Gerry Brownlee meets the butcher of Qana – National Party hugs war criminals
If Defence Minister Gerry Brownlee felt nauseous when he shook hands last week with renowned war criminal and Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon he didn’t show it.
Brownlee beamed as he shook hands with the butcher of Qana. He showed no embarrassment associating with the person behind the 1996 shelling of the United Nations compound at Qana in Southern Lebanon in which more than 100 civilians were killed.
It seems clear Brownlee didn’t raise Ya’alon’s war criminal past and neither did he raise Ya’alon’s 2006 visit to New Zealand when Auckland District Court Judge Avinash Deobhakta issued an arrest warrant for Ya’alon who was visiting New Zealand at the time. Deobhakta said there were “good and sufficient” reasons” for Ya’alon to be arrested and stand trial for war crimes.
Unfortunately our spineless Attorney General at the time, Labour’s Michael Cullen, quashed the warrant and let Ya’alon go free.
I outlined the issues in a piece I wrote for the Christchurch Press at the time:
Cowardice and hypocrisy were present in equal measure when Attorney General Michael Cullen two weeks ago quashed attempts to bring alleged Israeli war criminal Mosche Ya’alon to justice.
Cullen ordered the abandonment of the arrest warrant issued against Ya’alon by Auckland District Court Judge Avinash Deobhakta earlier in the week. The judge had spent the weekend reviewing a substantial body of evidence presented for Ya’alon’s arrest and in his ruling on the Monday found there were “good and sufficient reasons” for the New Zealand police to arrest him.
However the police referred the warrant to the Crown Law office and within an hour of them receiving the court documents Cullen found time on his travels in Timaru to cancel the warrant.
So why the fuss about a retired head of the Israeli Defence Force?In 1996 Ya’alon was identified as the person behind the shelling of the United Nations compound at Qana in Southern Lebanon in which more than 100 civilians were killed. He was dubbed the “Butcher of Qana”. In the ensuing investigation the UN found the Israeli military had violated international law.
Then in 2002 Ya’alon was identified as the person responsible for directing the bombing of the densely populated Al Daraj neighbourhood of Gaza City to assassinate Hamas commander Salah Shehadeh. 15 were killed and 150 injured. Seven died in Mr Ra’ed Mattar’s household when his house was completely destroyed. Mr Mattar is a war crimes complainant against Ya’alon.
The arrest warrant was issued after the judge found a prima facie case was established of a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention 1949, which is a criminal offence in New Zealand under the Geneva Conventions Act 1958 and International Crimes and International Criminal Court Act 2000.
The war crimes covered by these New Zealand laws include “wilfully causing great suffering, or serious injury to the body or health and extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly”. Also covered are situations involving “launching an attack in the knowledge that attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian object or widespread long-term and severe damage to the natural environment which would be clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipated.”
Under these laws war crimes can be tried and punished in New Zealand under New Zealand laws even if they took place in another country and neither the perpetrators nor victims are New Zealand citizens. This is critical because war criminals more often than not escape justice in their own countries. The Mattar family have attempted to get justice via the Israeli courts but as our District Court judge pointed out, these attempts have been either exhausted or frustrated.
And as our Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade points out –“The prosecution of accused persons, whether that occurs at the national or international level, will help to put an end to impunity for international crimes. The prevention of such crimes is in the interests of international peace and security, which benefits all states”
But these strong words melt into meaninglessness when the perpetrators of terrorism and war crimes are well-armed nations such as Israel backed by powerful friends such as the United States. Cullen wimped out and has left New Zealand morally and legally diminished.
If war crimes are to be effectively prosecuted and deterred then courts and governments around the world must be vigilant and respond to appeals from the victims by issuing proceedings against these criminals. In this case we can be proud that our district court rose to the challenge but our government has demeaned us all.
The Mattar family and countless other victims of war crimes deserved better than Cullen scribbling franticly to bypass our commitments under the Geneva Convention.
The government likes to talk about us being “players on the world stage” and “responsible global citizens” with a “first-class record on human rights”. I’d like to see Cullen try to explain what those fine words actually mean to the remaining members of the Mattar family as they carried the bodies of their children from the wreckage of their home.
