News, articles and documents from
the Holy Land
Issue No. 148 - Tuesday, 23 April 2002
Dear Friends, Brothers and Sisters,
It is already
positive that both Palestinians and Israelis sat down around a table in “Peace
Center” nearby Nativity Church in order to discuss the crisis of the Basilica,
and even if after two rounds of talks they didn’t reach a solution to put an
end to this issue, we still hope that we will have a happy end to this story as
soon as possible: it should be a pacific, rapid and honorable solution so that
we can liberate the Basilica without being harmed and save the lives of those
who are inside without having a bath of blood or a hunger starvation.
Therefore, we think that the matter of time is very important and urgent
because they cannot stay any more inside with the precarious humanitarian
situation with the lack of food, water, medicine, telephones and electricity for
240 people. The voice of reason should prevail, because it is not logical to
keep all these people including 100.000 people who are living in Bethlehem area
under siege and strict curfew for more than three weeks without an normal life
since they are confined in these homes, don’t work at all, no public services
and no schools.. Within short time they will have shortage of food and already
they depend on humanitarian assistance provided by some relief agencies. But
the questions are: until which time they can resist? And why all this
collective punishment? Will this resolve the problem of violence or will it
increase the hatred and anger in the hearts of these people?
For the third time, our Patriarch with the heads of churches tried to enter Bethlehem and unfortunately they were forbidden by the army and stopped at the checkpoint were they hold a prayer for peace. The idea of ringing bills came out from the fact that the bills of Bethlehem didn’t ring since three weeks and the Sunday mass was not celebrated at the Nativity Church for the first time in history, therefore we decided to keep going to the checkpoint in order to protest and pray until Bethlehem is liberated and the Church returns as a holy place for prayer and pilgrims as the Pope told last Sunday. Some other activities will take place in Jerusalem and else where during the next days, you will find the news about the Ad Hoc Committee of Men and Women Religious for a response to the Present Situation in the Holy Land, which was formed by the Patriarch in order to prepare these events. The first big prayer gather will be next Friday as you see below. You are cordially invited to take part in it and pray with us for peace.
You will find in today’s Olive
Branch the following documents and articles:
1)
Pope Says
Basilica Must Cease to Be Scene of Blackmail: ISRAELIS AND PALESTINIANS URGED
TO HAVE "THE COURAGE OF PEACE”
2)
Ad Hoc
Committee of Men and Women Religious for a response to the Present Situation in
the Holy Land: Next Friday’s prayer meeting.
3)
Thanks and
updates from Bishop Riah Abu El-Assal, the Anglican bishop of Jerusalem.
4)
A letter
from St. Andrew's in Ramallah 4, By Rev. George Kopti.
5)
Remembering
Christ’s Visit to Taybeh, By Dr. Maria C. Khoury.
6)
Life is
Precious! By Dr Harry Hagopian, in
which he deals with the humanitarian laws and the current situation in the Holy
Land. A very important and useful article!
We have now some hope that the
crisis of the Basilica will have a happy end, please pray with as for an
immediate and quick one, otherwise these people will have to suffer more and
the Nativity Church will remain a place of war.
With
my best wishes from Jerusalem and Bethlehem Cities of Peace now cities of war!
Fr. Raed Abusahlia
ISRAELIS AND PALESTINIANS
URGED TO HAVE "THE COURAGE
OF PEACE"
Pope Says Basilica Must Cease to Be
Scene of Blackmail
VATICAN CITY, (Zenit.org).- John
Paul II urged Israelis and Palestinians to have "the courage of
peace" but also to stop using Bethlehem’s besieged Basilica of the
Nativity as a motive for "blackmail."
"Our intense prayer also
continues for the situation in the Holy Land from whence, unfortunately,
worrying news and images of destruction do not cease to arrive," the Pope
said today before reciting the midday Regina Caeli with pilgrims gathered in
St. Peter’s Square.
"They are images that are more
forceful than any appeal and demand that no attempt be neglected at every level
so that that land, blessed by God, be extricated as soon as possible from the
spiral of hatred and violence," the Holy Father added.
