palestinians are demanding, as a non-negotiable condition, the ease of the blockade (that Israel seems willing to refuse, because that way Hamas will reinforce its power in the Strip) and the Israelis are demanding, as a non-negotiable condition, the disarmament of Hamas (which Hamas is not willing to do, because its armed militia are part of its very intimate “raison d’être” and because, being constantly under attack, they don’t want to lose the poor resources they have to defend their population).
Meanwhile, on 5 August, Foreign Minister Al Maliki went to the ICC to ask to open a procedure against Israel for war crimes. Being the ICC one of the most politicized tribunals sitting in The Hague, I really doubt that this demand will be satisfied. Indeed, even if the ICC refuses the Palestinian submissions without any legal ground, who will protest against this decision? Who will stand by Palestine? Who will ask for justice?
Of course, we cannot expect nothing from governments: the US and the EU didn’t support the decision of the UNHRC to set up an enquiry commission for the violation of international law and international humanitarian law (whose usefulness I already discussed), they still support the Israeli right to self-defence (but not the one of Palestinians, attacked for 66 years), they shyly criticize the disproportionate ruthlessness of Israel, but in the mean time they sell hundreds millions dollars of weapons to it.
The only thing we can turn to, is the civil society. This attack tested once again our humanity and our collective conscience. Unfortunately, we didn’t show much and the expectations that something in the future will change positively are really low. The Israeli civil society never casted doubt on the utility of this attack and never criticized the excessive violence directed against the Palestinians. Additionally, it responded harshly to all those Jews, living world-wide, who criticized Israel, calling them self-hating Jews. There’s nothing more shameful to use the “Jewishness” and the drama and horror of the Holocaust to justify the actions of the Israeli government, as Finkelmann pointed out to an audience of Jewish people angry with him when criticizing Israel and showing sympathy for the Palestinian plight. As for the other society, the attitude swings from complete ignorance and unawareness to active support.
In the end, nothing to be proud of.
#StopArmingIsrael

Another petition to sign, if you’re interested (against advertisment of SodaStream on Italian TV channels): http://email.change.org/wf/click?upn=1mmeex-2FjZn-2FwcNsRwSa6VWyf3KkPsAhotpDO0K0Y8f7013d0XGOCoCQub4Gp-2FuJ8ZUu9p-2B86PotsIpfkGFvMX5Qot-2Fw1v3F4eKcO9FHGF1kHdVCMtNjptCy81B6TspNGN07bm5EdQ-2Fr2zJgJAovik-2BkSoKjMhqpvUIOVmcAErO95FyQmO2mBk5tCMAH3a3Wvi82yL8crBaP-2FsLFttuPXcfxOB8PcC-2FKiXecKK-2FxRqtiwxKaLvtQRnxVPMQoyvvzNZC0VQSJb-2Bzanu7ONqxc7dsERX7KyjJfYKiGBScJCvB0-3D_MHckXauQ6cNwe8zUDM5KfjiHIWVWTaO-2BjvsK199ByMGfEpRlb8b0T26gMjn1USQhQfrB5cpCdGa4S0KsdSoxjfi7LoXpGJjziJCySR3Bh8bWnPfW-2BT830tiHBzh2m4u6wF77vJiZAYQCUCP9c-2FgTSoyPiPgUtWuTzwm2icdHioxIw4-2FPz9P-2FaAnlQM6ELt5TxGhYxPVqWx6xOf9oLIQj7XrHaov00xkyKp0CgLSqTVnPhXL8xaClgZ83UY-2FjnFuVmSGCgPvqdIn287vnV88e1DHSkFzMfofklM-2FGSJ1nGIA-3D