W W W W  World Wide Web Witness Inc.  Home Page   Contents Page for Volume  What is New


 

CHAPTER  2

Court for Criminals or Criminal Court ?

Nestling the Judicial Teeth into Israel ?

News 223

The Australian, June 20, 2002

In its section 'Opinion', The Australian features various parties. One is the Foreign Editor, Greg Sheridan, whose article is headed, "Allegiance to US deserves priority in foreign policy".

At first sight, this may not seem exceptionally interesting, but in the midst of his article, having dealt with the International Criminal Court, now seeking members, he declares this:


The bold is added, not because the statement lacks force, but BECAUSE it has it, in order to help one to realise at once the sheer destitution of justice involved. Certainly, this material will need to be confirmed, and in the interim it is regarded as merely the divulgement of the Foreign Editor of a major Australian newspaper. Merely ? One would however think it unlikely in a factual matter of this kind, whether an international body has or has not included something in its protocol, that it is entirely without foundation. Let us then, with some measure of caution, but with a determination and desire to SEE WHAT FOLLOWS IF this be a correct statement, proceed to consider.

Imagine a JUDICIAL body in this country, which would determine before it starts functioning on any given case, who is guilty! It is to the admitted that the thing would be better for comic opera than actual social construction! Who could believe it ? One is reminded of Gilbert and Sullivan's judge who gained his place by ... artful considerations, not talent, demanding SILENCE in the court, while he then proceeds to tell his sorry tale! Justice was not its mind.
 
 

SUCH KNOWLEDGE IS in this case NOT TOO WONDERFUL!

Knowing the answer before the parties appear before you ? does this savour of justice ? Presuming to call that  'justice' which precedes the case's advocates, appearing before you as you exercise your own particular judicial powers to establish in this court, the certainty that justice will be done, this is justice ? As well have a police officer force entry into a house with his hands tied, unarmed!

Consider next the outrageous strength of the language concerned. We are, you recall, assuming for the purposes of argument that Greg Sheridan has it right, that it actually is the case that the ICC has agreed to enter into its establishment, its presuppositions if you will, a certain ... opinion, shall we say ? It is this from the report: that ALL ISRAELI settlements on that most central area of ancient Israel and Judah, now called the West Bank, in that part of Palestine qua Palestine long ago CEDED internationally to the Jews following the Balfour Agreement of 1917 and the subsequent post-war I consent that this should stand, are wrong .

No, no! It is not that the outrageous and lamentable jibe of being 'wrong' is thus prematurely indulged, but a concept more stringent. They are intolerable ? Not at all. Perhaps, it is felt that they are verging on the criminal, by this most judicial and presumably entirely judicious body of international prestige and power ? Not at all. This is far removed from the ambit of its thought. What then ? Criminal ? Do you not yet then realise the strength of the hatred, or aversion, the gulf of the prejudice, making the Gulf of Aqaba, once blockaded by the Islamic powers, against Israel's survival, look small, or what it is that is directed against the non-oil bearing Israel ? (or if it has oil, it is not significant in terms of the Arab holdings in the Middle East!).

Not at all is the court apparently satisfied with such jibes, strictures or even straight condemnations of Israel for taking what was long ago CEDED and GRANTED TO IT, as if such agreements of the nations were void, and the work of Jews in the interim were but dreams, not labours wrought on the assumption that the international statement of the League of Nations was trustworthy. It is not deemed fitting, it seems, to condemn the legal, or to lambast the lawful settlement in terms of a certain change of mind felt in the UN in 1947, a certain desire to make the ancient capital city of these most murdered Jews ... international  - you remember Hitler and all that, do you not ? rather international too when he held Europe, don't you think ? a lot of international things seem to be going on, and off.

No, the ICC by this account has decided that if you are a town on the West Bank, and if you are of the race of the Jews - a racial matter, you see - then this constitutes a crime. Against whom is it a crime to be a Jewish settler on the West Bank area ? Is it a crime, perhaps against oil interests since some Arabs*1 do not like it ? It is not so stated. It is difficult to see why it is a crime for someone to be a Jew in the internationally ACCORDED and AWARDED site of ancient Israel, at least to the extent it certainly is in what was PALESTINE. As we have seen, over three quarters of this former BRITISH MANDATE has been given to JORDAN. Not enough ? Ah, we see: it is a crime then to be a Jew and to attempt to live in the less than one quarter of the internationally granted land ? How racial can you get!

What is this, then, a court for criminals or a criminal court ? Does it espouse or expose criminality, in its finding ? Is it to make racism a rule, is it to make resiling from a Mandate Granted a matter of reviling those who suffer from the breach ? Is it to aid criminality or to attempt to impede it ?

Is a travesty of justice to become its RULE BEFORE THE PLIGHT IS CONSIDERED ?

