Bringing Israeli War Criminals to Justice

By Tunku Sofiah Jewa

1. Prof. Francis A. Boyle, a noted international jurist has been making impassioned pleas to various governments after the 2002 Israeli Jenin massacre, that an International Criminal Tribunal for Israel (ICTI) be established by the United Nations General Assembly as a "subsidiary organ"under U.N. Charter Article 22.

2. According to Prof Boyle, the purpose of the ICTI would be to investigate and prosecute suspected Israeli war criminals for offences against the Lebanese and the Palestinians--just as the ICTY (the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia) did for the victims of international crimes committed by Serbia and the Milosevic regime throughout the Balkans.

3. Prof Boyle further added that the establishment of ICTI would, among others, provide some degree of justice to the victims of Israeli war crimes-just as the ICTY has done in the Balkans. It would also serve as a deterrent upon Israeli leaders and top generals.

4. Regrettably, Prof Boyle’s pleas have gone on deaf ears.

5. Thanks to modern media technology, we are able to watch the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike, this time over Gaza, with seemingly uncanny familiarity. Almost déjà vu, you would say.

6. From our television screens, we see homes, schools, offices and other buildings struck ablaze or smashed into smithereens.

7. We see the injured being rushed to hospitals in ambulances or in the arms of some compatriots or even foreign journalists.

8. We see graphic images of dead bodies – of Palestinian soldiers and civilians alike - men, women and children. (Israeli missiles are very democratic - they are trained to be non-discriminatory!)

9. We see the bloodied and/or mangled dead bodies of babies and adults wrapped and placed in neat rows in homes or morgues in preparation for their final journey to the next world. TV grabs of such pictures say everything.

10. Grieving relatives and friends openly weep as the corpses are carried, sometimes in coffins, sometimes on bare planks, through the narrow and winding streets of the bombarded town or village, for the burial ground.

11. The clearly incensed surviving populace would repeatedly shout “AllahuAkbar” as the equally irate local militia release recurring gunshots into the air.

12. Elsewhere in other parts of the world, we see angry demonstrators marching along streets of embassy row shouting anti-US and anti-Israeli slogans.

13. Embassies of these two countries are fully barricaded by local police or militia but that would not stop the demonstrators from venting their anger. Effigies of US and Israeli Presidents, the Stars and Stripes together with the Star of David are burnt and trampled upon right in front of the locked gates of the two embassies amidst cheers and jeers from the crowd.

14. At other more dignified fora such as the United Nations or the OIC, emergency resolutions heaping criticisms and condemnations upon bully Israel and arrogant America would be passed.

15. But until and unless an Article 22 ICTI is established by the UN General Assembly, neither the overwhelming grief and protestations of the survivors of the massacre nor the criticisms and condemnations of the street demonstrators and delegates at the UN and the OIC would mean anything to Israel.

16. Israel would have no qualms to launch similar expeditions upon its Arab neighbours with impunity.