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Lisa Mullins: As more evidence of atrocities emerges from Syria it raises the possibility that President Bashar al Assad could one day be indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court. David Scheffer is a former US Ambassador at Large for War Crimes issues. His book, All The Missing Souls, recounts Scheffer’s work on the war crimes tribunals for the Balkans, Sierra Leone, Rwanda and Cambodia. Those courts helped pave the way for the creation of the International Criminal Court, or the ICC. Scheffer says the threat of being indicted by the ICC may yet convince Assad to stop the atrocities in Syria.

David Scheffer: It may be that he is not directly influenced yet by the ICC, but it is certainly an option that the Security Council now has before it, i.e., to refer Syria to the International Criminal Court, just as Libya was referred last year, and we know what the outcome was in Libya. So Assad must understand the possible implications of engagement by the International Criminal Court, if not this week or next month, perhaps four or five months from now, surely he is not so insulated from that reality that he doesn’t recognize that he is running that risk.

Mullins: Well, what about the fact that speaking of running, somebody like Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who is still at large three years after his arrest warrant was issued by the ICC?

Scheffer: But you know, so many of these leaders who have been indicted by the war crimes tribunals over the last 17 years, whether it be in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, we go through many years after indictment before they are brought into custody.

Mullins: It doesn’t knock the credibility of the court?

Scheffer: Not at all, no more than the federal courts of this country or the state courts of this country, that their credibility is undermined by the fact that was have indicted fugitives for felonies in this country all over the landscape of America; sometimes it takes many years to bring an indicted fugitive to justice.

Mullins: There’s one part at the beginning of the book where you recall standing before a young woman in Sierra Leone, her name was Nancy. This is 1999. Tell us what you saw and what you were thinking at the time.

Scheffer: Well, this was just after the wave of atrocities in Freetown, Sierra Leone, in early 1999. And Nancy was a very young woman in the middle teens. She had been gang raped and then acid had been poured into her eyes. She was so traumatized that she would not speak, but it was a very significant moment for me. I had an image so often when I was sitting at the Situation Room table in the White House that my colleagues would actually see the victims walk through that room, the mutilated victims of Sierra Leone and of so many other places, just to remind them what this is all about…that we’re there to deal with their problems.

Mullins: And what got in the way of that?

Scheffer: Yeah, so often what gets in the way are the other priorities of foreign policy and military policy making where certain agencies are asked to devote resources to address a very serious problem, and they resist that because that means a lot of work and it also means perhaps even putting American military at risk to do so, and that’s not a very popular thing to do. And also, doing things that are rather unconventional.

Mullins: Give us your best recollection of an incident with you in the Situation Room in Washington, and what you were asking for that may have been kind of unconventional or outside the box?

Scheffer: Well, I think the example that comes to mind is in Bosnia, where in 1993, 1994, early 1995 there were so many opportunities at that table for the United States to take a more assertive position on the ground in Bosnia, either by actually participating in the UN peacekeeping effort there with additional assets or by introducing an American or NATO lead force. We called it ultimately a Rapid Reaction Force, but it was too late. Those kinds of proposals to actually put on the ground, in the middle of the commission of atrocities, the kind of intervening force to stop the killings in Bosnia…

Mullins: This being very unusual in the midst of atrocities…

Scheffer: Yes, and also to use our air assets more effectively to do so, we had many proposals to put on the table to do that and yet the resistance which came from the very top at that time was considerable. And that was very frustrating because for someone in my position where I focused a lot on atrocities as did my boss, Madeleine Albright, it was very frustrating to have to come out of those meetings and know that once again effective action is truly not going to be undertaken.

Mullins: You continue to fight this fight, you just got back from Cambodia where you’re dealing with a criminal court there. I wonder why you keep going the way you do and how you keep going the way you do, especially given what you write about in this book. And it’s even reflected on the cover here as you are strolling through a graveyard in Rwanda. The melancholy and the frustration, and the kind of lonely fight comes through through the entire book.

Scheffer: I find it impossible for someone like myself who has witnessed so much of not only the contemporary, but the aftermath of these atrocities in so many countries, it is simply not plausible for me to walk away from all of that and say oh, well, I’ll start a new life doing something else. You have to stick with this. The victims are so many and you can’t turn your back on it anymore. You have to keep plunging in.

Mullins: David Scheffer was the first US Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues. That’s a post he held from 1997 to 2001. He writes about his experiences during those years in his new book called All The Missing Souls.

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The Marine officers named a lead investigative officer in the case Friday.

All four Marines seen in the video have now reportedly been identified.

US officials, including Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, are worried that anger over the incident could undermine the US military effort in Afghanistan.

Anchor Marco Werman talks to Prof. Morris Davis of Howard University School of Law about the rules US service members are required to follow when it comes to enemy dead on the battlefield.