Yet it is FAR WORSE than this. Not merely is it made a crime to utilise as a member of the Jewish people, land so central to the original grant, which was incidentally based not least on meritorious grounds in gratitude for aid in World War I, and which in fact had only augmentation of grounds for action, in simple HUMANITY after the loss of millions of Jews in one the worst examples of racism ever seen, in World War II. The ICCC by this report, is not yet done, even though in its very infancy, if indeed it be yet fully born. No, there is more. We find that there is even the addition of stridulous insult, in this that it calls it a CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY to be a Jew in a settlement of your people, on this West Bank, or to be such a settlement.  That itself appears nothing less than a crime against humanity, so to speak!

How do you punish a settlement ? No doubt there are ways.

It makes the outright breach of an international grant, by another international successor of the first body, to become not merely permitted, not tolerated alone, but enforced; and not enforced merely, but its executors assailed with vehemence, with what appears a racist venom almost inconceivable, if Hitler had not shown the way. Is being humane a crime against humanity ? is seeking to prevent extinction by gross mischief from many powers, including England in its efforts to prevent Jewish return after World War II, to become a crime AGAINST humanity, and not a work better than ensuring the survival of great white sharks (really happening in Australia!).
 
 

SYMPATHY FOR SHARKS ?
There are limits to approbation of sharkishness

Is sympathy for sharks, or sharkishness to become superior to sympathy for a race so abused, so mistreated by Europe over pogromming centuries, by the Romanists, by the Inquisition, and then by Hitler, by Russia and in greedy graspings of many, not least Louis XIV, in his own treatment of the Jews: is this now to be crowned by the decision prior to trial, against the settling actions of a people who have been subjected to such things ? If more recently, it is Islam which cries for their extinction, to extend its painful record of war and slaughter on religious grounds, unattested by anything which reason could confirm (cf. More Marvels. Ch. 4), does this because of oil or bloc-pressure, or some other force, sanctify the affront ?

Is MORE international vehemence and violation to occur against this persecuted people ? It is not to glorify them in the least, that one so speaks. It is not to overlook their faults which they have, as do all other peoples whose history has appeared on this earth. It is not to give acclaim to their actions or blanket commendation to their ways. Above all, it is not to overlook their crime against a Man of their own*2, who was also the incarnate God; nor is it moreover, to ignore the fact that in killing this sacrifice (admittedly, He came for the purpose, but grace not not eliminate crime*3), against Jesus Christ. But do you not recall HIS WORDS, not limited, "Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing!" (Luke 23:34).

Is racial hatred to be sanctified ? Is the colossal disproportion between Arab lands in the entire Mediterranean area, reaching indeed up to Southern Russia and across northern Africa, moving quietly meanwhile into Syria, Iran, Iraq and to a large extent Jordan, Lebanon, and not without influence in Egypt, is this to be ignored ? WHAT DISPROPORTION ? you ask. It is the mockery of concern at SOME of the Arabs wanting MORE of little Israel, when they already have so much.

Has emigration and immigration never been heard of ? What of the many Jews who had to EMIGRATE from Arab lands after their victory against the dynamic to exterminate them, in
1948 ? Is memory so short ? Is justice so blind ? Heaven forbid. Justice is not blinded, merely because misled exemplars err. Those Jews, are they invited back ? Are they to occupy the lands they vacated ? If the cases differ, the emigration does not. Was it a crime to be a Jew after winning in 1948, then ? Is it a crime under this or that pretext continually, to be a Jew ?

But this is the least of the depths of the mockery. It is aggravated to comedy, but assuredly tragi-comedy, when one realises that the land of Jordan has over three quarters of the Palestine by agreement given to the Jews, ALREADY. The Arabs have taken most of the offering.

What more ? Is there no cease to this appetite, to disenfranchise the Jews ? What is this squall about ? Is it because the Jews want most of it back, which Jordan took ? so that half of the original grand total of land, goes each way ? and why half ? But even so, is it for half ? Are the Jews trying to extend their boundaries ? Is there some insufferable desire to have all, even if it was granted to them ? Not at all. The problem is that the Arabs are dissatisfied, as they were in 1947 with the UN grant, and did not opt to take it, but to make war instead. They want EVEN MORE YET!

Is this a farce ? If so, it has long ceased to be funny. Gilbert and Sullivan have a vast sense of prodigious disproportion, the ludicrous in lords, the travesties in high places; but how could they cover even this! Is it then being said in some sense to be wrong that many Arabs who were fighting for Israel's extinction once and for all, totally, to send her to the sea as the saying was, should, having failed, re-occupy here. But suppose this were to be said ? What then ? Is this not enough ?

