Senior IDF commanders wishing to travel to Europe, for personal or professional reasons, are instructed to first check with the IDF Judge Advocate General before departing, and they may be instructed to postpone the trip. Officials fear that international arrest warrants may be issued against them for “war crimes” pertaining to their actions in Operation Cast Lead.
Israel has learned that some human rights organizations have already busied themselves in gathering statements, photos and other evidence and are moving against Israel in The Hague International Court of Justice, seeking to charge Israel with war crimes. Officials in Jerusalem believe they will succeed in torpedoing such efforts by using diplomatic channels to block an in-depth investigation in such cases.
Israel is increasingly concerned however with the possibility of European courts serving as hosts for cases seeking to charge senior government officials and senior IDF officers with war crimes for their role in the Operation Cast Lead. The European courts have by and large adopted the international standards and therefore, they are permitted to accept such cases alleging war crimes without proving any connection to the incidents in question.
Israel realizes these courts do have the authority to immediately issue an international arrest warrant, a move that can be addressed in time, but not prevented. Some officials in Jerusalem fear the Arabs nations and their allies will work tenaciously to portray Israel in a very negative light, making comparisons to China following Tiananmen Square (1989) and Serbian leader Slobodan Milosovicz.
Israel continues to explain to the international community that Hamas used women and children as human shields, but it appears it is not doing much to help the situation. In addition, with Gaza opening and the foreign media entering the area, photographers will be busy building their cases against senior government and military officials.
In the past, trips to Europe of a number of former senior military commanders were canceled in response to arrest warrants including former IDF commander Moshe Ya’alon, former IDF Southern Commander Doron Almog and former senior Gaza Division officer Aviv Kochavi.
(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)
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5 Responses
That’s actually old news. Occasionally a local prosecutor looking for publicity files charges, which are promptly dismissed by higher-ups. It is more of an annoyance than anything. It’s just a publicity stunt. If a country started serious charging Israelis, Israel probably could start retaliating in a variety of ways (e.g. arresting that countries citizens, not honoring their patents, etc.), since such an act would allow Israel to treat the country as belligerent.
a wolf will always be a wolf, no matter how many layers of sheepskin he wears. our job is not to ever forget that. otherwise the wolf can wake us up from our slumber. we are surely seeing the wolves come out lately. but this time, hopefully they are going to need to be afraid. not from us, but from Hashem.
It makes my blood boil!!
Ah, yes…the same old Haters of Israel rise again from the woodwork…The Hitlers of our time. Its okay they will join Rome, Greece, Spain, Germany, and the rest of history who started with us.
This is so aggravating!
Will they also bring up the stinkin arabs on the same charges??? No way! Why? Because they are missing brains & most of all testosterone!