Israel PM Will Protect Military from War Crimes Tribunals

With mounting complaints from human rights organizations of indiscriminate firing and the use of white phosphorous shells in civilian areas by the the Israeli military, the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered assurance that Israeli military personnel would be protected from any prosecution for war crimes by an international tribunal. The assertion was shocking in that it seemed to both acknowledge the possibility that war crimes had been committed, and to assert that Israel could commit these atrocities in defiance of international law with little fear of retribution. This international landscape, in which force and use of practices forbidden by international law are freely resorted to, whether it be Georgia and Russia or Israel, are the fruits of the United States' policies in invading and occupying Iraq. The BBC has the full story on PM Olmert and Israeli war crimes.