Striking the Piñata
By Dr. Emmanuel Navon
Spanish Judge Fernando Andreu just launched a probe of seven current and former Israeli officials over an IAF bombing in July 2002 in Gaza that intentionally killed Hamas terrorist Salah Shehadeh and accidentally killed 14 Palestinian civilians. The probe includes most of Israel’s military establishment at the time, such as former Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, former Chief of Staff Moshe Yaalon, and former National Security Advisor Giora Eiland. Fernando Andreu claims that the attack against Salah Shehadeh in a densely populated civilian area might constitute a crime against humanity. Andreu is acting under a doctrine that allows prosecution in Spain of crimes such terrorism or genocide even if they were allegedly committed outside of Spain.
Andreu never launched a probe against Hamas or Fatah leaders for their acts of terrorism. Nor did he ever launch a probe against Russian officials for Russia’s war crimes in Chechnya and Georgia. In these wars, Russian troops killed tens of thousands of civilians, some of them intentionally, at close range and in cold blood.
Palestinian and Russian war crimes, to name a few, should not be used to absolve Israel. They just need to be mentioned to expose the hypocrisy and double standards of Fernando Andreu.
But the probe issued by this Spanish Judge is not only discriminating. It is also baseless.
International law recognizes any state’s right to take whatever military action necessary to protect its citizens from terror attacks. International law also prohibits the use of human shields to protect terrorists from military actions of states that use their right to self-defense. By using children, women, schools, mosques, hospitals as shields to protect terrorists from Israel’s retaliations, Hamas is violating international law.
Hamas purposely puts Israel in an impossible situation. On the one hand, Israel has the right, under international law, to take whatever military actions are necessary to stop the rockets randomly fired at its towns and civilians. But on the other hand, Hamas uses human shields so that Israel cannot destroy rockets without also killing Palestinian civilians. It is thus absurd and unfair to blame Israel for the death of Palestinian civilians. As opposed to Hamas and Fatah, Israel does not purposely try to kill civilians. When Israel kills civilians, it does so either by accident, or by lack of choice –a lack of choice cynically and cruelly imposed upon us by our enemies. As Golda Meir once said: “I can forgive the Arabs for what they did to our children, but not for what they compelled us to do to their children.” Israel takes reasonable precautions to minimize Palestinian civilian deaths while trying to prevent the murder Israeli civilians by Palestinian terrorists.
Israel both exercises its legal right to self-defense (which includes the killing of terrorists) and abides to its legal obligation to minimize Palestinian civilian casualties. For example, the elimination of Ahmad Yassin in March 2004 was delayed and pushed off precisely because Israel was eager to minimize Palestinian civilian casualties. There was undisputable evidence that Yassin was personally involved in the intentional murder of Israeli civilians. As such, he was a legitimate target. The decision to eliminate Yassin was approved by Israel’s Attorney General. After the Israeli Government secured the legal approval of the Attorney General, it pushed off the decision’s implementation out of concern for potential Palestinian civilian casualties. One day, for example, Israel’s Prime Minister was informed of a meeting organized by Yassin with key Hamas leaders in Gaza City. Yassin could have been eliminated on the spot. However, it was decided not to eliminate Yassin because the meeting was taking place in an apartment building. Bombing the building would have caused many civilians casualties, and therefore Israel decided to keep Yassin alive. Israel waited until Yassin was almost alone to eliminate him.
One wonders if the Spanish Government would have shown similar concern and restrain. For Spain is ruthless in its treatment of ETA terrorists.
In February 2003, the Spanish Government closed the Basque newspaper Euskaldunon Egunkaria. The police arrested most of the newspaper’s staff, including its editor, who were accused of supporting ETA. The police sent the detained journalists to Madrid, held them for days and tortured them, before some were released on high bail. When the members of the newspaper’s staff publicly described their mistreatment, they were informed by the Spanish police that they might be rearrested for lying.
