January 16, 2009
10 social justice advocates were arrested today in the Chicago office of Senator Dick Durbin in response to the Gaza crisis.
Activists demand that Senator Durbin issues a public statement decrying US support for Israeli attacks on Gaza
They sought a public statement from Senator Durbin that would call upon Israel to:
1) end its military offensive against Gaza;
2) withdraw all of its military forces from Gaza; and,
3) open the border crossings with Gaza to allow for the free and unfettered flow of humanitarian supplies into Gaza.
Four participants met briefly with two staff members from the Senator’s office. At the conclusion of the meeting, they informed the Senator’s staff that they would not leave the office until the Senator issued the public statement. The 10 were directed to leave the office after the meeting ended. Subsequently, ten individuals were arrested on federal charges for “failure to comply with a lawful directive to leave the office.” All have since been released.
Participants in the action came from: Voices for Creative Nonviolence; 8th Day Center for Justice; Francis of Assisi House Catholic Worker; Palestine Solidarity Group Chicago; Fight Back News; Christian Peacemaker Teams Chicago; and Strangers & Guests Catholic Worker Farm.
They delivered the following letter to Senator Durbin at the time of the action:
Dear Senator Durbin,
On 31 December 2008 you stated:
“I understand and support Israel’s defense of its borders from rocket attacks by Hamas.”
By that day, at least 315 Palestinians, including 41 children and nine women, had been killed and more than 900 injured by Israel’s air strikes on the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip that failed to differentiate between military and civilian objects. (Statistics: Al Mezan Center for Human Rights)
Israel continues to bombard the 1.5 million stateless Palestinians in Gaza — half of whom are children and refugees and because of Israel’s closure of the borders, have nowhere to flee — using US-supplied and -manufactured weaponry from the ground, sea and air.
War crimes against civilians
Israel has in all likelihood committed war crimes in its ongoing military operations in the Gaza Strip. One example of many, on 6 January 2009, 43 Palestinians who had fled Israeli shelling in other areas and were taking shelter in the United Nations-administered Fakhoura school in the Jabaliya refugee camp were killed after two Israeli tank shells exploded outside the school. The United Nations agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) had given Israeli authorities the Global Positioning System coordinates of all of its installations in Gaza and categorically denied Israeli claims, later retracted, that Palestinian armed fighters had fired on Israeli troops from inside the school.
Israel’s military operations on the Gaza Strip indicate a reckless disregard for human life and a failure to distinguish civilian from military objects. For example, as the human rights organization Al-Haq reported, Israel’s 27 December 2008 “aerial bombardment of the civil police compound in Gaza City … killed 65 out of 70 police officers who were involved in a training course.” According to Al-Haq, “[T]he Civil Police is comprised of civilian police officers whose primary task, similar to any civilian police force, is the maintenance of civic order within the Gaza Strip. They serve no military function and are therefore not combatants.” The same principle applies to representatives of the political wing of the Hamas party “who play no part in commanding or controlling the military wing of Hamas and who do not take direct part in hostilities are civilians and not a legitimate military target,” including Nizar Rayyan, who was killed along with 15 members of his family (including 11 children) when his home in the Jabaliya refugee camp was hit in an Israeli air strike. (Al-Haq Brief: Legal Aspects of Israel’s Attacks on the Gaza Strip during “Operation Cast Lead,” 7 January 2009)
Israel’s claims of self-defense
Israel claims to be carrying out its massive military campaign on the Gaza Strip to protect its population from rockets fired by Hamas towards Israel from the Gaza Strip. While Israel is obligated to protect its civilian population, any response it takes “must respect the fundamental international humanitarian law principles of military necessity, proportionality and distinction” between military and civilian objects. “The conduct of hostilities during ‘Operation Cast Lead’ can under no circumstances be considered in accordance with these principles,” according to Al-Haq.
Furthermore, a military response must only be taken as a matter of last resort and force is only lawful if peaceful attempts failed. On this principle, Israel has failed as well. During the six-month ceasefire between resistance groups in the Gaza Strip and Israel, which was brokered by Egypt in June of 2008, Hamas refrained from firing rockets from the Gaza Strip and prevented other groups from doing so as well. The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ own documents illustrate that during the period of the ceasefire, the number of rocket and mortars fired from Gaza were reduced by 97 percent (see “The Hamas terror war against Israel,” Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1 January 2009). However, Israel did not fulfill its obligations to ease the embargo that it has imposed on the Gaza Strip, collectively punishing the civilian population, in contravention of Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Israel also breached the ceasefire on 4 November 2008 when it extra-judicially executed six Hamas members. Hamas’ behavior during the ceasefire gives much indication that had Israel upheld its obligations under the ceasefire, civilians in the south of Israel could have been spared rockets fired from the Gaza Strip. By tightening instead of easing its measures of illegal collective punishment on the civilian population of the Gaza Strip — through the closure of the borders which has resulted in shortages of necessary commodities such as wheat flour, cooking gas and medicines, and by resuming its illegal extrajudicial execution operations — Israel has not only shown reckless disregard towards Palestinian civilian life, which as the Occupying Power of the Gaza Strip it is obligated to protect, but has failed to protect the lives of its own civilians as well.
The United States’ obligations to protect civilians
International human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have decried Israel’s ongoing attacks on the civilian population and infrastructure in the Gaza Strip and along with Palestinian and Israeli human rights organizations, call on the international community including state parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention, including the US, to uphold their obligations under international humanitarian law and ensure the protection of Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip.
