Russell Tribunal aims to hold the international community to account

[Violet_Crumble]

Today, the first session of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine (RTP) will be held in Barcelona. The RTP is a peoples' tribunal focusing not on Israel's obligations under international humanitarian law (IHL) such as the Fourth Geneva Convention, but on the obligations of the international community of signatory states which sustain and enable Israel's continuous violations of international law.

Israel has violated more than 60 UN resolutions and countless legal and diplomatic calls to abide by international law in relation to the expansion of illegal settlements, denial of the right of return and the continuing occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and the Syrian Golan Heights. Dozens of reports, investigations and inquiries have produced evidence of alleged Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity, including massacres, collective punishment, home demolitions and extrajudicial killings on a cyclical scale over the past 62 years.

In 2004, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued an advisory opinion finding Israel's wall in the West Bank illegal and contrary to international law. The opinion was the key tenet of a 54-page document covering illegal settlements, the appropriation of natural resources and Israel's violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention over the past 40 years, and reminded that IHL signatory states had an obligation "not to recognize the illegal situation resulting from the construction of the wall and not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by such construction" and "to ensure compliance by Israel with international humanitarian law as embodied in that Convention."

The ruling sparked hopes in the Palestinian community and international solidarity movements that finally, not only had Israeli violations been legally judged but that the responsibilities of the states which enable Israeli impunity to continue would be put to the test. Six years and 500 kilometers of wall on, the continued construction of the wall casts a shadow over international law.

Or does it?

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11104.shtml

[ConsAreLiars]

1. Iraq, so the US-Israel-Corporatist bloc said, was a bit iffy on one or two so mass murders of Iraqis

was the only proper and appropriate response. Sort of like saying scaring Jews (or USAns, same dynamic) is justification for mass slaughtering of Muslims.  Insane and the outcome is utterly predictable for anyone outside of the kill-hate-murder mindset.

Maybe there is still enough respect for the concept of justice, as the Russell Tribunals have urged, for this to make a bit of a difference. And maybe the sense that Justice applies equally to the victims and the victors will be applied in greater Palestine, or greater Israel, whatever the label. And since on I'm on a fantasy wish-list, I wish every true-believer-supremacist-hater-murderer would just fucking vanish immediately.

No Justice, No Peace. That is a fact, An no amount of brutality will change it.