The ICC declares war on Israel

[Mosby]

The Pre-Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Court, for the first time in its history, has ordered the ICC Prosecutor to pursue an investigation she has decided to close. The Chamber ruled that the Prosecutor was wrong to close the preliminary investigation into war crimes charges against Israel for crimes allegedly committed in boarding the Mavi Marmara and other vessels during the flotilla incident of 2010.

The ruling of the Pre-Trial Chamber is remarkable.

It holds that the Prosecutor should have taken into account facts and actions that are outside the jurisdiction of the court in deciding whether to bring charges.

It holds that the Prosecutor should assume the truth of even the wildest accusations in deciding whether to bring charges; in other words, there should be an irrebuttable presumption of guilt in the preliminary investigation stage.

And most shockingly, it holds that crimes have sufficient gravity to interest the court, even if they have very few actual victims, as long as they are widely covered by the media, and are subject to a lot of political activity at the UN.

Needless to say, none of these holdings are accompanied by any citation to precedent. That’s because they are without any precedent.


http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-icc-declares-war-on-israel/

[BillZBubb]

1. Those big meanies are attacking poor, innocent Israel!

Boo hoo.

[GoneFishin]

2. I notice that none of the offending terms from court are direct quoted citations, so I assume

that a fair amount of liberty has been taken by the author of the article in order to support his/her indignance that the deaths of unarmed civilians killed in international waters by commandos armed to the teeth should be investigated by an international body that is not completely stacked.

[COLGATE4]

3. Gives 'Kangaroo Court' new meaning.

[guillaumeb]

4. Here are some of the specifics that you did not think to include in your post.

1) The Israeli commandos boarded the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish vessel, in International waters.

2) 9 unarmed Turkish activists were killed by the Israeli commandos.

3) Boarding a vessel in International waters is considered an act of piracy.

I realize that many apologists for Israel would not consider the death of 9 innocent, unarmed, activists to be a crime of sufficient gravity to interest the Court. Israel, after all, has killed so many innocent Palestinian civilians that another 9 deaths hardly matters.

[Mosby]

8. the boarding was legal

One of the Pre-Trial Chamber’s three members, Judge Péter Kovács, addresses the issues far more persuasively in his dissent to the ruling. First, Judge Kovács points out, it requires serious distortion of both the facts and the law to come to the conclusion that Israel committed any crimes at all. As Kovács noted, “The injuries sustained by the individuals on board the Mavi Marmara were apparently incidental to lawful action taken in conjunction with protection of the blockade.” Kovács observes, “a ship that is non-violent and not resisting may nonetheless be captured because of its attempting to breach a blockade. It is clear that not only was it the Mavi Marmara’s intention to breach the blockade, but this was its main purpose, as an act of protest. With this in mind, Israeli forces had a right to capture the vessel in protection of their blockade. … Faced with a potential breach of the blockade, the IDF acted out of necessity.”

Everyone knew their intent, to breach a blockade.

Not only were the Turkish "activists" armed, they immediately attacked the idf boarding crew causing life threatening injuries and tried to kidnap the israelis by dragging the injured below deck.

[guillaumeb]

9. There was no legal right or necessity here.

The 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (LOSC) lays out the current rules. As of April 2006, 149 nations had ratified the LOSC. The U.S. played a major role in the drafting of the LOSC, but then decided not to sign it. Never fear: the rules we're discussing here apply to the U.S. The U.S. is party to other treaties with similar provisions, has asserted rights available only under the LOSC, and has said that its provisions are part of existing international law. So it's the best place to start looking for answers.

For one thing, every ship is subject to the jurisdiction of the country whose flag it flies. So are its occupants. And you can't just pick the flag of a country whose laws are most favorable to you, either. The LOSC says there must be a "genuine link" between the ship and the state. If you want to fly a country's flag, you have to ask the country's permission and provide it with your ship's "name and particulars."

The idea that there is no jurisdiction on the high seas comes from confusion about the meaning of jurisdiction. Jurisdiction describes the limits of the legal power of a nation (international lawyers call them States) to make (prescriptive jurisdiction), apply (adjudicative jurisdiction), and enforce (enforcement jurisdiction) rules of conduct. One basis of jurisdiction is territory--a State can make and enforce laws in its own territory.
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2250/in-international-waters-are-you-beyond-the-reach-of-the-law


The ship was not registered as an Israeli vessel, nor was it in Israeli waters. There was/is no jurisdictional right that can be asserted in this case.

[Nitram]

6. "Very few actual victims?" Is that the way Israel looks at non-Israelis?

This is an extremely biased account of the court's decision, claiming that the court is "declaring war on Israel" (false), there weren't enough victims to matter (9 unarmed civilians dead), and implying that the court is keeping the case open for purely political reasons (evidence?). How is this case "outside the court's jurisdiction?

[6chars]

10. no

this is not the way israel looks at non israelis. glad to help you sort that one out. you're welcome.

but the other cases icc have taken have involved 10's of thousands or hundreds of thousands of deaths. so in quantiative terms, there were few deaths compared to all other cases the icc has ever chosen to consider. read about cases like the rwandan genocide. the reason the icc is looking at this case is not what happened, but instead that they want to get israel. the icc has standards for what cases they will investigate and they are changing their standards for this one time. there are dictatorships whose court systems do this and their courts do not have legitimacy they only have the power of the military to enforce their decisions. icc has only its legitimacy to go on, and they just flushed it down the toilet. if one believes that every action that harms israel is justified, then one will consider the icc to still be a legitimate institution, but it is not a legitmate court.

