by Gerald M. Steinberg
-- as the process advances, the European funding will become more apparent.
The campaign to
prosecute Israel at the International Criminal Court in The Hague didn't
suddenly sprout out of Palestinian frustration over the failure of
peace talks or the failure of their Security Council statehood bid. No,
this strategy was first adopted long ago, before the international court
was even established. In 1997, during the talks surrounding the
establishment of the court, representatives of the Arab League pushed
for the definition of war crimes to be as wide as possible and to
include issues dealing with occupation and population transfers. The
obvious objective was to eventually use this institution to wage legal
battle against Israel.
Since then, this legal
battle has been unrelenting, led by an army of nongovernmental
organizations and with the help of extensive funding, mainly from
European governments, under the guise of human rights and international
law.
In September 2001, more
than 1,500 political NGOs convened in Durban for the World Conference
against Racism and adopted a resolution calling for a "policy of
complete and total isolation of Israel," citing war crimes, genocide,
human rights violations and more. The implementation of this policy
would be mainly through the International Criminal Court and courts in
Western countries with universal jurisdiction over war crimes charges.
This network of NGOs
has worked ceaselessly to bring this strategy to fruition. Its leaders
include Palestinian human rights groups as well as Israeli NGOs,
together with many extremist European groups. These organizations have
"bombed" the ICC prosecutor, the media, diplomats and policymakers with
press releases, reports and legal memos accusing Israel of war crimes
and international law violations. The Palestinian Authority lay down the
formal foundations for using the ICC against Israel, and the NGO
network provided the supportive political infrastructure. The hundreds
of thousands of euros that these organizations receive allow them to
advance this campaign all over the world.
The current ICC effort
against Israel has everything to do with the ongoing war crimes
investigation into Israel's actions in Gaza, headed by William Schabas,
who is well known for his ties to anti-Israel organizations. Following
the failure of the 2009 Goldstone commission (which investigated
Operation Cast Lead in Gaza), the Schabas report, which will be
presented at the U.N. in Geneva on March 23, will serve the NGOs in
advancing their efforts against Israel at the ICC. Unlike Richard
Goldstone, who showed integrity and retracted (better late than never),
Schabas is not showing any signs of remorse.
The Israeli
establishment has largely ignored the role of NGOs in the ongoing legal
war against Israel. Even now, after the Palestinian appeal to the ICC,
official Israeli responses and the media debate on the issue seems to
focus solely on the court. The many factors fueling the legal warfare
are still largely unexposed. But as the process advances, the European
funding will become more apparent. It is safe to assume that the clash
between Israel and the European supporters of the legal warfare against
it will be no less dramatic than the battle inside the court.
Gerald M. Steinberg is president of NGO Monitor and a professor in the Political Studies Department at Bar-Ilan University.
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=11289
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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