Yossi Schwartz ISL (RCIT section in Israel/Occupied Palestine). 08.08.2024
According to the Zionist and pro-Zionist propaganda, Israeli adult civilians are innocent, but is it true? First of all, most of them served in the Zionist army and are reservists, which means soldiers on vacation. Secondly, the majority support the oppression of the Palestinians, stealing the Palestinian land and killing those who fight the oppression. Others like Gaza envelopes are sitting on the Palestinian lands and preventing them from returning.
“Seventy-one percent of Israelis believe Israel should conduct a large-scale military operation against Lebanon to deter Hezbollah, a recent poll has shown. The Israeli Maariv newspaper surveyed worsening cross-border violence between the Israeli army and the powerful Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group A growing number of Israelis, especially those who evacuated their homes in the north, have urged their government to take decisive action against Hezbollah and push them away from the frontier, even if that means a land invasion..”[i]
“As many as 69% of Israelis support targeted assassinations even if they result in delaying a cease-fire and prisoner-hostage exchange deal with Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip, a new poll has found. The survey was conducted by the Lazar Institute and published by the daily Maariv on Friday. Only 19% of the respondents disagreed, while 12% had no definite opinion The survey sampled 510 Israelis with a margin of error of 4.4%..”[ii]
“A recent study released by an Israeli security forum has found that 62% of Israelis support settling in the Gaza Strip.”[iii]
A hearing at the High Court of infamous Sde Yemen, known for the torture of Palestinians, on Wednesday over the question of whether to close it was interrupted by protest among the protesters’ bereaved families.
Judge and Supreme Court judge Uzi Fogelman addressed the shouting crowd: “Whether you like it or not, the State of Israel is a state of law; those who cannot keep quiet are asked to leave.” Fogelman stopped the discussion and said, “During the hearing, they should leave even with the help of the court guard if necessary.”
The commotion continued outside the court as well, with bereaved families protesting there as well for the very holding of the hearing.
The judicial authority stated: “In the last hour, the hearing that is being held in the Supreme Court in High Court 4268/24 on the petition to comply with the provisions of the Law on the Imprisonment of Illegal Fighters, 2002 and the regulations established by it at the detention facility ‘Yemen Field’ was stopped due to incessant disturbances from an audience that arrived to watch the hearing. The judges had to interrupt the hearing to restore order in the courtroom. At the end of the break of about twenty minutes, the hearing resumed, and the audience (was allowed to enter the hall.”
After the hearing resumed, Fogelman said, “We are resuming the hearing. What we saw now was an attempt to prevent a judicial hearing in court. We very much respect the right of every person to demonstrate in the State of Israel, but this cannot be done in the courtroom, certainly not in a way that frustrates the conduct of the hearing.
“A court in Israel acts according to the law even during wartime and will continue to do so. We are aware of the sensitivity of the hearing and the great sensitivity of some of its participants. This is not the first hearing on issues that touch on situations that arose during the war. Those who follow these hearings know that the court adopts a policy of maximum inclusion. However, the limitation of the inclusion policy is an attempt to blow up legal discussion.”
One of the protesters shouted: “Instead of discussing how to kill them, you discuss closing the facility.”
Let us be clear on the role of the Zionist Supreme Court. No other than Aharon Barak said in a meeting of lawyers in Eilat: “The role of the Supreme Court is to provide an umbrella for what the world considers war crimes.” The Zionist Supreme Court made it clear torture is legal in Israel.
“Israel’s Supreme Court explicitly ruled that interrogational torture is lawful in certain circumstances in Israel’s legal system in two decisions. In the case of Firas Muhammad Tbeish from Hadb al-Fawwar in the West Bank, who was interrogated at the Shikma ISA interrogation facility in Ashqelon, Israel, between September 2012 and March 2013. The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) complained in March 2013 of what they described as the torture of Mr. Tbeish, which included sleep deprivation, beating and slapping, holding in the painful ‘banana’ and ‘frog’ positions, threats, curses, humiliations and much more. PCATI requested, among other things, that a criminal investigation be launched against those who tortured Mr Tbeish. The case saw twists and turns over the next five years before the Supreme Court, sitting as High Court of Justice (HCJ), ruled for the state.” [iv]
This was not exactly breaking news – Israel’s Supreme Court has ruled for the State virtually every single time PCATI has requested that it intervene against the prevailing system, which allows the systematic torture of Palestinians suspected of serious terrorist activity. This is hardly surprising since it was the Supreme Court itself which has created this system. In a landmark ruling [v] the Court emphasized the absolute prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment in international law. It ceremoniously closed the door on the routine, pre-authorized use of the torture methods most prevalent during the 1990s – sleep deprivation, prolonged shackling in contorted positions (often combined with blindfolding and loud music), violent shaking. However, at the same time, the Court opened a window for ISA interrogators to continue resorting to torture – the word the Court used was “physical interrogation methods” – in what it called “ticking time-bomb” situations. While not authorized to do so, the Court said, after the fact the Attorney-General could decide that ISA torturers (not so described) would not face trial, or even be subjected to a criminal investigation.