Marco Werman: I’m Marco Werman and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH Boston. The Pentagon is following through on its promise to quickly investigate that infamous video, the one of four marines apparently urinating on dead Taliban fighters. Today the Marine Corps officially named a lead investigative officer in the case, and all four marines seen in the video have now reportedly been identified. U.S. officials, including Defense Secretary, Leon Panetta, are worried that anger over the incident could undermine the U.S. military effort in Afghanistan. Fawzia Kofi, a member of the Afghan parliament is worried too.

Fawzia Kofi: Our deviated Taliban, and the utilities, and links to Taliban are looking for an excuse to use against intermission forces in Afghanistan. This could be good propaganda means.

Werman: A swift US investigation could help counter the negative image created by the incident. But, the Afghan government wants more than that. According to Afghan Foreign Ministry spokesman, Janan Mosazai.

Janan Mosazai: Our expectation is that an economist will conduct a thorough investigation into this incident, and punish all of those soldiers found to have been part of this reprehensible crime, and that they will be punished accordingly.

Werman: So what sort of legal charges could the four Marines involved be facing? Morris Davis is a retired Air Force colonel. He served as chief prosecutor at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, from 2005 to 2007. He resigned from that post in 2008, and now teaches at Howard University School of Law. Colonel Davis, article 15 of the First Geneva Convention of 1864 prohibits the delivered mistreatment of a body on the battlefield. It appears that in this particular case in Afghanistan, the soldiers did not abide by the Geneva Convention. Would that be where the legal case starts?

Morris Davis: It could, but if you recall when we started the war in Afghanistan, the Bush administration said the Geneva Conventions didn’t apply. The Supreme Court disagreed in the Hamdan decisions, said Common Article 3 applies, but regardless, customary international humanitarian law recognizes that mistreating a corpse is prohibited.

Werman: And what are the guidelines for how you treat corpses in battle?
Davis: Well, there aren’t detail-specific guidelines other than the Geneva Conventions that talk about showing respect for the treatment of the dead body. I mean, there are certain things you would assume don’t need to be written down for most reasonable human beings to understand you don’t do, and certainly the behavior depicted in the video falls well below that standard.

Werman: This is not the first time we’ve heard of such an instance in Afghanistan; it also happened in Iraq. I’m also reminded of stories of American soldiers in Vietnam taking body parts as souvenirs. Can you help us understand how the generally accepted rules of war can fall by the wayside on the battlefield when it comes to the dead?

Davis: Some people have a hard time grasping that there are rules that apply to war. I mean, I think some people assume that if the situation reached a point where war is broken out, then it’s “anything goes”. And that’s one of the arguments that you hear now, is “look at how the Taliban behaves”. But, we don’t gage our conduct by the conduct of our adversaries. And there are certainly, as you mentioned, exceptions from Iraq and from Vietnam, and from World War II. But that doesn’t change the fact of the matter, that we pride ourselves, the military, for our professionalism and living up to a higher standard than our adversaries.

Werman: How psychically difficult do you think it is to treat the dead with respect when you’re in the midst of war and there’s bullets flying all over? Is it too much to ask of troops?

Davis: I don’t think it is; I mean, I think it’s basic human dignity not to mistreat the dead. I mean, the law of war permits conduct that in normal circumstances would not be permitted, for instance, killing. But, once the enemy is no longer capable of fighting, whether they’re sick, wounded, captured or killed, then you lose the right to do things that you ordinarily couldn’t do. And certainly, in this video, if it is what it appears to be, then our soldiers, their conduct fell below the standards that are acceptable.

Werman: Colonel Davis, when the rules of war are not followed, where do you place the blame? On the troops themselves or is this a leadership problem?

Davis: I think accountability and responsibility should be throughout the process. I mean, certainly there’s no excusing what’s depicted in the video. So that’s kind of the bottom of the pyramid, but at the top of the pyramid, when we started out this war in Afghanistan, the Bush administration said the Geneva Conventions were quaint and didn’t apply. Basically, “take your gloves off and anything goes”. So, there should be some accountability at the top too for creating this atmosphere that allows this kind of behavior to occur. I mean, it’s certainly a lack of leadership to create an environment where any troop would think that this behavior is acceptable for a member of the U.S. armed forces.

Werman: It sounds like you take it back to that statement from the Bush administration that the Geneva Conventions don’t apply. Do you think that things started there?

Davis: Without a doubt in my mind. You know, America for 200 years, we viewed ourselves as the city on the hill that others should emulate and live up to. We still serve as an example, but often we serve as a bad example, not a good one. So, I think in this instance, the Pentagon is taking it seriously; I think the people will be held accountable, and hopefully this kind of behavior will continue to be the very rare exception and not the rule.
Werman: Retired Air Force Colonel Morris Davis recently served as executive director at the Crimes of War Education Project in Washington, D.C., where he worked to enhance global public awareness of international humanitarian law, and to highlight violations of the laws of war. He’s currently teaching at Howard University School of Law. Colonel Davis, thank you very much for your point of view.

