Spanish judge opens war crimes case against Israeli officials

[Papinian]

A Spanish judge yesterday opened a criminal case against seven current and former senior Israeli officials, alleging that the men could have been involved in "crimes against humanity" in connection with the 2002 assassination of Salah Shehada who was leader of the Hamas military wing. The 2002 assassination involved the wounding of 96 people and the killing of 14 civilians dead, including 9 children or babies.
euronews | Spain opens war-crimes case against Israel

Israel of course is indignant about the opening of the criminal case.

Disturbingly, Israeli news sites are reporting that "Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Ángel Moratinos telephoned his Israeli counterpart Tzipi Livni on Friday, and promised her that the Spanish government would work to change the legislation and limit the courts' jurisdiction in order to prevent charges against Israeli security officials."
Moratinos promises Livni to limit jurisdiction - Israel News, Ynetnews
Spanish FM: We'll act to prevent war crimes probes against Israel - Haaretz - Israel News

Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Ángel Moratinos was formerly, from 1996 and 2003, the European Union Special Representative for the Middle East Peace Process. His statements on this matter demonstrate his contempt for the rule of law and pro-Israel bias. After all, the Spanish government supported the indictment by a Spanish court of the late Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet (saved from Spanish justice only by the refusal of Britain to extradict him), Osama bin Laden and several Argentinian generals.

And of course again we see Israeli double standards. Israel's penal code permits it to try people for crimes committed outside its borders, in the case of crimes "against the state" or "against the Jewish people." Nazi Adolf Eichmann was was captured by Israeli secret service agents in Argentina (Israel doesn't bother about things like extradition treaties) and tried in an Israeli court on fifteen criminal charges, including crimes against humanity and war crimes. He was convicted and hanged in 1962. In the trial and appeal, the Israeli courts avoided the issue of the legality of Eichmann's capture, relying instead on legal precedents that the circumstances of his capture had no bearing on the legality of his trial.
______________________

40 years of occupation is too long. Either the occupied territories become part of Israel, with full Israeli citizenship and civil rights for the Palestinians living there or Israel leave the occupied territories and allow a separate sovereign Palestine free of any Israeli control.

[southwestkerry]

As of the spanish had notting better to do... why don't they try and sort out the shocking amount off serious crime that litters their costs instead.

[cHeal]

Nothing better for doing? He's investigating a charge of CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY!?!?!??!?

I'd say that's a pretty important way to spends ones time.

[FutureTaoiseach]

Fair play to the Spanish judge. The attack did not just kill a Hamas commander - it also killed civilians. The Israeli Reich repeatedly an indiscriminately targets Arab civilians, making the problem of Islamic terrorism worse and actually endangering Israeli security. Israeli officials responsible for the massacre in Gaza recently deserve to stand trial before the ICC and I urge our govt to send such officials there should they darken the doors of the Irish state.

[JCSkinner]

Congratulations to the Spanish. If only the rest of Europe had more backbone when it comes to standing up against the human rights atrocities and attempted genocide being conducted by the apartheid zionist regime.

[turdsl]

Typical F.G.policy when they don't like the story change the subject. I suppose Alan Shatter is in charge of foreign policy as far as Israel concerned

[XRoot]

Israeli Reich

Would you please stop doing that?

Practically every post you write about Israel, you pepper it with the Nazi references.

It's not clever.

[TrueBlueTechie]

Alan Shatter isn't the FG Foreign Affairs Spokesperson, thats Billy Timmins, both Israel and Palestine through HAMAS are wrong, the leaders of both disputed territories should be tried for war crimes. This conflict will only ever be resolved by one nation enhiliating another or both coming together under one government, one state, one peoples and respect for all.

[FutureTaoiseach]

Would you please stop doing that?

Practically every post you write about Israel, you pepper it with the Nazi references.

It's not clever.

The truth hurts. They have ethnically-cleansed 800,000 Palestinians from their homes in present-day Israel and that doesn't even include those expelled in the West Bank to make way for Israel settlers. They started the war in 1967 - not the Arabs. Like the Germans with respect to Poland, they are portraying their military actions against an enemy that couldn't even kill more than 21 people in rocket attacks from Gaza as a threat to their existence (not merely to their security), despite their flattening of vast areas of Gaza - one of the most densely-populated places on earth. They are signaturies to the Geneva Convention yet they violate its provisions against targeting civilians and impeding aid-agencies. They blocked the international media from free access to Gaza in order to hide their criminality. They herded scored of Gazans into a building at Zeitun and shelled it. Israel deserves condemnation for their imperialism and fascist treatment of the Palestinians and their neighbours, and I make no apologies for my rhetoric with respect to this conflict. The Sabra and Chatilla massacre of 3,000 Palestinian refugees by Israel-controlled Christian militias and the subsequent election as Prime Minister of the man responsible for it in Israel (who resigned as Defence Minister in the 1980's because of this) underlines the absence of a human-rights war ethos in the Israeli political/military community with respect to civilians living in enemy-controlled territories.

[turdsl]

The killing of 900 civilians 400 of them children, the use of white phosphorus in built up areas will have to be answered.