Jon Voigt Parrots Israeli Propaganda

Penelope Cruz, Javier Bardem, and Pedro Almodovar have condemned the Israeli attacks against civilians in Gaza. Their act was a brave one, given Hollywood's unquestioning (but questionable) support of Israel, no matter what atrocity the Israelis perpetrate.

Make no mistake about it, the recent invasion of Gaza is an atrocity.

Jon Voigt, who scores no points for those who question his intelligence, if not his sanity, writes a letter that accounts the history of Israel since 1948. No one is interested in that history. We are looking at what Israel is doing today, a vicious attack with tanks and artillery against a defenseless civilian population of Palestinians in Gaza, where Israel is keeping them penned up like animals. Israel recently warned 100,000 residents of Gaza to leave their homes immediately and not return.

In response to this threat against a civilian population ( itself a War Crime under Article 6 of the Rome Accord), the UN offered shelter at its schools in Gaza. Up to 3,000 Palestinians, who had nowhere else to go, were huddling together in one of these schools when it was targeted by Israelis (either with tanks or artillery--hard to say which, one bombed out building looks much like any other), who scored a direct hit, killing more than 10 and injuring others. This was only one of many authenticated attacks against civilians in Gaza.

Attacking a civilian population is a war crime and a crime against humanity, as defined by the UN's Rome Statute. Forcing a civilian population to leave its homes is a crime of genocide, also as defined by the Rome Statute.

Cruz, Bardem, and Almodovar should be commended for their defense of the Palestinian victims of war crimes in Gaza. Voigt, on the other hand, should do some more research about Israel's recent violations of international law. He should start by reading the Rome Statute. There is no provision there that permits killing of civilians under any circumstances, much less the targeting of shelters where civilians are known to seek refuge.

Belatedly, the Obama administration has condemned Israel for this inexcusable action. White House spokesman Josh Earnest condemned Israeli actions as "totally unacceptable and totally indefensible." Israel's assaults on a defenseless civilian population are likely to continue unless and until the US refuses to support a nation who routinely defies international laws and the good opinion of the family of nations.

Why Israelis may have committed War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity in their assault on civilians in Gaza

During the last presidential election, Mitt Romney was caught on video telling things to a room full of fat cat donors that he wouldn't want anyone else to see. The Fox News Channel developed stories that only its viewers heard about, including the bogus stories that Obama was born in Kenya and the Affordable Care Act would bankrupt the country.

This stereoptic vision of reality has always existed when two opposing political parties try to sway public opinion. But it is particularly destructive when two opposing armies are exchanging bullets and bombs. This week, we have seen that the Israeli press has neglected to inform its readers that a bomb struck a UN school site, killing 16 and injuring more than 100 people, many of them children. The UN gave Israel the coordinates of this building because many people, whom the Israelis told to leave their homes, were sheltered there.

The bombing of the school made front-page headlines all over the world, but I searched in vain for the story in the English version of the online Israel Times. The French and Arabic versions of the same newspaper put the story on the front page along with pictures of huge smoke clouds billowing high into the air. This disconnect between differing versions of the same newspaper is extraordinary, as if Fox News had another channel where it tells the truth about birth certificates and federal budgets, but makes up lies about the character and family life of Republicans.

The situation is hardly humorous, however. One result of such an echo chamber--where Israelis only hear one side of the issues, repeated over and over again--is that 83 percent of them approve the government's latest incursion against a civilian population in Gaza. They firmly believe that the military attacks are a necessary response to an incident where three Israeli students were kidnapped and later found murdered.

The Israelis believe that the students were murdered by the political group Hamas, although no proof has ever been shown for this theory and no trial has ever been held to convict the murderers, as one might expect in a democratic country. Instead of investigating the incident, finding and then punishing the perpetrators, the government of Israel has assumed that the entire Palestinian people are responsible and has been slaughtering them by the hundreds for weeks.

There is no conceivable explanation for the Israeli attacks that does not leave the Israeli government guilty of crimes against humanity. But the Israeli people apparently do not know what constitutes a crime against humanity under international law, chiefly described by the Geneva Accords and the Rome Statute. Israel has not ratified the Rome Statute, but its leadership could still be indicted by the International Criminal Court for their violations of it.

The causes for indicting the Israeli government officials who started this military action are the following:

1. Genocide.  Under the terms of the Rome Statute, article 6, a person commits the crime of genocide by killing, injuring, or oppressing a person or persons with the intention of destroying in whole or in part, a particular national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. The crime could also consist of driving these persons from their homes.

In the case of the bombing of the UN School, the Israeli government allegedly told people to leave their homes. That alone could be an act of genocide, but the Israelis then killed and injured large numbers of these people in a place where they had taken refuge.

2. Crimes against humanity. Murder. Under the terms of the Rome Statute (see above), article 7, a person commits the crime against humanity of murder when he or she kills a person or persons in the context of an attack on a civilian population while participating knowingly in such an attack.

The actual killers in the case of the UN school bombing may not have known that they were attacking civilians. But the UN asserts that it repeatedly informed the Israeli military command of the coordinates of places of refuge, including the particular UN school that was bombed. The Israeli military command was therefore guilty of a crime against humanity for not informing members of the attacking army that they must not attack these places where civilians were seeking refuge.

3. Crimes against humanity. Extermination. A person is guilty of this crime if he or she killed civilians as part of a mass killing of members of a civilian population.

