Will the Animosity Against Israelis Ever End?

An excellent essay, from Professor Michael Curtis, at American Thinker:

The principle [of universal jurisdiction] seems eminently reasonable on the premise that such crimes are so serious that they should be prosecuted everywhere. It provided the rationale for the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem in 1962. The Israeli court held that the crimes committed by Eichmann, one of the major Nazi figures responsible for the Holocaust, not only bore an international character but also that their widespread harmful effects shook the international community to its very foundation.  It held that the state of Israel was therefore entitled to try and to punish him.

The principle seems equally reasonable as embodying the rule of law that perpetrators of serious violations of human rights should not use foreign countries as a haven to escape punishment. Thus, international tribunals, since the Nuremberg trials, have examined actions by individuals in the former Yugoslavia in 1993 and Rwanda in 1994. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, 1999, declared that the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole must not go unpunished. Effective prosecution would be ensured by action at the national level and by enhancing international cooperation.

Desirable though the use of the principle has been on some occasions, the essential problem is that it has also been abused for political purposes. The chief targets have been Israelis. In 2003, Ariel Sharon, Israeli minister of defense during the civil war in Lebanon when Christian Maronites killed 800 Palestinians in a camp in Beirut, was accused of war crimes in a court in Brussels. Two Israeli military figures, Doron Almog in September 2005 and Moshe Ya'alon in October 2009, could not visit Britain for fear of being charged with war crimes.  In September 2009, an arrest of Ehud Barak, then defense minister, was only prevented in Britain because the British Foreign Office said he had diplomatic immunity. Several other Israeli generals or former generals have decided not to visit European countries because of the fear of being arrested for war crimes. Among them were General Yohannan Locker, military secretary to prime minister Netanyahu, and General Aviv Kochavi, head of Israel's Intelligence Corps.  While some attempts have also been made to issue warrants against other individuals such as Henry Kissinger and Bo Xilai, Chinese trade minister, most warrants have been against Israelis.