Exposé: Catholic NGOs against Israel

Exposé: Catholic NGOs against Israel

They engage in welfare operations all over the world, but stop when it comes to Israel.

Giulio Meotti

Trocaire is the official overseas development agency of the Catholic Church in Ireland; it receives substantial funding from the government and the country’s bishops. It has been awarded many prestigious prizes, such as the Hugh O’Flaherty International Humanitarian Award, in honour of “The Pimpernel of the Vatican”, and colleagues who saved over 6,500 prisoners of war, Jews and citizens of Rome during the Nazi occupation.

But this famous Catholic NGO is also one of the most virulent demonizers of the Jewish State. After a campaign by Richard Humphreys, Labour party Councillor for Stillorgan, near Dublin, the Catholic NGO removed the material for schools titled “Give peace a chance”, because it is full of anti-Israel stereotypes.

In a recent op-ed in the Irish Times, Trócaire’s director, Justin Kilcullen, urged his country to promote a total ban on “illegal settlement goods” and to “push European counterparts for similar action”.

As exposed by the Israeli Ngo Monitor group, Trócaire’s “Occupied Palestinian Territories/Israel Programme Officer” Garry Walsh was previously employed as the National Coordinator for Ireland Palestinian Solidarity Campaign. Trócaire is also involved in campaigns to commemorate the Palestinian “nakba”, an Arab term for the establishment of the State of Israel, meaning catastrophe.

Trócaire asks for a review of the EU-Israel association agreement. The initiative comes from the Bishop of Clonfert and chairman of Trócaire, Dr John Kirby, and Bishop Ray Field, chairman of the Irish Commission for Justice and Social Affairs, both members of an international Catholic Church delegation to the Holy Land. The Catholic NGO castigated Israel for being an apartheid state which practices "racial segregation".

Along with a ban within Ireland, Trócaire is seeking a push towards an EU-wide ban of Israel's goods.

A document which was circulated by the Irish bishops on the Middle East accuses Israel of "the expulsion of over 750,000 Palestinians from their homes", the "forceful expropriation of land", the "plan to ensure that Jerusalem becomes ethnically a Jewish city" and the "refusal to recognise the applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention".

The Catholic NGO is affiliated with many Palestinian groups such as the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, which accuses Israel of "torturing" prisoners.

But Trócaire is just one of the many NGOs which are now campaigning against Israel and the Jews.

Another one is Pax Christi. The association is preparing "a week of advocacy and action in support of an end to the illegal occupation of Palestine" to be held next September. Pax Christi has mounted a campaign to boycott Israeli products, including setting up stands in German pedestrian zones to encourage people to not buy Israeli goods.

Recently, Pax Christi sponsored the campaign "Occupation tastes bitter" demanding "unambiguous labeling of products from Israeli settlements".

During the Second Intifada Palestinian terrorists entered the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem. A group of activists of the International Solidarity Movement evaded Israeli military patrols and entered the Church to support the Arab terrorists. “Pax Christi USA”, while not particapating directly in ISM action, offered them a large public relations platform and sent a special “observer” in the person of Dennis B. Warner, Pax Christi USA.

The position of the NGO has been eloquently summarized by its chairman, the Italian Bishop Luigi Bettazzi: “To the Israeli friends I say: be aware that one day it will be said that the Nazis have been exceeded, that they killed ten for one of them and you killed a hundred”.

Another powerful Catholic NGO comes from the Netherlands, Called Cordaid, it has been involved in financing the largest anti-Jewish hate campaign of the century, the UN World Conference against Racism in Durban, South Africa. According to René Grotenhuis, director of the aid group Cordaid, “boycott of Israel in Palestine is justified".

On the ground, these NGOs use the local Arab clergy to advance their agenda. So a Catholic priest has celebrated mass every Friday afternoon on the outskirts of Beit Jala to stop the building of the security fence there, called the "separation wall". Father Ibrahim is not an ordinary church man, but as the Director of the Latin Patriarchate’s school, he manages 60 teachers and 900 students.

Another aid group is the Pontifical Mission for Palestine. One of its leaders in the region, Sami El-Yousef, just promoted a document saying that "the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land is a sin against God and humanity", while the NGO former president, Robert Stern, gave an interview to an Italian monthly magazine under the headline: "Concentration Camps for Palestinians".

