I FIND IT CURIOUS THAT THE International Criminal Court (ICC), encouraged by the PLO/PFLP, Hamas, and other Islamic terror promoters, is seeking to try Israel for war crimes.
LET’S CONSIDER WAR CRIMES.
According to The Washington Post (https://tinyurl.com/exrsj674),
- The list of potential war crimes is long, but its measures include the intentional killing of civilians or prisoners, torture and the use of child soldiers.
There are numerous web sites that address war crimes and crimes against humanity 1, but the WashPost article (ibid.) sums it up in the fewest words.
Hamas shelling of Israeli civilians
The Rome Statute (17 July 1998) of the International Criminal Court (https://tinyurl.com/jxekdnc2) defines a war crime as
- (a)"Attack directed against any civilian population" means a course of conduct involving the multiple commission of acts referred to in paragraph 1 against any civilian population, pursuant to or in furtherance of a State or organizational policy to commit such attack.
Nothing ambiguous about that.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad fired mortars and other unguided missiles at Israel with the intention of killing, wounding, or otherwise injuring civilians. The aggressors do not deny the fact.
According to the Rome Statue, adopted by the United Nations Diplomatic Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court on 17 July 1998, Hamas and Islamic Jihad committed war crimes — more than 4000 missiles were fired at Israel sans targeting — yet the ICC and world opinion fail to consider or condemn the actions of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
Use of children
Hamas and Islamic Jihad are following in the path of their Iranian masters.
According to Al Arabiya English (https://tinyurl.com/yrzwfvwu)
- During the Iraq-Iraq war, Khomeini’s regime used hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren as cannon fodder. It has been reported that most young recruits received between one to three months of military training before they were being sent to the war front.
There were reports of nine-year-old children being used in human wave attacks, while others were asked to run over minefields to clear the path. In fact, many child soldiers captured by Iraqis during the Iraq-Iran war were in their early teens.
Note that the report is from Arab media.
in the Iran-Iraq War (https://tinyurl.com/ekbts7km)
The New York Times’ Terence Smith, writing about Iran in 1984, described the use of child soldiers by Iran to clear minefields. (https://tinyurl.com/a9t5dxv2)
- Young boys, aged 12-17 years, wore red headbands with the words ‘Sar Allah’ in Farsi (Warriors of God) and small metal keys that the Ayatollah declared were their tickets to Paradise if they were martyred in their mission. Many were sent into battle against Iraqi tanks without any protection and bound by ropes to prevent desertion.
They were the first wave, making the way for Iranian tanks by clearing barbed wire and minefields with their bodies.
Sending children to their deaths as Iran did is, take your choice, a crime against humanity or a war crime, over which the ICC has jurisdiction. There is no “statute of limitations” for these crimes. Has the ICC brought charges against Iran?
IN GAZA, Hamas and Islamic Jihad
- Store offensive weapons (rockets, etc.) under schools and hospitals, and in mosques (https://tinyurl.com/3u65sd42 and https://tinyurl.com/7zt82z)
- Send civilians, including young children, to protect launch sites
- Send civilians, including young children to the border with Israel while Hamas and Islamic Jihad “soldiers” stand behind the human shields (https://tinyurl.com/ys8k4znk and http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/)
- Use civilian buildings as command centers
Mohammad Suleiman was a boy in Gaza who died because Hamas forced him to be a child soldier. (https://tinyurl.com/ee5awxj8) Note: the cited article includes a video of the child’s training.
The Washington Institute for Middle East Policy (https://tinyurl.com/34hd3c5u) contends Hamas’
- willingness to accept high casualty counts suggests that this is part of its political and military strategy. When used as human shields, civilians provide cover for Hamas military activities, and the resultant casualties serve the group's propaganda interests. In short, Hamas is acting more like a guerrilla group fighting an insurgency than a government responsible for the safety of its citizenry.
The Institute then lists six (6) way Hamas could limit civilian casualties in Gaza:
- Move weapons and fighters away from built-up areas
- Evacuate civilians from defended localities
- Do not use civilian buildings for military purposes
- Use the military tunnel system as civilian shelters
- Put fighters in uniforms
- Do not use ambulances and medical facilities for military purposes
Hamas and Islamic Jihad does none of those things.
War crimes? Crimes against humanity?
Is the ICC investigating anyone in Gaza. In a word: NO.
Another Port Arthur
For those who ignored history, the Japanese sneak attack on Port Arthur in 1904 opened the Russo-Japanese War. (Japan later successfully repeated its sneak attack tactic on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1943, bringing the U.S. into World War Two.)
Attacking sans warning, as Japan did twice, is now a war crime.
Hamas began firing missiles at Israeli civilians without warning or declaration of war.
Admittedly, Hamas’ charter calls for total destruction of Israel and perhaps pro-Hamas lawyers could argue that this charter serves as a declaration of war, but would it stand up to legal scrutiny?
Yet another case of a true war crime that the ICC chooses to ignore.
Hamas agrees to a “cease fire” while Iran rearms its proxy, just as it did before.
(The previous cease fire lasted until the 2020 U.S. presidential elections. Make of that what you will.)
(Reuters: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-57148097)
No Israeli sources
Note that none of the sources cited are Israeli; not government nor non-governmental. This is deliberate.
This scrivener, a dual national, keyed this in Yavne Israel. He has personal experience dodging Hamas, and earlier, Hezbollah, missiles. He has seen both the destruction caused by these missiles, even those destroyed by the Iron Dome defense system that result in falling shrapnel.
He also knows, again first hand, that claims of apartheid in Israel are false; that there are Israeli Muslims who are loyal Israelis. Finally, Israel has an open (exit) door policy; any Muslim who wants to relocate to Gaza or the PLO/PFLP areas, or any other country may do so.
Sources
1. War crimes defined: https://tinyurl.com/z4eux9ts, https://tinyurl.com/ukxru825, https://tinyurl.com/ypj6aymf
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