Oh not at all. The ICCC is a body concerned with JUSTICE which says so, this something even more extravagant than that ?  Is this a nightmare ? Is it that humour that is being stretched like elastic till it breaks ? Is a very tornado of emotion to rack the incredulous soul that hears this ? It is THIS body which BEFORE it calls its parties, almost at birth, which is declaring this outrage, this prodigious, and now the more sustained, persecution of the Jews ?

Yet we have not finished, nor have they, it seems. It is far worse than this. It is even being suggested, despite the hand over to Jordan of much of Israel's supposed territory, most of it, and despite the endeavours to wreck what was left of the Jews, daring to come where they were sent, in a struggle to the death against a baby people just back, in many cases from the concentration camps and the darling treatment of blessed Europe - from the days long before Hitler as well as during them - that a more judicious step be taken. It is not enough that the Arabs come back to what they did not conquer; it is not enough that they be given opportunity to live in grateful peace with the benefactor victor over this projected  'crime against humanity' shall we say ? the Arab crime of 1948, a crime that mercifully failed to succeed entirely.
 
 

THE LAND OF THE OXYMORON SEEMS WELL INHABITED

What then ? The Arabs must come back and extinguish the light of Israel from this central place of its birth. They must occupy yes and OWN this, for if the report be correct, it is a crime against humanity which these Jewish settlements are managing to commit by their existence. Certainly, Jews would be racially excluded from running them, if the having of them is a crime of such grotesquely distorted a kind! Indeed, the distortion seems exquisite, not morally, not ethically, but in terms of oxymoron potential: what then ? a crime against humanity to exist in a place accorded a race, FOR a place to exist ? to have a victory against forces seeking your extinction, and live where you have found this possible ? to do so where you were appointed internationally to BE ? Is this then a blessed crime ? or a criminal sanctuary ? What mockery is there in all this!

If however the Palestinians in sadness at the outrage committed against Israel in repeated foiled efforts to extort from them that little matter called LIFE, should wish to return with grace and receive favour, what then ? If they be allowed Israeli citizenship PROVIDED they avow that the termination of the Jewish State BY FORCE  is NOT their aim, and that to live in democratic peacefulness IS their aim, always allowing for such freedom of speech as is not specifically inciting to PHYSICAL VIOLENCE to overthrow that State (name another State that would permit IMMIGRATION when such an intention is avowed, as to OVERTHROW the State by violence?): then perhaps well!

But no! those who brought to themselves a tiny fraction of what was once granted, are to cease to rule, their possessions ludicrously little as they are; these must suffer degrees of spoliation, occupation and authority from others, not democratically gaining power, as a political party might, say, in Germany, but merely and undemocratically WRESTING CONTROL, more or less total, and OCCUPYING the place! The international body which would like to oversee this, by report, has here something to do with justice ?

A NEW settler in the West Bank, we read  moreover, is to become a war criminal.

What is it like ? Perhaps it is rather like an English soldier wishing to return from France in World War II (which was, you recall, won after various European expansions were thwarted), now being made aware by an international criminal court,  that if he attempts to do so, and should succeed, then he will be a war criminal. One of the most astounding but on reflection, merely symptomatic sides of this ruthless seeming affair is this: that words are so abused.

It is apparent that expansion into ALL of Israel has long been a Moslem desire, the 'calamity' being the very existence of Israel, when they failed to exterminate it, and so complete Hitler's mission in their own ways and with their own values, at that time. All these negotiations seem to have one thing in common, including this gross distortion of language engaged in, by report by a body concerned with JUSTICE , of all things: they reduce what appertains to Israel.

One does not have to have a general's insight to realise that if you keep on whittling a stick, in the presence of tigers, the time may come, and come soon, when it breaks as you try to ward off the ferocious assaults of the beautiful looking beasts, dedicated to your destruction. A tiger may tell you that it really has had a change of heart*4; and the thing is not impossible. However, when it loves its stripes one has to wonder! It seems better to be prepared.

The beauty needed is that sublime beauty of holiness which practises the sermon on the Mount, and knows the Preacher personally as a friend. In such friendship, there is ground for man; but without it, as we see continually, it is a question of ashes for man, even while he lives (Isaiah 61:1-3); and sometimes, even ashes with sashes; for as Christ declared, "What is highly esteemed among men, is an abomination in the sight of God!"  (Luke 16:15)*5.
 
 


END-NOTES

*1
It is by no means the case that all Palestinians are Moslems. Nor is it necessarily the case that the vast majority seek violence against Israel, though it may be. This would be rather difficult to determine statistically, since answers to questions of this type are not guaranteed to be correct, fear of reprisal and other complexities entering in.

However what is clear is this, that Arafat when he had a considerable domain, DID NOT stop the violence (stating at one point that a preferred destination, or a recommended or due one for Israel would be hell), and did not stop the violence-inciting thunders, the land lust demands, designations and determinations that this MUST BE DONE.

