German-Israeli joint cabinet meeting outrageous

COMMENT It is outrageous that the German Cabinet chose to hold a joint cabinet meeting last week with the Israeli Cabinet in Berlin at a time when the Israeli government is oppressing and inflicting cruelties on the Palestinians just like what the Nazis did to the Jews in Europe before and during the Second World War.

While children in Gaza are dying because of shortages of food and medical care due to the 3-year old medieval-type Israeli siege of Gaza, Angela Merkel's government is honouring its leaders who are responsible for this 21st century barbarism.

The report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, headed by the distinguished and respected international jurist Richard Goldstone, a Jew and a friend of Israel, came to the conclusion that the Israeli forces in Gaza had committed serious breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention. They include wilful killing, torture or inhuman treatment; wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health; and extensive destruction of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly. They had also used Palestinians as human shields, which constitutes a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

The Mission further found that the series of acts that deprive Palestinians in the Gaza Strip of their means of subsistence, employment, housing and water, that deny their freedom of movement and their right to leave and enter their own country, that limit their right to access a court of law and an effective remedy, could lead a competent court to find that the crime of persecution, a crime against humanity, has been committed.   

These are serious crimes under international law which require the international community to prosecute and punish the perpetrators. Richard Goldstone has warned that the culture of impunity in the region that has existed for too long is undermining any hope for a resolution of the Palestine-Israel conflict:

 "The lack of accountability for war crimes and possible crimes against humanity has reached a crisis point; the ongoing lack of justice is undermining any hope for a successful peace process and reinforcing an environment that fosters violence. Time and again, experience has taught us that overlooking justice only leads to increased conflict and violence."

He advised: "the international community must confront the realities highlighted in this report and that by doing so find a meaningful basis for the pursuit of peace and security for all the people of the region. Only in that way will the human dignity and security of these people be realised."

Geneva Conventions Obligations

Germany is a party to the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols and, thus, under the obligation to prosecute the Israeli leaders for their alleged war crimes, and not reward them by upgrading Germany's  relations with Israel and entering into co-operation agreements with the criminal state. Has, Germany, a democracy, abandoned its commitment to promoting respect for international humanitarian law?

By protecting Israel from being made accountable for its violation of international law and United Nations resolutions, the United States and some European Union member states like Germany, Britain and France are encouraging Israel to continue with its oppression of the Palestinians.

Before their meeting, the members of the two Cabinets visited the Holocaust Memorial Museum. They should have gone to the section on Hitler's siege of the Warsaw Ghetto and the Jewish uprising in 1943, which has been compared to the continuing siege of Gaza to-day by the Zionist regime in Israel.

Professor Richard Falk, the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and an international law authority, who is also a Jew, described the situation in Gaza as a " holocaust-in-the making ".  

What the Zionists are doing to the Palestinians in the land on which they have been livening for thousands of years is what the Nazis, under Hitler, did to the Jews in Germany - ethnic cleansing. The Nazis wanted to get rid of the Jews from Europe, and the Zionists the Palestinians from Palestine. Expulsion of the Palestinians from their homes through violence and terror began 62 years ago with the implementation of the notorious "Plan D" by the Zionists.

Yitzhak Rabin, later Prime Minister and Nobel Prize winner for peace, signed the order to expel an entire population. The order read: "The inhabitants of Lydda must be expelled quickly without attention to age. Implement immediately".

Never again?

Israeli archaeologist Guttman described the ensuing exodus:  "A multitude of inhabitants walked one after another. Women walked burdened with packages and sacks on their heads. Mothers dragged children after them . . . Occasionally, warning shots were heard . . . Occasionally, you encountered a piercing look from one of the youngsters . . . in the column, and the look said: We have not yet surrendered. We shall return to fight you."  This is a scene reminiscent of what happened in Nazi Germany.

The victims then were Jews. Now, they are Palestinians.

The expulsion of Palestinians continues and the two-state solution promoted by the `international community' has become a receding mirage.  Only the valiant struggle of the Palestinians will bring them liberation and peace with justice.

During the press conference, Chancellor Merkel threatened wide-ranging sanctions against Iran unless it abandoned its uranium enrichment program, which is within its legal right under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

It was hypocritical of her to make such a demand on Iran, which has no nuclear weapons, in the presence of the Prime Minister of Israel, which is the fourth largest nuclear power in the world.   Iran, unlike Israel, is a signatory to the NPT and its nuclear facilities are subject to regular intensive inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Israel possesses more than 200 nuclear weapons with sophisticated delivery systems from the air, sea and land - all developed and produced secretly with assistance from the US and some EU states. Merkel did not utter one word about it at the press conference.

Iran, in the modern era, has never attacked another country. But Israel has gone to war with its neighbours several times and is now preparing to attack Lebanon and Iran. Yet the West threatens Iran! Why this double-standard?

If the West wants to rid the world of violence, war and terrorism by state and non-state actors and usher in an era of peace then it must abandon its imperial aims, and its practice of double-standard and hypocrisy in international relations. It must deal with conflicts like the Palestine-Israel conflict on the basis of justice and international law, and not driven by narrow national interests and pressures from rich and powerful lobbies.

It must heed the warning of Justice Richard Goldstone: "overlooking justice only leads to increased conflict and violence."

SM Mohamed Idris is the chairman of the board of directors of Citizens International. Citizens International is a global initiative to foster awareness, activism and advocacy on issues that are central to the stability and wellbeing of humanity at the beginning of the 21st Century.