Gush Shalom Sending Information on Israeli Officers To ICC
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Demonstrating in front of the Israeli Ministry of Defense |
TEL
AVIV, August 4 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Gush Shalom, an
Israeli peace organization, has in past months sent threatening
letters to Israeli officers who are on duty in the territories,
telling them that they are guilty of offenses tantamount to war
crimes, an Israeli newspaper reported Sunday, August 4.
In
these letters, the officers have been warned that the movement is
monitoring their actions, and that Gush Shalom intends to compile
information against them which will be submitted to the International
Criminal Court, reported Ha’aretz.
These
letters have been signed by “Gush Shalom’s team for the collection
of evidence against war criminals,” reported the paper.
Ha’aretz
reported that 15 Israeli officers ranking between lieutenant colonel
and brigadier general received these letters.
According
to the paper, Gush Shalom identified the officers on the basis of
interviews which they gave on local media during operations in the
territories.
As
a result of these operations, Palestinian residents in the territories
lodged complaints about Israeli army behavior; the peace movement
based its letters on these complaints.
In
one of these letters, reports Ha’aretz, a brigadier general who has
randomly arrested people in the occupied territories was warned that
“taking hostages is a grave violation of the fourth Geneva
Convention.”
The
letter writers declare: “As citizens concerned about the status and
image of the state of Israel and the IDF ... we cannot quietly condone
such acts. We warn you that evidence about these acts has been
compiled, and put in a file that we are preparing.”
The
letter also warned the brigadier general to be caureful and “refrain
from carrying out or taking operational responsibility for more acts
that represent violations of international law.”
One
high-ranking IDF officer, under whose command a number of the officers
“warned” by Gush Shalom serve, told Ha’aretz that the letters
are “an attempt to harm the morale” of soldiers.
Earlier
last week, Gush Shalom organized a demonstration in Tel Aviv, opposite
the Israeli ministry of Defense to protest the Israeli army’s attack
in Gaza which killed 17 people, including 12 children. The attack was
designed to murder Salah Shehada, a Hamas leader.
On
the website of the organization, Shamai Leibowitz, and attorney and
Israeli reserve officer wrote an article about why every Jewish
soldier should refuse to serve.
“Our
rule over three million Palestinian Arabs in the territories has
perforce put us in a position of committing a number of moral
outrages. Continued rule will necessitate not only continued denial of
many basic rights to Palestinians, but will require our taking
additional steps which are reprehensible, if not morally
questionable,” he said.
He
added that these steps include the enclosing of millions of humans in
their cities, towns, and villages. “We often deny basic rights such
as the right to earn a living, to study, to move freely, to purchase
basic necessities, to vote, to travel for medical care, to move sick
or injured to medical facilities, etc. But most severe is that
innocent civilians die,” he said.
Leibowitz
said that it seems that a large number of the hundreds of Palestinian
civilians who die are not killed because Israeli armed forces are
acting in self-defense.
“Take
the ex-judicial killings of Palestinian political leaders, for
example. Certainly, these ex-judicial killings are tantamount to
premeditated murder. To me, there is nothing shocking in saying that a
country which has “legalized” ex-judicial killings has implemented
terror tactics.”
“The
apartheid regime Israel has established is wicked and evil. It
deserves no fidelity on the part of Israeli soldiers. One might ask:
Does not this attitude lead to anarchy?”
Gush
Shalom (translated from Hebrew, the name means “The Peace Bloc”)
is the hard core of the Israeli peace movement.
Gush
Shalom is an extra-parliamentary organization, independent of any
party or other political grouping. Some of its activists do belong to
political parties, but the Gush is not aligned to any particular
party.
The
movement was established by Uri Avnery in 1993, a three term member of
the Israeli Knesset.
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