We must have the same level of accountability and justice for all victims of crimes against humanity.
We have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the U.S., Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan, and the Taliban.
I asked @SecBlinken where people are supposed to go for justice. pic.twitter.com/tUtxW5cIow
— Rep. Ilhan Omar (@Ilhan) June 7, 2021
Ilhan Omar asked a pungent question of Secretary of State Antony Blinken after he offered bland assurances to the House Foreign Affairs Committee about US policy on Israel-Palestine and denounced the International Criminal Court, which has opened a war crimes investigation against Israel. Where did he advise Palestinians to go to seek justice if they could not approach the ICC? Blinken’s answer was shocking in its empty-headedness: go to the Israeli court system, he said. The same legal system which routinely rejects Palestinian claims of injury at the hands of Israeli security forces. The same court system which routinely ignores crimes by security forces up to and including murder.
How Aipac and its Congressional Water-Carriers Transformed a Far-Right Media Smear into a Mainstream Assault
Blinken’s testimony and Omar’s question might have ended there were it not for the right wing social media storm generated by FoxNews, Ben Shapiro’s DailyWire and other far-right outlets. As a new Atlantic Council Digital Forensic Research Lab report noted (tweet thread here), there is a deliberate media strategy used to generate controversy among Democrats. It begins with right-wing social media provocation. All it takes from there is someone on the Democratic side to take the bait and turn it into a genuine scandal.
In this case, it was 13 Jewish Congressional Democrats who got lathered up with the help of the Israel Lobby, which exploits every opportunity to bring down progressive House members of color like Omar. Aipac rang Pavlov’s Bell and they began salivating like hungry hounds. They falsely claimed that Omar was equating “democratic” Israel and the US, with the Islamist terrorist Taliban and Hamas. The only thing equated was the war crimes each has clearly committed.
Though Americans hate the idea of being accused of being war criminals, there is no other way of describing the mayhem we have caused the world going back to the Indian Wars of the second half of the 19th century. Israel too is guilty of such crimes, though not quite on the scale the US has “achieved.” Calling each of these groups and countries war criminals is neither anti-Semitic nor even anti-Israel. It is a fact. Of course, it is a fact that needs to be tested in a court of law. But Israel and the US are doing their best to frustrate that possibility because they know they are both liable to be found guilty.
The charges of anti-Semittism flew through the halls of Congress. Republicans demanded she be made persona non grata as one of their own, Marjorie Taylor Greene has been. But a funny thing happened on the way to the guillotine: Omar’s progressive Democratic colleagues jumped to her defense after which Nancy Pelosi declared the case closed.
But not one to give up so easily, Jake Tapper, one of Aipac’s water carriers in the mainstream media, decided to drag out the hoary old chestnuts and force Omar to explain herself all over again. The colloquy is incredibly dreary. And I only bring it up to illustrate the absolute perfidy with which Tapper and his fellow Israel Lobby mouthpieces ape the Aipac line.
Here is Tapper questioning Omar:
Jewish anchor Jake Tapper asked Omar on air Tuesday if she understood “why some of your fellow House Democrats, especially Jews,” have found some of her past comments antisemitic [sic]. Tapper cited a 2012 tweet in which the Minnesota lawmaker said Israel had “hypnotized the world” and her 2019 comment that AIPAC, the prominent Israel lobby, is “all about the Benjamins.”
Of course, Omar dealt with this issue over two years ago and apologized to the Jewish community, though personally I felt she had no need to do so in moral terms since the underlying premise of her critique was absolutely sound.
Her response to Tapper was once again right on the money and could even have been expanded from a critique of her Jewish Democratic colleagues to the entire Israel Lobby:
In response, Omar said she has welcomed opportunities to engage with her critics, but added: “I think it’s important for these members to realize that they haven’t been partners in justice, they haven’t been equally engaging in seeking justice around the world.”
