War crimes? What war crimes?

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has been deeply weakened by his complicity with Israel and the Americans over the last years. The result for his people? Nothing.

But his comments on Tuesday – probably as a way to defend himself from siding with Israel over his fellow Palestinians, Hamas – were necessarily strong:

We will do all we can to prove Israel committed crimes that would make your skin crawl,” Abbas said, referring to the Geneva Conventions. “We want the world to give us justice for once.

“Israel does not want peace, otherwise it would not have done this. We need to understand this and tell it to those coming from Europe and America. Israel wants to waste time to strengthen facts on the ground with settlements and the wall.”

Hamas remains strong, albeit militarily weakened by the Israeli onslaught (an interview with the group’s Deputy Chairman, published in The Hindu, reflects this attitude.)

Meanwhile in Israel itself, war criminals are being promoted not prosecuted:

Professors at Tel Aviv University are protesting a decision to appoint Col. Pnina Sharvit-Baruch as a lecturer for the Faculty of Law.

The objections come in the wake of a recent story published in Haaretz about Sharvit-Baruch, who heads the Israel Defense Forces international law division.

The report said that under Sharvit-Baruch’s command, IDF legal experts legitimized strikes involving Gaza civilians, including the bombardment of the Gaza police course closing ceremony.

Sharvit-Baruch is planning on retiring from the army in the coming months and is scheduled to teach at the university’s law department next semester.

Text and images ©2024 Antony Loewenstein. All rights reserved.

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