Davis: Thank you.

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MARCO WERMAN: President Obama said today that Gaddafi’s regime is coming to an end. He directed his words to the people of Libya.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Your revolution is your own, and your sacrifices have been extraordinary. Now, the Libya that you deserve is within your reach. Going forward, we will stay in close coordination with the TNC to support that outcome.

WERMAN: The President was referring to the Transitional National Council, the Libyan opposition. The head of the TNC said today that his group wants a nation built on the principles of freedom, equality, and transparency. But the Libyan rebel movement includes Islamists, former government insiders, and Western leaning intellectuals, and there are concerns about whether those factions can work together. George Joffey is a lecturer at the Department of Politics and International Studies at Cambridge University in England. Mr. Joffey, first of all, do you see this, would you describe it as the end or is it kind of a nuanced end for you?

GEORGE JOFFEY: For me, it’s the end of the beginning. There’s still the question of constructing inside Libya a viable set of institutions that would allow the country to look forward to a democratic future. Its not had that opportunity. There are no other institutions at all. There’s no civil society. There are no institutions of private interests; they were banned. What’s left there is now in effect an institutional desert. That means you’ve got to rebuild all of it, and, indeed, not rebuild, but construct anew because Libyans have not had the opportunity for 40 years to actually organize a system of governance that allows them democratic participation. Now, the problem really is there are no obvious leaders. The leadership appears to be split. There’s also no money.

WERMAN: So the Transitional National Council, the TNC, is the body that’s been the opposition for the past six months. Will the TNC remain the body that will negotiate the future of Libya? How well situated are they to just jump in and then start leading? Is that what Libya needs?

JOFFE: That’s again a question to which there’s no simple answer. Because although they would appear to be the body that represents the insurgency and probably now the new government of Libya, it’s not clear that they actually have an undisputed access. There are, for example, the facts that it was the Berbers or the Jabal Nafusa who actually organized the liberation of Zawia first of all, and indeed, then that of Tripoli itself. It has been they who’ve been coordinating with the groups inside Tripoli. There are also those who fought in Misrata. As one has to recognize, they really had the hardest time of all trying to liberate the city from the control of Colonel Gaddafi’s forces. They also have a view about how the new Libya should be formed, and although they’re all saying today that they’re going to collaborate and cooperate together, when the practicalities of reconstruction begin to hit them, that may no longer be really the case.

WERNER: Will it be a civil debate getting these various parties together and moving Libya ahead or are you worried about the opposite happening?

JOFFE: Well, interesting enough, Mustafa Jalil, today, gave a speech in which he called for reconciliation, and he called for all Libyans to work together to reconstruct the country. They’re very fine sentiments, and I’m sure he means them, but if you then look amongst those who have been doing the fighting, some of the groups are by no means ready to consider that outcome. They want revenge. They want revenge for 40 years of dictatorship. They also want revenge for the losses of the civil war itself. That means there’s already a conflict at that level. Then, there are those who, for ideological reasons, don’t necessarily accept the compromises and reconciliation that he proposes. They may pose further problems, too. Finally, there are those who were abroad for the last 40 years or 30 years of them, the exiles, and they have their own agendas and their own interests. It’s going to be extremely difficult to find somebody with the authority to bring all these groups together and make them work in a coherent fashion.

WERNER: George Joffe, a North Africa expert at Cambridge University in England, speaking with us about the future of Libya, thank you very much for your time, indeed.

JOFFE: You’re welcome.

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But while figuring out what is or isn’t a war crime may seem relatively straightforward, international criminal law is complex. Bassiouni says you have to sift through some of the most horrific personal stories and listen with a calculating – legal – ear. He says the key is knowing where to start.

“We started at the hospitals because it meant that we would deal with people who were injured and people who were injured would be either in the front lines or they would be the most likely victims of an abusive regime,” says Bassiouni. “Then we had also two person teams on the border of Egypt and on the border of Tunisia, to talk not only to the refugees but refugee organizations to get a feeling and an understanding for what was happening.”

War investigators do what journalists do; they interview people and collect stories in an attempt to get at the truth. Bassiouni says that while he listens to every person’s story with empathy, he takes everything he hears with a grain of salt – because even victims sometimes lie. And sorting through the embellishments, falsehoods and fallibilities of human stories is the investigators primary job.

“Any historian will tell you, you never get the full picture, you get a sampling and from the sampling you write a bigger narrative,” says Bassiouni.

Bassiouni and his team interviewed some three hundred people who had been involved in the war – from victims, to prisoners, to rebels, to government officials – in an attempt to piece together the bigger narrative in Libya. But Bassiouni says some of the smaller stories are what stayed with him, and there’s one scene in particular that still haunts him.

