Sharon orders probe against Gush Shalom
This time we have to ask you to support us – Gush Shalom – by sending protest letters.
GUSH SHALOM – pob 3322, Tel-Aviv 61033 – http://www.gush-shalom.org/
A storm of mostly negative public attention continues to surround the letters sent by Gush Shalom to individual officers in the Israeli army – with copies to the Chief-of Staff and Defence Ministry [see today’s Ha’aretz article in the end of this mail].
What is all the fuss about?
The content of the letters was a warning that specific actions which the addressee had been boasting about in the media may constitute violations of international law.
Why the army and the government chose this particular moment for giving enormous publicity to these letters we can only guess.
Actually, the letters have been sent months ago. Since then military personnel who give interviews to the media no longer give their names – according to new instructions which were explicitly motivated as a precauttion against officers being charged at the new international war crimes court…
Maybe we achieved that at least there is a beginning awareness now that one has to be careful; that even when one gets an order, one has to think for oneself whether this order could be considered illegal.
We got an enormous lot of mails and telephone calls – a nice number of supportive ones, some decent but critical, and also a huge number of the most disgusting sort.
If you want to support us, please make clear as follows or in your own words that:
“Gush Shalom, by sending warning letters to officers who have been actually boasting about acts which are violating the Geneva Conventions, has made use of its democratic rights, and fulfilled in a way a civilian duty: guarding moral and legal principles.
A government which starts legal procedures against a peace group for alerting them, does create the suspicion that it has something to hide – an impression which already rose by its keeping the press away.”
and send it by email AND, if possible, also to the fax or snail mail addresses:
To:
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon <pm_eng@pmo.gov.il>Spokesperson of the Prime Minister <dover@pmo.gov.il>Defence Minister Benjamin Beneliezer <sar@mod.gov.il>Spokesperson Defence Ministry <info@mail.idf.il>Foreign Minister Shimon Peres <sar@mofa.gov.il>,
Copy to: info@gush-shalom.org
[Here follows the Ha’aretz article of today:]
Monday, August 05, 2002 Av 27, 5762 Israel Time: 11:56 (GMT+3)
Ha’aretz INTERNET EDITION
Sharon tells AG to weigh court proceedings against Gush Shalom
By Amos Harel and Gideon Alon
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon yesterday ordered Attorney-General Elyakim Rubinstein to look into reports that activists from the Gush Shalom peace organization are monitoring IDF officers in order to report them to the International Criminal Court in the Hague.
At yesterday’s cabinet meeting, Sharon said it was “inconceivable” that a political organization could try to deter reservists from carrying out their orders in the territories by threatening them with legal action in an international court.
Ministers Limor Livnat and Dan Naveh (Likud) joined Sharon in calling on the attorney-general to look into taking legal steps against the Gush Shalom activists. Naveh said it was extremely grave that Israeli citizens were undermining the IDF in times of war.
In response, Rubinstein said the State Prosecutor’s Office had been looking into the case for several months, but had yet to decide whether legal steps could be taken.
In a statement issued later yesterday, Gush Shalom said it would “not be detered by Sharon’s threats. By collating information on violations of international law by IDF troops in the occupied territories, we have committed no crime.”
In the last few months Gush Shalom has sent letters to IDF officers on duty in the territories. The letters claim the officers are guilty of offenses tantamount to war crimes. The officers have been warned that the movement is monitoring their actions, and that Gush Shalom intends to compile information against them which will be submitted to the International Criminal Court.
These letters have been signed by “Gush Shalom’s team for the collection of evidence against war criminals.”
The letters were sent to 15 IDF officers with ranks between lieutenant colonel and brigadier general. Gush Shalom identified the officers on the basis of interviews which they gave to local media during IDF operations in the territories. As a result of these operations, Palestinian residents in the territories lodged complaints about IDF behavior; the peace movement based its letters on these complaints.
Og den anden Ha’aretz artikel: Peace group warns IDF officers: We have evidence of war crimes