ICC's Khan faces misconduct charges

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 2 September 2024 

On August 30 the UK’s Daily Telegraph reported that an organization called UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) has threatened to charge the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, with professional misconduct.   Khan is a British lawyer, known in the UK’s legal system as a barrister and King’s Counsel.  He is subject to the discipline of the Bar Standards Board. Found guilty of professional misconduct, a barrister in the most serious cases can be disbarred and forbidden to practice law.

In a letter to Khan dated August 27, the UKLFI refute, item by item, his accusations against the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and defense minister, Yoav Gallant, and provide detailed evidence showing that each and every one of his allegations is false.  In addition they cite new information that has come to light subsequent to his application for international arrest warrants which also shows his original charges to be in error.  They say the professional standards he has to adhere to as a member of the English bar oblige him to review his application to the ICC.

If he does not respond, the UKLFI say they will report him to his professional disciplinary body charged with professional misconduct.  They will back their charges with the vidence provided in their letter, and considerably more which they say they have available.

On May 20, 2024 Khan, as the ICC’s chief prosecutor, applied to the court to issue international arrest warrants against three Hamas leaders and also against Netanyahu and Gallant.  His request in respect of the Israeli leaders was backed by a catalog of alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity that he accused them of committing. He states as a fact that Israel indulged in “collective punishment of the civilian population”.  He substantiates this by asserting that Israel deliberately starved the Gaza population, wilfully caused them great suffering, serious injury and death, and intentionally directed attacks against them, murdering and persecuting them.  He makes these assertions without offering any proof that the actions he lists were deliberate, wilful or intentional.

 
          In their letter the UKLFI write: “We are dismayed to read that you intend to rest on the submissions you advanced in the applications, despite our having shown that every allegation against Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant set out in your published summary of them is false, and despite the highly relevant evidence that has emerged since you filed the applications. With all due respect, this seems to us to manifest a serious lack of integrity on your part. We respectfully urge you to reconsider this position in the light of your professional obligations.”

Their letter to Khan is long and very detailed.  It deals scrupulously with each allegation that Khan makes against Israel and its leaders, showing in detail where charges are patently untrue, or where evidence has emerged since Khan submitted his application that reveal the inadequacy of the original accusation.  It deals in this way with his assertions that Israel imposed a “total siege” on Gaza that involved closing all the border crossings; restricted supplies of food and medicine; cut off fresh water; cut off electricity;  obstructed aid delivery by humanitarian agencies; and was responsible for acute famine.  

One by one, by reference to ascertainably reliable evidence, it demonstrates each to be false.  For example, take the charge of an Israel-instigated famine in the Strip.  Khan says in his application:  “Famine is present in some areas of Gaza and is imminent in other areas. As UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned more than two months ago: “1.1 million people in Gaza are facing catastrophic hunger – the highest number of people ever recorded – anywhere, anytime’”.

The UKLFI observe that the quotation of the UN Secretary-General appears to be from a post by him on social media on 18 March 2024. “On that date,” they write to Khan, “reports relating to the situation in the northern part of the Gaza Strip were published…by the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET).  It appears that the Secretary General based his post on those reports and that you also relied on them.

“On 4 June 2024," they continue, "the Famine Review Committee (FRC) published a Review of the FEWS NET analysis of 18 March 2024 which concluded that “The FRC does not find the FEWS NET analysis plausible for the current period” and “is unable to endorse the IPC Phase 5 (Famine) classification for the projection period”.

“We appreciate that this Review was published after you filed the applications,” write the UKLFI, “but it is now your professional duty to draw it to the attention of the Court, since it contradicts a key allegation on which, according to the Statement, the applications are based.”

  This example may be particularly striking, but the others are equally convincing.  In all, the weight of evidence countering Khan’s accusations against Israel in general, and Netanyahu and Gallant in particular, seems overwhelming.  But Khan has argued that the Court should take no account of submissions that challenge the basis of his application, and that he himself does not intend to amend it.  The UKLFI argue that if Khan does not agree to reconsider the terms of his application he will be guilty of professional misconduct.

According to Wikipedia, 54-year-old Karim Asad Ahmad Khan is a British lawyer specializing in international criminal law and international human rights law.  His father, a consultant dermatologist, was born in Mardan, Pakistan; his mother, a state registered nurse, in the UK.   Khan, married and with two sons, is a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. One of his two brothers was once a Conservative Member of Parliament.

Under the heading: “Your professional obligations” the UKLFI point out that Khan is “registered as a practicing barrister by the Bar Standards Board” and that, as such, “you must comply with the requirements set out in the BSB Handbook.”  They proceed to maintain that if Khan continues to stand by the terms of his original application to the ICC knowing it to contain false information, he is in breach of a number of rules applying to English barristers.

“We believe,” they continue, ”that the material referred to in this letter and its Annex B constitutes only a small portion of the publicly available material refuting the allegations in the Statement. Although we have provided substantial material in this letter…we would respectfully remind you of your obligation to seek out all exonerating material, using the ICC’s substantial resources. It seems to us that you have made no real effort to do so.

“Please let us have your response within 7 days…We are not asking you to deal with the substance within 7 days, but merely to confirm that you will carefully investigate and respond to us substantively on the points we raise within a reasonable time frame.”

Their letter is dated August 27.  So they have given Khan until September 3 to confirm that he is prepared to review his application for international arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant, or they will charge him with professional misconduct.  He is now uneasily balanced on the horns of a dilemma.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and the Jerusalem Post online titled:"UK lawyers threaten to charge ICC prosecutor Karim Khan with misconduct," 2 Sep 2024:

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-817301

Published in Eurasia Review, 6 September 2024:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/06092024-iccs-khan-faces-misconduct-charges-oped/

Chaim Weizmann: A Biography

 Published in the Jerusalem Report, issue dated 9 September 2024

            Born in 1874 in what he himself described as “one of the darkest and most forlorn corners of the Pale of Settlement”, Chaim Weizmann rose to become the confidant of world leaders and an undisputed key figure in the long, complex, diplomatic struggle that led to the founding of the State of Israel.  Indeed on the day after the nation’s birth in May 1948, Weizmann, sick in bed in New York’s Waldorf Astoria hotel, received a telegram signed by some of the new leaders of Israel headed by David Ben-Gurion. 

