This isn't singling you out , you just happened to mention two things worth replying to, and I have a question just for you.
On this board you would qualify as an 'expert' in 'treaties' and what they mean by the way they are written. At times some would appear to be quite useless even before they were signed. How is the investigation into war-crime breaches and the resulting trial any different than when a treaty is broken by one of the parties that signed it and that issue goes through our courts. I would also bet that any Lawyer that has been involved in treaty cases would automatically be able to see all the loop-hole built into any 'peace treaty' Israel drafts because the end result is the same. It won't be worth the paper it is written on by Isreal and it will also be expected to be followed by the letter for the Palestinians.
If both situations can be viewed as being similar (and therefore just the way things actually work) then all the human rights documents that Nations have agreed to follow (from about 1950) means nothing and they should have just set up quotas. No crime if less than 50,000 are killed at one event. The ones having bombs dropped on them already know the documents mean squat, when are we going to see it?
This may very well be true, but some have used this lie to attack Israel, with cries of crimes against humanity, just look at eao's threads/posts. It's a common theme to attack Israel with accusations of denying water, which isn't true mind you, as a crime against humanity. It isn't listed as such. Thus making it an opinion, not a fact.
Along with operation cast lead there are other incidents that should be included as a 'follow-up' when considering things with the label war-crime. Using military equipment to destroy a sewage facility with the express purpose of causing the sewage to spill out onto what is agricultural land should be able to be classified as destruction that is targeting civilians (food access) or using a civilian authority to open the outflow of a dam just enough to cause flooding of agricultural land after crops have started to grow is a war crime because it is targeting civilians also, no crop to harvest means everybody goes hungry.
Although this article is about Lebanon the destruction of the same type of facilities elswhere would be the same crime. Once it has been destroyed (say a water-treatment plant) it is kept that way. If they claim the damage was unintentional then Israel should pick up the repair bill, including the spill mentioned in the article. I'm not sure why Lebanon hasn't been approached by the UN to do a report similar to the one done about operation cast lead.
"Amnesty representatives who traveled to Lebanon described mass destruction in "village after village." Roads were destroyed by aerial and artillery bombardment. Businesses such as supermarkets and gasoline stations were targeted and destroyed "often with precision-guided munitions and artillery that started fires and destroyed their contents." The use of such weapons indicates intentional destruction rather than the vaguer claim of collateral damage.
Environmental damage is also mounting and may cause long-term damage in the Mediterranean Sea. Due to the Israeli air force attack on the Jiyyeh power station just south of Beirut, the resulting explosions and fire burned for three weeks. In addition to massive air pollution as much as 15,000 tons of fuel oil leaked into the sea. The oil slick is believed to cover about 240 miles of the Lebanese coastline according to the United Nations Environmental Program, and will take years and billions of dollars to clean up.
By contrast, other sources show that after Israel began its aerial assault on Lebanon, Hezbollah launched thousands of rockets into northern Israel over the 34-day period which resulted in the deaths of 40 non-combatant Israelis and the displacement of thousands.
The Amnesty report also cited high-ranking Israeli military officials who openly declared non-military targets to be fair game. In apparent blatant disregard of international law protecting non-combatants and civilian infrastructure from military attack, Israeli military Chief of Staff Lt. General Dan Halutz was quoted as saying that all of Beirut could be targeted. "Nothing is safe, as simple as that," Halutz told reporters. He further reportedly added that Lebanon itself would "pay a very high price" for Hezbollah's actions.
Israeli military and government officials justified their military tactics of targeting civilian infrastructure by claiming that Hezbollah had situated its forces within a civilian population, in effect, using non-combatants as a "human shield." The Amnesty report, however, points out that "[w]hile the use of civilians to shield a combatant from attack is a war crime, under international humanitarian law such use does not release the opposing party from its obligations towards the protection of the civilian population."
In other words, Israel, despite Hezbollah's actions, was obligated under international laws it has agreed to, to carefully distinguish between military and civilian targets. Its deliberate failure to do so violates international law.
In a press release accompanying the report, Kate Gilmore, Executive Deputy Secretary General of Amnesty International, stated, "Israel's assertion that the attacks on the infrastructure were lawful is manifestly wrong. Many of the violations identified in our report are war crimes, including indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks. The evidence strongly suggests that the extensive destruction of power and water plants, as well as the transport infrastructure vital for food and other humanitarian relief, was deliberate and an integral part of a military strategy." "
Political Affairs Magazine - Human Rights Organization Describes Israeli Military Actions as Criminal
Then why is it Israel's responsibility to make sure Palestinians have said supplies? I mean according to you anyways...:-|
It isn't, however if they interfere with the deliver of such supplies (from the sea)then it is a war-crime. Israel blocks access to the open Sea, that is a war-crime also.