“The scene of a ditch were there had been nine bodies and the nine bodies were all burned up and the nine bodies looked like they had all been children, they were five feet something each body. And as I started looking closer to the pictures and talking to the doctors who had done the medical reports, it turned out they were adults. Apparently these adults had been killed by a phosphorus bomb, and the phosphorus bomb basically burns everything in a person, it burns the skin, but it also burns the bones, it takes the liquid out of everything. And here are persons who had shrunk and were just a heap of burned ash. Horrible, horrible scenes. They weigh very heavily on one, after doing two years of interviewing victims and witnesses in the former Yugoslavia I wind up with a quadruple bypass because it was just too much emotionally to listen to.”

After listening to a number of stories of unconscionable atrocities in Libya, Bassiouni concluded that crimes against humanity had been committed there. I asked Bassiouni to give me an example of one of the specific crimes he tracked down and how he was able to prove that a crime against humanity was committed.

“For example you go to a hospital and in the bed there is a little girl, four years old, who is injured, and there is a father sitting next to her and you say, “how was your baby injured?” And he said, “well I was standing in front of the house and my baby was playing next to me and suddenly out of nowhere a mortar shell came and mortar shrapnel hit my baby.”

Bassiouni says after listening to a victim’s story you must immediately corroborate whether its true. “So you go to the location and you see whether there was a trace of a mortar shell falling,” says Bassiouni, “and you say okay where is this house from lets say the front. And you say well the front is several miles. Why would somebody be bombarding a civilian area, you’re targeting a civilian population which is non-combatants, and that becomes a war crime. And when that pattern becomes repeated many times, this is not an occasional shell that somebody fired by mistake you know that there is a policy.”

While Bassiouni’s investigation may eventually be used by the International Criminal Court to prosecute members of the Gaddafi regime and military, its primary purpose was not to prosecute any crime. Rather, Bassiouni says the purpose of the investigation is set a historical record of what happened in Libya, and of equal importance, what didn’t happen.

What made headlines recently was the charge that Gaddafi’s troops were using rape as a weapon of war. But Bassiouni says during his investigation he found no evidence to prove this was true. And this friction between the sensational allegations that make headlines and the hard and sometimes unpopular truth, complicates the job of the war investigator. Bassiouni says when the dust settles, knowing and accepting what actually happened, is the Libyan people’s only chance at reconciliation.

“You never can have reconciliation without having the truth established, says Bassiouni. “The problem is that you sometimes also have to debunk many of the allegations that are made which are exaggerated. For example recently there’s been all sorts of allegations that there is a policy of mass rape that the Gaddafi regime has established. Well we don’t know that, we found no basis for that. As people get so attached to well was there or wasn’t there a policy of mass rape, we are ignoring the fact that 15,000 people have been killed. We’re ignoring the fact that some of these crimes are still ongoing. Not to say that its not important, it is important if its there. But it’s not important if it’s made up.”

Bassionui says that while his job is primarily a legal one, he hopes that his investigation will serve something of a spiritual purpose as well. “A society must have closure,” he says, “and you can’t have that without knowing truth.”

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The fighters called themselves Chetniks and swore allegiance to the exiled king. They initially fought the Nazis, but at times cooperated with them, in order to battle the communists to restore their king. This place hasn’t seen armed conflict since the Second World War. But as I retrace the steps of Serbian fighters who assembled here decades ago, their legacy isn’t hard to find.

The Chetnik movement has become a rallying point for Serbian ultranationalists. Every year, some of them travel to Ravna Gora to celebrate the birthplace of the Chetnik. My guide, Srdjan, pointed out a monument to Draza Mihailovic, the man who founded the Ravna Gora Movement of Chetniks in May 1941.

The Chetniks ultimately lost, and the victorious communists executed Mihailovic in 1946. Now he’s a martyr for Serbian ultranationalists. Srdjan’s cousin, Ivan, who also came here for the annual pilgrimage, paused to pay his respects at a small memorial for Mihailovic.

“Mihailovic is our symbol,” said Ivan, who added that being here means a lot to him.

Both Ivan and Srdjan wore camouflage fatigues from their stints in the Serbian army. Down the hill from the memorial, the pilgrimage took on a carnival-like atmosphere. Vendors hawked commemorative clothing and trinkets, whole lambs and pigs roasted on spits; copious amounts of beer and sljivovica – or plum brandy – flowed; and hoards of uniformed men sang and danced in various states of intoxication.

It’s here that I ran into convicted war criminal Miodrag Jokic. The former Yugoslav Navy Admiral spent five years in prison for his role in the siege of Dubrovnik in 1991 and 1992. He’s among compatriots here.

“This is real Serbia, what you can see here, you know, is hardcore Serbia,” he said, speaking through a translator.

Many of the Chetniks here subscribe to an extreme form of nationalism that envisions a larger, ethnically pure Serbia. More than a few sported shirts picturing Ratko Mladic – the Bosnian Serb military leader who’s just been extradited to The Hague. I came here not long before Mladic’s capture. It’s safe to assume most of these ultranationalists weren’t happy about it.