            “We congratulate you on the founding of the Hebrew state,” it read.  “…there is no one who contributed as you did to its creation.”  It concluded: “We look forward to the day on which we will have the privilege of seeing you as head of state.”

That day did, indeed, arrive.  Weizmann, chosen to occupy the position by the Provisional State Council two days after independence, was formally elected president by the Knesset after Israel’s first parliamentary elections in February 1949.  He held the office until his death on November 9, 1952.

And yet, such are the vagaries of history, Weizmann’s signature never appeared in the blank space allotted to it in Israel’s founding document, its Declaration of Independence.

David Ben-Gurion, with whom Weizmann rarely if ever saw eye-to-eye, never provided an opportunity to allow it.  Moreover, as authors Jehuda Reinharz and  Motti Golani reveal in their magisterial 900-page volume “Chaim Weizmann: a biography”, the position of president offered to and accepted by Weizmann was not at all the position he had anticipated receiving.

            As the offer of the presidency arrived, two days after the independence declaration, his small circle, consisting of his wife Vera, his secretary Riva, and a few friends, gathered by his bedside. In the US the term “President” means head of state with executive powers, and for a long time Weizmann assumed that this was the position he was being offered in Israel.  He was not alone.

            “Both in Weizmann’s hotel room,” write Reinharz and Golani, “and in the White House, the title of president, filtered through the prism of American concepts, was taken to mean that Weizmann’s post would have powers similar to those of the president of the United States.”

            The misconception persisted even after Ben-Gurion officially assumed the post of prime minister in line with the British parliamentary system, making him the leader of the government and head of the executive.  When the penny finally dropped and Weizmann became aware that the position of president he was being offered was bereft of executive power, he decided to resign ahead of being formally elected by the Knesset.  It was only at the last minute that he decided not to send the letter of resignation that he had composed, but Reinharz and Golani reveal that a version reached the public domain anyway.  It was, they say, one with “Weizmann’s history of resignation threats he had no intention of carrying through on.”  After all, they remark, Weizmann “was a man who, when thrown out the door, knew how to get back in through the window.”

            Pre-eminent though Weizmann is in the story of Israel and Zionism, it is remarkable that he has been so largely neglected by historians and is so curiously down-played in the accepted version of the origins of the state.  Prior to this biography, perhaps the fullest record of his life and work is contained in his own autobiography, “Trial and Error”.  In two volumes, the first takes his story up to the issue of the Balfour Declaration in 1917; the second to the founding of the State of Israel in 1948.

            “Chaim Weizmann: a biography”, this wonderfully comprehensive and revealing story of Weizmann’s life, character and achievements, left the launch pad a decade ago.  Reinharz had been researching aspects of Weizmann’s life since 1973, and at one point actually agreed to collaborate with his friend, the historian Walter Laqueur, on an official biography.  But Laqueur was very soon taken up by another project, and the idea faded away.  Meanwhile, in 1985 and again in 1993 Reinharz published aspects of Weizmann’s life and achievements, before again putting the subject aside. Then around ten years ago the urge to tackle Weizmann’s life story in full revived.  He joined forces with Israeli historian Golani, both fired by the idea of producing the first full-scale, in-depth biography of Chaim Weizmann. 

            Jehuda Reinharz is Emeritus Professor of Modern Jewish History at Brandeis University, Massachusetts, and served as its President for seventeen years.  Born in Haifa in 1944, he moved to the United States as a teenager in 1961.  He studied at both Columbia University and Harvard before gaining his PhD at Brandeis in 1972.

            Motti Golani is Professor of Jewish History at Tel Aviv University, where he heads the Chaim Weizmann Institute for the Study of Zionism and Israel. Born in 1954, he studied at the Hebrew University before gaining his PhD at the University of Haifa. He has a connection with Oxford University in the UK, where he was a senior member of St  Anthony’s College in 1994, returning as Visiting Scholar in 2006. 

            Together they have produced a deeply researched account of this most remarkable of men, and the story they have to tell grabs the reader from its earliest pages and sweeps them forward to its conclusion 812 pages later.  What follows the narrative are 60 pages of notes, in which every one of the facts or incidents mentioned in the text is given its source and reference, allowing the reader to follow up any aspect of the story by referring back to its origin.

            Yet the facts of Weizmann’s life, fascinating though they are, yield in interest to the authors’ examination of his quite extraordinary personality, and the powerful effect it exercised on the people he wanted to influence.  “A unique case,” the authors dub him, “unlike any other national leader of his time or, indeed, of any other.” The nearest comparison they can think of is Mahatma Ghandi, with both India and Israel emerging from what they call “the retreat of the British Empire”.  But in the final analysis they believe that the differences between the two leaders are greater than the similarities.

            Weizmann came from obscure beginnings, but his intellectual brilliance revealed itself early on. In high school aged 11 he demonstrated an aptitude for science, and he went on to study chemistry in Germany.  In 1897, aged 22, he moved to Switzerland to complete his studies at the University of Fribourg. It was a serendipitous move, for the following year he was able to attend the Second Zionist Congress in Basel without difficulty.

            In 1904, he was appointed senior lecturer in the chemistry department of Manchester University.  So he emigrated to England, and in Manchester he and his family remained until the mid-1930s. He joined the small and unimportant English Zionist Federation, and it was as its vice-chair that he set about lobbying the great and the good in the English establishment.  His objective was to gain Britain’s support for the creation of a Jewish national home in Palestine, and in this he was, of course, spectacularly successful.