Then there is the Caritas NGO, the Vatican humanitarian arm, which gives relief to many people around the world, but when it comes to Israel, is very anti-Semitic. A poster graphically attacking the Israeli security fence featured Vatican headquarters address and listed the endorsement of 151 of Caritas' international branches.

According to the Simon Weisenthal Center, "the poster undoubtedly exacerbates Middle East-related anti-Semitism, justifies further attacks on Jewish targets under the sanctification cover of the Holy See and impugns Caritas' credibility as an effective relief and unbiased relief agency".

In the Italian website of Caritas there is a link to "Stop the Wall", the so called "Palestinian Popular Campaign against the Wall of Apartheid".

In XIX century France, Catholic anti-Semites bore names such as “Ligue Antisemitique”,“Comite´ Ouvrier Antijuif” or “Ligue Antijuive”. In the XXI century, Catholic humanitarians speak the language of transnational institutions and are based in charities. But they also cultivate the fantasy of somehow removing Israel and its people.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/12800#.UQnL7qFU7bw

Critical Analysis: Who is Yair Lapid?

Critical Analysis: Who is Yair Lapid?

Even though I wrote this below, I believed it deserved it's own post.

1. Yair Lapid is already predicting he will be Israel's next prime minister.  Unfortunately, he never finished high school, or completed his baguryot (high-school matriculation exams) or went to college. However, as a media personality he got into Bar Ilan's accelerated doctorate program -- which is supposed to only be for those who finished an undergraduate degree with honors...he was eventually thrown out of the program for not meeting the admission requirements.  Granted there are many autodidacts who lack academic accreditation and attain success in business or academics or education; Lapid isn't one of them (keep reading).

2. Lapid used his personal YNET column to childishly insult and viciously lambast an awarded, outstanding IDF soldier, and used illegally obtained private and classified IDF information against the soldier.  When sued in court, Lapid lost.  Not exactly the moral and ethical beacon for Israel.

3. Lapid is pretentious yet grossly ignorant at the same time.  While he may come across as a dynamic media personality, when he puts pen to paper, his lack of intelligence shines through.  Let's take an article he penned about Israel, "Israel Democracy Institute says 81 percent of the public wants a constitution; not me."   

Lapid explains why the US Constitution is work of art -- because it was penned by a single author [sic], John Adams[sic], as opposed to a committee [sic]  -- which is the way Israel is attempting to create one.   

Israel's proposed constitution by consensus is an erudite text, maybe overly so. It lacks the emotional depth of the US constitution, not to mention the moral courage of the “Founding Fathers” to deal with controversial issues. It could be that the different way in which the two constitutions were written influenced their content.

One very inspired man, John Adams, wrote the US constitution. The Israeli proposal by consensus, with all due respect to Meir Shamgar, the former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, was written by a committee.

It would have helped had Lapid has the time, energy or acumen to at least read the Wikipedia article on the US Constitution to know that it WAS written by committee, not one man, and certainly not John Adams who wasn't even on the committee or in the US at the time, he was in London. If you think that's embarrassing, its only the tip of iceberg.

Here's a short video (in Hebrew) with a whole slew of intellectual gaffs by Lapid which appears to show a pattern of attempts to drop names and facts which aren't that factual or connected.

4. Since entering politics a year ago, Yair Lapid tries to portray himself  in the political center, however he has always been far to the left.  Before entering into politics, he spoke his true colors to Germany's Der Spiegel:

Yair Lapid: The greatest tragedy of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that everyone knows how it will end. We will divide up the region. Israel will return most of the West Bank, and the Palestinian flag will fly on public buildings in East Jerusalem. The only unanswered question is how many more people will have to die along the way. And so we will fight against the extremists on both sides, including our extremists, the settlers. When you look at the history of wars, they ultimately revolve around one claim: "My god is better than yours."

It's clear that Lapid is intent on splitting Jerusalem, something Dov Lipman adamantly denies.  He hates settlers and is intent on ensuring we all know who the "extremists" are.  Lipman has gone on record saying that he's in favor of keeping settlement blocs -- as an FYI, this means Hebron will be of Israeli control (and it also makes you an extremist to expect the Cave of the Patriarchs will remain under Israeli control).

5. While Dov Lipman claims that the "real" Jewish Home is his own "Yesh Atid" party, Yair Lapid's Jewish Home is a Reform Temple in Tel-Aviv. I have no issue with Lapid's connection to the Reform movement in Israel, or even providing them with funding which they deserve. I am concerned that the lowest common denominator of Judaism in Israel will be changed (religious status quo of halachic Jewishness), which will fracture the Jewish people in Israel, prevent marriages, and will result in far more disunity than unity.

