To cover for war crimes, Israel claims it ‘lost control’ over soldiers
Israel’s claim to have lost control over military units in Gaza is an attempt to gain legal cover for its troops’ war crimes, and masks a far deeper issue of systemic impunity inside the occupation army.

 

BY Robert Inlakesh

 

Several months after media commentators began predicting a “strategic defeat” for Israeli forces in Gaza, Israel’s military high command is claiming it has lost control over various units in their armed forces. 

The argument appears to scapegoat occupation soldiers to provide plausible deniability for their superiors and dissociate them from war crimes charges. The vast body of evidence emerging on these alleged ‘rogue Israeli units’ could potentially lead to a damning indictment of Tel Aviv’s military leadership.

Despite the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) recent call on Israel to halt its military operation in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remains resolute in his vow to invade, even while personally facing an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant. Marred by internal division and pressure to comply with the ICJ order, Tel Aviv finds itself in a precarious position.

‘Rogue units’ in the occupation army 

Hebrew-daily Haaretz dropped a narrative bombshell last weekend when it claimed that the Israeli army’s “General Staff lost control over the units, especially reserve units, months ago.” The article attempts to depict a situation in which Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi has just “woken up” to the reality of allegedly rogue elements operating under his watch, with these ‘uncontrolled units’ committing the crimes cited by the ICJ against Israel.

Throughout the war in Gaza, Israeli soldiers have been publishing evidence of themselves committing crimes, showing genocidal intent, and performing perverse acts while operating inside the besieged coastal territory. 

These incriminating clips, published primarily on TikTok and Instagram and also within Telegram groups that glorify the killing of Palestinian civilians, have attracted a lot of bad press. It appears that Israel’s leadership is now floating the “few bad apples” strategy to absolve their military high brass of accountability.

It won’t be easy. Some of these social media groups are run by occupation officials. Furthermore, the Israeli military establishment has admitted to running accounts on Telegram that showcase snuff films as part of a psychological warfare operation under the “Operations Directorate’s Influencing Department.”

Which units have gone rogue?

As of now, there is no official list of the units that have allegedly ‘gone rogue.’ Haaretz writer Amos Harel proposes that these troops can simply be identified by those who have posted incriminating videos of themselves.

Consider the case of Yair Ben David, a commander in the 2908th Battalion, cited in the South African ICJ submission for expressing genocidal intent. He boasted about the destruction his forces caused in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza, referencing a biblical story where all male inhabitants were massacred, and stated, “the entire Gaza should resemble Beit Hanoun.” 

Despite this statement being made in a video published on social media in December 2023, there has been no action taken by Israel’s military leadership to rein in his unit.

Another Haaretz article published in late January, titled ‘The Israeli Army Must Act Before Some of Its Soldiers Turn Into Lawless Gangs,’ referenced Ben David’s comment and noted that “90 reservist battalion commanders petitioned the IDF chief of staff not to stop in Gaza, Lebanon, and the West Bank until victory.” 

David Bar Kalifa, commander of Division 36, the largest regular division in the Israeli army, was also quoted in the article for his orders of “vengeance” against the Palestinian population. However, Tel Aviv has taken no actions to structurally change or reform the division, which was instead later transitioned to the Lebanese border, despite the head of Israel’s Southern Command, Yaron Finkelman, arguing for them to move to central Gaza.

Aviad Yisraeli, an officer in the 261 Brigade’s 6261st Battalion, openly posted on social media about his intent to “make sure there is no one left” before participating in the invasion of Khan Yunis in December. Yisraeli, who lives in an illegal settler outpost near Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, was not disciplined by his superiors and was recently deployed to Rafah.

On 6 May, when Israeli forces seized the Rafah Crossing, soldiers filmed themselves destroying and desecrating the crossing and posting the footage on social media. These soldiers belonged to the 401st Brigade of the 162nd Division, while the Givati Brigade captured other areas east of Rafah. 

The Rafah Crossing seizure was perhaps one of the most sensitive military offensives committed by the Israelis during the entire war because their entrance into what is known as the ‘Philadelphi Corridor’ technically violated the 1979 Camp David agreement with Egypt. The use of the 401st Brigade, known for its subordination, reflects a deeper issue within the Israeli high command.

Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari has been urging soldiers not to film such acts for months, which is a clear indication that the army leadership has long been aware of their actions. No disciplinary actions have been taken to date – the most proactive measure conducted by authorities has been to announce police’ investigations’ into the posting of footage online. And there has been no follow-up on these inquiries into the thousands of videos, photos, and posts from soldiers.

Controlling chaos

If the Israeli leadership has truly lost control of entire units in their military, why would such units be deployed back into action in sensitive areas like the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and along the Lebanese border? 

Such reckless decision-making, involving soldiers suspected of not following orders and whose videos are used as evidence of genocidal intent at the ICJ, is a significant indictment of the Israeli high command.

In January, a report by the Hebrew ‘Kan Reshet Bet’ radio stated:

Reservist fighters who were called to training ahead of the establishment of the Hashomer Brigade … have severely criticized the serious gaps in equipment, professionalism, the lack of manpower and especially the fact that in the middle of the training they were informed that they were entering the Gaza Strip without having trained as required.

Such reports are not uncommon in Israeli media and reflect the state of the military leadership’s decision-making. When combined with numerous statements of genocidal intent, as documented by Palestinian rights group Al-Haq, from both military and political leadership, it paints a picture of controlled chaos.

The South African legal team at the ICJ linked Netanyahu’s invocation of the biblical story of Amalek to Israeli soldiers, interpreting this as a call to mass murder Palestinian civilians. Potential war crimes motivated by such rhetoric cannot be isolated to individuals when military leadership decisions allow such behavior.

If the Israeli high command is unaware of radical and uncontrolled elements within their military, how do they explain the formation of the ‘Desert Frontier’ unit, which has integrated extremist settlers from the ‘Hilltop Youth?’ This radical group of settler-vigilantes was previously described by Israeli media as terrorists for attacking Israeli soldiers and Palestinian civilians.

An environment of impunity

This problem of reckless soldier behavior did not begin in 2023; it stems from Israeli troops operating in an environment of complete impunity. During the 2008/9 war in Gaza, the worst punishment doled out to an Israeli soldier committing a crime was for stealing a credit card – not for killing, torturing, beating Palestinians, or razing their homes, businesses, and land. 

Or for using Palestinians as human shields – a crime Tel Aviv attributes to Hamas, but one its troops commit daily. According to B’Tselem, two soldiers involved in using a nine-year-old boy as a human shield received a three-month conditional sentence and were demoted from staff sergeant to private two years after the incident. None of their commanding officers were tried.

The two soldiers in question had ordered a nine-year-old boy, at gunpoint, to open a bag they suspected was booby-trapped. Despite the gravity of their conduct - putting a young child at risk – the two were given a three-month conditional sentence and demoted from staff sergeant to private some two years after the incident took place. None of their commanding officers were tried.

Since then, troop behaviors have only worsened. Despite there being so many more documented cases of Israeli soldiers deploying Palestinian civilians – often children – as human shields, this was the last case punished by the Israeli judicial system.

The argument that Israel’s military leadership is only now waking up to the reality of their soldiers’ misconduct serves to create plausible deniability. It is no coincidence that extremist ideologues have been empowered in the Israeli army and that ill-disciplined soldiers, encouraged by their leaders’ genocidal rhetoric, are given carte blanche to commit crimes against Palestinians.

https://thecradle.co/articles/to-cover-for-war-crimes-israel-claims-it-lost-control-over-soldiers

 

 

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Netanyahu soon to appear before the US Congress? It will be decisive for the succession in this country and the invasion of Lebanon by Alfredo Jalife-Rahme 

 

The reception of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by a joint session of the U.S. Congress is not just an operation against President Joe Biden, it is also an endorsement of Israel’s parliamentary majority in its continuation of the massacre in Gaza. What’s more, given Netanyahu’s insistence on going to war against Hezbollah, involving Iran and bringing in the United States, this will be one more step in his strategy to atomize Persia.

Following Joe Biden’s debacle in his disastrous debate with Donald Trump, and ahead of Iran’s run-off election, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s controversial presence at the US Congress on July 24 has triggered a wave of intense commentary, which, especially from compatriot groups inside and outside Israel, underscores the Prime Minister’s predisposition in favor of Trump, while pro-Biden/Democrat groups castigate his unwelcome presence. Is the US election in the hands of Netanyahu and AIPAC, the powerful Israeli-US lobby?