This elicited howls of rage from the Lobby’s Congressional water-carriers. And one of its most prolific journalistic voices, Ron Kampeas of JTA offered this tweet:
Auchincloss and Luria are veterans, Schrier is a pediatrician and children’s health advocate, Manning has led multiple philanthropies, Nadler has shepherded major civil rights leg. through Congress.
I honestly don’t know what Omar was getting at here, but man, this is not a take. https://t.co/eTfW35Wal2— (((Ron Kampeas))) (@kampeas) June 30, 2021
In its perfect cluelessness, the Lobby and its acolytes respond to criticism of their lack of engagement with Black Lives Matter and related social justice issues by claiming being a military veteran, a doctor, a philanthropist or someone who passed a bill ticks off a box confirming their progressive bona fides.
The only thing correct in Kampeas’ tweet is that he “doesn’t know what she’s getting at.” That’s because Jewish communal factotums fear this movement. They and their Congressional representatives are suspicious of the BLM. They view it as anti-Semitic and anti-Israel. Not because it actually is.
Many in the BLM movement see intersectionality between the campaigns for justice in the US and Palestine. They want to make the two struggles one. This is the threat to the Lobby. This is why Aipac and other Lobby groups like the Democratic Majority for Israel have made Omar Jewish Public Enemy No. 1. It is why Jake Tapper drags out these charges time and again, making Omar answer the Jewish version of “when did you stop beating your wife.”
As American Jews, we must demand that our leaders cease and desist from this racist, misogynist campaign against Omar. We must also demand that Jewish Congress members stop these attacks against her, and stop serving as the conduit to turn such attacks concocted by the far-right, mainstream. Jews should be making progressive alliances with Omar, Tlaib, Ocasio-Cortez and other like-minded House members. Not driving a wedge between us.
We Jews, especially the younger generation, increasingly see the validity of charges of apartheid, racism, and even genocide against Israel. Our leaders who refuse to see these crimes aren’t leading us. Or if they are, they are leading down a dead-end street. And we refuse to follow.
‘Crimes Against Humanity’ refer to specific crimes committed in the context of a large-scale attack targeting civilians, regardless of their nationality, and include murder, torture, sexual violence, enslavement, persecution, enforced disappearance, etc.
Unlike war crimes, crime against humanity can also be committed in peacetime, and contrary to genocide, they are not necessarily committed against a specific national, ethnical, racial or religious group.
https://trialinternational.org/topics-post/crimes-against-humanity/
Uhh…what Crimes Against Humanity has the United States and Israel committed recently?
Does Rep. Omar, who sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, understand the differences between Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes? I think not.
Amnon: You’ve created a distinction without a difference. And here is the relevant definition from a UN website of “crimes against humanity:”
Clearly, the crimes of both Israel in Gaza, Lebanon and arguably, Syria are more than appropriate for the purposes of the definition.
And US crimes in Iraq, Vietnam, and its murders of Arab civilians in its campaigns against ISIS and Al Qaeda qualify as well.
Instead of wasting your time trashing Rep. Omar, you might try something more productive.
You are done in this thread.
@Richard Silverstein – from reading the definition you’re referring to – I see that Israel did NOT commit any of those in the recent war the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas initiated.
The key part is: “directed against any civilian population” – and Israel clearly did NOT target civilians. Israel used for the most part very expensive and precise weaponry – to hit very specific military targets.
The fact that in the outcome of those attacks there were also civilian casualties – this is a bitter cost of war. In fact, this is the part where the Palestinians should be prosecuted in Hague for crimes against humanity – as they are the ones that deliberately placed military assets inside civilian population.
@ Alex: You are daft. The IDF clearly DID target civilians and killed 267 of them (mostly civilians). And by the way international law makes no distinction between whether you intend to kill civilians or not. Even if you don’t intend to do so–if you kill civilians you have committed a war crime. Besides, the methods Israel used and the way in which it used them clearly meant civilians would be killed.
