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What a crazy few hours in the saga of  Abu Qatada and his continued presence in the UK. Yesterday afternoon, Britain’s five top Law Lords pronounced unanimously that there was no reason under existing law that Qatada could not be returned to the country of his birth, Jordan.  That would have seemed to signal an end to the long legal fight over his right to stay in the UK rather than return home, but his legal team immediately announced an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.  This will pile yet another multi-million pound legal bill on the taxpayers and their apparently bottomless pockets.  Qatada preaches the “duty” of all Muslims to do all in their power to bring about the end of the UK, as well as the US and many other non-Muslim countries, but he will do anything he can to stay here.  The fact that he may face torture, possibly even execution, once back in Jordan is of little consequence.  He is not a persecuted opposition politician from a nation controlled by a dictatorial regime, he has been convicted of terrorism and is a clear supporter of violent action against civilians. If you are caught carrying even small quantities of low grade drugs, such as cannabis, in many East-Asian countries, you may well find yourself facing a sentence that would seem extremely Draconian by western standards.  However, in these cases, there is no “get-out-of jail-free card” and you will have to accept your punishment under the local law.  If the country Qatada has been convicted in has punishments, that may be regarded as harsh by the west, on its statutes as the penalty for the crimes he has been convicted of, we should respect their judicial processes and return him to face sentence.  He is an escaped fugitive and until we return him we are harbouring an escaped fugitive!

This morning we awake to the news that the European Court of Human Rights has decided to award Abu Qatada £2500  in compensation for violations of his human rights.  Yet again, this will come from taxpayers pockets .  He chose to preach hatred and violence, the other 60 million or so people in the UK did not choose to live in fear of the actions he encouraged others to carry out.  Neither did we choose to have our taxes spent on his lengthy and costly presence in the UK, the cost of feeding and housing him nor the enormous cost of the legal battles over his removal to Jordan. If his human rights were violated by his admittedly clumsily handled incarceration, surely all of our human rights to a peaceful, secure existence are violated every time he speaks and by his very presence in the UK. Will the European Court of Human Rights consider awarding compensation to each and every individual in the West who lives in an increased level of fear due to Qatada’s pronouncements?

Now the BBC won’t broadcast an appeal for aid for the people of Gaza. They claim that broadcasting the appeal will jeopardise their impartiality. Given that Gaza has recently been invaded by a far more powerful, well-armed nation, its people are desperately in need of help. If they weren’t, the aid agencies wouldn’t be trying to get the appeal broadcast. The BBC’s decision not to broadcast is, in fact, a sad indictment of their partiality towards an aggressive regime that happens to yield considerable influence in Europe and the US!

Ehud Olmert has announced that Israel will protect any individuals charged with war crimes by the UN. Surely, this is in itself a war crime. Why does Israel persist in thinking that it is above the rule of international law? Probably because the UN and most of its member states continually let them get away with it. When Israel wanted individuals charged with war crimes relating to the holocaust brought to book, they quite happily sent Mosad agents out to track them down. If Israel harbours war criminals, it will be incumbent on the UN to organise their extraction!

Today UNRWA have mentioned the need for an investigation of both Israeli and Hamas forces into possible war crimes. This follows yet another questionable incident involving Israeli forces. This time a building providing shelter to hundreds of civilians, mostly women and children, was hit by a high explosive round fired by the Israelis. This would be a tragic accident if the coordinates of the building and its use as a shelter had not been confirmed with the Israelis. The casualties? Two little boys killed and their mother seriously injured; fourteen more civilians wounded. The reason given by the Israelis? Apparently, the Israelis had come under fire from Hamas fighters in the building.  Whether or not these fighters were really operating from within or close to the UN shelter remains to be confirmed, but is rather irrelevant.

The Israelis had definitely been informed that the building was being used as a civilian shelter.  If they came under fire from a few individuals in a building they knew contained large numbers of unarmed civilians, the indiscriminate action they took cannot be justified on any morally supportable grounds and is clearly in breach of the Geneva Convention as a disproportionate level of civilian casualties was almost inevitable.  The Israeli forces had two acceptable options: Record the incident for later reporting to the UN and withdraw or take more surgical actions aimed at isolating the fighters before firing on them.

As the Israeli Government approach their ‘unilateral ceasefire’ and Gordon Brown promises naval support for the blockade controlling the imports to Gaza, the onus is placed on Hamas and the people of Gaza.  Israel says it will stop its offensive activities on condition that Hamas stops firing rockets.  Gordon Brown and Egypt make deals and promises to stop Hamas rearming.  The Israelis demand that all Hamas activity stop whilst Israeli forces remain established throughout the Gaza Strip and, as far as I am currently aware, there is no promise of when or even if these forces will withdraw. Hamas is the elected government of Gaza; it has the right to defend itself and prepare for any such defence; its nearest neighbour is one of the most heavily armed nations on Earth, with hundreds of planes and tanks supplied by the UK and US.  Much is made of the need to prevent Iran developing nuclear weapons, whilst Israel already has them, but is not being requested to give them up.  Perhaps Hamas and the people of Gaza would more willingly accept the new arrangement if the west were to responsibly rearm the Gaza Strip.  Weapons could be installed, with supervised control.  This would give the Gazans the feeling of being at least a bit safer, whilst preventing unprovoked use of the weapons.  The Americans* make much of their right to bear arms for the defence of their families. Why would an elected government of an independent nation willing relinquish any ability to defend its electorate?

*I acknowledge that a significant proportion of American citizens favour more stringent gun control laws!