By 1910 he had acquired a position of such influence and respect in scientific circles that friends and colleagues decided to propose him for membership of the prestigious Royal Society.  The snag was that he was not a British citizen. Friends approached cabinet minister Herbert Samuel, and the naturalization process was expedited.

Thenceforth Weizmann considered himself a proud British Jew and, despite his heavy Russian-Jewish accent, was accepted as such by the eminent political leaders he succeeded in meeting and convincing of the justice of the Zionist cause.  It was only in 1948 that he renounced his British nationality to assume his position as President of Israel.

“Weizmann appeared seemingly out of nowhere during World War I,” the authors tell us.  Part of his rise to a position of influence was due to his success in inventing a method of producing synthetic acetone – a vital ingredient in the manufacture of weapons.  News of his laboratory work in this field reached the government, and he was approached and asked to carry out large-scale trials.  His system proved successful, and Britain became self-sufficient in a material critical for all weapons from the smallest handgun to shells for the largest howitzer. 

“From a financial point of view,” write the authors, “Weizmann was not generously rewarded for his wartime services.”  After much negotiation he received only a “token award” (Weizmann’s words) of £10,000.  What he did gain, however, was access to the highest echelons of government, allowing him to lobby for the Zionist cause.  “Weizmann not only got to know officials at all levels of government,” say the authors, “but actually became part of the apparatus, an insider.”  

He painstakingly established a wide circle of personal contacts, and this finally resulted in his persuading his friend Arthur Balfour, the UK’s foreign secretary, to write his historic letter to Lord Rothschild stating in black and white that the British government “viewed with favour” the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine.  It was Weizmann, too, who converted that simple letter, not even typed on official Foreign Office notepaper, into a Declaration whose wording was transposed, word for word, into the Mandate granted by the League of Nations to Great Britain to govern Palestine.

Weizmann’s circle of friendly relationships extended far beyond the shores of Great Britain.  For example he, and no other Zionist leader, had access to US President Truman, and the authors provide chapter and verse for the part Weizmann played in obtaining the president’s support for the establishment and recognition of the state of Israel.

Where his personal charisma finally failed was in his relations with Arab leaders.  Reinharz and Golani provide an account of a secret meeting mentioned nowhere else than in the work of Palestinian historian Aref al-Aref.  Arranged by two members of the Husseini family in 1918, it saw a small team headed by Weizmann on one side, and a group of Arab nationalist leaders on the other, including the Mufti of Jerusalem and the mayor of Jaffa. The fact that a copy of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion appeared on the table as the discussion proceeded tells the whole story.  As the authors comment: “If such a meeting did take place, and if Aref’s account is accurate, it only served to confirm the assessment both sides had of each other’s intentions.”

Weizmann did better with regional Arab leaders.  For example, he had a cordial meeting with Emir Faisal, the son of King Sharif Hussein.  They agreed that close cooperation between Jews and Arabs was necessary, but Faisal would not commit himself to an open policy of collaboration.  It would be up to his father, the king.  Weizmann continued to meet with Palestinians and Syrian Arabs, but in the end it all came to nothing. 

Authors Reinharz and Golani have produced a work of outstanding significance, furthering and deepening our understanding of the political and personal factors leading to, and following, the foundation of the State of Israel.  Beyond a detailed account of the events themselves, they bring to the reader a depth of analysis and understanding of who Chaim Weizmann was as a human being.  Especially recommended is their final Chapter 27, which they title “Contours of Memory”.  In these seventeen pages they paint an in-depth picture of Weizmann, warts and all, and an explanation of how his personality shaped his commitment to the Zionist cause, and the way he set about accomplishing his goal.

“Chaim Weizmann: A Biography” is highly recommended.

The Saudi price for normalization

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 26 August 2024 

            On August 14  the US digital news medium, Politico, published an exclusive report.  It was based on accounts from three separate sources who had been privy to talks between the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), and members of the US Congress.

            These talks were the latest in a series of detailed discussions that have been taking place for years between the US and Saudi Arabia  They began during the presidency of Donald Trump, and preceded the Abraham Accords.  Over time the shape of a complex agreement of major significance has emerged, clearly aimed at boosting MBS’s ambitious program for securing Saudi’s future development – his Saudi Vision 2030, launched in 2016, aimed at breaking the nation's total dependence on oil and promoting additional means of developing the nation's potential.

In exchange for commitments by the US to Saudi Arabia covering, among other issues, security, technical assistance with developing a civilian nuclear program and investment in areas such as high technology, Saudi Arabia would limit its dealings with China and normalize its relations with Israel. 

MBS had one proviso before agreeing to breathe life into the draft deal.  In line with long-standing Saudi policy, he required firm approval by Israel to the establishment of a Palestinian state.  This stark condition has been somewhat modified during the negotiating process.  MBS now requires the inclusion in the agreement of “a credible path toward a Palestinian state”.

Despite widespread global support, including that of the US, for the two-state solution, Benjamin Netanyahu has so far refused to countenance fostering the development of a sovereign Palestine.  It could, he has pointed out, bring Iran-sponsored terrorism into the heart of Israel, and place Tel Aviv and Ben Gurion airport under permanent threat of attack.  

The territories earmarked to form the putative Palestinian state - the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza –  were overrun by Jordan and Egypt during the 1948 Israel-Arab conflict, and administered by them for twenty years.  When originally seized, Mandate Palestine had been dissolved and the land belonged to no sovereign state.  During the subsequent two decades neither Jordan nor Egypt, which occupied those territories, made the slightest effort to form a Palestinian state.  The areas were won back by Israel in the Six Day War in 1967 – and in the following years, through astute Palestinian propaganda, they morphed in the public consciousness into “occupied Palestinian land”.  A political reality has been created, and Israel has been increasingly pressured to support establishing a Palestinian state on them. 