The American Zionist Public Affairs Committee (AZCPA) has infiltrated AIPAC, the lobby group that exerts strong influence on the US executive and legislative branches. It is considered the most powerful lobby group among the plethora of pro-Israeli organizations in the United States. AIPAC boasts that it represents "more than 3 million (sic) pro-Israel Americans in every congressional district to build bipartisan support for the U.S. relationship with Israel". The committee calls itself the "largest pro-Israel lobby", the one with the most resources, the one that offers the most resources (sic) directly to candidates: 98% of the candidates it supports won the general election in 2022!

Its enormous revenues, not counting tax-deductible donations from Wall Street Khazar financiers, amounted to $473.5 million in 2022. Israeli portal Forward reported that as of October 7, the emblematic date of the Hamas attack on Israel, AIPAC has raised $90 million, "much of which is earmarked to date for the 2024 elections [1]
". The anti-Netanyahu newspaper Haaretz explains the power of AIPAC in the United States, whose "fundraising group will have a decisive role in the 2024 elections [2]". One should not underestimate the decisive omnipotence of AIPAC, which, in addition to providing lubricant for a pleiad of American legislators, has just inflicted a painful defeat in its New York fiefdom on Representative Jamaal Bowman, a member of the progressive, pro-Palestinian Squad group led by the young Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez [3], thanks to massive Zionist donations from those now seeking other electoral heads to behead [4].

The Jacobin portal claims that AIPAC’s defeat of Bowman paradoxically masks "its weakness" [5]. Even the Financial Times comments on Prime Minister Netanyahu’s unfolding war plans in his autistic interview on Channel 14, close to cabinet zealots Ben Gvir and Smotrich, for a "summer of conflict [6]". France’s Réseau Voltaire has already explained [7] that dual-nationality U.S.-Israelis condemn Netanyahu’s upcoming visit to Washington. California’s UnXeptable Group has launched a campaign against Netanyahu’s presence in Congress on July 24; in my opinion, this will be decisive for the planned invasion of Lebanon.

According to Voltaire Network. [8] a host of Israeli personalities also condemned the announced visit in the New York Times: David Harel, President of the Israeli Academy of Sciences; Tamir Pardo, former head of the Israeli Mossad; Ehud Barak, former Prime Minister of Israel; Aaron Ciechanoveret, Nobel Prize winner in chemistry; and novelist and essayist David Grossman, etc. Before the Biden debacle, the White House made no secret of its fears about Netanyahu’s presence in Congress: "Nobody knows what he’s going to say [9]". John Mearsheimer, a professor at the University of Chicago, spoke of the inconceivable power of the Israel lobby in the United States, which has become, in my opinion, a state within a state.

 

Alfredo Jalife-Rahme 

 

Translation

Roger Lagassé

 

Source

La Jornada (Mexico) 

The largest Spanish-language daily newspaper in the world.

 

https://www.voltairenet.org/article221120.html

 

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Michael West reports on the progress (or not) of Freedom of Information requests.

What is the legal position of Australians fighting for the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) in Gaza amid claims of widespread breaches of international law in a conflict which has taken the lives of 40,000 people, more than half of them women and children? 

As more countries sign up to South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice which alleges Israel’s military campaign in Gaza amounted to genocide, has the Australian government warned the estimated 1000 Australians either actively serving or enlisted as reservists of their risk of prosecution?

In March, it was revealed that the British government received advice from its own lawyers saying Israel had breached international humanitarian law in Gaza but has failed to make it public.

Freedom of Information (FOI) requests by MWM correspondent and former senator Rex Patrick asking for government advice on foreign fighters have been stonewalled by the Department of Foreign Affairs.

Plenty of information, but sorry

Responses during the processing of the requests show that there is a large volume of information surrounding the issue. Unfortunately, the government is not sharing its advice. On May 24, Patrick received this response from the Department for Foreign Affairs:

“Even if we only provided the relevant parts of the Talking Points relating to your request, they would still comprise an estimated 300 pages. I also estimate the balance of the documents would. comprise a further 300 pages bringing the total number of pages to 600 pages, down from the original 1,300 pages.”

The FOI was rejected on the basis that the documentation was too large. The exchange is published below. Meanwhile, independent legal counsel has found that there is a risk for these foreign fighters. Writing for MWM in October last year, Greg Barns SC found that there was a legal risk.