Surely any one of the following would be enough:
Threaten to target a hospital.
Shell UN run schools.
Fire upon UN aid vehicles.
Use white phosphorus bombs in heavily populated areas.
Shell UN administration buildings.

Apparently you can do all of these and almost certainly very much more and still not be labelled as war criminals. Ban Ki-moon may be outraged, but how many atrocities will be perpetrated in Gaza before he finally threatens Israel with sanctions or UN military intervention and possible prosecution of those who ordered the acts listed above?

Everyday for the last two weeks the news has begun with the latest catalogue of activity in Gaza.  In this time, around 700 Palestinians have lost their lives - about 140 times the loss of Israeli lives due to Hamas activities in the whole of 2008.  In the last few days Israel has threatened to target a hospital, has hit two UN-run schools killing dozens of people and today they’ve fired on a UN aid truck killing the driver.  Although I have heard conflicting reports, it seems that Israeli forces opened fire on clearly marked UN vehicles, despite the fact that the UN had informed the Israelis where the convoy would be, during the daily three-hour cessation of military activities to allow delivery of humanitarian aid.  The net effect has been the suspension of all UN projects, including clinics, schools and hospitals, leaving those most in need completely cut off.  The Red Cross has also reported serious breaches of International Law by the Israeli forces.  What does Israel have to do before the UN and the west take action?

Any military action must be justified on two levels: Firstly, is the overall purpose of the campaign justified and attainable.  In simple terms, “Does the the resultant benefit from the likely outcome outweigh the pain and suffering of the war?”  Secondly, the likelihood of achieving the military objective must be balanced against the likely cost in terms of potential civilian casualties.  The issue of the protection of non-combatants in theatres of war is largely covered by the Geneva Convention (1949) and updated protocols (1977).  Armies are expected to avoid actions “expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians [or] damage to civilian objects”.  It may not be surprising that Israel, along with the US, has not ratified the latter amendments.

The military campaign by Israel is hard to justify on either level.  The Gaza Strip exists as a nation and its democratically elected government is Hamas.  Israel cannot change that and the current campaign of violence will only increase the popular support for Hamas.  The Israelis may claim that they seek to prevent the manufacture and launch of the Hamas missiles, but these are generally made from such basic materials that production could be re-established very quickly.  Therefore, there is little if any likely benefit to the current violence and the cost in terms of lost lives, particularly civilian lives, is considerable.  The continued suffering of the Gazan population will be ensured by the massive number of injured civilians and the infrastructure damaged by the invading forces.  Individual actions against schools, hospitals or aid trucks are completely unjustifiable.  The potential gain of killing one or two Hamas activists amongst hundreds of civilians clearly does not constitute avoidance of action likely to lead to incidental loss of civilian life.

Israel has sort to justify the recent campaign against Hamas in the Gaza Strip by citing the bombardment of its cities by missiles fired by Hamas from Gaza.  These missiles are, on the whole, crude, ineffective homemade devices carrying around 1.5kg of explosives.  Nearly all fall well away from population centres and very very few cause any harm - only five civilians have been killed in Israel since the beginning of 2008 and four of these have been since the outbreak of the current hostilities.  Israel’s response has involved the use of hundreds, probably thousands, of bombs, shells and missiles.  Some of the bombs used have carried 500kg of explosives.  Hardly a measured response!

It is also worth concidering the reason for the ‘constant bombardment’ of Israel by Hamas. There must still be a few people in Israel who remember what it was like to live in a small, closed off enclave, where all access to fuel, food, water, medicine, etc is controlled by people who clearly do not like you.  Many millions of Jews experienced this treatment in the ghettos of Berlin and many other German cities during the 1930’s and later across large parts of Europe.  Yet, somehow, the Israeli Government conciders similar treatment of other people as acceptable.

Israel has, apparently, blocked all journalists from getting into Gaza, an independent nation with its own democratically elected government.  Robert Mugabe banned the BBC and some other journalists from Zimbabwe and was rightly condemned for it, but at least it was his own country that he hid from the eyes of the press.  What right or justification can Israel have for banning independent scrutiny and observation of the conditions in a neighbouring country?

Hamas has a stated objective to remove Israel from the map.  This is clearly an unacceptable and untenable goal. In the Bible God promises the Land of Israel to Abraham and his descendents to carry out their “mission” to create a nation as a model to the rest of the world.  The land on which the Israelis live was taken from the Palestinians and given to the Jews in 1948 and whether or not the UK, US and UN have the divine right to grant the land is of no consequence.  Rightly or wrongly, Israel exists and will continue to do so. Both sides MUST find a way to co-exist; all other options will simply perpetuate the fear, pain and suffering until a way is found.  NOW is the time to try something different.

The IRA’s activities brought fear and death to the streets of many towns and cities in the UK for decades.  It wasn’t until Sein Fein were brought to the table and given some say in their future that a sustained, hopefully permanent, peaceful solution was found.  A similar, balanced relationship based on mutual respect is the only way forward in Gaza.  If Israel is seen by the civilians of Gaza as a friendly benefactor on their doorstep, those members of Hamas who would seek to torment Israel would find their political, logistical and practical support rapidly dissolving. Neither side is likely to trust the other, at least for a few years, so some form of UN/Arab League force will be required to monitor the border.  Their remit must be to promote cross-border trade, allow free flow of food, medicine, water, etc into Gaza and monitor/prevent the launch of Hamas missiles.  If the protagonists are unable to reach a sensible resolution, perhaps they will have to be shown what to do.