The Bishop of Rome said that he
remembers the situation in the basilica every day. The Bethlehem landmark has
been besieged by the Israeli army since April 2, when over 200 Palestinians,
many armed, took refuge in its interior.
Thirty-five Franciscan friars, four
Franciscan nuns, three Armenian Orthodox monks and four Greek Orthodox monks
are confined in adjacent buildings, without water, electricity or food.
John Paul II said that for almost
20 days "the basilica and adjacent buildings have been the scene of
clashes, blackmail and unbearable mutual accusations."
"May that place, and all holy
places soon be restored to prayer and pilgrims, to God and man!" the Holy
Father exclaimed.
John Paul II also appealed to the
international community to have "the tenacity of solidarity" with the
troubled region.
"May Israelis and Palestinians
be able to learn to live together, and may the Holy Land at last return to
being a sacred land and a land of peace!" the Pope implored
Ad Hoc Committee of Men and Women Religious
for a response to the Present Situation in the Holy
Land
------------------------
Propositions from meeting at Latin Patriarchate
1.
Prayer gatherings for peace and justice in the present
situation and other specifically religious ceremonies that can mark our
witness.
- A mass religious gathering for all religious and
faithful that would underline our commitment to peace and justice in
solidarity with both Palestinian Arab Christians and Israeli Jewish
Christians.
- A religious ceremony (mass) for all religious at the
end of which a letter from the religious to the Israeli and Palestinian
political leadership as well as to the Universal Church would be made
public. This letter needs to be formulated so as to address our specific
reality as religious in this Land (religious who are living lives of
solidarity on both sides of the divide but together witness to basic
truths).
- Specific peace and justice actions: a march for peace
towards Bethlehem, solidarity visits to the occupied areas, etc.
- Specific activities to make the religious more aware of
the situation. The Patriarch would like a permanent committee of religious
to deal with this aspect of our witness here. The Women Religious in the
Jerusalem region have already initiated something along these lines. How
can it be taken further?
Practical decisions
We decided to hold a big prayer gathering
at St Anne’s Church on Friday, April 26, 2002, at 15.15. The gathering will be
in the large space used at the end of the Palm Sunday procession. The prayer
will be followed by the participants joining the Franciscans in the traditional
Via Dolorosa procession at 16.00.
- The prayer service will be prepared by Abbot Benedikt,
Sister Frida and Father David and the plan will be sent out as soon as
possible. The languages to be used are Arabic, Hebrew, English and French.
A presentation of the prayer service in all four languages will precede
the service itself.
- At this prayer service a letter will be distributed in
the name of the Men and Women Religious of the Holy Land. The letter is
addressed to the Israeli and Palestinian leadership, to our superior
generals and to the Church Universal. This letter will be drafted by
Father Frederic and worked on by Sister Ildephonse and Father David. It
will then distributed by e-mail to all for comment. Please send any
proposals to Father Frederic as soon as possible.
- Invitations to the prayer assembly will be made in the name of the Ad Hoc Committee of Men and Women Religious in the Holy Land. We invite all to participate, Christians from all Churches, Jews and Muslims. Father John is liason person with the media. Sister Frida with the Church in Galilee, Abbot Benedikt with the monasteries. Sister Johanna and Sister Eldephonse with the men and women religious. Father David with the Israeli and Palestinian peace and justice organizations.
Thanks
and updates from Bishop Riah Abu El-Assal
Dear Friends,
Salaam and grace in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and blessed greetings
from Jerusalem,
I want to thank you all for your continued support, your messages, and all your
thoughts and prayers at this time. As we continue our ministry in this land, we
continue to witness the attack on the entire people in Palestine, and the
impact of it all on our work and our ministry of reconciliation. I am sending
this letter on my return from Nazareth to Jerusalem. I left Nazareth early
enough this morning to be able to attend the Heads of Churches Meeting in
Jerusalem at 10:00am in the morning. However, there were 14
checkpoints on the Jordan Valley way, I was stopped at several of them. At the
4th checkpoint, a soldier said: "You do not look happy",
to which I replied: "Only abnormal people would look happy in this
abnormal situation." The drive was scary with hardly any movement, except
for settlers, who looked at me with suspicion, not to mention also the many
army vehicles with many soldiers carrying death in their hands, inflicting
terror upon us all. The scene and the experience reminded me of the song that
the Rev. Garth Hewitt wrote:
"What's this war against the Children?
