Human Rights Watch Calls for Investigating Israeli High Crimes

by Stephen Lendman

Nearly 50 years of Israeli occupation viciousness are too many. HRW called on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to "formal(l)y investigat(e) serious international crimes" committed by Israel against Palestinians throughout its history - in compliance with its Rome Statute obligation.

The ICC earlier "shed light on the grave nature of many of the crimes and the pervasive climate of impunity for such offenses," said HRW.

"After nearly a half century of impunity, it's time that those responsible for some of the gravest crimes to pay the price," HRW's Sarah Leah Whitson stressed.

"The ICC prosecutor should move forward and investigate the crimes so that the victims can obtain a measure of justice that has long eluded them."

HRW issued its statement on the 49th anniversary of the start of Israel's June 1967 premeditated Six Day War of aggression - illegally occupying the remaining portion of Palestine it didn't seize in 1948.

The ICC treaty for Palestine as the Rome Statute's 123rd State Party became effective on April 1, 2015, "giving the court jurisdiction over serious crimes in violation of international law, including war crimes and crimes against humanity committed on or from Palestinian territory," HRW explained.

Israeli high crimes against peace include three premeditated wars of aggression on Gaza since December 2008, another virtually certain if its killing machine isn't stopped. 

How many thousands of Palestinian corpses are tolerable before the world community says no more? The ICC is a longstanding imperial tool, targeting victims, not perpetrators. 

Fatou Bensouda is its chief prosecutor since June 2012, an establishment Gambian lawyer, former state criminal law prosecutor, International Bank of Commerce (Gambia) general manager, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda legal advisor - chosen to maintain deplorable ICC tradition.

For nearly seven decades, Israel remained unaccountable for the highest of high crimes. Don't expect Bensouda to change things. Irrefutable evidence isn't enough.

Israel signed but didn't ratify the Rome Statute. It circumvents its authority with impunity. According to HRW's Whitson, it shouldn't deter Bensouda "from moving forward on the Palestine situation and chipping away at (Israel's) wall of impunity."

Israel obstructs independent investigations into its criminal abuses. B'Tselem called internal ones virtually always systematically whitewashed.

Justice for long-suffering Palestinians remains distant. Israel routinely gets away with mass murder and much more.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. 

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com. 

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