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(The following article is from the February 1-14, 2009, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

People's Voice Editorial

There is said to be "mounting fear in Israel" that its leaders could face war crimes charges over their invasion of Gaza. Even the country's chief law officer, Menachem Mazuz, has warned that Israel will soon face "a wave of international lawsuits".
     The post-World War Two Nuremburg Tribunal ruled that illegal aggression against other countries was one of the most serious Nazi war crimes. Certainly Israel's brutal attack ranks with the US war against Iraq as such an aggression.

     Richard Falk, the United Nations' special rapporteur on the occupied territories and a professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, accuses Israel of gravely violating the laws of war during its three-week offensive, which killed more than 1,300 Gazans, most of them civilians, and wounded thousands more.

     "There is a well-grounded view that both the initial attacks on Gaza and the tactics being used by Israel are serious violations of the UN charter, the Geneva conventions, international law and international humanitarian law," Falk said during the final stages of fighting.

     Those tactics include the Israeli military's failure to distinguish between Palestinian civilians and combatants, its firing of white phosphorus shells in Gaza, despite the ban on this weapon in civilian areas (see page 9), and its use of a deadly experimental weapon - dense inert metal explosive, or Dime - that severs limbs and ruptures the internal organs of anyone close to the blast.

     Over 300 human rights organizations have prepared a 37-page dossier of evidence to present to the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands that tries war crimes. Supporters of Israel in Canada who loudly attack trade unions and other groups which criticize the Zionist regime would do well to read this dossier.