Moral Haemorrhage From The Wound Of Palestine
By Vacy Vlazna
15 March, 2016
Countercurrents.org
Humanitarian law and the law of war are arguably the supreme moral artifacts of Atlantic civilization. Jewish lawyers made a disproportionate contribution to the crafting of both. The resulting legal principles were intended to deter the kinds of injuries and injustices that European Jews and other minorities had long suffered and to protect occupied populations from persecution by their occupiers. Both objectives are very relevant to contemporary Palestine. Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr. (USFS, Ret.)
The present-day haemorrhaging of international law, and with it, civilised values has its source in the Israel-US ( ISUS) interminable 68 year genocide of Palestine, cheered on and sanctioned by the faux-democracies of the West.
I say ‘faux-democracies,’ as elections notwithstanding and no matter which political party wins, western nations have relinquished civilised principles, international law obligations and their sovereignty over foreign affairs, defense and trade to their ISUS masters.
A case in point: the obligation of states to investigate and prosecute war crimes,
1. It is an accepted rule of customary international humanitarian law (IHL), applicable in any type of armed conflict, that "States must investigate war crimes allegedly committed by their nationals or armed forces, or on their territory, and, if appropriate, prosecute the suspects. They must also investigate other war crimes over which they have jurisdiction and, if appropriate, prosecute the suspects."
2. This obligation to investigate and prosecute is derived from a number of IHL instruments, including the 1949 Geneva Conventions and the 1977 Additional Protocol I, of which Australia is a signatory.
3. The United Nations General Assembly’s 2005 Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law also restates the obligation.*
In February/March, without a jot of political, personal or social conscience, the Australian government perversely permitted the war criminal, former Israeli Defense Force Chief of Staff, Benny Gantz to enter Australia on a speaking tour to raise funds for the United Israel Appeal; a zionist organisation that works to further Jewish immigration to Occupied Palestine and the expansion of the illegal settlements.
Equally perverted was the Australian zionist-Jewish community’s sycophantic homage to the Butcher of Gaza’s ‘moving and inspirational’ presentations. One is reminded of the Israeli yobbos who sat on hilltops for 51days cheering Gantz’s shock and awe assault on the trapped and traumatised Gazan families.
Lobaczewski in his treatise, Political Ponerology (A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes) states,
“Imagine – if you can – not having a conscience, none at all, no feelings of guilt or remorse no matter what you do, no limiting sense of concern for the well-being of strangers, friends, or even family members. Imagine no struggles with shame, not a single one in your whole life, no matter what kind of selfish, lazy, harmful, or immoral action you had taken….In other words, you are completely free of internal restraints, and your unhampered liberty to do just as you please, with no pangs of conscience, is conveniently invisible to the world.”
A telling insight into Gantz’s sociopathic nature was his request to sing.. and sing he did with ‘an uplifting rendition of ‘Od Yavo Shalom Aleinu’ which translated is, “Peace will reach us”.
Singing seems to be a sociopathic quirk of vicious Army Chiefs of Staff - Indonesian General Wiranto sang ‘Feelings’ while his TNI troops murderously set East Timor ablaze during Black September after the Timorese voted for independence in 1999.
Yotam Feldman provides another image of conscience oblivion at the end of his documentary on Israel’s military profiteering on Gaza’s suffering , The Lab. With a masterstroke of ironic filming, the death-feeding Israeli military, political and security elite are captured, nodding and smiling to John Lennon’s beautiful song, Imagine ..
Imagine all the people,
Living life in peace…
Australia is well aware that Gantz, the Butcher of Gaza, commanded Operation Pillar of Cloud in 2011 and the 51 day monstrous Operation Protective Edge against Palestinian families in Gaza.
Australia is well aware that under Gantz' command in 2014, his high tech military forces slaughtered 2,310 Palestinian casualties including 504 children, wounded 10,626, pulverised Gazan suburbs to ground zero leaving 90,000 civilians homeless to this day.
Furthermore, Gantz commanded the illegal use of white phosphorus munitions, which the UN Goldstone Report stated, with regard to the 2008-9 Operation Cast Lead, violated international law. On July 25, 2014 Gantz ordered the firing of white phosphorus munitions which hit, burnt, maimed, and caused excruciating pain for little Hamza Almadani, 3, while he slept with his family in Khan Younis.