While many have been extolling the virtues of Lapid, he's simply a popular media personality who lacks the intellectual depth, and moral/ethical foundations required to be a serious leader in Israel, let alone Prime Minister.

http://muqata.blogspot.com/2013/01/critical-analysis-who-is-yair-lapid.html

Classic Hagel

Classic Hagel

by Caroline Glick

 

I think it is pretty amazing that AIPAC is keeping mum on the fact that Obama has nominated a Jew hater and Israel basher to serve as the next Defense Secretary. As I've said before, Hagel's appointment is a far greater threat to the US military than it is to Israel. But still, it is pretty obscene that Obama is getting away with appointing this character to serve as the Pentagon chief. 

Today, the estimable Adam Kredo at the Washington Free Beacon reported another classic Hagelian anti-Israel slur and libel. Back in 2003 he gave an interview to his hometown paper saying that Israel "keep[s] the Palestinians caged up like animals."

And of course, this is only one of countless examples of Hagel's animus towards the Jewish state and its Jewish supporters in the US. But AIPAC is silent.

As I wrote before, I understand that AIPAC doesn't want to fight a fight it can't win. But what fights will it be able to win with a president so hostile to Israel that he appointed the most outspoken anti-Israel senator since Chuck Percy to serve as Defense Secretary? What do they think they will be able to get? A cut-off in aid to the PLO? A cut-off in F-16 and M1A1 Abrams tanks transfers to Egypt? Further ineffective sanctions against Iran? More military assistance to the IDF?

Israel is better off expanding its own defense industries than depending on Hagel for spare parts.

As to the US military, as David Horowitz wrote back in 1992, the movement to assign women to frontline combat unit is not about advancing women. It is about destroying the US military. The fact that Obama didn't even need for Hagel to enter office before taking his first swipe at the military shows just how grandiose his plans for gutting US military capabilities in his second term are. 

To be clear, as a woman who served as an officer in the IDF for 5 and a half years, and worked as an embedded reporter with an all male US infantry unit in Iraq, I have to say that I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with women serving in combat. But the purpose of last week's decision wasn't about permitting women to fight on the battlefield. They already do. It was about social engineering and weakening the esprit d'corps of the US military. As Saul Alinsky taught his followers the goal is never what you say it is. The goal is always the revolution.

Delegitimizing and weakening Israel is only one part of the "revolution." Israel will survive Obama and Hagel and Kerry and Brennan. 

But that doesn't mean we and our supporters in the US should keep silent about their hostility just because we know we can't block their appointments. By pointing out their radicalism, we are at a minimum sending out the necessary warning about what their future plans will likely involve. And that is important, because the more they are criticized the weaker they will feel.  

http://www.carolineglick.com/e/

Why Israel Hit a Syria-Hizballah Convoy: Danger of Deadly Nerve Gas or Advanced Anti-Aircraft Missiles in Hands of Terrorist Organization

Why Israel Hit a Syria-Hizballah Convoy: Danger of Deadly Nerve Gas or Advanced Anti-Aircraft Missiles in Hands of Terrorist Organization

By Barry Rubin

It has been reported that a number of Israeli planes flew over Lebanon and attacked a convoy near the Syrian-Lebanese border. The fact that this comes shortly after Hizballah and Syrian forces had moved in growing numbers toward known chemical weapons' storage areas implies that the Syrian regime was in the act of shipping chemical weapons to the Lebanese Shia Islamist group (which also happens to dominate the Lebanese government and to be involved in a lot of anti-Israel terrorism) Hizballah. This story has not yet been confirmed by Israel.

During the 2006 Israel-Hizballah war, Israel frequently hit convoys delivering weapons to Lebanon the moment they crossed the Syria-Lebanon border, showing a very strong intelligence capacity on such events.
The Israeli position has been that it will not allow any transfer of advanced weapons by the Syrian regime to either Hizballah or radical Lebanese Sunni groups. Israel had previously made this point clear through public statements to the Syrian government. It has not been explicitly reported whether the weapons on the convoy were chemical ones.