[Nitram]

15. Wanting Israel to respect international law does not mean they are "out to get Israel"

Enough with the faux victimhood schtick already. We used to sympathize with Israel, but that time has passed due to Israel's outrageous behavior.

[azurnoir]

7. the author gaave us a glimpse into his over all mindset here

The PLO, calling itself “the state of Palestine,” recently joined the ICC for the sole purpose of getting the court to prosecute Israeli leaders. Legal observers doubted that the PLO move could succeed. They noted that the PLO is not actually a state, and cannot confer jurisdiction on the court. They noted, as well, that Israel has a system for prosecuting its own criminals, so even if the PLO move were effective, the court would lack jurisdiction, since it can only prosecute where a state lets criminals run free. They noted that the alleged Israeli crimes lack the gravity to be prosecuted by the court. And they noted that jumping into the Arab-Israeli conflict would over-politicize a court that is already criticized for selective prosecutions.

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-icc-declares-war-on-israel/

[Little Tich]

11. From what I understand, it's the concept of "Purity of Arms" that is being under scrutiny.

Normally, when a group of unarmed civilians are killed by soldiers like this, it's because of a tragic mistake committed by someone in charge. Apparently, Israel considers this event to be in line with the spirit of "Purity of Arms", and not at all a mistake in any way. This means that every time Israel boards a boat with civilians, there is a definite risk for additional deaths.

So, the IDF has a system that necessitates very outlandish behaviour, and also makes anyone following this system completely faultless. Meanwhile, the body count of civilian deaths that were absolutely necessary and couldn't be avoided in any way start piling up.

I think the author of the OP isn't doing a particularly good job - He does everything to avoid the actual issue, which is that had the Mavi Marmara been boarded by any other navy in the world, there would have been no deaths at all.

[Israeli]

12. ICC decision on the Gaza flotilla raid is just the start of Israel’s troubles

The judges sent a clear message that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a hot potato that does not deter the court.

By Aeyal Gross

A pretrial chamber of the International Criminal Court ruled Thursday that the court’s prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, should reconsider her decision not to investigate the 2010 Mavi Marmara incident in which Israeli commandos killed Turkish citizens on a ship trying to breach the Gaza blockade.

The ruling sends a warning to anyone who has never taken the court seriously. The ICC dismissed Bensouda’s decision in a way that will leave her no choice but to launch a probe. The original complaint was made to the court by the Comoros Islands, in whose name the ship was registered.

In her 2014 decision, Bensouda claimed that even though there was some basis for considering that war crimes had been committed, especially regarding the killing of 10 passengers, the isolated, small-scale incident did not warrant a full-blown investigation. According to the Rome Statute that governs the court, gravity is a requirement that Bensouda determined was not fulfilled in this case.

In their 2:1 ruling, the judges dismissed the prosecutor’s conclusion. The court noted the 10 killed and 50 wounded, with possibly hundreds of assaults on human dignity, acts of torture or inhumane treatment.

In terms of scope, the question of gravity should not rule out an investigation. In terms of the alleged crimes, the judges said the question of gravity should also not rule out an investigation because there was plenty of evidence on the inappropriate treatment of passengers such as prolonged handcuffing, violence and blocking access to medication.

The judges believe that at such an early phase the prosecutor should not have ruled out that these acts and the killings constituted war crimes, but should have demanded an investigation. The judges also referred to claims that Israeli soldiers opened fire even before boarding the ship, and that some people were shot after surrendering. These claims justified an investigation, the judges said, because they implied intent to kill passengers.

According to the judges, even if the events were unclear and included conflicting testimony, only an investigation could determine what happened. The prosecutor’s decision to close the file after a preliminary examination was unreasonable, they said.

Basically, the judges are telling the prosecutor that she did not give sufficient weight to evidence of possible crimes on the Marmara. The judges note that she not only gave insufficient weight to the harm done to passengers, she ignored the wider message to Gaza residents regarding the blockade and Israel’s restrictions on humanitarian aid.

The judges conclude that it’s hard to bridge the discrepancy between the prosecutor’s decision based on a lack of gravity and the wide concern the flotilla event created, which led to several commissions of inquiry. This gap, they stressed, is incompatible with the fact that the court’s mission is to investigate crimes of concern to the international community.

The court’s decision is essentially procedural. It tells the prosecutor she closed the file prematurely and should reconsider her decision not to investigate. It appears she will now have to launch an investigation — though this doesn’t mean anyone will be prosecuted.

Still, the judges’ ruling has wider implications for preliminary examinations by the prosecutor on Israeli-Palestinian issues. The decision will make it difficult for her not to investigate alleged war crimes by both sides in last summer’s Gaza war, especially in light of the recent report by a UN commission of inquiry. Also, the decision might accelerate her launching of an investigation into construction in the settlements as well.

The judges sent a clear message: The fact that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a hot potato does not deter the court, whose intervention is justified by the intense international interest in the issue. These moves show that Israel’s political-legal tangling with the court is only beginning.

Source: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.666658

[Israeli]

14. Are you expecting some kind of response from me 6chars ?

....cos you aint going to get one ..

Until you respond to this :

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1134108549

[Nitram]

16. Oh, poor Israel.

All those mean people jumping in front of their bullets.

[leftynyc]

17. Which is why the Israeli's

and most Americans think it's a joke and will pay this nonsense no mind whatsoever. Same with the the entire UN.