semitism.net

Okay, I get it. Based on the responses and comments to my last post (so far, all 0 of them), I’ll admit anything approaching macro-political analysis (or maybe, more aptly, macro-response) is not my forte. Despite living in Washington and being an avid reader of/listener to endless analysis and commentary, I can’t quite talk the talk. I’ll leave that to Andrew, Steffi, and the other wiser and more savvy commentators out there in the blogosphere, on NPR, and the like.

So I’ll just mention two things quickly to get myself back on track.

First, I can report that Jerusalem is awake politically (this is, however, not my reason for optimism). Although not, as you might think, because of the developments in Gaza. No, those are still events primarily for the news; instead, the cause is the Gay Pride Parade scheduled to take place here on Thursday. Already been a couple of nights of protests in the Haredi neighborhoods (stories here and here) ,and now flyers have appeared in some neighborhoods asking for sanity and respect. And in a newer development I can report from the ground, while driving just this evening, I watched a group of Haredim place banners along the main road into Jerusalem from Tel Aviv that say “Zimah = Milchamah” and “Elokim Soneh Zimah.” (“Zimah” essentially means “lechery,” which, in the eyes of these Haredim anyway, equals homosexuality; to finish the translations, “milchamah” means “war” and “Elokim Soneh” means “God hates”). This, \for any number of reasons, was not something I cherished trying to explain to my son; I changed the subject pretty quickly. But thought I would mention that this is something that is really gripping the residents of the city. The march is Thursday, so I’ll do my best to report back.

Second, my reason for optimism. And it has nothing to do with developments in Gaza, the West Bank, or Washington. My reason rests in an unrelated development from Jerusalem: the High Court of Israel has finally moved, if ever so slightly, on the Yesh Gvul petition demanding an inquiry into the July 2002 bombing of Saleh Shehadeh’s home in Gaza. The article in Haaretz discussing it is brief, so I copy it below in its entirety:

The state must inform the High Court of Justice within 45 days on whether it is willing to establish an independent committee to investigate the assassination of leading Hamas militant Saleh Shehadeh in July 2002, including the question of whether a criminal probe is justified. The ruling was made yesterday by Justices Dorit Beinisch, Eliezer Rivlin and Ayala Procaccia.

Shehadeh was killed when the air force dropped a one-ton bomb on his apartment building in Gaza. The explosion destroyed the building and killed 14 other people, most of them women and children. After the attorney general refused to order a criminal investigation into the incident, the High Court was petitioned by Yesh Gvul, a group formed by reserve soldiers who opposed the first Lebanon war.

The ruling handed down at yesterday’s hearing rested on an earlier decision issued in December 2006 by a panel headed by then Supreme Court president Aharon Barak. That ruling upheld the government’s right to assassinate terrorists, but said that if an assassination resulted in the death of innocent civilians, the decision and its execution must then be “objectively” examined to determine what went wrong. While the court did not clarify what it meant by this, legal experts believe an inquiry committee set up by the Defense Ministry would suffice.

In this case, an inquiry would probably focus on whether the army could or should have known that the bombing was likely to kill innocent people. The army claimed at the time that it had no reason to foresee this result.

At yesterday’s hearing, government attorney Shai Nitzan declined to reveal the findings of an internal army probe into Shehadeh’s killing. However, under pressure from the justices, he then pledged that the army would consider agreeing to an independent probe whose findings would be given to both the petitioners and the court.

If the army refuses, the government may consider establishing such an inquiry committee without its consent.

Yesh Gvul originally filed its petition in September 2003. However, the court repeatedly postponed hearing it, and finally decided to do so only after issuing its ruling on the legality of assassinations in principle.

For those not familiar with the case, I have written about it previously on this site. In that post, I quote extensively from the infamous interview former Chief of Staff Dan Halutz gave after the bombing. If anyone needs to be reminded as to why it’s a good thing he is no longer IDF Chief of Staff, even absent his failures during the Lebanon campaign last summer, click over.

As the Haaretz article above mentions, the petition in this case was filed in September 2003 by Yesh Gvul, the venerable refuser and social advocacy organization begun during the First Lebanon War in 1982. And it has basically been kicked down the road by the court ever since.

Along the way, this tragedy and the ensuing efforts to hold someone – anyone – accountable really have become a touchstone for many Israeli activists, as the final straw that made them stand up. IAF pilot refuser and Combatants for Peace co-founder Yonatan Shapira is only one example.

So I take it as a sign of optimism that the court has decided to move in this way. We’ll see, of course, what comes of it. After all, there’s a long way between the court asking the government if it would even consider a commission of inquiry and ultimately holding someone accountable for the deaths of innocent civilians. And this is the same High Court that just last December blessed the government’s practice of targeted assassinations last year, so hard to hold out too much hope.

But I’m going to do my best here to not move to the half-empty side of the street quite yet. Although, as the article mentions, it was the High Court’s ruling in December 2006 that provided the legal basis for this possible inquiry into the civilian deaths, perhaps this is another sign of the impact of Lebanon on the Israeli establishment. Or the realization of all of the political and military failures over the years that have, in a real way, resulted in 40 years of Occupation and, now, Hamas taking over the Gaza Strip. And the commission of so many horrendous acts against innocent civilians along the way.

Or that, even for those who believe fully in Israel’s overall policies in the Palestinian Territories, that, like the very name of the group that has made this happen, sometimes there really is a limit. Or, as Yesh Gvul’s motto proclaims: There are things that decent people don’t do. And that’s something we all need to consider. Let’s hope the Israeli government and justices of the High Court wrestle with those ideas very actively.

Finally, I’ll end with another positive note and mention that there’s something each of us can do to help further this effort. But although it means doing something I don’t normally do in this space (i.e., ask people to donate money), this is different. Please support Yesh Gvul in these (and other) efforts. After going to the Yesh Gvul website to learn more about them, go here and choose “Yesh Gvul Projects” from the “RSN Projects” drop-down menu.