Syria has regularly transferred advanced weapons’ systems to Hizballah. The alternative to the chemical weapons' explanation would be if these were advanced Russian-made anti-aircraft missiles. This latter explanation is what several media reports have provided. Israel would try to stop such transfers because the missiles would be used against Israeli reconnaissance planes watching Hizballah's military build-up in the south and future arms transfers from Syria.

But Brigadier General Amnon Sofrin, a retired army intelligence officer and former head of intelligence for the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, gave a press conference in which he made the following points.

 I think that if we have solid evidence shared by our own partners all over the world, that chemical warheads are being transferred from Syria to Lebanon, to Hezbollah, I think that no one will condemn Israel for trying to prevent it."

This should be read as explaining that Israel notified the United States and others of its intelligence information prior to the attack.

He added that Syria possesses Sarin, a deadly nerve gas, and an even worse poison called VX which remains on the ground for many days after being fired. Syria has hundreds of warheads capable of carrying these substances. Hizballah could also put these warheads on missiles it possesses and shoot them into Israel.
 Sofrin continued:

“Should [Syrian dictator Bashar al-]Assad decide his regime is at its end, he could think, 'If I go [lose power part of my legacy] will be that Hezbollah will have capability to hit Israel very badly.’”

While much of the Syrian opposition is radical Islamist or even part of al-Qaida, Sofrin continued, that is a new threat but not an immediate threat like that emanating from Hizballah.

 However, given the likelihood of the regime being overthrown and replaced by a government that is led by the Muslim Brotherhood and, either willingly or because it is unable to prevent them from doing so, gives a free hands to Salafist groups or even al-Qaida affiliates, Israel cannot predict what its security situation will be like with Syria a year from now.

 Note that if al-Qaida gets its hands on chemical weapons—and that means deadly nerve gasses—this would be a direct threat to the United States and other Western countries as well as to Israel.


http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/2013/01/why-israel-hit-syria-hizballah-convoy.html

Human Rights Watch Continuing Distorted Priorities in 2012

Human Rights Watch Continuing Distorted Priorities in 2012

NGO Monitor..
30 January '13..

Human Rights Watch (HRW) epitomizes the ongoing crisis and moral failure of powerful non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that claim to promote the universal principles of human rights. NGO Monitor'sreview of HRW's 2012 activities, particularly in the Middle East, demonstrates that little has changed compared to previous years, and that the same individuals continue to control the organization's agenda and activities.

NGO Monitor's analysis shows:

- Rights violations and armed conflicts that are out of the media focus continue to receive little to no attention from HRW.

- HRW issued fewer condemnations of Israel in 2012 in comparison toprevious years, but HRW's emphasis on Israel continues to reflect the ideology of the leaders of the organization and the Middle East division.

- Executive Director Kenneth Roth's obsession with Israel was particularly evident in his social media postings.

- HRW's lack of a credible methodology and anti-Israel bias were prominent in November and December, in response to increased violence related to Gaza, the Palestinian statehood bid in the UN General Assembly, and other developments.

- HRW's moral blindness included the failure to recognize and condemn the genocidal threats made by Iranian government leaders (as highlighted in the Wall Street Journal and other media platforms)

- Roth was criticized by women's rights groups for acting as "an apologist, not a senior human rights advocate" in urging support for the new Muslim Brotherhood regimes in Egypt and Tunisia.

In a press release accompanying the report, Prof. Gerald Steinberg called on the chair of HRW's Board, James F. Hoge, Jr, and the other directors, to make the long-overdue personnel changes at the top, as well as in the Middle East and North Africa division.

Click here for NGO Monitor's detailed report on HRW . 

http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com/2013/01/human-rights-watch-continuing-distorted.html

Hezbollah is not the Party of God; it is the Party of Terror.

Hezbollah is not the Party of God; it is the Party of Terror.

José María Aznar/David Trimble..
worldjewishcongress.org..
Originally published by 'The Times'..
29 January '13..

Jihadi terrorism is still alive and, as events in Mali and Algeria show us, poses a direct threat to us. The turmoil in North Africa reminds us that jihadism has no boundaries and that when confronting terrorism it is always better to prevent it rather than deal with its consequences. The EU, however, sometimes refuses to face the reality of terrorism. One strong case in point is Hezbollah.

In July last year a bus full of Israeli tourists was blown to pieces by a young suicide bomber in Burgas, Bulgaria — five Israelis and the Bulgarian bus driver were killed. All the evidence points to it being a plot conceived and executed by Hezbollah.