Australia is well aware that the UN International Criminal Court is reviewing the 2014 Israeli war on Gaza for war crimes and yet Australia has no qualms welcoming the military mastermind of Operation Protective Edge.
Australia is well aware, as a customer of Israeli arms industry, that thanks to Gantz, Israel’s armament industry has scored a 'marketing edge' by assaulting Palestinian families systematically trapped in its military laboratory- ie Gaza..
Australia is well aware that by December 2014, it had signed and ratified the UN Arms Trade Treaty which states,
“Article 6: 3. A State Party shall not authorize any transfer of conventional arms covered under Article 2 (1) or of items covered under Article 3 or Article 4, if it has knowledge at the time of authorization that the arms or items would be used in the commission of genocide, crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, attacks directed against civilian objects or civilians protected as such, or other war crimes as defined by international agreements to which it is a Party.”
and therefore cannot allow the key perpetrator of the above crimes to wander freely in Australia.
Immorally unencumbered by legal obligations, the Australian government refused a formal Senate vote on the war record of the former Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defence Force.
The Australian government's despicable condoning of Israel's war crimes is blatantly highlighted by granting a visa to a war criminal yet denying a visa to US R&B singer Chris Brown because of his domestic violence history.
And, going way beyond hypocrisy to blatant abuse of the Australian national value of a ‘fair go’, the Australian government is withholding a visa for Ali Abunimah’s tour of Australia. With no war crimes, crimes against humanity, home demolitions, land grabs, apartheid policies, assassination and extrajudicial killings on his record, Abunimah, a highly respected journalist and champion of Palestinian political and human rights is being denied his lawful right to enter Australia.
The boast “that Australia is more pro-Israel than 99 per cent of the world” is being energetically challenged by western counterparts.
Lobaczewski warns that…
“Politics is no exception, and, by its very nature, would tend to attract more of the pathological “dominator types” than other fields. That is only logical, and we began to realize that it was not only logical, it was horrifyingly accurate; horrifying because pathology among people in power can have disastrous effects on all of the people under the control of such pathological individuals.”
This month, Austria promptly obeyed zionist demands and cancelled an International Women’s Day Event, “In Grandmother’s Words…The Fate of Women in the Second World War”, because it had invited the indomitable human rights activist and holocaust survivor, Hedy Epstein, who is a tried and true friend of Palestine and a supporter of the zionist nemesis- Boycott Divestment and Sanctions ( BDS).
Canadian PM Trudeau and British PM Cameron are goose-stepping to the zionist drumbeat legislating against BDS deemed absurdly as an act of anti-semitism. Last week, French authorities arrested a woman for wearing a ‘Boycott Israel’ t-shirt. The Czech parliament voted against the EU decision to label Israeli goods. Meanwhile, Israel has imposed boycotts against 5 Palestinian companies.
ISUS is chronically insane. In America, decades of unbridled militarism unhinged from values, has produced violent domestic and global chaos spawning crazies like Trumph, Hilary and the crazies that worship them. In Israel, unbridled state terrorism has produced a plethora of psychopaths like Gantz and Netanyahu.
Western governments by granting unconscionable impunity for war crimes and crimes against humanity in exchange for Israeli armaments and zionist donations have become dangerously immune to decency, compassion and justice. As voters, it is in our power to ensure the ethical efficiency of our governments on Palestine and on every humanitarian matter. Otherwise, we won’t be able to stem the drain of the moral lifeblood that protects us all.
It is a truism that peace in Palestine will reverberate throughout the world. Justice for Palestine is not a foreign affairs matter. It is an urgent matter of the heart and of the soul.
* Thank you Julie Webb-Pullman
Dr. Vacy Vlazna is Coordinator of Justice for Palestine Matters. She was Human Rights Advisor to the GAM team in the second round of the Acheh peace talks, Helsinki, February 2005 then withdrew on principle. Vacy was convenor of Australia East Timor Association and coordinator of the East Timor Justice Lobby as well as serving in East Timor with UNAMET and UNTAET from 1999-2001.