Criminals shouldn’t be allowed to investigate themselves

By Khalid Amayreh In its rabid efforts to whitewash the Goldstone report, Israel is likely to carry out another disingenuous probe into its genocidal onslaught against the Gaza Strip nearly ten months ago. The report, compiled by South African judge Richard Goldstone, himself a Jew, accused Israel of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the deliberate targeting of innocent civilians. As many as 1400 Palestinians, mostly non-combatants including more than 330 children, were killed during the 22-day campaign which some historians and intellectuals compared to the allied saturation bombing of the German city of Dresden at the close of the Second World War. Israel has already conducted a number of “investigations” into the Gaza blitzkrieg which exonerated the Israeli army of any wrongdoing. However, nearly everyone familiar with patterns of Israeli behavior realizes that investigations by Israel into crimes committed by Israel didn’t have an iota of credibility. In the final analysis, criminals, especially war criminals, are unlikely to indict themselves by admitting guilt. Hence, it is a foregone conclusion that any new probe by Israel of its pornographic crimes in Gaza would be a repetition of past investigations. An inquiry by the Israeli army into the Gaza crimes would be very much like a probe by the Gestapo into crimes perpetrated by the Wehrmacht or the SS. Moreover, an inquiry by the Israeli army, or the Israeli justice system, into the Gaza crimes would be very much like a probe by the Gestapo into crimes perpetrated by the Wehrmacht or SS forces. The analogy is justified to a great extent. After all, the entire Israeli political and military class consists of nefarious war criminals and Nazi-like racists who advocate genocide and mass murder. In fact, it is very difficult for any Israeli Jew to reach a high position in either the military or political hierarchies if he doesn’t have his hands fully stained with Palestinian blood. This explains the morbid infatuation of the bulk of the Israeli Jewish public with Israeli war criminals. The more these war criminals excel in blood-letting, the more respect and admiration they receive from society. For example, Israel elected Ariel Sharon, the certified war criminal twice as Prime Minster. The “hero” of many genocidal massacres, such as the 1982- Sabra and Shatilla carnage, was often given the esteemed epithet of “Melich Yisrael” or “King of Israel.” In 1998, Ehud Barak, the current Israeli defense minister who oversaw the genocidal campaign against the Gaza Strip, sought during his election campaign to impress voters by giving a graphic description of how he assassinated three Palestinian leaders in Beirut several years earlier. In short, we are talking about a breed of war criminals and murderous thugs who really differ very little from Nazi leaders and commanders. After all, both practiced the “no-holds-barred doctrine.” The Nazis implemented that doctrine in Europe, and the Zionists in Palestine and Lebanon . Apart from that, there is an entire history of Zionist whitewashing of Israeli crimes which shows that Israel itself is a huge crime against humanity. An Israeli probe into the Kfar Qassem massacre in the mid 1950s blamed the victims for “violating the curfew.” When the massacre of Dir Yasin was carried out, an initial Israeli police report claimed that “an Arab was injured.” Similarly, an Israeli probe into the Kfar Qassem massacre in the mid 1950s blamed the victims for “violating the curfew.” This pattern of blaming the victims continues to this day. A few weeks ago, an Israeli court acquitted Jewish terrorist settlers who ganged up on elderly Palestinian peasants and shepherds in the southern Hebron hills, beating them savagely, using clubs and other objects. The perpetrators, who had been caught on camera attacking the helpless Palestinians, were exonerated of any wrong doing. Well, perhaps the Jewish judge is insisting that all Palestinians ought to have special cameras that see through the masks worn by Jewish settlers when attacking their Palestinian victims. There is no doubt that Israel has been embarrassed by the Goldstone report. This explains the perplexity of Israeli leaders’ and spokespersons’ behavior. This week, Israeli Prime Minister made two remarks which underscored this pattern of psychotic behavior. First, he demanded that the world stop relying on and buying oil from Muslim countries, saying that western dependence on oil was encouraging “terror.” Well, one would have to be a psychiatrist to analyze the mental sickness of a leader who can’t bring himself to see reality as it is. Second, Netanyahu reportedly has authorized an inter-ministerial committee to press the international community to amend the laws of war, conceivably in order to allow the Israeli army to commit genocide with impunity. “if the Americans and Russians and Chinese can commit war crimes with impunity, why can’t Israel do the same.” One Israeli writer argued that “if the Americans and Russians and Chinese can commit war crimes with impunity, why can’t Israel do the same.” In other words, what Israeli leaders are effectively saying is that the peoples of the world ought to recognize “Jewish Nazism” as a legitimate fact of life. What else would explain the offensive demands of amending the laws of war to suit Israel’s criminal behavior? This means that it is only a matter of time before another Israeli official, a minister, or army general, or even a Prime Minister, will argue that since Nazi Germany carried out a holocaust against Jews, Jews are perfectly justified in carrying out a holocaust against the Palestinians.! In another related feat reflecting Israeli frustration over the Goldstone report, the Israeli government is now studying the possibility of suing Hamas for “terror and war crimes” against Israel. Well, it seems that the depravity and brutal ugliness of Zionist leaders have no limits. True, Hamas, like any other national liberation movement, is not faultless. However, whatever Hamas and other Palestinian factions have done in the context of their legitimate resistance against the Nazi-like Israeli occupation ought to be considered in the context of decades of harsh repression meted out by Israel to the Palestinian people. After all, Israel stole Palestine from its rightful owners, demolished their homes, destroyed their farms, murdered untold thousands of civilians in numerous grisly massacres, and expelled the bulk of the Palestinians from their ancestral homeland to the four corners of the world. I know that Israeli criminality against the Palestinian people don’t always justify certain acts of violence and terror by the victims. However, there is no doubt that terror, repression and oppression, which transcend reality, always make violence inevitable. In brief, those to whom evil is done do evil in return. Hence, it is morally axiomatic that violence carried out by people defending themselves, their country and their honor and dignity against an overwhelming onslaught by foreign invaders shouldn’t be equated with the violence and terror of their tormentors and gravediggers. A rape victim’s resistance, even if it involves violence, shouldn’t be placed on the same moral footing with the violence and aggression of the attacker. Indeed, if a foreign colonialist occupation is an act of rape, and it undoubtedly is, then a rape victim’s resistance, even if it involves violence, shouldn’t be placed on the same moral footing with the violence and aggression of the attacker. Otherwise, every person defending himself against oppression and assault ought to be criminalized. True, one is always sorry for the death of innocent people, irrespective of their race and faith. However, Israel must bear full responsibility for forcing the Palestinians to choose between national demise and violent struggle for freedom and justice.