Against Women, too?
What does it make to your soul, soldier?
Power only makes you weak!!
You have become what the gun has made you.
You are the terror on the street".
Antonela Notari, spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross
in Geneva, stated in an article in the Guardian on 17 April, 2002 that "it
is the responsibility of those fighting a war to look after the well being of
civilians... Israel has failed on this count on a massive scale in the West
Bank as a whole. Nineteen days of curfew and siege have deprived two million
Palestinians of access to medical care, food and drinking water. Israeli tanks
trundled over water maims and cars, and ploughed through electricity and
telephone wires, depriving most neighborhoods of basic services.... The bodies
had been left to rot in homes and streets for days, and the wounded to bleed to
death, because the Israeli army banned ambulances from entering the battle
zones... The army regularly seized male civilians of all ages from their homes
and used them as human shields
This gives a good overview of the dire humanitarian needs of the communities at
this time many families of our Churches have lost their professions, as a
result of the destruction of their shops, offices, or clinics. They all have to
start from scratch, and they are people who had nothing to do with any armed
activity. The story of the camp in Jenin will become a paradigm for Palestinian
struggle and survival and the basis on which they will continue to voice their
history and their right of their own state. Amnesty International
report about Jenin states that it is "one of the worst scenes of
devastation they have ever witnessed. It is almost impossible to conceive that
what was once a town is now a lunar landscape. Who knows? Who cares? This may
be the beginning of a Palestinian Holocaust However, it added that "If
this was an earthquake the international community would be asked for and give
urgent help. It is shocking that the authorities have not asked for help and
that the international community is not offering it. Let this be the wake up
call that help is needed now to save what life there is left".
We have been receiving many letters of support that do not only speak of the
thoughts and prayers of many, much as this is important, but also of the need
for action. It is the wake up call for all of us. It is incumbent upon us all
to rise and voice the need for Justice, for those who have no hope. A poignant
statement from Dante says: "The hottest places in hell are reserved for
those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality".
This comes to compliment what Edmund Burke also says: "The only thing
necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing". There is
an urgent need to work to influence public opinion and to provide the
atmosphere that might influence the decisions that are being made. Many are
writing to their MPs and others seeking to force their governments to pressure
their decisions, to see a different reality, and work for justice in the Middle
East. The media does not always provide the picture that reflects the reality
as well as the sufferings of many in this land.
Keep up your prayers, for they are very important. We may at times feel
helpless, and we do. But we offer all our helplessness to God in prayer, always
hoping to meet him in the future, not only in the past, as he appears to us
risen from the dead, proclaiming Peace among his disciples, and all his
followers, but also showing his wounded hands and side, and manifesting forth
that there can be, and there is another way for the world, other than that of
power, and retaliation.
May God bless you all, and know that this comes with my prayers and best
wishes,
In Christ,
+Riah Abu El-Assal.
A letter from St. Andrew's
in Ramallah 4
By Rev. George Kopti
April 20,
2002: This is day 23 of the Israeli invasion and curfew on the twin
cities of Ramallah and AlBireh. 120 thousand people have been confined to their
homes for three weeks now.
The curfew is lifted for three hours every four days to allow us to buy basic
foodstuffs, medicine and other vital commodities. Can you imagine what happens
when this huge number of people try to do their shopping all at once within
three hours? Although about half of the Ramallah cars have been completely
smashed like cardboard boxes by the Israeli tanks, the ones that still run can
cause impossible traffic jams with many of the roads blocked or damaged by the
Israeli war machine. Lines of people, or more precisely crowds, form outside
every shop or market place. Many can only afford the cheapest products and in
very small quantities. When people meet each other, they take a minute or two
to exchange news about friends and family. Thousands have been arrested, many
killed or made homeless. Nothing but suffering, and people trying to pick up
the pieces of their broken lives.
At St. Andrew’s we find ourselves luckier than others for more than one
reason. There is an inner courtyard where the five children of three
families living in the compound can play, though they keep their voices and
laughter down so that the soldiers outside in the street wouldn’t hear them.