Politico’s revelations about the latest round of talks include two apparently contradictory elements.  On the one hand the reports indicate that MBS seems intent on striking this mega-deal with the US and Israel; on the other that he appears worried by the possibility of assassination if he does so.  He is reported to have cited the fate of the Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat following his 1979 peace treaty with Israel.  Sources say that he questioned whether the US had offered Sadat effective protection, and appeared to be requesting personal protection if or when the deal is ratified.

MBS could have indicated that the same considerations might apply to Netanyahu, who might have in mind the tragic end of his predecessor, Yitzhak Rabin.  Having signed the first Oslo Accord in 1993 and finalized a peace treaty with Jordan in 1994, Rabin died at the hands of an Israeli extremist in November 1995.  In truth, though, Netanyahu is more likely to be considering the implications for his precarious government coalition if he gave way on the two-state solution - which would, incidentally, be as unacceptable to Hamas and its followers as to his right wing ministers.  

  The reason for Saudi Arabia’s insistence on “a credible path toward a Palestinian state” is entirely understandable.  The 2002 Arab Peace Initiative was conceived and proposed by King Salman's predecessor on the throne, his half-brother then-Crown Prince Abdullah.  The Plan, endorsed on a number of occasions by the Arab League, advocates a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine dispute.  Given that, and a just resolution of the Palestinian refugee issue, the Plan promises full normalization of relations between the Muslim world and Israel.

  In September 2021, when King Salman addressed the UN General Assembly, he reiterated Saudi Arabia’s commitment to the 2002 Plan, ignoring the fact that it was drafted well before Hamas gained control of Gaza in 2007.  Members of the League must now take into consideration that Hamas, with the support of much of the Arab world, is dedicated to eliminating Israel from the Middle East, and would certainly never endorse the idea of Israel continuing to exist alongside a Palestinian state that occupied only a portion of what was once Mandate Palestine.

  In short, in signing up to the US-Saudi-Israel deal MBS would be facing not only the fear of assassination, but also - whether or not a Palestinian state was part of the deal - endless conflict with Hamas or whatever jihadist organizations succeed it.  For it is morally certain there is no foreseeable end to the rejectionist struggle to overthrow Israel and acquire the land “from the river to the sea”.

World opinion, including Saudi Arabia, that supports the two-state solution needs to face up to this awkward truth: it will never work until the majority of the Palestinian leadership acknowledges that the State of Israel is here to stay and endorses its legitimacy.  Since Saudi Arabia and the Arab world are promoting the two-state solution, the ball is in their court.  Only they can convert, circumvent or disempower rejectionist organizations like Hamas. 

If that is too great an ask, then Saudi Arabia – despite its unique position as leader of the Sunni Muslim world – will need to consider aligning its position with that of other Abraham Accord signatories.  All maintain their support for Palestinian aspirations, but not at the expense of their own self interests.  They have decided to put establishing a Palestinian state on the back burner, and prioritize the substantial benefits to their countries and the region of normalizing relations with Israel.

  In practical terms, therefore, is the price that Saudi Arabia is asking for a normalization deal with Israel unrealistic?  Or will MBS’s compromise formula be enough to kick the issue into the long grass and finalize the normalization deal?  Or will current US policy and the weight of public opinion in favour of the two-state solution finally prevail?  Time will tell.

Published in the Jerusalem Post and in the Jerusalem Post online under the title: "MBS seeks US and Israeli assurances in Saudi deal amid fears of backlash" 26 August 2024:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-816309

Published in Eurasia Review, 2 September 2024:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/02092024-the-saudi-price-for-normalization-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal, 2 September 2024:

https://mpc-journal.org/the-saudi-price-for-normalization/

ICC is advised: Reject arrest warrant request

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 19 August 2024

It was on May 20, 2024 that Karim Khan KC, a British jurist and chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), applied to the court to issue international arrest warrants against three Hamas leaders and also against Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defense minister Yoav Gallant.  His request in respect of the Israeli leaders was backed by a catalogue of alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity that he accused them of committing.

The High Level Military Group (HLMG) is an association of military leaders and officials from NATO and other democratic countries.  Between them they have a wealth of experience at the very highest operational and policy levels as regards the conduct of warfare and its attendant policies. 

On August 17 a letter signed by 10 of their members was published in Britain’s Daily Telegraph.  In it they state: “We believe that the International Criminal Court’s pursuit of arrest warrants for Israeli national leaders is unjustified.”  They back their assertion with evidence gathered in direct investigations the group undertook in July within the IDF and inside Gaza.

They describe the IDF military justice and accountability mechanisms as “consistent with the highest standards of our own armed forces,”  and that Israel has both the ability and the will to implement them.  They contend that issuing arrest warrants would deny Israel the time and opportunity permitted to other countries to do so. 

Their conclusion:  “These warrants should be dismissed.”

When Khan originally applied to the ICC for these international arrest warrants, Britain’s then Conservative government wanted to question the court’s power to do so.  Since then, a general election has resulted in a new Labour administration, and one of its earliest decisions was not to proceed with Britain’s submission to the ICC.

            Media comment had concentrated on possible submissions from other parties that questioned the court’s jurisdiction.  None had anticipated a submission that attacked its chief prosecutor’s case for issuing arrest warrants against Israel’s leaders in the first place. But this is precisely what happened when, on August 5, Dr Rafael Bardaji presented an amicus curiae submission to the ICC on behalf of the HLMG.  It tore Khan’s case to shreds.

 In his application to the ICC, chief prosecutor Khan states as a fact that Israel indulged in “collective punishment of the civilian population”.  He substantiates this by asserting that Israel “deliberately” starved the Gaza population, “wilfully” caused them great suffering, serious injury and death, and “intentionally” directed attacks against them, murdering and persecuting them.  He makes these assertions without offering any proof that the actions he lists were deliberate, wilfull or intentional.

