Comments on: War Crimes Charges Open Israel to Universal Jurisdiction

By: hass

hass — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 08:54:06 +0000

France, Germany and Belgium have already made it clear that they don’t plan to abide by international law which requires the exercise of univeral jurisdiction over war crimes and torture. Cases against Rumsfeld and Bush were dropped in those countries. France claimed that Rumsfeld enjoyed “head of state immunity” — which extended to AFTEr he left office (quite unlike the case of Pinochet)
And since secrecy laws have made it impossible to proceed against Rumsfeld in US courts, he essentially got away scottfree.

By: Shirin

Shirin — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 21:16:13 +0000

I’d say that Patrick Clawson is a piece of scum, but that would be terribly unkind to scum.

By: Shirin

Shirin — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 21:05:50 +0000

It would be a great deal better for everyone if they would say “I am a human being, and I love humanity more than anything else.” Blind nationalism is the source of most of the worlds ills.

By: fiddler

fiddler — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 20:07:34 +0000

That’s always a sad day when people start putting their country – any country – before friends, family, and life itself.

By: Shirin

Shirin — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 03:03:24 +0000

Her comment did strike me as youthful gush.

As for the rest of it, this afternoon I had a great conversation with Jordan Elgrably at the Levantine Center, and I must say I prefer his view of identity to the one you described.

By: Fatemeh

Fatemeh — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 02:36:28 +0000

Patrick Clawson, WINEP’s go-to goy, wrote an essay on the morality of sanctions in which he assessed the claim that it is legitimate to punish innocent civilians on the theory that they are responsible for placing or retaining their leaders in power. Even if their leaders are tyrants, ie. Saddam Hussein, the people still bore culpability — and were, therefore, legitimately subject to collective punishment — because they did not take action to remove their tyrannical leader.

By: Fatemeh

Fatemeh — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 02:32:45 +0000

Someday, maybe soon, Americans will start to say, “I am an American and I love America more than anything else; more than friends, more than family, more than life itself.”

Israel? not so much.

By: Robin

Robin — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 01:58:52 +0000

Mary,
Obama’s big gun has spoken. That would be Susan Rice

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/17/AR2009091704278.html

In part:

“Rice said that violations of human rights in Gaza should be addressed by the U.N. Human Rights Council, which created Goldstone’s panel in April, and not by the Security Council, which has the authority to authorize an international probe”.

She also in kumbaya fashion stated that we really shouldn’t be looking at the past, but looking towards the future and “negotiations”.