Many of them feel increasingly marginalized by their own government. That’s something Deja Milosevic told me after he physically interrupted another interview at a Chetnik photo exhibit. He has disdain for the current Serbian government. The shirtless Chetnik proudly pointed to the Serbian coat of arms tattooed to his bicep.

“I want be Chetnik because it’s honor,” he said.

There’s a lot of anger and resentment among Chetniks these days. It’s not just the arrest of Mladic. They’re also angry at the United States. They haven’t forgotten the US-led NATO bombing of Serbia during the Kosovo war in 1999.

One man grabbed my microphone after learning that I’m American. He launched into a tirade about US foreign policy. He later tried to attack me with a large knife. He wanted me to answer for the bombing of Serbia, and more recently, Libya.

A few days later, the man got a message to me: He apologized, saying he was drunk and thought I was an American spy. Then he invited me to come back next year, promising to treat me as a welcomed guest.

Ratko Mladic (center) arrives for UN-mediated talks at Sarajevo airport in 1993 (Photo: Mikhail Evstafiev)

• BBC Live Updates: Ratko Mladic captured
• Video: President of Serbia Announces Ratko Mladic Arrest
• BBC: Ratko Mladic In Pictures
• Jeb Sharp’s award-winning series ‘How Wars End’ part V: Bosnia
• ‘How Wars End’ series

I was astounded by what they were able to do, the courage that they showed, and with writing the book I wanted to bring some of their stories forward too,  so people could really hear them.  The purpose of the trial–one of the main purposes for me–is you’re really needing to re-weave the web of humanity that’s been broken, our community, our human community. It’s been broken so egregiously by horrible crimes. We want to stand with the victims, we don’t want to stand with the perpetrators. And they need to know that. They need to know that the people of the world recognize how seriously they’ve been harmed, and care about it.

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Jeb Sharp’s November 11, 2003 radio report on the Milosevic Trial

ICTY – International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

• Video: See Naomi Campbell’s testimony
• Q&A: Trying Charles Taylor

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DAVID BARON: The civil war in Sierra Leone, in West Africa, lasted a decade and left thousands dead. But the atrocities didn’t stop there. Thousands of civilians were maimed, their hands and limbs deliberately hacked off by the fighters. The former president of neighboring Liberia, Charles Taylor, is on trial for war crimes committed during the conflict. Prosecutors allege Taylor directly supported one faction, so he could gain access to Sierra Leone’s natural resources, particularly its diamonds. A special tribunal in the Netherlands is hearing the case. And today there was a special witness, British supermodel Naomi Campbell. The BBC’s Africa Editor, Martin Plaut, was in the courtroom. Now Martin, explain why was Naomi Campbell testifying?

MARTIN PLAUT:  Well, in a sense her testimony could have been absolutely vital because what the prosecution is trying to show was that raw diamonds, blood diamonds, came across the border from the pits in Sierra Leone where they were mined, frequently at gunpoint, and then taken across the border to Liberia sometimes in mayonnaise jars, would you believe it, handed over to Charles Taylor. He then sold those diamonds and those diamonds were then used on the international market with arms dealers to buy the weapons that were needed to keep the Sierra Leone war going. So it is critical that Naomi Campbell could say, as somebody who wasn’t involved in any way, yes I know that Charles Taylor had those rough diamonds, something he has consistently denied.

BARON:  Now, the story is that she had met Charles Taylor at an event in South African and that she received some of those diamonds [INDISCERNABLE] let’s just hear some of the testimony that she gave today.

NAOMI CAMPBELL: I had a knock at my door and I opened my door and two men were there and gave me a pouch and said a gift for you.

FEMALE SPEAKER: And these two men, did you know who they were?

CAMPBELL: No, I’m afraid not.

FEMALE SPEAKER: Did these two men introduce themselves to you?

CAMPBELL: No, they did not.

FEMALE SPEAKER: Did you ever learn who they were?

CAMPBELL: No, I did not.

FEMALE SPEAKER:  And when you opened up this pouch, what did you discover?

CAMPBELL: I saw a few stones in there. And they were very small, dirty looking stones.

BARON: That’s Naomi Campbell testifying. So, Martin Plaut, so the prosecution is saying that those dirty little stones were diamonds and they came from Charles Taylor.

PLAUT: Indeed, that’s precisely what they’re trying to prove. But as you heard there, Naomi Campbell was saying, well, don’t know where they came from. These men appeared at my door in the middle of the night. They handed me the pouch. And I don’t know, this sort of thing happens quite frequently now. Perhaps you and I don’t live in this kind of world, but she testified later that, you know, concierges give her gifts, all sorts of people press gifts on her, she never has any idea where they’re coming from.

BARON: Well, you said that her testimony today could have been vital. In the end, do observers think that this has changed things either for in favor or against Charles Taylor in the trial?

