....and a final block of
familiar but pertinent text:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A bit of background about me. I am of Jewish descent, particularly from a prominent family of notable lawyers and judges from Ottawa and Montreal. Much of that family fled what is now Eastern Poland just before the outbreak of WWI. From direct experiences with exhumations in Guatemala through to travels throughout Europe, the Middle East, South East Asia, and Japan, I developed a strong interest and empathy to how bigotry rises and genocides come to be plus the fallout from them. Genocide is the extreme end game of bigotry and supremacism.
A tad ironic in consideration to his nationalistic and unwavering defence for Israeli extraterritorial behaviour, is a decent book and accompanying documentary upon genocide and how it can be, by
Daniel Goldhagen, Worse than War. Pains of witnessing the start of a genocide but deterred against its prevention was well detail in Lt-Gen. Roméo Dallaire's,
Shake Hands with the Devil.
This is particularly why I have acted strongly against the rise of racism and brutal calls to violence upon targeted groups that have been presented on this forum. There is a common supremacist and derogatory path presented in history that enables societies to commit great crimes. As a Jew, I am deeply ashamed of assumed association with the State of Israel for its explicit crimes and paralleling policies and actions to states and religions that have many times throughout the millennia persecuted Jews. Let's be clear, the State of Israel was founded as a political entity with freedom for religion at its core and separated from religion, a homeland welcoming to Jews, not a religious Jewish state. This has become conflated and perversed both from within Israel and external parties. I am not alone as a Jew who can separate that of religion and religious sects from the State of Israel and recognise valid criticism of that state does not imply criticism of Judaism and Jews. Actions by the State of Israel in the former Palestinian territories (now the State of Palestine) are a sordid defamation against the painful history of the Jewish people and much a bloody repeat of the same crimes committed against ourselves. This drives me to achieve fairness for all peoples in this world and to never permit the bigotry and supremacism to again gain an upper hand.
Considering there was just a recent
thread arguing in defence of the South African Apartheid state, let's examine how that path in history contributed to the evolution of international criminal law and how those laws may have a direct bearing against the State of Israel:
Race, as in the classic genetic/visible distinction for the a group, is most certainly not the only characteristic for defining racial/ethnic groups nor is that limit for scope of the well defined legal word of apartheid.
Wiki article concerning the crime of Apartheid:
Definition of racial discrimination
According to the
United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination,
the term "racial discrimination" shall mean any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.[12]
This definition does not make any difference between discrimination based on
ethnicity and
race, in part because the distinction between the two remains debatable among
anthropologists.
[13] Similarly, in British law the phrase
racial group means "any group of people who are defined by reference to their race, colour, nationality (including citizenship) or ethnic or national origin".
[14]
Article II of the ICSPCA defines the crime of apartheid as below:
International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid,
Article II[1]
For the purpose of the present Convention, the term 'the crime of apartheid', which shall include similar policies and practices of
racial segregation and discrimination as practiced in
southern Africa, shall apply to the following
inhumane acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one
racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them:
- Denial to a member or members of a racial group or groups of the right to life and liberty of person
- By murder of members of a racial group or groups;
- By the infliction upon the members of a racial group or groups of serious bodily or mental harm, by the infringement of their freedom or dignity, or by subjecting them to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment;
- By arbitrary arrest and illegal imprisonment of the members of a racial group or groups;
- Deliberate imposition on a racial group or groups of living conditions calculated to cause its or their physical destruction in whole or in part;
- Any legislative measures and other measures calculated to prevent a racial group or groups from participation in the political, social, economic and cultural life of the country and the deliberate creation of conditions preventing the full development of such a group or groups, in particular by denying to members of a racial group or groups basic human rights and freedoms, including the right to work, the right to form recognised trade unions, the right to education, the right to leave and to return to their country, the right to a nationality, the right to freedom of movement and residence, the right to freedom of opinion and expression, and the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association;
- Any measures including legislative measures, designed to divide the population along racial lines by the creation of separate reserves and ghettos for the members of a racial group or groups, the prohibition of mixed marriages among members of various racial groups, the expropriation of landed property belonging to a racial group or groups or to members thereof;
- Exploitation of the labour of the members of a racial group or groups, in particular by submitting them to forced labour;
- Persecution of organizations and persons, by depriving them of fundamental rights and freedoms, because they oppose apartheid.
and more, in direct relation to the
ICC
ICC definition of the crime of apartheid
Article 7 of the
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court defines crimes against humanity as:
Article 7Crimes against humanity
- For the purpose of this Statute, 'crime against humanity' means any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack:
- Murder;
- Extermination;
- Enslavement;
- Deportation or forcible transfer of population;
- Imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law;
- Torture;
- Rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity;
- Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender as defined in paragraph 3, or other grounds that are universally recognized as impermissible under international law, in connection with any act referred to in this paragraph or any crime within the jurisdiction of the Court;
- Enforced disappearance of persons;
- The crime of apartheid;
- Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health.[15]
Later in Article 7, the crime of apartheid is defined as:
The 'crime of apartheid' means inhumane acts of a character similar to those referred to in paragraph 1,
committed in the context of an institutionalised regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.
[15]
As presented, Apartheid is the perfectly applicable word for the Israeli occupation and supremacist extraterritorial expansion in the present State of Palestine. Sadly historically ironical of Israel taking to heart to enact the latter day Imperial and later Nazi Germany's expansionist
lebensraum and from the Venice to Warsaw's
ghettoization of Palestine.
History has set the precedent for multiple distasteful words. Unfortunately the bigotry and aggression of the state of Israel continuously act to warrant the labelling of such dirty truth, right on down to
apartheid.
For its actions beyond its state borders and for its continued actions within the State of Palestine, now a likely jurisdictional territory and party to the Rome Statute, multiple Israeli actors do reasonably fear
ICC action taken against them.
With the loud and recent pressure brought against the Palestinian Authority participating in the
ICC, a now certifiably accepted state government of the territory of the Israeli occupied state of Palestine, there is a justifiably strong Israeli state fear of the
ICC bringing action against Israeli state actors for their foreign and aggressively criminal actions on the ground of Palestine. Damning
facts on the ground, if we will.
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