Another reason why we are lucky is that we have access to the
church. Three Sundays have gone by while under curfew and St. Andrew’s is
the only church that has been able to hold a real Sunday morning service.
The congregants, who enter the church through the back door, number about four
or five adults and four or five youngsters including Kindy, the 14 year-old boy
whose leg is healing from the gunshot wound he sustained.
The reflections for the first Sunday under curfew centered on The Good
Shepherd. The second Sunday it was about the real meaning of Freedom, and
the third about Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness. Rev. Kopti linked
his reflections with the real life situation we found ourselves in.
We are all getting tired of our long confinement to which is added the constant
sound of explosions as the Israeli army continues to explode its way into
houses, shops, businesses, institutions, cultural centers,
theaters, clubs and the different ministries as well as the
municipality. They continue to destroy everything in their way including
valuable documents, archives, research work, medical and dental clinics … etc …
etc. In short, they are destroying the Palestinian people – their
identity, their culture and their memory.
To pass the time in a positive way, Rev. Kopti organized a campaign of
voluntary activity for the six teenagers and four children of the
compound. They all set out energetically to do some spring-cleaning inside
the church, the offices and adjacent youth club, compensating for the lack of
exercise under curfew.
The youngsters also used their muscles to unload a truck full of food supplies
donated by the church and people of Shefa-Amr, a town in Galilee. They
then divided them into portions that were distributed when the curfew was
lifted for a three-hour break later in the week. The families gratefully
received the food parcels, but many who crowded outside the gates wee not as
lucky. There wasn’t enough for everybody. We can no longer repeat the
words: “give us this day our daily bread” lightly. The prayer now takes
on a more profound meaning and urgency.
Some parts of Ramallah are still without electricity, running water or
telephones. One family called the Pastor to ask for drinking water that he will
only be able to deliver in the curfew break. Garbage is piling up in the
streets of Ramallah, which is turning into an environmental hazard – especially
with the temperatures rising. The damage is extensive and it will take a long
time for Ramallah to get out of its state of shock and destruction and return
to normal, if ever.
The real tragedy is that of the families who have lost loved ones or whose sons
were arrested and taken to an unknown destination. Ra’fat, a member of the
youth group, is one of them, please pray for him.
In other parts of the West Bank, especially in Jenin and Nablus, the situation
is much worse. A real human tragedy is unfolding over there. The world cannot
remain silent. Outside intervention is urgently needed.
We ask for your prayers and action. The Palestinian people have long enough
been denied their basic human and national rights. Some of them, in their
despair, have resorted to violence. It is feared that after all this, more
will be driven in that direction. The only way to stop the carnage is for the
world community to recognize their rights and act on the proper implementation
of UN resolutions and humanitarian conventions. The key to peace is
justice. The Palestinian people are asking for a minimum measure of
justice so that they can live a normal life of peace and dignity alongside
their neighbors. You can help them achieve this rightful goal by your prayers
and action.
In Peace and Grace
Remembering
Christ’s Visit to Taybeh
By
Dr. Maria C. Khoury
The Sunday before Palm Sunday, our village of Taybeh traditionally remembers Christ’s retreat to Efraim (the biblical name for Taybeh). The parishioners of the Latin Patriarch Church of the Redeemer were honored to have His Beatitude Patriarch Michel Sabbah officiate the Mass under what were impossible road conditions to reach the church. The roadblocks were many and the entrance to the village was closed with large rocks and piles of dirt in order to keep the Palestinians off of roads that only the Israeli settlers wish to access. The Palestinians should stay caged in and locked up in their towns and villages so the settlers can easily move around. It is such a cruel way to treat humankind.
While delivering his homily, the
patriarch admitted he thought about turning around and going back to Jerusalem
but the driver asked the patriarch to keep getting in and out of the car as he
drove through various holes by the valley and managed to sneak into the village
for the Mass. The patriarch told the faithful that during our current tragic
situation the final hope we have is God.
He urged the local people to be faithful to our country, faithful to our
land, faithful to our people and to remember God at all times. Patriarch Sabbah said, above all, we as
Christians must be like the example of Christ himself, a builder of peace among
all kinds of people in the Holy Land. These special encouraging words were
offered to the congregation before the patriarch rushed off to Bethlehem to
meet other Muslim, Jewish and Christian leaders for a peaceful demonstration
and prayer for the Holy Nativity Church. The demonstrators were not allowed to
go to the Nativity Church and pray as had been organized by the Greek Orthodox
Patriarchate for solidarity with the Palestinians suck inside the church.
Fr. Ibrahim Shomali, the parish
priest felt it was very important for the patriarch to be with the people of
Taybeh during this special day in the village in remembering Christ’s visit to
the area more than two thousand years ago. Fr. Ibrahim felt the patriarch could
offer encouraging words to the faithful and show support for this small
diminishing Christian community.
People are currently depressed over the economic situation and stressed
with over 50% unemployment, more and more families are becoming poor and people
in general are very nervous and anxious about their future. During the three
weeks of occupation even rich people could not get money from the banks because
they were closed. And people that were working could not receive their monthly
salaries as usual due t! o the Israeli invasion.
Fr. David P. Khoury, the Orthodox
priest also agrees that people are suffering. He said: “These were the worst
days we have ever had in our whole life.
It was horrible what the Israelis have done in Jenin, the massacres…we
can’t do anything just evoke God to settle the problem.” Fr. Jack Abed, the
Melkite parish priest confirmed that “in our prayer to the Lord, we pray for
God to save us from evil...during these days we need to be saved from Sharon
but we are just a voice crying in the wilderness and no one’s hearing us.”
Actually, I laughed because just the same day President Bush said Sharon is a
man of peace but unfortunately he had to demolish 800 homes to get “the
terrorists” and make 5,000 people homeless. I tend to think like Fr. Jack and
thought about Psalm 140 “Deliver me, O Lord, from the evil man; preserve me
from the violent man…keep me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked…I said unto
the Lord, thou art my God; hear the voice of my supplications, O Lord.”
Fr. Ibrahim also confessed how
difficult it is to preach the word of God during war times. “You can’t preach
Jesus Christ at the moment…everything turns into politics…about the Nativity
Church, about where are the Christians in the world…the people just put you in
a difficult situation…you can’t deal with it because their questions are
real…you can’t say love your enemies easily because people do not accept these
words of Christ and they respond that the Israelis are killing us, they are
making us hungry, etc., how can we love them? It is not easy to explain loving
your enemies…so instead, I say love one another, try to help each other, your
families. In the moment we have only God to trust. It depends on God only… even on changing the mentality of
President Bush and the American government…that’s it…. it’s up to God.”
The regular Christian services
continue in Taybeh with daily Mass at six o’clock and a special silent hour of
prayer every Wednesday in adoration of the Holy Sacrament with beautiful music
in the church. Christians are trying to live their values and traditions and
embrace the faith during these difficult times. Fr. Ibrahim has a routine of
individual prayer in the convent every morning to begin his day. “We must
pray,” he emphasizes. As he was speaking about prayer I remembered the words I
had read that morning in Psalm 57 “Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto
me: for my soul trusts in
thee: yea, in the shadow of thy
winds will I make my refuge, until these calamities be over past.”
Even praying in the Holy Land has
become difficult. Deacon Sami, Fr. Ibrahim’s assistant told me how he got stuck
in the Beit Sahour Church (one hour away) after he had gone to help out with
the Western Easter services during Holy week because in Taybeh all Christians
will celebrate Pascha with the Orthodox Calendar. The Israeli army invaded
Bethlehem in the middle of Holy week and Deacon Sami could not return home. When
the curfew was uplifted for three hours and he tried to leave the area he could
not make it to Taybeh nor back to the Beit Sahour Church thus ended up spending
one more week at the Beit Jala theological seminary before the Red Cross helped
him return to Taybeh recently.
Truly our life is in the hands of the Israeli army concerning everything with schools, work and church. When we are not prisoners in our own homes, we are prisons in whole open areas. It is currently not allowed for Palestinians to travel out of the Tel Aviv airport nor over the bridge to Jordan and these are the only two ways out of the country. Sharon thinks his military aggression will stop suicide bombers but instead he is making average good people think about turning into suicide bombers because of the awful and harsh conditions he imposes on a whole nation. The humiliation is so vast, the frustration is so deep, the injustice is so great and the rage and the anger are so out of control. May our Dear Lord and Savior, show Mercy. “For with God nothing shall be impossible.” (Luke 1:37
Life is Precious!
Dr Harry Hagopian, KSL – KOG
It
is totally destroyed, and it looks like an earthquake has hit it!
Terje Roed-Larsen, UN
Envoy at Jenin Refugee Camp, 16 April 2002
Institutional Introductions?
In the past week, the
world witnessed harrowing scenes of death and destruction at the Palestinian
refugee camp of Jenin. Hence, the 15-nation body of the UN Security Council
voted unanimously on 19 April 2002 to set up an international commission of
enquiry that would ‘clarify the facts’ regarding what truly happened at the
camp during the latest Israeli incursions into the West Bank. UNSC Resolution
1405 expressed concern at ‘the dire humanitarian situation’ of Palestinian
civilians and emphasised the ‘urgency of access of medical and humanitarian organisations
to the Palestinian civilian population’. Although Israel agreed to such a
fact-finding commission for Jenin only, UN spokesperson Fred Eckhard expressed
the hope that the enquiry would extend to all areas of the West Bank.
Earlier in the week,
Labour Member of Parliament Ann Clwyd had also undertaken a fact-finding trip
to Israel and Palestine in her capacity as member of the House of Commons
Select Committee on International Development. Speaking on BBC television, she
expressed her indignation at the Israeli practices and asked the European Union
to abrogate its preferential trade agreement with Israel. And yesterday,
Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat suggested that Israel had converted
the Palestinian ‘Area A’ autonomous territories into ‘Area B’ landmasses under
strict Israeli military control. He requested that the UN invoke Chapter 7 of
its Charter [on Action with respect to Threats to the Peace, Breaches of the
Peace, and Acts of Aggression] by placing international observers on the
ground. Responding to those statements, Mark Sofer, Israeli Foreign Ministry
spokesman, described the UN allegations of wilful destruction in Jenin as mud
slinging and denied that Israel had been responsible for a tragedy of such
magnitude in the refugee camp. He added that the outcome of the enquiry would
exonerate Israel, and accused the media of hyping the story up.
On
21 April 2002, Chris Patten, EU External Affairs Commissioner, appeared on
‘Breakfast with Frost’ and criticised the Israeli onslaught against Palestinian
towns. He argued that PM Ariel Sharon had done Israel and the international
world a huge disservice in its fight against terrorism. He censured the Israeli
military campaign that had undermined the infrastructure of the Palestinian Authority,
and questioned the logic of destroying for no plausible reason Palestinian
Ministries such as those of Education, Land Registration and Finance. However,
he added that the EU could not be expected to foot the bill [again] for the
re-construction of the Palestinian edifice until Israel stopped its incursions
and only following an independent assessment of the situation.
Humanitarian Introductions?
Political statements and
positions aside, what does international humanitarian law have to say on this
matter? Is there evidence that
Israel has breached both the Geneva Conventions and international law? As some
people have suggested, could PM Ariel Sharon and other Israeli commanders face
possible prosecution in The Hague for alleged war crimes?
Antonela Notari,
spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva, stated
in an article in the Guardian on 17 April 2002 that ‘it is the responsibility
of those fighting a war to look after the well being of civilians’. She added
that ‘Israel has failed on this count on a massive scale in the West Bank as a
whole. Nineteen days of curfew and siege have deprived one million Palestinians
of access to medical care, food and drinking water. Israeli tanks trundled over
water mains, and ploughed through electricity and telephone wires, depriving
most neighbourhoods of basic services’. She added that ‘the bodies had been
left to rot in homes and streets for days, and the wounded to bleed to death,
because the Israeli army banned ambulances from entering the battle zones’. She
added that there were also wide-spread accounts that the army regularly seized
male civilians of all ages from their homes and used them as human shields by
coercing them to walk ahead of soldiers as they searched Palestinian homes in
camps and towns.
According to Kathleen
Cavanaugh, professor of international humanitarian law at the National
University of Ireland, Israel did not give civilians the chance to evacuate
their homes ahead of heavy bombardment by tanks and helicopter gunships. In her
opinion, occupying forces have a clear obligation to protect the lives of
civilians and do nothing to endanger their lives. Failing to allow an
evacuation violates international law, as does putting them at risk.
In fact, there are
already many testimonies and claims by Palestinian refugees that the Israeli
army had buried some of the dead under a pile of twisted metal and re-inforced
concrete. An Amnesty International team, headed by experts in forensic
pathology, will now examine those allegations in addition to other claims that
the Israeli army did not give adequate time for civilians to evacuate their
houses before they were shelled and in some cases flattened down. However, one
must add that international law remains somewhat vague on the destruction of
homes in combat zones.
On 19 April 2002, the
Financial Times published an article by Barbara Stocking, director of the
British charity Oxfam that runs a number of developmental programmes in the
Middle East. Stocking affirmed that some of the Israeli actions in the
Palestinian territories ‘have undermined international humanitarian law,
setting dangerous precedents for the protection of millions of civilians in
other conflicts’ such as in Sudan. She focused specifically on ‘the deliberate
damage to water supplies’ that left tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians
in the West Bank without running water. She made a distinction between
combatants and civilians, although she also argued that the laws governing war
require armies to afford some protection to combatants by treating them
humanely and giving them a fair trial.
Legal Introductions?
In his cyber-editorial
dated 20 April 2002, Barnaby Mason, BBC Diplomatic Correspondent, affirmed that
the Fourth Geneva Convention is the foremost instrument that should address the
excesses that have been perpetrated in Jenin. Indeed, the Geneva Conventions of
1949 are considered as the cornerstones of international humanitarian law. They
are the only globally accepted instruments for the protection of civilians in
warfare, and its signatories today include the majority of UN members. Those
legal instruments were the global response to the horrors of the Second World
War, just as the Refugee Convention of 1951 was the response to the
unprecedented flow of refugees that ensued.
More recently, the
International War Crimes Tribunals have come into existence, and they were
established specifically to investigate atrocities that occurred in the Balkans
and in Rwanda. A parallel legal development is the International Criminal Court
that has also been ratified but only comes into force on 1 July 2002. Although
it cannot adjudicate retrospectively, and despite persistent American
expostulations regarding its genesis and remit, its ratification has meant that
it will have the power to investigate acts of genocide, crimes against humanity
and war crimes.
Painful Introductions?
In
the final analysis, I surmise that the Israeli military campaign will not be
classed a war crime. Nor will the findings of the UN enquiry translate into any
enforceable legal action. In one sense, this is due to the fact that the
indiscriminate killings in Jenin do not easily fulfil all the criteria of
international humanitarian law. Perhaps that is itself symptomatic of the
fragility of the international community where political and legal
considerations often diverge - even after 11 September 2001. But the
psychopathology of the Palestinian masses has been punched by the cruelty of
some of the Israeli practices, and what some independent observers have seen,
heard or smelt cannot simply be expunged away.
I
suggest that one likely legal avenue to investigate the Israeli military
offensive could lie with the Israeli Supreme Court. This judicial organ is a
robust and quite independent institution in Israel, and has in the past muddied
many waters with judgements that were at times controversial and not always
sympathetic to the Israeli political establishment. But given the severe
polarisation within Israeli society, as much as the present Israeli political
configuration, I think that such a step would be deemed unlikely and
impractical - let alone forthcoming!
Looking
back with sadness at tragedies such as those in Jenin or elsewhere in the West
Bank, I think it behoves well for the protagonists in the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict to recall one of FW Nietzsche’s statements. ‘Was mich nicht umbringt, macht mich stärker’ translates roughly as
‘That which does not kill me, makes me stronger’. For me, this is one of the
painful ironies of two fierce nationalisms at war, where atrocities perpetrated
by one party against the other only strengthen the determination of both
parties for battle. Would it not be better if this conflict were resolved
peaceably in accordance with the oft-stated principles of international
legality that secure equal rights for both parties?
I just think
what we are seeing here is a terrible human tragedy!
William Burns, US Assistant Secretary of State, 20
April 2002
© harry-bvH @ 22 April 2002
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