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Israeli soldiers first, US troops next
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (AP Photo/Gali Tibbon)
While we all have been following the Obama Administration's hasty legislative attempt to have the Federal Government socialize the US healthcare system, another catastrophe has been developing on the world scene upon which our Citizen of the World-Nobel Peace Prize winning President has yet to move in the defense of liberty.
The United Nations has been quietly moving in multiple bodies to eventually prosecute Israeli Military Officials singularly and the State of Israel at large for defending herself in the 22-day military defensive response to Hamas, Operation Cast Lead.
To sum up briefly, Judge Richard Goldstone presented his report to the United Nations Human Rights Council on September 15 with a much ballyhooed press conference in New York that included a satellite connection to Geneva, where the paragon of virtue, democracy, and human rights, Libya, chairs the Human Rights Council. The Goldstone Commission was formed on January 12 as an "independent-international fact finding mission ... to investigate all violations of international human rights law ... by the occupying Power, Israel, against the Palestinian people." To the surprise of any neutral observer, Judge Goldstone's fact finding mission, which was occasionally interrupted by interviews on Al-Jazeera, found that Israel had committed serious "violations of international human rights law ... during the military operations in Gaza ... and that actions amounting to war crimes and possibly, in some respects, crimes against humanity, were committed by the Israel Defense Force (IDF)."
Judge Goldstone seeks to have Israeli soldiers and Government Officials prosecuted in the International Criminal Court (ICC), a body to which Israel is not a signatory. He has completely disregarded the Israeli judicial system, which conducts independent investigations into all allegations of IDF misconduct, and has even publicly characterized them as "pusillanimous." To this end, the UN Security Council will discuss the Goldstone Report today in New York while the Human Rights Council will be holding special proceedings starting on Thursday in Geneva. This all despite President Mahmoud Abas's (Palestinian Authority) move to delay the Human Rights Council's final decision just two short weeks ago until March, 2010. So while Israel has removed numerous roadblocks in the West Bank and restarted negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, it has been reciprocated by the Palestinians with this latest travesty on the international scene.
However, the simple fact which we have all ignored is that the entire matter could simply be quashed should President Obama decide to exert American diplomatic power. The US could veto any measure in the UN Security Council and move to have Abbas drop this issue in the Human Rights Council. The State Department could publicly state that the ICC does not have jurisdiction over the State of Israel and therefore should not review the matter.
Yet while it is clear that President Obama does not view Israeli interests as tied with American, a sharp change from the Bush administration, he should be cognizant that should Israeli soldiers be prosecuted by the ICC, this would set the clear precedent for our own troops to be next.
For as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in his address to the UN General Assembly this year, "History has show us time and again that what starts as attacks on the Jews eventually ends up engulfing many others."
The entire Goldstone Report can be read here.
Jordan Sekulow is the Director of International Operations at the American Center for Law & Justice and co-host of Jay Sekulow Live. Sam Nunberg, a Deputy Director of Government Affairs at the American Center for Law & Justice, contributed to this article. For more information go to www.ACLJ.org or follow Jordan on Twitter.
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