March 24, 2009

When will Israel be brought to book?

The Guardian is asking that question in a few articles today including the editorial. There are also the video reports on the website that appeared yesterday.

Today there is Seumas Milne's comment looking at the prospect of Israelis being brought to justice:
There is of course no chance that the UN security council will authorise the kind of International Criminal Court war crimes indictment now faced by Sudan's leaders over Darfur. Any such move would certainly be vetoed by the US and its allies. And Israel's own courts have had no trouble in the past batting away serious legal challenges to its army's atrocities in the occupied territories. But the use of universal jurisdiction in countries such as Spain or even Britain is making Israeli commanders increasingly jumpy about travelling abroad.

With such powerful evidence of violations of the rules of war now emerging from the rubble of Gaza, the test must be this: is the developing system of international accountability for war crimes only going to apply to the west's enemies – or can the western powers and their closest allies also be brought to book?

Well yes they can, but will they?

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