And three months later as the death toll rose dramatically, writing for John Menadue’s Pearls & Irritations, Greg Barns and Benedict Coyne found Australian citizens were at risk of being prosecuted under Australian law “if they commit, or are complicit in, crimes being perpetrated by the Israeli Defence Forces in Gaza.

“Since the commencement of the Gaza war, when the Israeli government issued an order to 360,000 military reservists to engage in the onslaught of Gaza, multiple dual Australian-Israeli citizens returned to Israel to fight in the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF). This development saw some Australian media outlets appearing to celebrate the fact that Australian citizens were being called up to join the brutal onslaught of the beleaguered population of Gaza.”

Although the IDF does not release official statistics in relation to serving foreign nationals, the Australian Centre for International Justice has reported estimates of up to 1,000 Australians currently serving in the IDF or being active reservists.

“As the Australian Centre for International Justice noted on 22 December 2023 despite the knowledge about Israeli war crimes in this conflict, “it appears that the Australian government has failed to provide any public statements advising of the risks involved particularly in respect of the potential legal consequences and individual criminal liability that could arise from the conduct of Australian nationals participating in the conflict as a member of the IDF.” 

Despite fears that Australian foreign fighters could be held responsible for war crimes, the Australian government has batted off FOI requests from Rex Patrick.

...

 

A chronology of stonewalling

On April 5, Patrick made a request to DFAT for

Documents created or received by DFAT since 7 October 2023 that relate to Australian citizens serving in the Israeli Defence Force (IDF).

April 29 – DFAT responded saying:

Searches undertaken by MEB have captured documents consisting of over 1,330 pages. A large proportion of the documents are Talking Points and Senate Estimates Briefs. While these documents only contain a small amount of information relevant to your request, you have stated that ‘Where a record in part contains information relating to the above matter, I seek access to the entirety of the document’.

 May 4 – Patrick suggested a reduction of scope to:

“Correspondence/emails received from the Attorney-General’s office/ADG or the Foreign Ministers Office and ministerial briefs/talking points provided to the Attorney-General’s office/ADG or the Foreign Ministers Office documents created or received by DFAT since 7 October 2023 that relate to Australian citizens serving in the Israeli Defence Force (IDF).

May 7 – DFAT emailed:

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (the department) is continuing to process this request. They requested an extension to Monday 27 May.

Patrick reasonably took this to mean that the scope was now manageable.

“I agreed an extension to Friday May 24, noting that Estimates started on Tuesday 28 May. Note that I advised them my deadline was related to Estimates.

May 24 – DFAT wrote to Patrick formally saying that they were refusing to process the request.

After careful consideration including with the relevant departmental areas, I consider that the practical refusal reason still exists. I am therefore notifying you of my decision to refuse your FOI request, in accordance with section 24(1)(b) of the FOI Act.

I have once again considered the advice provided by colleagues in the Middle East Branch who were tasked with undertaking searches using your revised scope, and they documents they have identified. While your revised scope no longer includes … access to the entirety of the document where only part of the document contains information relating to your request, your request still includes all Talking Points. Even if we only provided the relevant parts of the Talking Points relating to your request, they would still comprise an estimated 300 pages. I also estimate the balance of the documents would. comprise a further 300 pages bringing the total number of pages to 600 pages, down from the original 1,300 pages.“They waited 20 days,” says Patrick, and in the meantime asked for an extension – to tell me that the request was still too voluminous.

The information Commissioner guidelines to Agencies state:

Agencies and ministers are only obliged to undertake a request consultation process once for any particular request (s 24AB(9)), but they may choose to continue discussions with an applicant in order to refine a request that is still too large or vague.

Further proof Australia’s FOI regime is busted

At least we know there is a lot of information floating around inside Government on this issue, says Patrick, and they are reluctant to hand it over easily.

May 24 – Patrick immediately refilled two requests – one to DFAT and one to the Minister’s Office.

June 12 – DFAT requested a 30-day extension.

June 13 – Noting the history, Patrick said no.

FOI is due on June 24.

June 18 – DFAT invoked a privacy concern to extend the request to July 23, but indicated that they were intending to provide a response in the week starting July 1.

June 24 – A short release of talking points from the Minister’s office showing the Government has legal concerns but it not weighing in.

July 5 – Radio silence

 

READ MORE: https://michaelwest.com.au/lips-are-sealed-on-australians-fighting-for-the-israel-defense-forces-in-gaza/

 

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