In the years that have passed, the Supreme Court has upheld the legalized torture system it had created against all challenges by PCATI. Not a single one of over 1,000 complaints has led to even one criminal investigation being opened against an ISA interrogator, let alone a trial, conviction, or punishment. ISA interrogators have continued to torture, safe in the knowledge that they enjoy total impunity, thanks in no small measure to the Supreme Court. However, the Justices were careful, like they were in the 1999 ruling itself, to avoid referring to ISA interrogation techniques as “torture.” When pressed by PCATI, the Court did an impressive amount of linguistic, logical, and legal acrobatics to avoid categorizing ISA’s interrogation methods as torture.
The Zionist monster became an expert not only in torture but also in assassinations, and this is the state that American imperialism defends and finances. After the last assassinations, the US sent warships to defend Israel. The decaying American state is responsible for the killing of many million people from the time it was formed. As it has existed longer than the Third Reich, it killed many more than the Nazis.
Some of the most known have been:
Around 12 million indigenous people died within present US geographical boundaries between 1492 and 1900, according to Russell Thornton in American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History since 1492.
The civil war that began in 1861 and lasted until 1865 left 750,000 soldiers dead with an undetermined number of civilians.
The American Expeditionary Force, Siberia (AEF in Siberia) was a formation of the United States Army involved in the Russian Civil War in Vladivostok, Russia, after the October Revolution, from 1918 to 1920.
The US dropped two atomic bombs on Japan in 1945 that killed an estimated 140,000 people in Hiroshima and 74,000 in Nagasaki, according to the global civil society coalition International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.
The United States took the leading role in a covert operation called Operation Ajax, whereby CIA-funded agents were used to foment unrest inside Iran by way of the harassment of religious and political leaders and a media disinformation campaign. These efforts, formally approved by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. came to a head in August 1953 when Mosaddegh and his government were overthrown and Mohammad Reza, a pro-Western monarch, was returned to power. Fighting between supporters of both sides resulted in hundreds of deaths.
A Guatemalan coup in 1954 deposed democratically-elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz with the support of the US and installed the military dictatorship of Carlos Castillo Armas. Guatemala fell into a civil war for the next three decades, with 200,000 people killed.
The 1973 Chilean coup that deposed the Popular Unity government of President Salvador Allende saw Gen. Augusto Pinochet seize power with the support of the US. In the first months after the coup d’état, the military killed thousands of Chilean leftists, both real and suspected, or forced their “disappearance”.
The number of Vietnamese civilians dead is estimated as high as 2 million, with another 1.8 million killed during the fighting. About 18.2 million gallons of Agent Orange was sprayed from American fighter planes from 1961 to 1971. The Vietnamese government claimed the chemical killed 400,000 people and 500,000 children were born with congenital disabilities.
While the Cambodian Civil War killed 300,000, the Laotian Civil War caused more than 60,000 dead. That brought the massacre’s toll to almost 4.2 million.
From the beginning of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, through its insurgency and civil war, more than 1 million are estimated to have been killed.
Around 240,000 have died in the US war zone in Afghanistan and Pakistan since 2001.
In the Korean War, at least 2.5 million people lost their lives.
According to documentation declassified in the late 90s and released in 2001 about the Indonesian Army’s fight against the Indonesian Communist Party, the U.S. Embassy originally stated that 50–100 PKI members were being killed nightly. In an air-gram to Washington in April 1966, the estimated fatalities had reached between 100,000 and 1,000,000.
The fight against the Indonesian Communist Party eventually led to President Suharto’s heightening of power and ultimately led to a brutal dictatorship from 1967 to 1998, marking 31 years of brutality.
The United States’ involvement in these activities is marked with controversy. An August 1966 air gram from Marshall-Green stated that the U.S. Embassy had prepared a list of Communist leaders with attribution to the Embassy removed and that Indonesian security officials were using the list that lacked overt knowledge on Communist officials.
Down with imperialism!
For Palestine, red and free from the river to the sea!
Endnotes:
[i] https://www.nnotes:ewarab.comsent/news/vast-majority-israelis-support-new-leionsbanon-invasion-poll
[ii] https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/69-of-israelis-support-assassinations-even-if-cease-fire-in-gaza-delayed-poll/3293248#:~:text=Talks%20for%20truce%20in%20Palestinian,after%20attacks%20in%20Beirut%2C%20Tehran&text=As%20many%20as%2069%25%20of,a%20new%20 poll%20has%20found.
[iii] https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/most-israelis-support-establishing-settlements-in-gaza–west
[iv] HCJ 9018/17 Tbeish et al. v the Attorney-General et al., Ruling of 26 November 2018.
[v] ] HCJ 5100/94 Public Committee Against Torture in Israel v the Government of Israel, PD 73(4) 817 (1999)