Yet despite this atrocity some European governments are not willing to declare Hezbollah a security threat and put it on the EU terrorist list. This refusal is based on a misunderstanding of the nature of the group. Hezbollah is not just a Lebanese militia group and political party. It is the long arm of Iran. From its conception by Tehran in 1982, it has been committed to the revolutionary goals of the international expansion of Shia Islam, as dreamt of by the Ayatollah Khomeini.

The fact that it holds seats in the Lebanese Parliament and posts in the Cabinet does not mean that its leaders see themselves as just another Lebanese faction — albeit one that murders its political opponents (a UN tribunal found that the assassination of Rafiq al-Hariri, the Lebanese prime minister was a Hezbollah plot).

On the contrary Hezbollah has a global vision and reach. It has perpetrated attacks in places as distant as Argentina, Georgia, Israel, Thailand, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, as well as Lebanon. It has been involved in illegal but very lucrative activities in Latin America and West Africa. For instance, it has run drug-trafficking and money-laundering operations in the jungle of Colombia under the control of the FARC. According to US officials, Hezbollah is heavily involved in smuggling drugs into Europe.


Some argue that there is a difference between Hezbollah’s military wing, its political wing and its charitable activities. They are wrong — it is one single body and every part plays a role in the overall strategy. The leaders in charge of its hospitals and schools, the military leader and the political representatives all sit together under the secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah. His deputy, Naim Qassem, was quoted as recently as October, saying: “We don’t have a military wing and a political wing. We don’t have the Party of Allah and the Party of Resistance. These differences do not exist and are rejected.”

Hezbollah is committed to violent revolution. It sees itself as being in total confrontation with our way of life. The idea that engaging Hezbollah through the Lebanese political process and institutions would moderate it has proved to be a dangerous illusion. And today it is actively intervening in Syria on behalf of Bashar al-Assad; we will know soon about the atrocities conducted by its militants there.

There are some governments in Europe that argue that the time to put Hezbollah in the EU terrorist list has not yet arrived. But what more is needed to let us take such a decision? Official bodies, private research, parliamentary inquiries, one after another, have revealed the terrorist connections.

We understand the caution of nations that have citizens living in Lebanon or peacekeeping troops deployed there. But fear cannot be a substitute for moral clarity. We need to remember that UNIFIL II (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) was deployed in 2006 to disarm Hezbollah, not to become its hostage. From what we know, Hezbollah has been able to rearm since the conflict there six years ago. According to Israeli intelligence, Hezbollah’s arsenal of 10,000 rockets was halved by the war; but today it has been expanded to five times the original figure despite the UN mission.

As Iran gets more nervous about the impact of sanctions, the possibility that Tehran may counter-attack through its terrorist proxies has to be considered more serious by the day. Daniel Benjamin, the US State Department counter-terrorism coordinator, stated in August: “We are increasingly concerned about Hezbollah’s activities on a number of fronts, including its stepped-up terrorist campaign around the world ... and we assess that Hezbollah could attack in Europe or elsewhere at any time with little or no warning.” Putting Hezbollah on the terrorist list will diminish its ability to serve the sinister purposes of the ayatollahs in Tehran.

Some European governments said after the attack in Bulgaria that considering whether or not to name Hezbollah as a terrorist organization should wait until the official investigation reached its conclusion. Others argued in favor of designating just the so-called military wing as a terrorist body. We know from our own experience in Spain and Northern Ireland that terrorism cannot be defeated unless you tackle all the tentacles that serve the purposes of the terrorists, and that includes the political and financial front organizations. Make no mistake — terrorist groups use all the means at their disposal to survive, flourish and achieve their plans.

Hezbollah is already present and active on European soil; its illegal activities and networks cover the continent. It has shown that it is willing to strike in Europe. That is why European governments must move now to stigmatize Hezbollah and its activities, vision and goals.

Hezbollah is not the Party of God; it is the Party of Terror and we should treat it as such.

http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com/2013/01/hezbollah-is-not-party-of-god-it-is.html#more

Who's afraid of the big bad ICC?

Who's afraid of the big bad ICC?

Today, in the New York Times, George Bisharat says that "Palestine" should take Israel to the International Criminal Court in the Hague:

LAST week, the Palestinian foreign minister, Riad Malki, declared that if Israel persisted in its plans to build settlements in the currently vacant area known as E-1, which lies between Palestinian East Jerusalem and the Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim, “we will be going to the I.C.C.,” referring to the International Criminal Court. “We have no choice,” he added.

