Lawsuit in Norway against Israel for war crimes in Gaza

From:       leo schmit <leoschmit@yahoo.com> Date:    09.05.2009 10:32 PM

I submit some recent reporting on the recent lawsuit in Norway against Israel for committing war crimes and further reports on the conclusions by the Independent Fact Finding Committee to the League of Arab Nations which has added ‘crimes against humanity’ to the sordid reputation of that country.

Update on Israel-Norway relations, Leo Schmit

Israel is angry with Norway because, unlike representatives from 18 Irgun-controlled Western countries, Norway’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Støre, did not walk out from the racism conference in Geneva. Of course Israel was already mad at Norway because two Norwegian doctors (Foss and Gilbert) tried to save lives in Gaza and reported on its war crimes. This week two Norwegian delegations were refused entry to Israel (and Gaza). But Minister Støre is not intimidated and has called the Israeli ambassador to hear an official complaint.   

Israel is actually extremely angry with Norway because five lawyers have filed a lawsuit with the Norwegian Chief Prosecutor against 3 Israeli leaders and 7 Israeli commanders for committing war crimes in Gaza. These lawyers have now received threats:

http://www.achr.nu/news.fr226.htm

"For his part, lawyer Kjell M. Brygfjeld commented on the threats saying:" The issue isn't about whom is supporting or opposing us. Such methods will only increase our conviction that our attitude is right. The issue is in which camp the one is standing: in the camp of criminals or the camp of justice?”

ACHR reports further: “The Norwegian National Prosecution Office announced plans for hearing the lawsuit filed against 11 Israeli officials on charges of committing war crimes in the latest Israeli aggression on Gaza strip, an aggression that left thousands martyred and injured while the Israeli army issued a statement in which he dismissed these charges. The Israeli embassy in Oslo declined to issue any statement.”

“Siri Frigaard, the General Prosecutor at the Norwegian National Authority for Prosecution of Organised and Other Serious Crime, said in a press statement that she received the lawsuit filed against the Israeli officials, pointing out that the office will study the legal foundations of the charges before asking the police to investigate them. She ruled out reaching a final decision this week (last week of April)”

(My comment, LS) Ms Frigaard’s decision will be interesting because she is also Member of the Board of the International Centre for Transnational Justice which is a Soros and Open Society backed agency http://www.ictj.org/en/index.html. So far she has not made a decision. But she may be forced to do so soon.

Today ‘Dagbladet’ reports that for two months the Norwegian Human Rights Judge Finn Lyngheim has taken part in the 6 person Independent Fact Finding Committee on Gaza to the League of Arab States. Other members hailed from South Africa, The Netherlands, Chile/Germany, Portugal and Australia (see below).

http://www.dagbladet.no/2009/05/09/nyheter/utenriks/gaza/krigen_i_gaza/hamas/6123837/

The conclusion of the Committee is that there is evidence that Israel has committed war crimes and crimes and humanity during the 22 days assault on Gaza.  The Committee has also considered the case whether Israel has committed genocide (‘folkemord’) and says that, if this (the destruction of the Palestine people as a group) was not explicitly the purpose of the Israeli leaders, this may have been the case for individual members of the Israeli army. Judge Lyngheim points to the incredible high number of small children and specifically girls who have been slaughtered with the possible purpose of preventing them to raise new generations.

“I was struck by the high number of children who were killed on purpose (‘med hensikt’). According to Palestine sources among the 1400 who lost their lives there were 850 civilians, of which 300 children and 11 women. This could not have a military purpose other than aiming to weaken popular support for Hamas and terrorizing the people into submission, says Lyngheim. Children of 3 – 4 months old and many girls were murdered. That is not done to achieve military goals. That is the way to destroy future generations. These were future Palestine mothers”.

You can read the entire 254 pages report at http://www.dagbladet.no/download/israelpdf.pdf

Some excerpts are below:

1. The Independent Fact Finding Committee on Gaza to the League of Arab States (theCommittee) was established in February 2009 with the tasks of investigating and reporting on violations of human rights law and international humanitarian law during the Israeli military offensive (hereinafter operation Cast Lead) against Gaza from

27 December 2008 to 18 January 2009 and collecting information on the responsibility for the commission of international crimes during the operation. The Committee comprised Professor John Dugard (South Africa: Chairman), Professor Paul de Waart (Netherlands), Judge Finn Lynghjem (Norway), Advocate Gonzalo Boye (Chile/Germany), Professor Francisco Corte-Real (Portugal: forensic body damage evaluator) and Ms Raelene Sharp, solicitor (Australia: Rapporteur).

10. There was substantial destruction of, and damage to property during the offensive. Over 3,000 homes were destroyed and over 11,000 damaged; 215 factories and 700 private businesses were seriously damaged or destroyed; 15 hospitals and 43 primary health care centres were destroyed or damaged; 28 government buildings and 60 police stations were destroyed or damaged; 30 mosques were destroyed and 28 damaged; 10 schools were destroyed and 168 damaged; three universities / colleges were destroyed and 14 damaged; and 53 United Nations properties were damaged.

11.It was clear to the Committee the IDF had not distinguished between civilians and civilian objects and military targets. Both the loss of life and the damage to property were disproportionate to the harm suffered by Israel or any threatened harm. There was no evidence that any military advantage was served by the killing and wounding of civilians or the destruction of property.

17. The focus of the report is on international crimes and the available remedies for prosecuting such crimes. Consequently little attention is paid to violations of human rights law and international humanitarian law that do not constitute international crimes. Nevertheless, the Committee found that there had been serious violations of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. There were also violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention and its Additional Protocols, particularly in respect of the prohibition on collective punishment.

18. The Committee then turned to the question of international criminal responsibility arising from the conflict. Here it considered war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

27. A crime against humanity comprises acts of murder, extermination, persecution and similar other inhumane acts committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population with knowledge of the attack. The Committee found that Israel’s offensive met the legal requirements for this crime and that the IDF was responsible for committing this crime.

28. Genocide is considered the “crime of crimes”. It has been singled out for special condemnation and opprobrium. The very suggestion that a state has committed genocide should therefore be approached with great care. Nevertheless the Committee believes that operation Cast Lead was of such gravity it was compelled to consider whether this crime had been committed.

29. The Committee found Israel’s actions met the requirements for the actus reus of the crime of genocide contained in the Genocide Convention, in that the IDF was responsible for killing, exterminating and causing serious bodily harm to members of a group - the Palestinians of Gaza. However, the Committee had difficulty in determining whether the acts in question had been committed with a special intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnical or religious group, as required by the Genocide Convention. It rejected the argument that Israel had carried out operation Cast Lead in self-defence. However, it found the main reason for the operation was not to destroy a group, as required for the crime of genocide, but to engage in a vicious exercise of collective punishment designed either to compel the population to reject Hamas as the governing authority of Gaza or to subdue the population into a state of submission.

30. The Committee found although operation Cast Lead had not been carried out by the IDF to destroy the Palestinians of Gaza as a group, individual soldiers may well have had such an intent and might therefore be prosecuted for this crime. This finding was based on the brutality of some of the killing and reports that some soldiers had acted under the influence of rabbis who had encouraged them to believe that the Holy Land should be cleansed of non-Jews.