PLAUT: Well, let me put it to you this way. The prosecutor in the end turned around and said to the judge in the court, look, I hope you don’t think that this was a prosecution witness. This witness we would like to see as just a court witness. And the judge turned to her and said, look, you got us to subpoena her, but she’s your witness. So it gives you a flavor of just how poorly perhaps, from the prosecutions point of view, Naomi Campbell behaved. But you know this trial has been going on for three years. It will not be decided on the evidence of one witness. What they were hoping was that somebody outside of the conflict would give critical evidence. Doesn’t seem as if that has happened, but you know, I’m not a judge.

BARON: The BBC’s Martin Plaut at the war crimes trial in the Netherlands. Thank you, Martin.

PLAUT: Pleasure.

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• BBC coverage
• In pictures: Gaza activists released
• Jeb Sharp on Israel’s efforts to blockade Hamas

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MARCO WERMAN:  I’m Marco Werman and this is The World.  Israel continues to reject international criticism of its raid on an aid flotilla bound for Gaza.  Nine Pro-Palestinian activists were killed Monday during the Israeli commando operation.  Today Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused critics of the raid of hypocrisy and he vowed to continue Israel’s blockade of Gaza.  Netanyahu said lifting it would make the Hamas-controlled territory a base for missile attacks.  In a few minutes we’ll hear how Israelis are reacting to the raid and its aftermath.  First, we’re going to focus on Gaza to hear more on the circumstances that prompted the aid flotilla.  The BBC’s John Donnison is in Gaza.  He describes the kind of aid the activists were trying to deliver.

JOHN DONNISON:  The vast majority of it, we understand, there was some 12,000 tons of aid on board these ships was construction materials and that’s one of the things Israel doesn’t really want to let, construction materials in, in particular, because it suspects Hamas will use them to rebuild for its own purposes.  But the United Nations, who have a big operation in Gaza say frankly they are desperate for building materials to come in.  They have not been able to complete many of their projects.  Many of the buildings that were destroyed in last year’s major conflict with Israel some 16 months ago have been cleared, but they simply haven’t been rebuilt.

WERMAN: It sounds like what you’re saying is that Israel has lots of loopholes for not letting supplies into Gaza, is that right?

DONNISON: It does.  It actually has a list of things that it will not allow in and some of them are frankly quite bizarre.

WERMAN: Like what?

DONNISON: Coriander, the spice, not allowed in, considered a luxury item.  Frozen salmon is allowed in apparently.  I read quite an amusing piece in one of the papers here the other day.  Someone, a Gazan bemused to see frozen salmon in the supermarket.  He had apparently never heard of this fish before.

WERMAN: In the meantime, does that mean that Gazans, who are not affiliated with Hamas, or any kind of military activity, can’t build or rebuild their houses that were destroyed?

DONNISON: Absolutely.  And I think one of the things you often forget is like most countries, most ordinary people here have very little time for their politicians.  Most Palestinians are absolutely fed up to the back teeth with the fact that there is no Palestinian unity.  We have Hamas controlling the Gaza strip and we have their rivals, Fatah, controlling the West Bank.  And in polling shows that the single most important thing for ordinary Palestinians is achieving Palestinian unity.  So when you say the people of Gaza elected Hamas, well they did, but that doesn’t mean ordinary Gazans back them in every decision they make.

WERMAN: So had this flotilla made to Gaza, how would the aid have been distributed?  Is it a free for all or is it distributed by certain aid groups, or does Hamas take charge of it and hand it out?

DONNISON: Well that is a really important question because the best way for it to be distributed, arguably, would be for it to be handed to the United Nations who has a big operation in Gaza.  The trouble with that is, I think Israel would argue that if it didn’t want this aid coming in, it might not be happy for the United Nations to be involved in distributing it.  It would see that as supporting the flotilla’s actions.  In that respect, it could therefore jeopardize any future aid coming in for the United Nations, so the U.N. would be in a difficult position.  So you could end up with a situation where it was something of a free for all with aid not necessarily going to the people who needed it the most.

WERMAN: So, John, yesterday Egypt eased its blockade of Gaza after the assault.  It’s now opened up the border town crossing of Rafa.  Are goods moving across now?

DONNISON: Well they are.  Interestingly, a colleague of mine told me that when this initially happened yesterday, and this is a significant move because normally when Egypt opens its border crossing, normally when it opens it, it does so for a limited period.  It says we’re going to open it for one day, two days.  This time it has done it indefinitely.  But one of my colleagues in Gaza says he was speaking to people trying to get through that crossing yesterday and actually the Hamas officials on the Gaza side of the border said, well we’re not working today, we’re on strike in protest at the treatment of these people on board the flotilla.  So actually there were long queues with the border not actually open as quickly as it should have been.  But now I think it’s fair to say that there is humanitarian aid coming through and people are being allowed to leave to go to Egypt to seek medical treatment.  One of the things you see, in fact I saw just today coming into Gaza, is most of the people you see there leaving and it’s very, very few because it is extremely difficult to leave, are in terrible medical conditions, bandaged up, a lot of children because these are the only people, really, who are allowed to leave Gaza to get medical treatment in Israel.