The HLMG did not indulge in matching assertion with counter-assertion.  As it made clear in the first paragraph of its 28 paragraph submission: “The HLMG conducted an in-country assessment of the Gaza conflict in July 2024, visiting IDF military HQs from the top level; humanitarian aid installations and operations; units down to battalion level of command; and a visit inside Gaza.”   In short, its observations are based on solid, first-hand evidence.

 It first tackles Khan’s allegations that Israel blocked food supplies from reaching the Gazan population, deliberately starving them.  The HLMG describes visiting crossing points built by the IDF since the war began specifically to facilitate increased volumes of aid entering the Gaza Strip. The Erez Crossing was completely destroyed by Hamas on 7 October,  “Since then two vehicle crossing points in Erez were established by the IDF. We observed roads inside the Gaza Strip that were built by the IDF specifically to enable delivery of aid laterally and south to north.”

   The submission continues: “The IDF operates according to a clear chain of command. The directives and commands we reviewed did not include any order to starve civilians, or to use issues related to humanitarian assistance as a method of warfare, and in fact, included clear statements regarding the IDF’s legal obligations towards the civilian population.”

Its conclusion:  “Our assessment shows that the IDF is operationalizing the Israeli government’s stated policy to ‘flood Gaza with aid’… we believe this is counter indicative of and inconsistent with any plan or intent to employ starvation as a method of warfare at any stage in this conflict.”

The submission then turns to Khan’s assertion in his arrest warrant application that Israel imposed “a total siege over Gaza”, demonstrating from known and provable facts that at no stage was Gaza under siege.

The group’s paragraph 14 demonstrates that Khan’s assertions about the cutting of water and electricity supplies into Gaza are riddled with factual inaccuracies. It deals equally robustly with the other charges included by Khan in his application:  “Based on our observations, we do not believe the evidence of actual operational practice in any way corroborates the accusation of policies [designed] to intentionally attack civilians. In our view, the IDF has developed and implemented innovative procedures to mitigate the risk to civilians arising from attacks on valid military objectives.”

Finally the submission describes the IDF military justice and accountability mechanism which the HLMG found “consistent with the highest standards of our own armed forces.”  The group singled out for praise the IDF Fact Finding and Assessment Mechanism (FFAM), which examines any incident that could raise a charge of possible illegal conduct or military procedural misconduct.  “There are currently approximately 300 incidents being actively investigated by the FFAM,” it says, “with many more which they have received initial information about. To our knowledge no other armed forces have established such a permanent system but would benefit from doing so.”

The ICC describes its own remit in these terms.   “The ICC intervenes only in situations where States themselves are either unwilling or unable to genuinely investigate and prosecute the perpetrators of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

The HLMG submission states:  “We do not believe there is a credible basis to conclude Israel lacks the ability or will to implement national investigatory and judicial processes that are comparable to other countries and their militaries.”  No individual, it adds, including the prime minister and minster of defense, is immune from this process.

“The proposed ICC arrest warrants,” it concludes, “ would deny investigatory leeway to the State of Israel.”

In other words, reject your prosecutor’s request.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and in the Jerusalem Post online as: "High level military group challenges ICC's arrest warrants against Israeli leaders", 19 August 2024:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-815233

Published in Eurasia Review, 23 August 2024:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/23082024-the-icc-is-advised-dont-issue-arrest-warrants-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal, 29 August 2024:

https://mpc-journal.org/icc-is-advised-reject-arrest-warrant-request/  

Mohammed Dahlan, Gaza's leader-in-waiting?

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 12 August 2024

          As an eventual ceasefire deal in Gaza draws closer, the media speculate whether Mohammed Dahlan’s moment is about to arrive. Will Dahlan soon find himself paraphrasing Winston Churchill on the day he was chosen to lead Britain’s government in World War II: “I felt as if I were walking with destiny, and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and or this trial...”?

Whether or not this is on the horizon, for the present Dahlan is content to play the well-known political game – whatever high office you are aiming for, swear that nothing is further from your thoughts.

On July 24, Dahlan posted the following on his X account, referring to himself in the plural as the royal “we”:

“Various scenarios have been repeatedly presented or leaked to the media regarding the arrangements for the “day after” Israel’s devastating war on Gaza. Sometimes our name is used to thrill audiences. Therefore and once again, we reiterate that... Our highest priority now is to end the war. We will not support any choice that has not been reached based on Palestinian national understandings [achieved] through a transparent democratic process... I have repeatedly refused to accept any security, governmental, or executive role.”

Rumours were obviously already rife. Two days after his post, these were given substance in a long article in The Wall Street Journal.

“The question of who will govern Gaza,” it began, “has plagued efforts to end Israel’s nine-month war to destroy Hamas... Some negotiators are increasingly drawn to Mohammed Dahlan as a temporary solution to a dilemma facing postwar Gaza.”

 The Wall Street Journal goes on to quote Israeli political analysts who have described Dahlan as a rare Palestinian leader who is independent of both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority (PA), making him someone with whom the Israeli government could potentially work.

Dahlan was born in 1961 in Khan Yunis in Gaza and, as a teenager, he helped set up the Fatah Youth Movement. In his 20s he was arrested by the Israeli authorities more than once for political activism, but never for terrorist activities. He put his time in Israeli prisons to good use by learning Hebrew, which he speaks fluently.

After the Oslo Accords in the early 1990s, Dahlan was chosen to head the Preventive Security Force in Gaza. Building up a force of 20,000 men, he became one of the most powerful of Palestinian leaders. It was during this period that he was formally tarred with the terrorist brush. In November 2000, on the basis of convincing evidence, Dahlan and his deputy, Rashid Abu Shadak – who has a less savoury background – were accused of being behind the bombing of an Israeli school bus that killed two adults and wounded several children.

          Israel’s then-prime minister, Ehud Olmert, ordered the bombing of Dahlan’s Gaza headquarters in reprisal. 

