Front Burner - When Israel investigates itself, what happens?

Episode Date: May 31, 2024

Earlier this week, an Israeli airstrike that set off a huge blaze in a tent camp in Rafah killed dozens of Palestinians and prompted outrage around the world. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the incident a “tragic mistake,” and promised a thorough investigation.His words echoed previous pledges of investigations and accountability, after past incidents involving the Israel Defense Forces that caused similar global outrage. But when Israel investigates itself, what happens? Who is held to account, and what kinds of changes are implemented?Today we’re speaking to Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch, about the results of previous Israeli investigations, and whether he believes they are sufficient.Help us make Front Burner even better by filling out this audience survey.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. The images are simply horrific. Fire everywhere, smoke, people panicking to put the flames out. People, including women and children, burned alive or dismembered.

It happened Sunday night. An Israeli airstrike on a tent camp for displaced people in Rafah in southern Gaza started a fire. According to the United Nations, at least 45 people were killed and more than 200 injured. The Israel Defense Forces says that the operation was targeting two senior Hamas militants. They say the two bombs that they used were too small to have ignited the blaze in the camp, and that they're looking into the possibility that weapons may have been stored in the area. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that something unfortunately went tragically wrong with the strike. He added the quote, we are investigating the incident and will reach conclusions because this is our policy.

His words echoed statements made by Israeli officials throughout this conflict and historically, that Israel is perfectly capable of investigating these incidents themselves and that when they find wrongdoing, the perpetrators are held to account. Their ally, the United States, says the same. It's something we've heard many times in recent months from State Department spokesperson Matt Miller. What kind of timeline did Israel provide you to conclude those investigations? So we have made clear to Israel that those investigations ought to proceed expeditiously

and they ought to reach conclusions as soon as possible. And have they provided you a timeline? I'm not going to speak to our internal discussions or speak for the Israeli government. So let's just focus on jurisdiction for a second. Who does have jurisdiction here? So the governor of Israel has jurisdiction. Over the occupied territory? Over Gaza, which is not entirely occupied. They have jurisdiction here. So the governor of Israel has jurisdiction? Over the occupied territory. We have jurisdiction. Over Gaza, which is not entirely occupied. They have jurisdiction. So the Palestinians, if they have a complaint, they have to bring it to Israeli court.

Today, we're going to talk to Kenneth Roth, who was the executive director of Human Rights Watch from 1993 to 2022. He's now a visiting professor at Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. Human Rights Watch, over many years, has done its own investigations into similar events relating to the Israeli military and civilian casualties. So I want to ask him what results came from Israel's own investigations and whether he thinks they were sufficient. Israel's own investigations and whether he thinks they were sufficient. Hi, Ken. Thank you very much for making the time today. Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

When those images started coming out of the camp in Rafah at the start of this week, what was going through your mind? Well, the visuals were absolutely horrendous. You know, people were burned to death. Yesterday, we were sitting safely, she says. Suddenly, we found bodies thrown on the ground, blood splattered on the ground. Where do we go, she asks. Tell me, where can I find a safe place to go with our kids? And, you know, the first thing that struck me is like, what is Israel doing, targeting anything in the middle of this densely populated tent camp filled with people who had been just displaced from Rafah, you know, and probably displaced from elsewhere in Gaza as well.

So it was a horrible tragedy. You know, Israel immediately said, oh, we were trying to hit two Hamas figures. But, you know, that hardly justifies killing 45 people. And, you know, but then Israel did what it always does, which is it said, oh, we're going to investigate this. And that, you know, superficially sounds good. That's appropriate. But there is a history behind these self-investigations. that's appropriate. But there's a history behind these self-investigations. And very typically, what they will do is, at most, they may say that some low-level official misbehaved, but they hardly ever examine the rules of engagement that led to the tragic loss of life. And I don't think we have any reason to believe that this investigation is going to be any different. I want to go through some previous investigations with you in a bit more detail. But first, just sticking with RAFA for a moment. Back in March,

President Biden said that a RAFA invasion would be a red line. I made it clear that if they go into RAafa, they haven't gone into Rafa yet. If they go into Rafa, I'm not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafa, to deal with the cities, to deal with that problem. And I just want to break down some of the events that have happened in and around Rafa just since Sunday. In addition to what happened at the camp, residents have reported intense bombardment in multiple parts of the city. On Tuesday, local health officials also said that Israeli tanks shelled a group of people, killing at least 21 people in another tent camp just west of Rafah. Israel has denied this. Israeli tanks have also reportedly advanced to the heart of Rafah. And there are now reports that the IDF is sending more troops into the city.

But when asked about it this week, U.S. officials have in essence suggested that these actions don't cross the red line. White House spokesperson John Kirby said they're not currently seeing a major invasion of RAFA. As a result of this strike on Sunday, I have no policy changes to speak to. It just happened. And what are your thoughts on what the U.S. administration is saying, given everything that we've seen this week in and around RAFA? given everything that we've seen this week in and around Rafah? Well, Biden's red line has turned out to be a very flexible red line. They've already reinterpreted it to mean, well, we don't want an invasion that risks too many Palestinians' lives. And so while there pretty clearly is now an invasion of Rafah, they seem to be saying, And so while there pretty clearly is now an invasion of Rafah, they seem to be saying,

well, it's okay because 1 million of the 1.4 million Palestinians who have been sheltering in Rafah have now fled. But the International Court of Justice actually addressed that argument last week in its order to curb the invasion of Rafah. And it noted that a very substantial number of these displaced people have moved to this narrow spit of land, basically a beachfront, where there's nothing. There's no food. There's no medical care. There's no sanitation. They are just, living out in the open. And that itself is dangerous. And so the court felt that that was not justification enough. But for Biden, that still is, you know, on the right side of his red line.