WERMAN: The BBC’s John Donnison in Gaza, always good to speak, thank you John.

DONNISON: Pleasure.

WERMAN: By the way, Israel says it has 20 trucks loaded with the aid seized from the ship convoy.  The Israelis claim they want to deliver the aid to Gaza, but they say Hamas won’t let it in.

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The Palestinian Authority initially backed deferring a vote, but changed its position after domestic criticism. Palestinians and human rights groups say more than 1,400 Gazans were killed in the 22-day conflict that ended in January, but Israel puts the figure at 1,166. Thirteen Israelis, including three civilians, were killed.

Earlier this month Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had urged UN members to “come to their senses” and reject the Goldstone report. He said UN endorsement of the strong criticism of Israel would deal “a fatal blow” to peace efforts. He said, it would legitimize “terrorists who hide behind civilians” by laying the blame on victims of terror who act in self-defense. He also said UN prestige would be adversely affected and the body would become irrelevant like “the darkest days where absurd decisions were passed”.

In September, the UN human rights report said both the Israeli army and Palestinian militants committed war crimes and possible crimes against humanity during the fighting in January. Reacting to the report, Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said, the report “was flawed from A-to-Z”, the UN panel was “biased” and some of its findings “ludicrous.”

The report calls for fresh war crimes inquiries under international scrutiny. It said said Israel’s “Operation Cast Lead”, launched in response to militant rocket fire, used disproportionate firepower against the densely populated Gaza Strip and disregarded the likelihood of civilian deaths. The militant group Hamas criticized parts of the report alleging it fired rockets at Israel without distinguishing between military targets and the civilian population.

Sep 14: Linda Gradstein reports that conditions in the Gaza Strip have not improved as much as aid donors would have liked:
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On Sep 9th, an Israeli human rights group said many more Palestinian civilians were killed in the Israeli military’s campaign in Gaza than the army admits. B’Tselem said detailed research with careful cross-checking showed 1,387 Palestinians died, over half of them civilians and 252 of them children. This contradicts an Israeli army report stating fewer than 300 civilians died in fighting in December and January.

Earlier this year the Israeli army said that 1,166 Gazans were killed in the conflict, a quarter of whom were civilians. Its figures indicated that the toll included 709 militants from Hamas and other groups, and 295 non-combatants. According to B’Tselem, 1,387 Palestinians were killed by the Israeli military, including 773 civilians, 330 combatants and 248 civilian police – whom Israeli officials classify as militants.

Israel launched the assault to halt rocket attacks from Hamas-run Gaza. The overall B’Tselem total broadly tallies with the official Palestinian death toll and the findings of other non-governmental organisations, although the proportion of civilians it identifies is lower.

In July, a group of soldiers who took part in Israel’s assault in Gaza said widespread abuses were committed against civilians under “permissive” rules of engagement. The troops said they had been urged to fire on any building or person that seemed suspicious and said Palestinians were sometimes used as human shields.

Breaking the Silence, a campaign group made up of Israeli soldiers, gathered anonymous accounts from 26 soldiers. Israel denies breaking the laws of war and dismissed the report as hearsay. The report says testimonies show “the massive and unprecedented blow to the infrastructure and civilians” was a result of Israeli military policy, articulated by the rules of engagement, and encouraged by a belief “the reality of war requires them to shoot and not to ask questions”.

Amnesty report on Israeli operation “Cast Lead.”

In May, a United Nations inquiry into attacks by Israeli forces on UN property during the Gaza conflict heavily criticized Israel’s army. It found Israel to blame in six out of nine incidents when death or injury were caused to people sheltering at UN property and UN buildings were damaged. Israeli Defense Minister, Ehud Barak, rejected the report, saying it was biased. “We have the most moral army in the world,” he said. “IDF (Israel Defense Forces) commanders and soldiers made every effort to avoid hurting uninvolved civilians.”

In April, the Israeli military said internal investigations showed it acted according to international law during its operations in Gaza. A small number of errors did take place, it admits, such as the deaths of 21 people in a wrongly targeted house, but it claims these were “unavoidable”. The military said Gaza militants had used civilian sites for cover.

Human rights group have raised concerns about war crimes and say a wider, external investigation is needed. Israel faced widespread accusations of operating in a disproportionate and heavy-handed way during three-week conflict in January. Palestinians say more than 1,400 Gazans were killed, of whom more than two-thirds were civilians. Israel puts the figure lower, at 1,166 dead, of whom it says about two-thirds were fighters.

In March international donors pledged almost $4.5 billion in aid to the Palestinians, chiefly to rebuild Gaza after the Israeli offensive. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Washington would donate $900 million, and vigorously seek to advance peace.