The United States has a special role in Israel’s war crimes in the Gaza Strip as it provides arms and monetary grants to the Israeli army, despite Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and other Arab territories since 1967 — the belligerent nature of which must be noted, as the ongoing massacres in the Gaza Strip are only the latest chapter of Israel’s violent repression of Palestinians struggling for their right to national self-determination. According to an 8 January 2009 report by Inter Press Service, “The administration of President George W. Bush alone has provided for 21 billion dollars in US security assistance [to Israel] over the last eight years, including 19 billion dollars in direct military aid as freebies,” fueling Israel’s military operation in Gaza.
Particularly troubling are reports by Palestinian medics in Gaza of severe and unusual burns in the victims of Israeli strikes, consistent with the chemical weapon, white phosphorous, possibly supplied by the United States. These reports are affirmed by Human Rights Watch, whose observers have witnessed “multiple air-bursts of artillery-fired white phosphorous over what appeared to be the Gaza City/Jabaliya area” on 9 and 10 January. According to Human Rights Watch, the use of white phosphorous is permissible when used as an “obscurant,” but Israel’s use of white phosphorous “in densely populated areas of Gaza violates the requirement under international humanitarian law to take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian injury and loss of life.” (Human Rights Watch, 10 January 2009) It should also be noted that Israel has banned the entry of human rights observers and international journalists (except for a few of the latter who were allowed to be embedded with an Israeli combat unit), which has frustrated the work of international human rights organizations and United Nations bodies and reporters wishing to investigate and document human rights violations in the Gaza Strip.
Demands of Senator Durbin:
1. Examination of military aid to Israel
The news agency Reuters reported on 9 January 2008 that “In September, the US Congress approved the sale of 1,000 bunker-buster missiles to Israel … The Jerusalem Post, citing defense officials, reported last week that a first shipment of the missiles had arrived in early December” and were used by Israel in its operations in the Gaza Strip.
Furthermore, on 14 January 2009, Amnesty International called for the embargo on arms to all parties engaged in the hostilities in Gaza, especially calling for the embargo of a ship which left the US on 20 December 2008 carrying a large consignment of high explosives and other munitions and which is destined to Ashdod port in southern Israel. According to Amnesty, “Tenders for two other arms shipments totaling 325 containers of US munitions were approved by the Pentagon on 31 December, four days after the start of Israel’s current attacks on targets in Gaza. … Tender documents show that these shipments contain white phosphorous, known for its potential to cause severe burns and an indiscriminate weapon when used as an airburst in densely-populated civilian areas as now alleged in Gaza.” Amnesty added, “In addition to locally produced arms, Israeli forces are carrying out unlawful attacks using foreign weaponry and other military equipment supplied mainly by the USA but also from other countries … .”
We demand Senator Durbin to immediately issue a Senate bill that calls for an examination of Israel’s compliance with the Arms Export Control Act of 1976 (AECA), considering that the vast majority of those killed in Israel’s offensive on the Gaza Strip are non-combatant civilians, more than a quarter of them women and children, and civilian objects such as schools, mosques and houses are being targeted, according to statistics made available by Al Mezan on 11 January 2009. The shipment of these arms to Israel must be suspended so long as Israel continues to target the civilian population in the Gaza Strip and commit severe breaches of international humanitarian law including war crimes there. The US must also investigate Israel’s use of white phosphorous bombs as anti-personnel munitions, and whether these bombs were supplied by, manufactured or licensed in the US.
2. Protection of the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza
In the interest of protecting the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza, the United States, through all measures at its disposal, must hold Israel accountable to international law, especially through the US’s role at the United Nations Security Council. The failure of the United Nations Security Council to call for an immediate ceasefire as soon as Israel’s air strikes began is deplorable. Israel willfully killed hundreds of Palestinians in Gaza while political considerations prevented the United Nations Security Council from urgently taking action to protect civilian life. No doubt, the United States’ historical role as Israel’s lawyer at the United Nations had a role in the two-week delay before Resolution 1860 was passed, calling for a full withdrawal of Israel forces from Gaza and a ceasefire. Shamefully, the United States abstained from the vote. By not calling for a halt to the violence, and by arming Israel, United States officials are aiding and abetting war crimes and liable to prosecution. We call upon the US to demand that Israel immediately withdraw from the Gaza Strip and end its bombardment of the occupied territory, and urge Senator Durbin to initiate a binding vote to that effect.
3. End the siege of collective punishment on Gaza and recognize democratically elected Palestinian representatives
Furthermore, as a party of the International Quartet for Middle East Peace, the United States has colluded with Israel’s nearly two-year-long siege of collective punishment on the civilian population of Gaza. We call for an immediate lifting of the siege of Gaza and an end of the boycott of and the beginning of negotiations with the democratically elected representatives of the Palestinian people living under Israeli occupation. The borders to Gaza must be immediately and unconditionally opened so that Palestinians in Gaza may be able to acquire commodities necessary for their right to health and a dignified life. Israel’s siege has brought economic life to a standstill, and has resulted in the deaths of patients suffering treatable diseases. Because of the Israeli-imposed border closure that has manufactured a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, on 18 December 2008, UNRWA was forced to cease its food aid distribution to 750,000 registered refugees there. The military siege of Gaza has only exacerbated the widespread lack of access to adequate food.
4. Unconditional support of Israel must be reconsidered
According to a Rasmussen poll of American public opinion towards Israel’s military operations in the Gaza Strip, the findings of which were released on 31 December, only 31 percent of respondents who identified as Democrats agreed with Israel’s decision to take military action against Gaza — the majority of Democratic respondents said that Israel should have tried to find a diplomatic solution first. There is a deep rift between the popular opinion of Democrats in the US and the Democratic leadership, which continues to act in lockstep with Israel. More than 1,000 murdered Palestinians in the Gaza Strip indicate that it is high time for the Democratic leadership to take a principled position and uphold Palestinian rights.