In March 2004, Theo van Boven, a Dutch UN human rights specialist, wrote in a report that the abuse of Basque prisoners was “more than sporadic and incidental” in Spain. He also found that legal safeguards against torture were not rigorously enforced by the Spanish Government.
According to van Boven, Basque detainees face beatings, exhausting forced physical exercise, asphyxiation with plastic bags and sleep deprivation, as well as insults and threats. Detainees are also commonly held incommunicado. The report added that the impartiality of procedures for investigating victims’ complaints are “questionable” and that people who win lawsuits against police have to wait almost a decade for compensation.
Spain hardly stands on a high moral ground when it comes to the treatment of terrorists. By launching his probe, Fernando Andreu is using Israel as a piñata. The piñata is traditionally shaped like a seven-pointed star which represents the devil and the seven deadly sins, while the contents are the goods or blessings he is withholding. Striking the devil with faith, symbolized by being blindfolded, releases the blessings. There couldn’t be a better metaphor. Israel is the piñata of a self-righteous judge blinded by his faith in the absolution of European sins by the striking of the devilish Jew.
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February 28th, 2009 at 16:48
Dear Bibi Netanyahu!
I don’t even know where to begin!
It’s one thing that throughout the entire campaign I kept my fingers crossed for you and the Likud. If I said that I couldn’t sleep at night a couple of days before Febr. 10. election you might think that I - as a foreigner non-Israeli - had just gone crazy, but it’s TRUE! Nothing is further from the truth.
I am a 30 years old freelance foreign policy journalist in my native country Hungary, a little obscure nation, but which can boast with (one of)the biggest personality(ies) of modern Israeli Jewish history - of course Thodore Herzl, born and brought up in Budapest our capital city.
Dear Mr. Netanyahu, I am a daily reader of the JPost and follow the events very closely - I know, or at least “deem” to know “everything.
I know the imense despicable outrage this case means for Israel!
Many-many Spanish liberals are outraged too and with good reason. I personally know this because I have a Spanish friend - who is “f***ing outraged” as he told me - he even went to the Israeli Embassy in Madrid to give moral support to our case.
To be brief:
Please Mr. Netanyahu, don’t give up! Neevr give up! I think of you as the personal saviour of World Jewry, no less! Believe me, only YOU can do something in this rotten world!
A couple of weeks before the elections I predicted that you will stand up to this Spanish abomination and do something, unlike the pathetic stuttering useless Livni!
My “advice” without the appearence of arrogance if I may.
Please after having forged the coalition - immediately, without delay you should directly call Zapatero, what’s more Barrose EU Commission President to tel them they have two choices:
1. Immediately cancel this procedure,
or
2. Isarel is to downgrade its diplomatic contact to the bare minimum, hwat’s more warn them that, since the city of Barcelona gives the venue for the EU Mediterranean partnership program/project you will not participate in it for a minute longer.
Dear Mr. Netanyahu,
As my father told me about you, and Dear Yoni, I knew that you are the “ONE” I always wanted to look up to.
The only reason I cannot say that I “pray” for you every single day is the fact that I don’t pray and am secular.
Look, I have (had) Holocaust survivors in my family. My grandmother was deported to Auschwith-Birkenau directly from Hungary in ‘44. My grandfather spent many-many months in a sever labour camp in Serbia in Bor and after was badly beaten in Hungary by the Nazis here, so much so that he lost his hearing on one side.
I apologize if I disturbed you with my long letter, there never was a person in recent Israeli history to whom I looked up to and “mezmerized” more than you.
Please do something vis-a-vis spain the second you come into office -there is simply no time to waste. This is the opening salvo of our enemies and we mustn’t allow them the first shot in this case.
With you all the way in my spirit&soul,
Gábor Fränkl
from Sept. ‘09
Queen Mary University of London/Dept. of Politics MA post-graduate studies,
Budapest, Hungary
May 1st, 2009 at 10:59
I found lots of interesting information on en.netanyahu.org.il. The post was professionally written and I feel like the author has extensive knowledge in the subject. en.netanyahu.org.il keep it that way.