Palestinian disunity

In June 2007, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas swore in a new emergency government that excluded his Islamist rivals, Hamas, who had seized control of Gaza after intense fighting between the rival factions. Abbas also issued decrees enabling new Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to rule without parliamentary approval and outlawing all of Hamas’s armed forces. Fayyad’s predecessor, Hamas leader Ismail Haniya called the new government illegal, while the United States and the European Union declared their support for the emergency government.

The collapsed Palestinian unity government which included Hamas had only been agreed in February 2007 after several months of fighting between the factions but mistrust between Hamas and Fatah continued. Armed clashes in Gaza in December 2006 and January 2007 had already brought the Palestinian rivals to the brink of civil war. Only after crisis talks hosted by Saudi Arabia did Hamas and Fatah agree to form the unity government.

Hamas patrol in the Gaza strip in 2007 (AP photo)

However Western nations continued their aid boycott of the Palestinian Authority at the time because the Hamas movement refuses to renounce violence against Israel. The United States, the UN, the European Union and Russia – the so-called Quartet – repeatedly said that Hamas must meet three conditions before the financial blockade can be lifted: renounce violence, recognize Israel, and abide by previous agreements between Israel and the Palestinians.

Key Players in the Conflict:

Hamas leader Ismail Haniya

Haniya had been Palestinian prime minister since March 29th, 2006, after his militant Hamas movement won a clear majority in the parliamentary election in January 2006. In March 2007 he became the prime minister of a government of national unity which included Fatah members. After gun battles in Gaza, the unity government collapsed in June 2007 and President Abbas appointed a new prime minister, but Haniya refused to accept his dismissal, describing the new emergency government as “illegal”.

Hamas, the largest Palestinian militant Islamist movement, is considered a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union, and Israel, all of which have refused to deal directly with Hamas officials.

Hamas pursues the long-term aim of establishing an Islamic state on all of historic Palestine – most of which has been contained within Israel’s borders since its creation in 1948. The grass-roots organization – with a political and a military wing – has an unknown number of active members but tens of thousands of supporters and sympathizers.

The decision to stand in Palestinian elections was a major departure for Hamas at the time. Top figures say it reflects the importance of the movement and the need for it to play a role in a failing Palestinian political sphere rife with corruption, inefficiency and lost credibility. But Hamas’ armed wing remains the epitome of the “terrorist infrastructure” which the Palestinian Authority is called on to dismantle under the international peace plan known as the roadmap.

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal

Meshaal was named Hamas leader following Israeli’s killing of the group’s founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, in March 2004. The organization’s covert structure means it is unclear what authority he wields, but from his exile in the Syrian capital, Damascus, he has played an important role since the group won a majority in the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections.

Meshaal survived an Israeli assassination attempt on his life back in 1997 and he has always supported Palestinian attacks on Israelis. Like many Palestinians, he believes that such attacks are a legitimate act of resisting the Israeli occupation.

Israel has accused Meshaal and the Syrian-based leadership of Hamas of being behind the kidnapping of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Cpl Shalit was seized in a cross-border raid by militants in June 2006, sparking an Israeli ground offensive in the Gaza Strip.

New Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Likud)

Following the Israeli election on Feb 10th, 2009, Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of the right-of-center Likud party, was asked to form Israel’s next government. He became prime minister at the end of March after having previously served in that position between June 1996 and July 1999. Netanyahu is also a former foreign and finance minister of Israel. The centrist Kadima of former prime minister Ehud Olmert narrowly defeated Likud in the February election, but Netanyahu has the support of the religious and right-wing parties which make up more than half of Israel’s parliament.

The new Israeli government is not expected to make concessions to the Palestinians. There would be strong pressures from within such a coalition to go full steam ahead on settlement-building on the West Bank. Therefore Netanyahu’s government could easily find itself on a collision course with the Obama administration in Washington.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (FATAH)

Abbas (also known as Abu Mazen) is the leader of the Fatah Party and was elected president of the Palestinian Authority in January 2005, to succeed the late Yasser Arafat. Then President George W. Bush praised the election of the moderate PLO leader as a tribute to the power and appeal of democracy and an “inspiration” to the region. In May 2005 Abbas became the first Palestinian leader to be given the red carpet treatment in Washington during the Bush presidency.

Abbas’ position as Palestinian leader became very complicated after the rival Hamas movement defeated his Fatah party in the parliamentary election on January 25th, 2006 and formed a cabinet without the participation of Fatah. The secular nationalist Fatah movement founded by Arafat in the 1950s had dominated Palestinian politics for many decades.

In December 2006 the tensions between Fatah and Hamas escalated into armed clashes in the Gaza Strip, further heavy fighting in June 2007 resulted in Hamas taking over the entire Gaza strip and ejecting Fatah. Abbas declared a state of emergency, appointed Salam Fayyad prime minister and fired Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniya, but Haniya refused to accept his dismissal.

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