Now that he has less power (though to what extent this matters, when dedicated murder squads in religion's dress, continue on their devious ways, is highly questionable), they DO NOT STOP, the domestic murderers, exported to Israel, giving not their blood to help others in need of blood, but their flesh with metal splinters added and multiplied, to doom the bodies of many. The one thing that seems sure is that this Palestinian body of people, taken as one whole, has certain behavioural characteristics relative to Israel. When any nation does this, as in World  Wars I and II, as a nation, it has to give an account.

Sometimes, just possibly, they may repent, make restitution (though short of resurrection ... ?), and seek peace, abandoning their squalid forces and inveterate aspirations. Their methods however would seem to need purging, their wickednesses transports of grief, their application for forgiveness a certain realism.

It is not normal to award them a country in recognition of their slaughters, or indeed in any other way, as if to sanctify crimes against humanity, which they here routinely commit.
 

*2

Just as there may be some division - and is - among Arabs, so there is some division amongst Jews. Not all by any means consent to the crucifixion of Christ, not all do not repent of what their nation did, who are Jews. Among that divergent group ? all of the apostles of the Christian Church! Many Jews have since followed their lead.

Many  more, in an epochal transformation (Romans 9:25ff., cf. The Biblical Workman Ch. 1, *3).
 

*3
See on the prophecies of His coming, SMR Ch. 9 and Joyful Jottings 22-25, for example, as also With Heart and Soul, Mind and Strength Chs. 4-7.
 

*4

Jeremiah 13:22-23 has this word:

"And if you say in your heart,
'Why have these things come upon me?'
"For the greatness of your iniquity
Your skirts have been uncovered,
Your heels made bare.

"Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard its spots?
Then may you also do good who are accustomed to do evil."

(bold added).
 

This is relayed to a rebellious people, not at all changing their principles and standards, which had become increasingly unprincipled and destandardised, except to their desire, so that eventually you find the denunciation in Isaiah 30!

It is of course true that every member of the human race now on this earth is either wholly unsatisfactory to God in His judgment (who, as a tenant not paying rent, is satisfactory to Him whose the house is, and what not believing in God's presentation of will and way, by the witness of the Gospel of Christ, is so much as believing in the One who has come! - Romans 6:23, 3:23!).

It is this or else  receiving the sole remedy in the sole gospel (cf.John 3:17-36, and see Barbs, Arrows and Balms 17 with TMR Chs. 2 and  3). That it comes with pardon does not alter the fact that in its rejection, there is the very arithmetical reality of what has been done, and not done (cf. Matthew 25:1ff.).

IF the man comes, the woman finds in the grace of  God the salvation of Christ, then as it is written, there IS a change, and the question is not then the CHANGING the spots, for they are washed away as the nature is changed (Micah 5:17ff., Psalm 103:11-14), but the painstaking process, now that the spirit is changed, of removing of every spot, as in a bride.

This you have in Ezekiel 18:30-32:30:

You find this dynamic of transmutation and grace of donation likewise in Jeremiah 31:31ff., in Colossians 3:10, Ephesians 4:23-24, and in John 3, where that total transformation which results from the constructive power - so contrasted in DIRECTION with that of the atomic bomb, that divine work which is as creative as that is desecratory, is the focus. It is seen also in Titus 3:5ff., one of the choice consignments on the change of spots and the reality of spirituality in Christ,  that is to be found!

For that, however, to our point in this article, there has to be faith in the surgeon concerned, in the Great Physician; for it works by faith (Ephesians 2:8). Translations and permutations and combinations with this and that cultural or psychological element are possible without it; but as to the actual designatory spots of man without the Redeemer, these are not removed by a word of man.

*5

It is good also in Luke 16:15 to consider the context. Here Christ is denouncing those who seek to justify themselves before men! This, it is part of the very heart of the 'problem', the attempt to seduce persons and to give obsequies to presentations, in the absence of awareness of the fact that GOD is personal, has a WILL, has declared it in His word, the Bible, and in Christ Jesus the only Saviour (Acts 4:11-12), loves mercy but not impudence, and desires in justice, the knowledge first of where its heart lies with mercy, in Himself (Matthew 9:13), who having made all, disposes of it without advice.

He deals with nations as drops in the bucket (Isaiah 40:15), and when as from Babel onwards, to the very beasts of Daniel and Revelation (Daniel 7, Revelation 13), you have man parading his pontifical powers as if wisdom were his natural endowment, rather than his missing link, with love, so that his world is careering like a star which knows no track and finds no place, then sheer vertical faces of descending cliffs, a work of the craft of man, loom to the depths of creation.

Thus you have, in Isaiah 40:12-14: