Israel can't use US equipment to violate Gaza residents' human rights
By David Bedein March 21, 2005
This week, at Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon, in southern Israel, the
Israel Defence Forces will conduct an exercise to conduct a "dry run"
to practice bringing dead and wounded Jewish Israeli residents to the
hospital, following the summer plans of the Israeli government to
forcibly remove all 8,000 Jewish men, women and children from their 21
farming communities in the Jewish communities of the Katif district in
Gaza and another 2000 Jews from 4 communities in Northern Samaria.
A senior official in Israeli intelligence estimates that at least 100
Jewish residents will be killed in the expulsion process, since these
residents have no intention of leaving their homes and farms
voluntarily, and since the IDF has every intention of using live
ammunition to facilitate the expulsion of Jews from Katif and the
Northern Samaria, while razing their houses, farms and synagogues.
In late February, at the closing press conference of the annual Israel
convention of the Conference of Major Jewish Organizations from North
America, a journalist asked Conference Chairman James Tisch how Jewish
Americans will react if the Israel Defence Forces use
American-supplied law enforcement equipment to kill Jewish Israelis.
The journalist also asked Tisch if it was legal to use US made law
enforcement equipment in that process.
Tisch, who had just read out a statement of support from more than 50
Jewish American organizations in support of the current policies of
the Israeli government, was stunned by the question and said he would
look into the matter.
I do not know if Mr. Tisch looked into the matter. I did.
While walking the halls of the US Congress last week, I asked for and
received a copy of the US Foreign Assistance Act.
A congressional human rights policy specialist pointed to the relevant
section of the law, which restricts nations receiving foreign aid from
the US from using that aid to subjugate human rights and civil
liberties.
That official pointed to Sect. 502B, which is the "Human Rights"
amendment, which was added to the US Foreign Assistance Act in 1979,
to ensure that any and all US foreign aid would not abrogate the
fundamentals of human rights and civil liberties.
She explained that this would mean that any equipment supplied by the
US to an aid recipient would come under the scrutiny of this "human
rights" amendment to US Foreign Assistance law.
Clause (a)(1) of the Human Rights amendment to the US Foreign
Assistance Act clearly states that " a principal goal of the foreign
policy of the United States shall be to promote the increased
observance of internationally recognized human rights by all countries
?no security assistance may be provided to any country the government
of which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of
internationally recognized human rights?Assistance may not be
provided? to a country the government of which engages in a consistent
pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human
rights"
The law goes on to state that "The President is directed to formulate
and conduct international security assistance programs of the United
States in a manner which will promote and advance human rights and
avoid identification of the United States, through such programs, with
governments which deny to their people internationally recognized
human rights and fundamental freedoms, in violation of international
law or in contravention of the policy of the United States".
This law also mandates that "United States has taken to promote
respect for and observance of human rights in that country and
discourage any practices which are inimical to internationally
recognized human rights, and publicly or privately call attention to,
and disassociate United States and any security assistance provided
for such country from, such practices". This US law defines ''gross
violations of internationally recognized human rights'' includes
?flagrant denial of the right to life, liberty, or the security of
persons."
Prof. Eliav Schochetman, Hebrew Professor of Law Emeritus and Dean of
the Shaari Mishpat Law College, testified last month at the Israeli
Knesset Parlimentary Law Committee that the decision of the state of
Israel to demolish the homes and villages of 10,000 citizens,
represents the kind of human rights infraction that is described in
the human rights amendment to US Foreign Assistance Act.
It would violate the constraints of Israel's own "Basic Human Rights
Law" which oversees Israeli democratic institutions in matters of
human rights and civil liberties, in the same way that the US Bill of
Rights ensures that the US government can never trample on the human
rights and civil liberties of American citizens.
In his testimony, Schochetman noted that this Israeli government
decision represents a violation of the 1948 Universal Declaration of
Human Rights, to which all democratic governments are adherents.
Schochetmen added that Israel's decision to expel Jews from their
homes, would represent a wanton violation of basic human rights and
civil liberties that are protected under Israeli and international
human rights law.
Prof. Schochetman cited clause 9 of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, which mandates that it is illegal for sovereign governments to
expel their citizens and ethnic minorities from their homes, from
their private properties or from their farms.
Since the only group that Israel has slated for expulsion would be
Jews, it may be recalled that the government of Serbia was recently
held liable for international prosecution at the International High
Court of Justice in the Hague, under the charge of "ethnic cleansing",
after leaders of Serbia expelled an ethnic minority, solely because of
their religion.
Schochetman also mentioned the clauses in the San Remo Treaty that was
ratified by the League of Nations and then by the United Nations which
provide international protection for Jews to purchase and dwell in the
"Jewish Homeland", defined as any land which lies anywhere east of the
Jordan River.
After Schochetman's testimony at the Knesset, Knesset Law Committee
chairman Michael Eitan could not find any other law professor who
would contradict Schochetman's assessment of the Israeli government's
proposal to destroy and exile 25 Jewish communities would indeed
represents a mass human rights violation.
Since the Israeli government intends to use US supplied law
enforcement equipment in its proposed expulsion, the question remains:
Will the US Congress and will the American people allow for the use of
US supplied law enforcement equipment in such a process?
This has now become an American issue. After all, there is a
difference between destroying the home of a terrorist and the
intention to demolish 25 communities of law abiding citizens.
Now it is the turn of the American citizen to communicate with their
elected representatives in the US Congress.
Epilogue
I did ask the congressional human rights specialist if the human
rights amendment to the US Foreign Assistance Act would apply to
Israel's demolition of the homes of terrorists. Her answer: US human
rights officials have determined that this would not apply to such
acts, since terrorists would be viewed as combatants.
--
"Can we alter the course? It is too late.
A general correction is factually and humanely impossible ...
New documents will unavoidably turn up and will overthrow
the official certainties more and more. The current view of
the world of the [National Socialist] camps,though triumphant, is doomed.
What of it can be salvaged? Only little."
J.C. Pressac
[Valérie Igounet, Histoire du négationnisme en France, Editions du Seuil, Paris 2000, p. 652.]
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