[WCUSP] US-Israel Symbiotic Relationship: Foreign Assistance & Arms Control Acts

Tue Jul 4 15:36:03 CDT 2006

Please note:  The Foreign Assistance Act  prohibits the United States from 
rendering assistance to the government of any  country " which engages in a 
consistent pattern of gross violations of  internationally recognized human 
rights."...Under the Arms  Export Control Act of 1976, military hardware sold by the 
United States can only  be used for defensive purposes or to maintain 
internal  security.

Israel Creates Humanitarian  Crisis
By MARJORIE COHN 
The daily horrors emerging from Iraq have caused a majority of people in  the 
United States to oppose Bush's war there. Meanwhile, the humanitarian crisis  
Israel has created in the occupied territories hovers below the radar for 
most  Americans. 
Israel has used the killing of two Israeli  soldiers and the capture of a 
third by Palestinians as an excuse to invade Gaza  with overwhelming military 
force and demolish its infrastructure. What Israel  and its benefactor--the 
United States--really want is to destroy the  democratically-elected Hamas 
government. 
During the preceding weeks, Israel instigated  events that resulted in the 
capture of the Israeli soldier. The Israeli military  had killed more than 30 
civilians, including three children and a pregnant  woman.  
In the week since the Israeli soldier was  captured, Israel's US-supplied 
artillery has pounded the northern Gaza Strip.  Its aircraft struck bridges on 
the main roads. And its helicopters knocked out  Gaza's main power plant, 
leaving half of Gaza's 1.5 million people and its two  main hospitals without 
electricity and running water. The United Nations and the  International Committee 
of the Red Cross have warned of a humanitarian crisis.  
Israeli troops and tanks rolled into the southern  Gaza Strip, in the biggest 
raid since Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005. Israel  has kidnapped 64 
Palestinian governmental ministers and politicians. It bombed  the home of 
Palestinian Prime Minister Ismael Haniyeh. 
Israeli President Ehud Olmert made the astounding  statement that "the lives 
and well-being of Sderot's [Jewish] residents are more  important than the 
deaths of dozens of Palestinian innocents." The Associated  Press quoted Olmert 
as saying, "I want no one to sleep at night in Gaza. I want  them to know what 
it feels like." 
The crisis caused by the Israeli government has  upset many Israeli citizens. 
Hundreds of Israelis protested outside Olmert's  home, denouncing the 
government as war criminals and demanding an end to the  Gaza invasion. "We call for 
our government to stop targeting Palestinian  civilians--the targeting of 
civilians is a war crime--and start negotiating with  the elected Palestinian 
leaders, not to arrest them," said Yishai Menuhin, a  spokesman for the peace 
group Yesh Gvul. 
Israeli newspaper Haaretz commentator Gideon Levy  also criticized the 
Israeli actions. He wrote, "A state that takes such steps is  no longer 
distinguishable from a terror organization." 
Israel's brutal retaliation against Palestinian  civilians constitutes 
collective punishment. Attacks on a civilian  population as a form of collective 
punishment violate article 50 of the Hague  Regulations, which provides: "No 
general penalty, pecuniary or otherwise, shall  be inflicted upon the population 
on account of the acts of individuals for which  they cannot be regarded as 
jointly and severally responsible."  
The Fourth Geneva Convention also prohibits  collective punishment. Article 
33 says: "No protected person may be punished for  an offence he or she has not 
personally committed." The Convention requires all  states party to it to 
search for and ensure the prosecution of perpetrators of  the war crime of 
"causing extensive destruction ... not justified by military  necessity and carried 
out unlawfully and wantonly." Amnesty International called  the deliberate 
attacks by Israeli forces against civilian property and  infrastructure war 
crimes. 
Collective punishment is likewise forbidden by  Article 75 of Protocol I to 
the Geneva Conventions. As four US Supreme Court  justices agreed in Hamdan v. 
Rumsfeld last week, Article 75 is  "indisputably part of the customary 
international law." 
Before Israel's invasion of Gaza last week, Hamas  was beginning to retreat 
from its position that Israel has no right to exist.  But Financial Times 
quoted Efraim Halevy, Israel's most widely respected  security expert, as saying, 
"Why should Israel care whether Hamas grants it the  right to exist. Israel 
exists and Hamas's recognition or non-recognition neither  adds to nor detracts 
from that irrefutable fact." 
The state of Israel is in no danger of perishing.  Israel is the fourth 
largest military power in the world. Its "enemy" &shy; the  Palestinian people 
&shy; have no tanks, no airplanes, no heavy  artillery. 
The United States' loyal and consistent support  for Israel's policies--to 
the tune of more than $3 billion in aid per year--has  enabled the Israeli 
government to conduct a war of terror against the  Palestinians. Yasser Arafat once 
told an American journalist, "I'll tell you  what this war taught us. It 
taught us that the real enemy is the United States.  It is against you that we 
must fight. Not because your bombs killed our people  but because you have closed 
your eyes to what is moral and just." 
If the US really wished to act on its human rights  rhetoric, it should apply 
political and economic pressure that Israel could not  resist. Under the Arms 
Export Control Act of 1976, military  hardware sold by the United States can 
only be used for defensive purposes or to  maintain internal security. Israel 
has used F-16 fighter jets, Apache and Cobra  attack helicopters, 15mm 
howitzers, M-16 automatic rifles, M50 machine guns and  many other weapons and 
ammunition supplied by the United States. Retired US Army  General James J. David, 
in a letter to Colin Powell in January, 2002, wrote: "If  you're going to deny 
the Palestinians weapons to defend themselves, then you  must stop all 
military and economic aid to Israel." 
The Foreign Assistance Act  prohibits the United States from rendering 
assistance to the government of any  country " which engages in a consistent pattern 
of gross violations of  internationally recognized human rights." 
The United States should halt Israel's aggression  against the Palestinians 
by suspending all economic and military aid to Israel  until Israel's military 
forces have been withdrawn from the occupied Palestinian  territories. 
But Israel is the US client-state in the Middle  East and Bush is just the 
latest US president to continue that symbiotic  relationship.  
Hamas has responded to the recent Israeli  aggression with threats of 
retaliation. This probably means the resumption of  the suicide bombings which Hamas 
halted more than a year ago. A statement signed  by Hamas spokesman Abu Obeidi 
said, "We reiterate that the continued aggression  and terrorist acts of the 
tyrannical occupation against the Palestinian people,  amid the silence of the 
international community, will plunge the region in a sea  of blood." 
A 2002 New York Times editorial said, "The growing  harshness of Israeli 
military practices in the West Bank and Gaza is creating  thousands of potential 
suicide bombers and Israel haters as well as coarsening a  generation of young 
Israeli soldiers." 
United for Peace and Justice has called for an  immediate end to the assault 
on Gaza by the Israeli military forces; the cutting  off of US financial and 
military aid to Israel as well as US support for the  Israel occupation of the 
Palestinian territories; and immediate shipments by the  US government of 
humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza. 
It is time for the American people to demand that  the US government stop its 
support for Israel's aggression against the  Palestinian people. 
Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, 
president-elect of  the National Lawyers Guild, and the US representative to the American  
Association of Jurists.
_www.counterpunch.com_ (http://www.counterpunch.com) 
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