2 - 8 May 2002
Issue No.584
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 2 - 8 May 2002 Issue No.584 |
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'An insult to the civilised world'
Time is running out to collect evidence of Israel's violations of international humanitarian law in the Jenin refugee camp. Dina Ezzat reports
As Israel continues to deny access to a UN fact-finding mission to examine the results of the month-long Israeli invasion of Palestinian territories, Arab and Islamic countries are urging the UN Human Rights Committee to convene a special session to examine human rights violations by the Israeli army. Arab and Islamic countries are also lobbying signatories to the Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War to hold a meeting about the Israeli violations.
Mass destruction at Jenin refugee camp stands as evidence of Israel's violations of all basic human rights
(photo: AFP)
"Neither meeting is proving easy to convene, but Arab and Islamic countries are working at it," commented an Arab diplomat based in Geneva.
The convocation of a meeting for the countries that signed the Fourth Geneva Convention, requires the approval of the Swiss government, depository to the agreement. The Swiss, Arab diplomatic sources say, "are not enthusiastic." "They say that member states had just met on 5 December and issued a declaration and that there is not much more they can do," said the diplomatic source in Geneva. He added, "They are not saying no, but they are not saying yes either."
The problem is not one of awareness: all concerned international bodies know about Israel's many violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention during the reoccupation of the Palestinian territories. The crux of the matter is that these bodies do not have the power to require Israel to abide by the convention.
During the annual session of the UN Human Rights Committee, which wrapped up on Friday following six weeks of meetings, the committee adopted seven resolutions on the situation in the occupied Arab territories. Four of the resolutions pertained to the terrible situation in the Palestinian territories, focusing on the violations of Palestinian human rights, the denial of the Palestinians' right to self determination and Israel's ongoing policy of constructing settlements in the occupied territories.
The committee, however, did not endorse any action-oriented resolutions, and the proposal made by the UN Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, to dispatch a delegation to investigate the situation in the Palestinian territories was rejected by Israel.
"The fact of the matter is that the Human Rights Committee has a tongue and no teeth; it can criticise what Israel is doing but it cannot force it to comply with the rules and norms of international humanitarian law. This is precisely why so many capitals are not very enthusiastic about another meeting," commented an Arab diplomatic source. He added, "The general feeling is that it is up to the Security Council to impose the will of the international community to uphold international humanitarian law and to ensure world peace and security."
The UN has had a difficult time obtaining Israel's cooperation. The Israeli security cabinet voted on Tuesday to keep the UN fact-finding mission out, saying that the international body had not met all of its terms for the inquiry into Palestinian accusations of a massacre by the Israeli occupation forces during their invasion of the Jenin refugee camp earlier this month. The security cabinet took its decision less than 24 hours after the UN had postponed for the third day running the departure of a fact-finding team to Israel.
Judging by the statements of senior Israeli officials, it seems possible that the Israeli government will not budge on the matter of access to the Jenin camp. "Israel will not cooperate with the mission if UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan maintains his position on the terms and continues to seek the right for his mission to summon whomever it wants as witnesses," Israeli Communications Minister Reuven Rivlin said on Israeli Army Radio on Tuesday.
Annan, who formed the committee in accordance with a UN Security Council resolution, had already conceded to a number of Israeli requests and objections concerning the composition of the committee. And information gathered by the team was not expected to have any serious legal consequences for Israel. However, Israel is still unwilling to cooperate. It says it wants to approve a list of people the team decides to interview and to review the draft of the report that will be prepared by the team before it is submitted to the UN secretary-general.
A New York-based Arab diplomat said, "It seems that this fact-finding team will not get there at all. Israel is obviously back-tracking on its decision to allow the team in."
Informed sources say that after Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres indicated to Annan that Israel would be willing to cooperate concerning the investigation team, a legal adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon argued against the move. According to these sources, a report presented to Sharon states that evidence of breaches of international humanitarian law, no matter how seemingly minor, could eventually be used in a case against Israel before the International Criminal Court, which was just established, but has yet to hear a case.
Criticism of Israel's breaches of international humanitarian law have been voiced repeatedly since the first days of the reoccupation of the Palestinian territories. Among the most recent of these was by Secretary-General of Amnesty International Irene Khan who visited the Jenin camp earlier this week, leading a team put together by her organisation. Khan said that Amnesty had found "credible evidence of grave breaches of international humanitarian law and violations of human rights" that had taken place during the invasion of the camp during 3-17 April.
Khan expressed dismay about the Israeli government's refusal to cooperate with the UN fact-finding team. "There is an urgent need for a thorough, independent and impartial investigation," Khan said. She argued that "it is vital that the Israeli government allow the UN fact-finding team to commence its work, with full independence, without further delay."
"It is the right of the victims and their families to know the truth," Khan insisted. She called on the Security Council to take prompt action to ensure that the fact-finding team could proceed without further delay and also asked that the UN body take immediate action to have implemented its earlier resolutions about the protection of civilians.
But since the United States blocked a Security Council resolution to send a fact-finding mission to Israel -- a resolution that was in keeping with Chapter Seven of the UN Charter concerning the enforcement of UN decisions -- there is not much that the UN can do to obtain Israel's cooperation concerning the team, which has been waiting in Geneva for four days.
"The fact of the matter is that the composition of this team was highly diluted. Its mission was terribly delayed and its mandate is highly ambiguous," commented one senior Arab diplomat. He added, "After all, most of the evidence that Palestinians suggest could have been used to prove that Israel was guilty of war crimes is certainly gone by now."
Israel insists that it is not guilty of war crimes or any grave violations of human rights in the Jenin camp, or any other part of the Palestinian territories, for that matter. Despite UN officials' horrifying testimonies about the situation at Jenin, Israel argues that only 50 Palestinians had died during its invasion of the camp. And, despite photographs showing the devastation wreaked on the camp, Israeli officials insist that they did not inflict serious damage.
Israel's argument, however, is not being accorded any credence amongst quarters concerned with the upholding of international humanitarian law. Members of Geneva-based international humanitarian organisations and key non-governmental human rights watchdogs accuse Israel of destroying property, arbitrary detention, collective punishment, torture and extra-judicial killings.
"The military operations we have investigated appear to have been carried out not for military purposes but instead to harass, humiliate and intimidate the Palestinian population. Either the Israeli army is extremely ill-disciplined or it has been ordered to carry out acts which violate the laws of war," said David Holley, an independent military expert who went with the Amnesty International team that visited the Jenin camp.
Commissioner General of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) Peter Hansen accused the Israeli occupation army of making "a hellish battleground among the civilians in the Balata and Jenin refugee camps." "We are getting reports of pure horror," Hansen testified. He argued that Israel, as a signatory to the pertinent international conventions, is bound to protect non- combatants in times of conflict. Hansen added, "Those conventions are useless if not adhered to precisely at times of the greatest blood-letting."
Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa blames the US for the failure of the international community to stop the violations against human rights. According to Moussa's statements before the UN Human Rights Committee, the Israeli government is acting as though it is above the law because it has been protected by the US, particularly in the UN Security Council.
"Israel is seriously marginalising all the norms that have been formulated about human rights. It is committing massacres in the occupied territories. It is killing innocent civilians and demolishing houses," Moussa said last week in Geneva. He added, "Israel has become a state above the law... the protection that is offered to these [violations] is an insult to the civilised world."
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