Enough with the human shield crap. We’ve dealt with this insipid argument here before. If you are the replacement for Amnon, you’re not doing much better than he did before he was moderated.
i may be mistaken but I remember reading[in International Law] that ‘even’ a hospital containing combatants and storing weapons can be attacked
Aside from that, it would seem that if the Israels were bent on killing civilians they could have easily killed in the thousands.
@avram: this is errant nonsense. There is no justification for bombing hospitals. Neither the patients nor medical personnel are responsible for determining which patients are combatants and which civilian. No Gaza hospitals have weapons storied in them. Even if they did, it’s still a war crime to attack a hospital.
The only reason Israel doesn’t engage in mass murder in Gaza is because it would lose what little standing it has in the international community. So yes, it could engage in genocide and kill millions, but chooses not to not because it doesn’t want to, but because it can’t.
@Richard Silverstein – counting the dead is definitely a dirty business, regardless of one’s political views, but since Hamas isn’t recognized to be an official government, and Gaza isn’t officially a country – then even armed Hamas member is considered “civilian”. In order for anybody there to be officially considered a soldier, rather than a civilian – they must be internationally recognized as an army (and not just a guerilla armed group).
It is your blog, and you can decide how to run it – but moderating me for respectfully saying something you don’t like to hear isn’t consistent with free journalism.
I am sure you are not interested to have here only like-minded readers, and I am sure you will benefit from a bunch of different views and ideas.
@ Alex: This is nonsense. Armed Hamas members or any organized military or militia are recognized as “armed combatants” under international law.
Your comments about threatening moderation are out of place. I said nothing to you about moderating you. If you are trying to offer your opinion about moderating others, that too is out of place.
I discipline commenters for breaking the comment rules, not for saying things I disagree with. As I’ve written here many times there are tens of thousands of comments posted to this blog which disagree with my views.
You are done in this thread.
the systematic killings of Palestinians, torture, kidnappings etc of Palestinian what do you think?
@Richard Silverstein
Amnon asked, what ‘Crimes Against Humanity has the United States and Israel committed recently’?
Richard, replies, “Clearly, the crimes of both Israel in Gaza, Lebanon and arguably, Syria are more than appropriate for the purposes of the definition.
And US crimes in Iraq, Vietnam, and its murders of Arab civilians in its campaigns against ISIS and Al Qaeda qualify as well”
Omar asked the question ‘where to the victims go’ for justice, which suggests these alleges crimes against humanity are recent occurrences.
Richard. Please provide recent instances of the United States and Israel committing crimes against humanity.
Simply apply the facts, to the laws you quoted.
Atrocities committed during the Spanish-American War and Hukbalahap Rebellion are no longer relevant.
Poor Jack: You poor lad. You apparently missed the 267 Gazans murdered by Israel last month. You missed the deliberate obliteration of residential apartment towers and thousands of individual homes. Their deaths are a war crime and crime against humanity which will be included in the ICC brief against Israel.
Joe Biden has only been president for a few months. Give him time. He’ll commit a war crime or crime against humanity one of these days. Trump appeared too incompetent to commit too many crimes against humanity (as opposed to crimes against common sense and human decency, of which he was guilty of many) . But the assassination of Qassaem Soleimani is clearly a war crime. And Obama was responsible for 3,000 civilians murders during the is war against ISIS and Al Qaeda.
You are done in this thread.
How dare Omar question Israel and American exceptionalism! How dare she question definitions and characterizations about democracy, terrorism, what is a war crime and complain about bias.
”In March 2020, ICC judges decided the US had not suffficiently investigated itself for possible war crimes and torture in Afghanistan. The US isn’t a party to the treaty that created the ICC, but Afghanistan is.”
Thus Pompeo put sanctions on ICC judges and Israel planned an attack on a Palestinian envoy to the ICC in The Hague.
[comment deleted: read the comment rules. Editorial decisions are mine to make. Not yours. Complaining that you don’t like my choices is a waste of both our time. I don’t care what you think about my choices.]