         Gaza had been nicknamed “Dahlanistan,” reflecting the extent of his authority, but in 1997 it emerged that he had been diverting taxes to his personal bank account. That incident and its consequences seem to have affected him profoundly. In 2001, he began denouncing corruption in the PA and calling for reform. A year later he resigned and, portraying himself as an outspoken critic of PA president Yasser Arafat, repeatedly tried to campaign on an anti-corruption and reform ticket. As a result, Dahlan and his followers won over most of the Fatah sections in Gaza.

The 2006 Palestinian elections saw Hamas gain a majority in Gaza. Dahlan called their election victory a “disaster,” and in January 2007 held the biggest-ever rally of Fatah supporters in Gaza, where he denounced Hamas as “a bunch of murderers and thieves.”

 His instinct was vindicated six months later when Hamas staged a bloody coup in Gaza, seized power, and expelled those Fatah officials it had not murdered. Years later, it was revealed that Dahlan played a key role in an abortive US plot to remove Hamas from power.

In October 2007, the Bush administration reportedly pressured PA President Mahmoud Abbas to appoint Dahlan as his deputy.

Instead, perceiving Dahlan as his rival for office, Abbas publicly charged him, in June 2011, with financial corruption and murder and expelled him from Fatah’s ruling body. Abbas went further and accused him of murdering Arafat – though he never charged him formally.          

Today, Dahlan’s international influence extends far and wide. He has lived in the UAE for many years and is an adviser to the crown prince, Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan. He has ties with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the Syrian opposition, and is closely connected with Serbia and Montenegro.

The WSJ claims that Hamas has softened its opposition to Dahlan, indicating to mediators in recent weeks that it could accept him as part of an interim solution to help end the war. Dahlan has said he now speaks to Hamas regularly.           

Quoting Arab officials, the WSJ has its own vision of the “day after.” An option currently under consideration sees Dahlan overseeing a Palestinian security body comprising 2,500 personnel working in coordination with an international force, once Israeli troops eventually pull out of Gaza. The Palestinian body would be vetted by the US, Israel, and Egypt, and wouldn’t have clear loyalties to the PA, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doesn’t want controlling Gaza. If successful, the force could expand to help with the reconstruction of Gaza.

          Polls of Palestinian public opinion show little enthusiasm for Dahlan as a potential leader. The latest, taken in June, reveals the favourite by far is Marwan Barghouti, who is serving five life sentences in an Israeli jail on charges of murder.He received 39% of the popular vote. Some way behind him was Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas political leader who was assassinated on July 31. Dahlan’s popularity at 8% was found to be about equal to that of Yahya Sinwar, now both military and political leader of Hamas, and currently hiding in the tunnel system that crisscrosses Gaza.

          If Dahlan, as he claims in his July 24 social media posting, is depending on a “transparent democratic process” to project him to power, he would seem to have a long time to wait. He is far more likely to find himself in a leadership position by way of an appointment agreed between the nations engaged in negotiating a ceasefire and the release of the hostages.

Published in the Jerusalem Post and the Jerusalem Post online, 12 August 2024:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-814300

Published in the Eurasia Review, 16 August 2024:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/16082024-is-dahlan-gazas-leader-in-waiting-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal, 15 August 2024:
https://mpc-journal.org/mohammed-dahlan-gazas-leader-in-waiting/

Who are these Houthis?

 Published in the Jerusalem Post, 5 August 2024

           Who are these Houthis?  The short answer is: pawns in Iran’s master plan. 

For 45 years the upholders of Iran’s Islamic Revolution have been intent on consolidating and extending its sphere of influence across the Shia Muslim world.  Once known as the Shia Crescent, and more recently, as Sunni extremists have been added, as the Axis of Resistance, regimes and organizations subservient to Iran stretch through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon down to the Gaza Strip. By converting the Houthis of Yemen into a dependent entity, Iran has now gained a foothold on the Arabian peninsula.  It brings the Iranian leadership one step closer toward the fundamental purpose of the regime’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

On July 24, during his address to a joint session of Congress, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu referred to this.  

 “When he founded the Islamic Republic,” said Netanyahu, “Ayatollah Khomeini pledged: We will export our revolution to the entire world.”

Khomeini’s philosophy, which he penned nearly 40 years before the 1979 revolution, required the immediate imposition of strict Sharia law domestically, and a foreign policy aimed at spreading the Shi’ite interpretation of Islam across the globe by whatever means were deemed expedient. 

“We shall export our revolution to the whole world,” he declared. “Until the cry 'There is no god but Allah' resounds over the whole world, there will be struggle.”

As Netanyahu pointed out, pursuit of this fundamental objective of the Islamic Revolution has involved Iran in undertaking or sponsoring acts of terror, mayhem and murder against Western, and largely American, targets, and against non-Shia Muslims as well.

Khomeini was unequivocal about the basic purpose of his regime.  “We have set as our goal the worldwide spread of the influence of Islam and the suppression of the rule of the world conquerors.”

“Now, ask yourself,” said Netanyahu, addressing the joint session, “which country ultimately stands in the way of Iran's maniacal plans to impose radical Islam on the world? And the answer is clear: It's America, the guardian of Western civilization and the world's greatest power. That's why Iran sees America as its greatest enemy...

“But Iran understands that to truly challenge America, it must first conquer the Middle East. And for this it uses its many proxies, including the Houthis, Hezbollah and Hamas. Yet in the heart of the Middle East, standing in Iran's way, is one proud pro-American democracy—my country, the State of Israel.”

Meanwhile the Houthis are being deployed as an arm of Iran’s anti-Israel strategy, along with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, and of course Hamas in Gaza.  Since the Houthis’ flag is emblazoned with the slogans: “Death to America.  Death to Israel. A curse on the Jews”, their philosophy obviously accords with that of Iran’s Supreme Leader and its ayatollahs.

Who are the Houthis?  They are a minority group on the Shia side of the great Islamic Sunni-Shia divide – Zaydi Shi’ites, taking their name from Zayd bin Ali, a descendant of the Prophet Mohammad’s cousin and son-in-law. With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, a Zaydi monarchy took power in North Yemen, but it was overthrown by republicans, and in 1968 the Yemen Arab Republic was formed in the north.