In this case, a person can be guilty of extermination if he or she kills a civilian. The victim does not need to be of a particular nationality or religion; he or she only needs to be a civilian in an attack where numerous civilians are killed.

The list of crimes against humanity with which the Israeli leadership may be charged goes on, but enough has been asserted here to warrant an investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC). In addition, they may have committed War Crimes under section 8 of the Rome Statute. It is possible, indeed likely, that opponents of Israel have committed similar violations of international laws, but nothing in the law permits a government to retaliate against such crimes by perpetrating similar crimes of their own. The interdiction of such crimes is absolute. No excuse is considered a valid reason for committing genocide or a crime against humanity.

People have become inured to the commission of war crimes by their continual exposure to films, written materials, and other forms of propaganda that all maintain that crimes against humanity may be justified. The U.S. Government under President Bush even attempted to make a new legal definition of torture to evade responsibility for committing a war crime under the Geneva Conventions, which explicitly banned torture of enemy prisoners of war. People have even come to believe that torture may be necessary under certain extreme circumstances. This general denial of the justice of prosecuting people for commission of war crimes, genocide, or crimes against humanity represents a backward step in our progress toward a world where each person is recognized as a fellow human being with all the rights that adhere to that recognition.

Genocide in Syria: The world must put an end to it

The Syrian civil war is a particularly horrendous one. It is comparable to the Rwandan civil war of 1990-1994 in which over 500,000 people were killed by the government and another two million forced to flee the country. Both wars were started by rogue governments who used propaganda to incite violence against minority populations. There have been over 100,000 deaths in the Syrian civil war, and perhaps a million refugees, who have fled to Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan.

The war in Rwanda was called a genocide. The war in Syria is now approaching the same level of violence. The UN failed to stop the former. Right now, the UN is standing by and watching the slaughter of Syrians by the thousands.

The civil war is between the Government of Syria and its opposition, which calls itself the Free Syrian Army. The primary supporters of Assad are the Allawites, a Shi'ite sect that comprises only 10 percent of the population. Assad receives weapons and money from Russia and Iran, whose rulers are also Shi'a, and military assistance from Hezbollah. Hezbollah, founded by Iran, are a state within a state in Lebanon, with perhaps 200,000 supporters and a battle-hardened militia.

The Free Syrian Army and its allies forces are primarily Sunni. They receive weapons primarily from Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Syrian Government forces, supporters of Bashar Al-Assad, have used all the weapons of a modern military state in their campaign to remain in power. The US has condemned them for their use of chemical weapons, including the nerve-gas rison, but most of the deaths have been caused by conventional means, especially artillery shells and cluster bombs. Government forces are targeting civilians in hope of convincing them to stop sheltering the rebels.

The grotesque spectacle of a government killing its own people to stay in power has aroused the anger of much of the world. Russia and Iran are unmoved, however. The United Nations is powerless to provide military aid because Russia holds a permanent seat on the Security Council. At news that Assad may have used sarin gas against his people, Vladimir Putin said it didn't make any sense that Assad should use sarin against the rebels in a war that he was winning. Therefore, Putin theorized, the attacks, though real, were actually provocations intended to draw other nations into the war on the side of the rebels.

Putin's logic is faulty. Chemical weapons will not help Assad win the war, but that is not Assad's problem. He must win the peace. Since Assad's power base is the Allawite minority, just 10 percent of Syria's population, he needs to find some way to exercise authority over the Syrians after the war is over. Assad has chosen terror, as his father and Saddam Hussein did before him. Saddam used chemical weapons successfully to win his war with Iran and terrorize his own countrymen.

President Obama announced that the use of chemical weapons is a red line that Assad must not be allowed to cross with impunity. The US president says that chemical weapons pose a threat to the entire world, and that other countries will use them unless the US takes military action to “punish” Assad. Obama cannot seriously believe that the US can make a surgical strike and withdraw from the engagement. His military commanders must have told him that would be impossible. Assad has been telling his countrymen that Obama delayed his plans because he feared the reprisals that Assad would make.

Obama asked friday, "What's the purpose of the international system that we've built if a prohibition on the use of chemical weapons that has been agreed to by the governments of 98 percent of the world's people and approved overwhelmingly by the Congress of the United States is not enforced?" In this sentence, as in others, Obama has spoken not just for himself and the American people, but for peace-loving people everywhere.

Obama never actually intended to do anything without Congressional approval. Right on cue, over 100 house members signed a letter to the president stating that engaging the military without prior congressional authorization would violate the separation of powers delineated in the Constitution. Twenty-one Democrats joined Republicans in signing the letter. But Obama knew that House Republicans would oppose any action he might take. Many of them were waiting to see what would happen before making any statement. By delaying any action, Obama forces his political opponents to take a position on the record. He also emphasizes the fact that they are all on vacation and unwilling to return, while he is on the job in Washington.

Obama has given the English parliament what it asked for when it defeated Prime Minister Cameron's motion to support a strike against Syria. The English opposition insisted that Cameron should wait for the UN inspectors to file their report on the evidence of chemical weapons. Now they have their wish.

Finally, Obama has put pressure on the United Nations. It is the UN that proposed and ratified the international system that is supposed to safeguard human rights. But the UN system for enforcing its treaties depends on unanimous consent and is therefore seldom invoked. Outside observers have declared that the US cannot interfere in the internal affairs of a sovereign state. The UN has declared that chemical weapons must not be used in warfare. Now would be a good time for the UN to prove that it, not the US, enforces international law. Genocide, not just chemical weapons use, is a crime against humanity.