On January 8, 2009, my friend Tammy Obeidallah (known by the moniker "Intifada girl") and I co-authored an open letter to our US Senator Goerge Voinovich to have the name of Meir Dagan, the head of the Israeli Mossad, be added to the US "Terrorist Watch list and " No Fly List. Voinovich died in 2016 at age 79 and we never got a courtesy response letter from him. Mr. Dagen, who also passed away in 2016 at age 71, was notorious for committing war crimes during his military service in the Israeli Defense Forces during the 1970s in Gaza and 1980s in Lebanon. Meir Dagan established his reputation by severing the heads of innocent and unarmed civilians in both aforementioned locations. Shamefully, Israel's Channel 2 named him the country's "Man of the Year" in 2008.
Once again today, I would like to ask our US State Department and the US Justice Department to add the names of Crime Minister Netanyahu of Israel and the Israeli War Minister Yoal Gallant to the "Terrorist Watch List" and "No Fly List" and freeze all of their assets on any U.S. Banks. America should not provide a safe haven or a sanctuary for anyone who has committed war crimes.
To concentrate only on non-Jewish war criminals but ignore Israeli war criminals is selective justice. Selective justice is in fact injustice. America should not cherry-pick war criminals.
Those two top Israeli leaders are notorious for committing war crimes against innocent and unarmed civilians in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran, Egypt, and against UNIFIL peacekeeping forces stationed in south Lebanon. Then they have the audacity to order the UNIFIC and the Lebanese army to vacate their positions this week.
The ICC was established in 2002 to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and the crime of aggression when member states are unwilling or unable to do so themselves. Instead of joining the ICC, the US government chose to undermine the ICC's abilities to pursue justice around the globe, and it threatened to sanction the organization and ban its members and as well their families from entering the United States.
After the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague, Netherlands ordered Israel last October to do everything it can to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza, U.S. lawmakers immediately passed legislation that aims to sanction ICC due to the efforts by its prosecutor to seek arrest warrants for top Israeli officials for alleged war crimes in Gaza, according to an Al Jazeera, June 4, 2024, report.
On March 17, 2023, following an investigation of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, alleging responsibility for the war crime of unlawful deportation and transfer of children during the Russo-Ukrainian War. It is interesting to note that the warrant against Putin is the first against the leader of a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, according to Wikipedia.
However, on March 16, 2022, Genocide Joe called Russian President Vladimir Putin a “war criminal" but he provided aid and comfort to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu after he killed 42,000 Palestinians in Gaza, most of whom were women and children. Biden, who is Catholic, should know that hypocrisy is a sin. According to the Bible, hypocrisy refers to the act of claiming to believe something but acting in a different manner.
Furthermore, there are confirmed reports in social media of members of the IOF soldiers downloading images of torturing Palestinians, marching them naked, throwing the bodies of murdered Palestinians from a rooftop in the West Bank, and dragging the bodies of murdered Palestinians by car in Gaza. Far worse war crimes were reported by eyewitnesses at Kamal Idwan Hospital in Northern Gaza, where pregnant women were run over by IOF tanks while they were on their way for delivery. This is a savage and barbaric crime. The sadistic behavior of the IOF was allowed and tolerated by the military leaders and the crime minister who should be punished and not celebrated as a hero in the US and given many standing ovations at the US Congress in the case of Netanyahu. These two Israelis are notorious war criminals with blood on their hands.
On December 10th, 2008, the U.N. added the names of three Pakistanis and one Saudi national to its Terrorist Watch List for alleged involvement in the attack at Mumbai, India. It took the U.N. only several days to act swiftly by pursuing and hunting down the four suspects. That begs the question, "Why is the US government looking the other way when Israelis commit war crimes?" After all, the US government killed three UN resolutions for a ceasefire in Gaza, thereby prolonging the war, suffering, and agony.
The U.S. government has devoted energy and resources to hunting down non-Jewish war criminals even if they were United States citizens. Our government has a legal and moral obligation to also devote resources to arresting Israeli war criminals and bringing them to justice.
Following WWII, twenty-one men - Nazi war criminals--were put on trial in Nuremberg. Eleven of them were found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging. The remainder received prison sentences ranging from 10 years to life.
In 1971, 26 U.S. soldiers were charged with criminal offenses in the March 16, 1968, My Lai massacre, where 504 men, women, and children were brutally massacred. First Lieutenant William Calley was convicted for giving the order. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and hard labor. The following day, against the wishes of the US army, President Nixon, better known as "Tricky Dick," commuted Lt. Calley's sentence.
In 1985, at Israel's request, the U.S. government handed over John Demjanjuk, an 81-year-old American citizen of Cleveland, Ohio. He was "accused" of operating the gas chambers at the Treblinka death camp. Mr. Demjanjuk was eventually declared "not guilty" by Israel's Supreme Court and returned back home.
Our government played a vital role in the arrest of Slobodan Milosevic, the former president of Serbia, and also the arrest of Bosnian Serb leader Rodovan Karadzic. Both approved the murder of 8,000 Muslim men in Sarajevo and Bosnia. The same goes for war crimes committed in both Rwanda and Uganda.
Now, Palestinian and Western human rights organizations have already added the names of the aforementioned Israeli leaders to the list of Israeli military officers charged with war crimes in a European court. The court has jurisdiction to prosecute war criminals for crimes committed anywhere and at any time. It is also ironic that the US government and Israel have been engaged in hunting down Nazi war criminals all over the world for 76 years, but it now protects two Israeli citizens who committed similar war crimes against Arabs and hails them as heroes. It is time for them to face the appropriate justice.
Mahmoud El-Yousseph is a Palestinian freelancer for Islamicity.com and ColumbusFreePress.com. He can be reached at elyousseph6@yahoo.com