At roughly the same time the south was undergoing a constitutional upheaval of its own.  In 1967 South Yemen was established as a socialist state under the protection of the USSR.  In 1972 the two Yemens took up arms against each other.  A ceasefire, brokered by the Arab League, included the aspiration of eventual unification.  It took a further 18 years of military and political in-fighting before that aspiration was realized, but in 1990 the Unified Republic of Yemen came into being.  Ali Abdullah Saleh, who had been president of North Yemen since 1978, was proclaimed president of the newly united state. 

Saleh was far from universally popular, and it was not long before the Houthis, accusing Saleh of corruption and being backed by Saudi Arabia and the United States, emerged as an opposition movement, under the leadership of Zaydi religious leader Hussain al-Houthi.

In 2011 Saleh became a victim of the so-called Arab Spring.  He gave up the keys of office with a very bad grace, and was quite prepared to ally himself with his erstwhile enemies, the Houthis, in an attempt to maneuver his way back to power.  The Yemeni military, including its air force, had remained largely loyal to Saleh.  As a result, and supported with military hardware from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, the Houthis overran large tracts of the country, including the capital city, Sana’a, and the port city of Hodeidah. 

 The subsequent turn of events seems depressingly familiar in the context of Yemen’s long history.  Saudi Arabia, intent on thwarting Iran’s expansion into the Arabian peninsula, intervened in March 2015 to beat back the Houthis.  Saudi’s Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), assembled a coalition of Arab states, obtained the diplomatic backing of the US, UK, Turkey and Pakistan, and launched a series of air strikes against the rebels.

The unconventional Saleh-Houthi partnership came to an abrupt end on December 2, 2017, when Saleh went on television to declare that he was splitting from the Houthis and was ready to enter into dialogue with the Saudi-led coalition.  This volte-face was to end in tragedy. On December 4, Saleh's house in Sana'a was besieged by Houthi fighters.  Attempting to escape, he was killed.

            Subsequently Iran poured finance and technology into boosting the Houthis and consolidating their hold on the large chunk of western Yemen that they had conquered.  With Iran’s aid, the Houthis managed to beat off the consolidated forces led by Saudi Arabia, acting in support of the internationally recognized government.

   With the outbreak of the Israel-Gaza conflict, Iran boosted the role played by its proxy.   On October 31 the Houthis effectively declared war on Israel.  Controlling Hodeidah port as they do, they have been attacking international shipping in addition to despatching drones the roughly 2000 kilometers toward Israel.  On July 19 one of these long-distance missiles managed to evade Israel’s aerial defenses, and fell on Tel Aviv, killing a civilian.

The next day Israeli warplanes, in the first such attack on Yemen, struck Hodeidah, killing three people and wounding more than 80.

At the moment the Houthis are content to act as Iran’s proxy, since it accords with their own fervent anti-Israel ideology.  But they have their own agenda – namely to take over the rest of government-held Yemen, and then to conquer the area of southern Yemen that has split away and declared independence - the STC.  An extended intra-Yemen struggle lies ahead – a struggle which has nothing to do with the Palestinian cause, and in which anti-Israel military action is irrelevant.

Published in the Jerusalem Post and the Jerusalem Post online titled: "The Houthis:  Iranian pawns who also want to take over Yemen", 5 August 2024: 

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-813261

Published in Eurasia Review, 9 August 2024:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/09082024-who-are-these-houthis-oped/#:~:text=Who%20are%20the%20Houthis%3F,and%20son%2Din%2Dlaw.

Published in the MPC Journal, 7 August 2024:

https://mpc-journal.org/who-are-these-houthis/

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The BBC: The story of the world's leading broadcaster

Published in the new issue of the Jerusalem Report, dated 12 August 2024

           The British Broadcasting Corporation marked its 100th anniversary in November 2022.  To mark the occasion David Hendy, Professor Emeritus of Media and Cultural History at the University of Sussex, undertook the mammoth task of producing a history of the organization from its origins right up to its 100th year.

            Something of the sort, but on a much more ambitious scale, had already been attempted.  In 1961 Professor Asa Briggs published the first of his five-volume official history of broadcasting in the UK, and spent the next 35 years on the task.  His fifth volume, bringing the story to 1974, appeared in 1995 and was the last. 

Briggs’s purpose was to recount the story of broadcasting as a whole in the UK.  For its first 30 years or so that meant the story of the BBC.  Unlike America, where competitive commercial radio stations quickly sprang up and multiplied, Britain established just the BBC to develop radio broadcasting for the nation, and it retained its monopoly for both radio and television until the mid-1950s.  Since then the growth of competitive broadcasting organizations and the increasing variety of transmission systems has made any generalized history too complex to contemplate.  No-one has had the temerity to resume the Briggs official history.

Hendy, of course, confines his account to the BBC’s story, and he chooses to do so in a way that emphasizes the human, rather than the organizational or political aspects – though these are certainly not neglected when germane.  He subtitles his work “A People’s History”.

Say “BBC” in Israel, and most informed people will immediately call to mind the charges of anti-Isael bias that have featured in the media over the past half-century or more.  Indeed in April 2004 the Israeli government wrote to the BBC accusing its Middle East correspondent, Orla Guerin, of antisemitism and "total identification with the goals and methods of the Palestinian terror groups" over a report on a 16-year-old would-be suicide bomber.

These anti-Israel  charges, often associated with particular BBC reports or reporters, have persisted for 50 years or more. 

          In the Six Day War in 1967 the BBC refused for a time to broadcast the reports by Michael Elkins of immediate and massive Israeli victories, because the news editors simply did not believe them.  Over the following years the perceived anti-Israel bias by the BBC gave rise to bodies like BBC Watch, devoted to monitoring BBC programmes (that organization later became Camera-UK), and to individuals like UK-born lawyer Trevor Asserson.