The message from New Zealand which reverberated around the world, to both the perpetrators of war crimes and their victims, is shameful. Cullen has yet to provide more than a few dismissive comments to explain why our courts could not be trusted to try Mosche Ya’alon.
It was a Spanish court which first issued warrants for the arrest of Augusto Pinochet, the Chilean military dictator notorious for the murder squads which rampaged the country after his CIA backed coup in 1972.
Why couldn’t New Zealand have been the country which had the political courage to stand up for the Palestinian victims of Israeli war crimes?
When it comes to the Middle East the National government wants to have it both ways. To help Helen Clark’s campaign to become the next UN Secretary General our Foreign Minister, the obsequious Murray McCully, has been speaking out against Israeli building of Jewish-only settlements on Palestinian land. Meanwhile Brownlee makes a secret visit to Israel after visiting New Zealand troops in Iraq and Egypt. Unfortunately for him he was outed when Ya’alon posted pictures on Facebook.
National has a blatantly one-sided policy towards the Middle East – support for the racist, Zionist policies of Israel alongside weak, mealy-mouthed support for Palestinian human rights.
It was the same through the 1970s and 1980s regarding apartheid in South Africa. National ministers supported the racist apartheid regime and claimed Nelson Mandela was a terrorist.
They were on the wrong side of history then and they are on the wrong side now.
+100
The modern political arena is a fact-free zone inhabited by people with no conscience.
Thank you John Minto for reminding readers of some of Ya’alon’s atrocities.
NZ has a seat on the UN Security Council; Helen Clark may become the next UN Secretary-General. We like to think of NZ as a leading supporter of the UN.
So it is particularly important to remember Ya’alon’s participation in the April 1996 decision to bombard the UN compound in Qana , southern Lebanon where Lebanese civilians, mostly women, children and the elderly were taking shelter.
Over 100 civilians were killed in the deliberate attack, almost half of whom were children, and many more wounded, including Fijian UN personnel. Moshe Ya’alon was rightly called the ‘Butcher of Qana’, a title which has stuck. Brownlee’s shaking Ya’alon’s hand, makes a mockery of our supposed support for the UN and for international law.
One could say more about Ya’alon, for example his remarks in a 2002 Haaretz newspaper interview that the the “Palestinian threat” was “like cancer” and an “existential threat”, his solution being, to “apply chemotherapy.”
By “chemotherapy,” Ya’alon means massive destruction , Operation Protective Edge being a recent example.
What should be NZ’s role in foreign affairs? Should it be to suck up to the powerful or to provide a mediating role with the goal of de-escalating tension?
We live in dangerous times. Leadership is needed to come from somewhere to turn the world away from militarism. Gerry Brownlee has made it clear that such leadership will not come from NZ, at least not under the current regime.
Cry us a river,minto LONG LIVE ISRAEL
What an utterly contemptible thing to say. Zionazi filth !
Lurcher, did you give a stiff-arm salute with that exhortation?
This is why so many people dislike Israel and it’s sycophantic supporters. You condemn terrorism except when it’s carried out by the Israeli warmachine.
I’ll tell you this, Lurcher, there will never by peace in the Middle East until Israel withdraws from the West Bank, Golan Heights, and Gaza.
There is no room for Israeli aggression in any foreseeable future.
I don’t always agree with John Minto, but on this issue he is 100% correct.
The apartheid practised by Jews in Israel against the Palestinians is every bit the crime against humanity that apartheid practised by white South Africans against black South Africans was. In fact, Israel was one of apartheid South Africa’s strongest (and only) allies.
I’m not surprised Brownlee tried to have a secret meeting with Israeli war criminal, Moshe Yalon. He obviously consulted the same National Party ethics handbook as Judith Collins before she stopped off for a cup of tea at the Oravida office on the way to the airport.
Yeah just like PHIL Goff shaking hands with Yassir Arrofat.
That’s spelled Yasser Arafat, and he was the founder of the Palestinian nation.
