Lebanon – Features

By Max du Plessis

(source: The Cape Times – S.A)

There has been important and courageous work done by South African lawyers in response to Operation Cast Lead and the violations committed by Israel and Hamas. Three individuals stand out: Navi Pillay, John Dugard and Richard Goldstone.

Pillay was the South African judge on the International Criminal Court (ICC) before taking up her position as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. She was one of the first leading figures to speak out about the violations during the conflict, and was quoted by Reuters at the time as being "concerned with violations of international law", and suggesting that certain reported incidents of the IDF should "be investigated because they display elements of what could constitute war crimes".

Read More »Goldstones Gaza report shows courage

South Africans ‘fought in Gaza war’

Efforts to prosecute those who may have committed war crimes in Israel’s war on Gaza have spread beyond the Middle East.

A lawyer in South Africa has identified 75 South African nationals who he says were fighting with the Israeli army in the war earlier this year.

Feroze Boda, based in Johannesburg and working on behalf of two local pro-Palestinian organisations, says the soldiers should face court action for their involvement.

Imran Garda reports from Johannesburg

(source: Al-Jazeera)

The Goldstone report on last winter’s Gaza war has become something of a fixture in the media since its publication in September.

But for South Africans, it is another investigation carried out by the distinguished judge Richard Goldstone – a commission that exposed the brutality of Apartheid security forces in the early 1990s – that looms large in their minds.
That investigation, which came as South Africa moved towards democracy, gave Goldstone hero status in the country.

Now a group of South African lawyers are confident that his recent Gaza report has paved the way for a legal case that could see uncomfortable questions about the conflict asked much closer to home.

They want to investigate South African citizens who may have fought for the Israeli army during the war on Gaza in December and January, with a view to prosecuting them on South African soil for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Read More »South Africas legal war over Gaza

9/11 – The US Military Knows Israel Did It

By Dr Alan Sabrosky

(source: Information Clearing House)

"Redress" – -Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu once remarked to a Likud gathering that "Israel is not like other countries". Oddly enough for him, that time he was telling the truth, and nowhere is that more evident than with Jewish nationalism, whether or not one pins the "Zionist" label on it.

Nationalism in most countries and cultures can have both positive and negative aspects, unifying a people and sometimes leading them against their neighbours. Extremism can emerge, and often has, at least in part in almost every nationalist/independence movement I can recall (e.g. the French nationalist movement had The Terror, Kenya’s had the Mau Mau, etc.).

Read More »The dark face of jewish nationalism