For a seven-week period in 2001, Asserson’s team recorded the bulk of the BBC’s Middle East news output on TV and radio, and for comparison they simultaneously recorded reports from a variety of other sources.  Their conclusion: the BBC was in frequent breach of its obligations under its charter and broadcasting license to be unbiased and impartial.

Asserson’s reports, matched by vociferous Palestinian claims of pro-Israel bias in the BBC, finally led the corporation to commission an investigation and report from one of its senior journalists, Malcolm Balen.

Balen examined hundreds of hours of broadcast material, both TV and radio, analyzing the content in minute detail.  This exhaustive study resulted in a 20,000-word report.  At the end of 2004 it was given highly restricted circulation within the top echelons of the BBC, but thereafter it was treated as Top Secret and locked away.   And locked away it has remained to this day, despite numerous and high-powered attempts to get it released to the public.

Turn to the extensive index in Hendy’s “The BBC”, and you will search in vain for Israel, BBC Watch, bias, Asserson, Balen or Gaza.  No doubt the author would assert, and no doubt with reason, that in a 600-page compass he could not cover every single aspect of the BBC’s story.  But this matter of BBC bias has been central to the Corporation’s existence for so long, and confidence in the BBC so shaken, that in June 2020 a new BBC Director General, Tim Davie, came to the post publicly committed to restoring public trust in the BBC.  “Impartiality,” he told BBC staff, “is sacrosanct.”  On joining the corporation, he said, staff were required to leave their personal political views “at the door.”  He was prepared to dismiss anyone who breached the guidelines.  The BBC had to be “free from political bias”.

Hendy makes no mention of this, and for it to be by-passed in a modern history of the BBC seems a crucial omission.  Perhaps Hendy intends to pre-empt this criticism with his very first sentence: “Is a history of the BBC even possible?”  But what he does provide is an extremely readable account of this unique broadcasting organization whose reach gradually extended across the whole globe.

He starts by painting a detailed word portrait of the three men who, in November 1922, founded the British Broadcasting Company, as it was first named.  It turned into a Corporation in 1926.  One was the formidable and renowned later Director General, John Reith – the man who stamped his own Christian morality and strict personal principles on the organization he headed with distinction until his resignation – inexplicable to many – in 1938.

          Hendy explains how the new-born BBC was defined from its start by the high moral tone set by Reith, who summarized the nascent BBC's purpose as to “inform, educate and entertain”. The order of priority was deliberate. To Reith’s way of thinking, entertainment was far from broadcasting’s main purpose. Informing and educating the public was of far greater importance. His principles live on to this day in the BBC’s mission statement, which runs: "to act in the public interest, serving all audiences through the provision of impartial, high-quality and distinctive output and services which inform, educate and entertain.”

         From its earliest days Reith successfully established and maintained the independence of the BBC from political interference. A notable battle of wills with the government occurred during the General Strike of 1926, when Chancellor of the Exchequer Winston Churchill made several bids to control the BBC and use it to disseminate pro-government propaganda. Reith resisted, and helped establish the principle of the BBC’s independence. By 1939, when the UK went to war with Germany, the BBC’s reputation for accuracy, objectivity and impartiality was firmly established.

          Throughout World War II the BBC broadcast to Nazi-occupied Europe in a multiplicity of languages, and people all over the continent literally risked their lives to hear the truth from London. In addition, the BBC’s shortwave transmissions covered the world. At its peak it was broadcasting across the globe in some 80 languages.

          Hendy paints a vivid picture of how the BBC coped with the exigencies of war, both domestically and by way of its overseas transmissions.  Bruce Belfrage was one of the small news-reading team stationed in the basement of Broadcasting House.  One evening, during the Blitz on London, he was broadcasting a news bulletin when a bomb crashed through a window on the seventh floor..  Listeners heard a distant thump.  Belfrage paused for a brief second and then went on calmly to finish the bulletin. 

Then there are the coded messages that were slipped into wartime foreign-language services intended for resistance groups in occupied Europe. Listeners to the French service of the BBC soon became accustomed to a succession of odd messages like “Brother Paul hugs sister Mary” being broadcast after the news night after night – each a coded instruction to a resistance group.

Or an officer from one of the armies-in-exile would turn up at the BBC just before the news, carrying a record to be played on that night’s bulletin.  The system was not infallible. Once, the producer simply forgot to play the record. On another occasion, a programme assistant decided the track was too scratchy and chose another. Thus, as one BBC employee recalled, “the wrong bridge would get blown up in Poland.”

          The latter years in the BBC’s story contain a great deal to interest the reader, but do not have the sweep and excitement of the war years.  There have been scandals aplenty.  One concerned the late revelation that the BBC’s top entertainment star for many years, Jimmy Savile, had been a rampant paedophile all his working life.   Another was that the BBC journalist, Martin Bashir, who obtained an exclusive TV interview with the late Princess Diana, had forged a series of documents in an underhand operation to persuade her to grant it. A third was when a BBC journalist, Andrew Gilligan, accused Tony Blair, the prime minister, on air of deliberately and consciously misleading the nation into backing war with Iraq.

Hendy claims that the BBC is “on our side”; that it is always “for the people”. This claim is decisively disproved when it comes to the long period during which Brexit dominated the political arena. Throughout the national debate the BBC was obviously biased against Leave and firmly aligned to Remain. Yet, as the 2016 referendum demonstrated, “the people” were on the other side.  

The BBC is still grappling with its failure to live up fully to its aspiration of achieving genuine impartiality in issues of major importance – a failure which Hendy prefers to sidestep*. Nevertheless, The BBC – A People’s History is a fascinating, highly readable, and extremely informative record of the first century of what is probably the world’s leading broadcast organization.

*In contrast to his "Life on Air - A history of Radio Four", published in 2007, in which he deals extensively with the issues of bias and impartiality.