We must remember that before Britain sold Palestine under the Balfour declaration, there was no state of Israel and it all belonged to the Palestinians.
I wonder what value the queen has on NZ?
Thank you John Minto for writing this. Everything about this National government says they like to stand with the big and powerful at the expense of the weak and voiceless. No moral compass.
Thanks John – another good one.
Blood on the hands of these Israeli supporting idiot mentality ; phony men.
How sad to be represented by such humiliating embarrassment as well as Michael Cullen and Helen Clark. The UN is not our friend nor good for the world. As murdering innocent people grows and the blood flows, idiots like these do nothing to bring peace and avoid the greed & insanity of wars.
http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/un_not_friend.htm
Thank goodness for Israel. Can you imagine the wholesale slaughter there would be in the Middle East without them? Look at Syria -almost destroyed. Egypt descending into the pits of dictatorship again, Jordan staggering on with little progress. And Saudi? Home of daily executions and women are literally invisible. The only country in the Middle East that gives women equal rights is Israel. If you used the same argument across the world that you are using here Obama would qualify. Israel is not perfect but we’d be up the creek without them especially now.
There is no easy answer here – but hating Israel and saying you are not antisemetic is like saying “I’m not against Maori but I dont believe in the Treaty of Waitangi”. Doesnt wash.
Henri – so you’re willing to overlook the Wall built by Israel; the illegal settlements on the West Bank; the blockade of Gaza, and the massacres in Shatila and Sabra (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/panorama/1390979.stm)
Of course you are. You’re one of several apologists for the Israeli regime who pop up here, every now and again, when a story is published that is critical of Israel’s aggressive, expansionist policies. As such, it is hard to take your protestations seriously.
Yeah Frank also the founder of the PLO. A terrorist organisation if ever there was one.
Dale – any similarity to this lot, then? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel_bombing
Dale, cat got your tongue about Irgun?
Frank, I am not an “apologist that pops up every now and then”. I do in fact, read the blog most days and generally find favour with what I read. For many years my hearts were with the Palestinian people but as time has gone by and I have continued to see the unacceptable terorism that has invoked the Israeli wall, and the rise of ISIS and other organisations who promoted behaviour that we would never accept in NZ, I ask you, and others, where would we be without Israel, the only country in the Middle East that has a standard of living and way if life similar to our own? And when I see people being called Zionist nazifilth, as above, and the statement not deleted, I then ask you to look at yourself and ask you, what exactly are you supporting that I have missed? Israel was created on the back of the world’s guilt and at that time it was hoped that the Jewish people would have somewhere in the world they could escape to, from the dreadful treatment they had suffered for millenia. I am not against the Palestinian people but Hamas is a policital organisation and to me their behaviour is unacceptable. Until the Palestinian people can adopted a conciliatory attitude and understand their future lies in working with Israel and not trying to destroy them, there will be no end to this and Israel will do all it can to protect itself. It is similar to Ireland in many ways and the only solution is a political one – not bombing each other into oblivion. This man who met Brownlee is part of the Israeli defence – same as Tony Blair, Bush, Hamid Karzai, and so on….
Their job is to protect their people from threats. To that extent, the wall is working. Surely that is preferable to this man’s solution, but you attack the wall too? I see Israel as being the only beacon of hope in the Middle East today. I have travelled extensively in the Middle East and to see the poverty and dreadful lives, especially of women, in many of the countries, but not in Israel, surely the way is forward, not looking back.
Henri,
General Sisi of Egypt and King Salman of Saudi Arabia, both thugs, are allies of the US and Israel..both heavily armed by the West to keep their people under subjugation. The Wall is not for Israeli security but for annexation of Palestinian land, water, farmland. The Zionist agenda is and always has been , maximum land with minimum Palestinian population. As for the standard of living of Israelis, Bedouins in the Negev are Israeli citizens too. Their ‘unrecognized villages’ are being destroyed to make way for Jewish only settlements.
What have ISIS and Palestinians got to do with each other, Henri? You are conflating two different groups unfairly and for no reason except as an exercise in prejudice.