War crime investigator accuses Israel of state terrorism

http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2001/05/30/LatestNews/LatestNews.27207.html

War crime investigator accuses Israel of state terrorism

Norwegian expert on international law Terje Lund is accusing Israel of practicing state-sponsored terrorism and claims that Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat holds no responsibility for Palestinian terror attacks.
"I regard much of Israel's aggression against Palestinians to be pure terrorism" Lund told Norway's NTB wire service.
Lund, who has worked in international law for 20 years and has long experience investigating war crimes for the UN, said, "Israel is guilty of innumerable war crimes."
Israel is guilty of "crimes [including] abuse of civilians, illegal reprisals, deportations, and a long list of other war crimes" Lund explained.
Lund added that he was speaking on a judicial, and not a political basis.
"The Geneva Convention has it's own life and is principally apolitical. After signing them it is Israel's duty to clean up its act " Lund said.
An international court for Middle East war crimes should be established if this doesn't happen, he said.
"Another option is to use the existing war-crimes commission based on the Geneva Convention. This has never been used, but is put together by 15 of the world's top experts on international law and should have been sent to the Middle East a long time ago, Lund said.
"Israel is against any international investigation of the situation in the occupied territories," Lund said, adding that he doesn't see why that should be a consideration.
"Israel has ratified the protocol regarding the war crimes commission and has by that accepted its jurisdiction" Lund said in defense of his position.
He did, however, note that according to international laws, Israel has some rights to the use of force.
"Israeli forces are allowed to keep order and calm in the occupied territories", and are therefore allowed to use what Lund termed "necessary force."
"But this use of force can only be strictly according to the principle of proportionality," he added.
"One of Israel's methods is to blow up the homes of the stone throwing youths, and that is state terrorism," Lund said.
"This has nothing to do with the rights of the occupiers," he said, adding, "Another use of force which is absolutely illegal is Israel's revenge on civilian targets."
Lund also thinks there's a widespread misunderstanding that international law can regulate what the Palestinians can do in response.
According to Lund, the Palestinians are not covered by the international law at all.
"They have therefore also no rights in connection to international law, but are instead protected by the UN's human rights conventions," Lund said.
"If the Palestinians wants to lead an armed fight against the occupation, they should immediately establish a mini-state and fight based from there," Lund's advised.
"Then a uniformed Palestinian force will have the right to kill according to international law, and to be treated as prisoners of war [and] can't anymore be called criminals by the Israelis," Lund said.
Lund is not denying the fact that extremist groups' actions against civilian Israeli targets are terrorism. But he says there is one big difference.
"It is totally unacceptable that Israel as a state is guilty of these actions. The first to react should be the Israelis themselves. By not doing so, they're not trustworthy."
Lund also thinks Arafat cannot be accused of the acts of terror committed by extremist organizations such as Hamas or Islamic Jihad.
"It is not easy to place the responsibility for these actions with Arafat. First, he does not have the power and authority over all the Palestinians - something Israel and the world around has denied him - and second he cannot be held responsible as a state leader," Lund said.
The fact that Israel and parts of the world want to blame Arafat for everything the Palestinians are doing has nothing to do with law, but with politics and propaganda, Lund said.