No doubt, Israel is most worried about the possibility of criminal prosecutions for its settlements policy. Israeli bluster notwithstanding, there is no doubt that Jewish settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are illegal. Israeli officials have known this since 1967, when Theodor Meron, then legal counsel to the Israeli Foreign Ministry and later president of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, wrote to one of Prime Minister Levi Eshkol’s aides: “My conclusion is that civilian settlement in the administered territories contravenes the explicit provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention.”

Under the founding statute of the I.C.C., grave violations of the Geneva Conventions, including civilian settlements in occupied territories, are considered war crimes.
Bisharat doesn't know what he is talking about.

Eugene Kontorovich, the international legal expert I have mentioned in the past, makes these points:
1) The ICC can only act when the home state refuses to investigate crimes; that is not the case for any Israeli acts in Gaza or the territories.

2) ICC has never prosecuted a case referred by a country against nationals of a non-member state. Such an action would terrify US officials and permanently sour American relations with the Court, as it would expose U.S. military and civilian officials to liability for U.S. armed action anywhere in the world, and particularly for the controversial drone strikes program of President Obama.

3) The ICC has never even considered taking a case that does not involve killing and personal violence; a settlements suit would be far outside the kind of things they've dealt with in the past.

4) The relevant actions would have to be on the territory of Palestine, which is a problem since they do not have defined territory, and most of what the op-ed talks about precedes their nominal statehood, so that would be out of bounds.

5) The ICC would also have jurisdiction over all Palestinian war crimes.
Beyond that, the ICC only has jurisdiction on very specific categories of crimes: Genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and "the crime of aggression." The Rome Statute says that it will not prosecute the "aggression" category until it is defined; as far as the other categories are concerned, it only includes "grave breaches" of the Fourth Geneva Conventions, which does not include voluntary transfer of citizens who are not "protected persons" under Geneva.

Furthermore, the ICC has indicated that it does not subscribe the very loose definition of "war crimes" that so-called human rights activists apply to Israel. As Evelyn Gordon wrote last month in Commentary:

In a verdict ironically issued just as the world was obsessing over Palestinian civilians killed in the latest Hamas-Israel war, the court essentially upheld, in a Balkan context, all the arguments Israel routinely makes about the legitimacy of its own military operations. Consequently, the judges acquitted and freed two Croatian generals whom a trial court had convicted of war crimes and sentenced to 18 and 24 years, respectively.

The appellate court’s first important move was acknowledging the obvious fact that in wartime even the most careful army makes mistakes. The trial court had convicted the Croats of illegally shelling four towns they were trying to capture. The appeals court said the lower court’s criterion–“that any shell that landed more than 200 meters away from a military target must have been fired indiscriminately–was arbitrary and ‘devoid of any specific reasoning’,” to quote The Guardian’s apt summary. In short, it accepted the fact that soldiers are human beings who make mistakes, and errant shells don’t necessarily mean the soldiers fired indiscriminately.

Second, it acknowledged the obvious fact that even the most careful army can’t prevent civilian casualties. Some 150 civilians died in the generals’ four-day bombing campaign. But the appeals court said these deaths didn’t constitute war crimes, because the troops had aimed at legitimate military targets. In other words, it ruled that civilian casualties aren’t ipso facto illegal; they may be unavoidable consequences of legitimate military activity–especially when military targets are located in crowded urban areas.

Third, it acknowledged that even when genuine war crimes occur, they may be the acts of errant individuals rather than deliberate policy: It concluded that acts of looting and murder following the bombing campaign occurred not on the generals’ orders, but despite them.

Finally, it acknowledged the obvious fact that fleeing a war zone is normal, so a civilian exodus isn’t necessarily proof of a campaign of ethnic cleansing.

In short, the court recognized a simple truth that “human rights” activists try hard to obscure: War is always hell, but not every act of war is a war crime.
In other words, the ICC threat is more a bogeyman than something to be legitimately feared.

But the threat to go to the ICC does prove something - that the Palestinian Arab leaders are not interested in negotiations of any type. They are going to hitch their wagon, as always, on having the international community pressure Israel rather than open themselves up to the possibility of compromise.

Which shows how serious they are about really wanting a free, independent state.

http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2013/01/whos-afraid-of-big-bad-icc.html