This is, you know, similar to what he's done throughout the conflict, where he has been quite good at saying, you know, to Israel, let in humanitarian aid, be more careful about hitting civilians. But he hardly ever backs that up with consequences. The one step he did take was he stopped sending these horrible, huge 2,000-pound bombs that Israel has been using to decimate large parts of Gaza. He said, I don't want those used for an invasion of Rafah, so I'm not going to send them to you. But he then turned around and authorized $1 billion in other arms to Israel. So it really undercut the message. And that's what we're seeing. Rhetorically, it's good, but with no consequences, Netanyahu just ignores them.

Coming back to this idea of Israel's ability to investigate itself when these incidents arise, I do want to now go through a few specific cases with you. So the first happened two months ago on April 1st when Israeli airstrikes killed seven aid workers from World Central Kitchen. World Central Kitchen says several international workers, including one who held dual U.S.-Canadian citizenship, were killed, and now the charity says it will immediately pause its operations in the region. Netanyahu said the army had mistakenly

fired on the vehicles, and he called it tragic. An Israeli army commission investigated and found that a series of grave errors by military personnel led to the killings. They said the drone operator didn't follow the rules, but also that they believed at the time that a Hamas gunman was traveling with the World Central Kitchen convoy. Two middle-ranking officers were dismissed over the incident, and the IDF said that they could be criminally prosecuted. But many human rights and aid groups, including World Central Kitchen,

have said that this wasn't enough. There is no excuse for these killings. None. The official explanation is not good enough. And we still obviously demand an investigation into the actions of the IDF against our team. And so, specifically, maybe even leaving aside the question of whether the repercussions were sufficient, you know, what questions remain unanswered in this case for you?

Well, the World Central Kitchen investigation, I think, was pretty typical of the way Israel handles these things. There's an outrageous incident. There is global outrage. There's an outrageous incident. There is global outrage. So they launch an investigation, and occasionally they will sacrifice one or two low-level soldiers. They say that they exceeded orders, that their conduct was somehow excessive. What they hardly ever do is examine the rules of engagement. And it's interesting to look at the rules of engagement here, because even if you take the Israeli story at face value, that a drone operator

thought he saw a gunman, it was one gunman that they said, and therefore fired. Now, first of all, what is one gunman? That could be a security guard protecting a food convoy, because there's been real security problems there. It's not necessarily a Hamas gunman. But even if it were a Hamas gunman, why do you then attack three separate cars separated by a mile and a half, killing the seven humanitarian worker occupants in those cars. There is no justification for that. But they're not even talking about that. They don't examine the rules of engagement typically in these investigations. They just sacrifice some low-level soldier to say he exceeded orders. Just to be clear, when we're talking about the rules of engagement, what do you mean exactly by that? Whose rules are these? These would be the rules that the Israeli Defense Force gives to its soldiers. So, you know, in any modern army, soldiers are told, you know, when it's okay to fire, when not,

what kind of risks to civilians are permissible and whatnot. And Israel has fought this entire war in Gaza with a set of rules of engagement that are very permissive about civilian casualties. Indeed, there was a recent media report that the lawyers are allowing ratios of 1 to 15 or 1 to 20 for combatant to civilian deaths, even for low-level Hamas fighters. This is a wholly disproportionate effect on civilians by any fair standard. But it's indicative of how Israel is, in a sense, almost collectively punishing the people of Gaza, even though Hamas is a military dictatorship. The people of Gaza had no ability to control Hamas, but they're bearing the brunt of this Israeli onslaught.

I think one response to that by Israel would probably be that they are fighting an enemy, terrorists, they would say, that embed themselves so wholly among the civilian population that that is why there is such a civilian toll. And just I wonder how you would respond to that. I mean, that indeed is the lead Israeli defense. But let's, you know, take it apart a little bit. And just I wonder how you would respond to that. its starvation strategy. You know, the idea of allowing in just drips and drabs of aid, but not enough to avoid what already is described as famine by the World Food Program of the United Nations. Hamas using human shields, which they do periodically, is no defense to the starvation strategy. You know, it has nothing to do with the human shields. Now, when it comes to other attacks, whether Israeli bombardment that is indiscriminate or disproportionate, again, you've got to look at

this because the attacker, even in the case of human shields, and human shields, using them is a war crime, but war crimes by one side don't justify war crimes by the other. And so when Israel responds by dropping these 2,000-pound bombs, which decimate entire neighborhoods, they're utterly inappropriate in an urban setting. That is not a proportionate attack. That's an indiscriminate attack. And indeed, Kareem Khan, the ICC chief prosecutor, has already mentioned them in his public comments. So I wouldn't be at all surprised if the next round of war crimes charges address these 2000 pound bombs. But there is, you know, zero justification from the human shields argument for that kind of a response. I want to go through another example with you going back a few years. In 2018,

Gazans began holding weekly demonstrations along the fence separating Gaza from Israel, and they were calling for their right to return to their ancestral homes. These protests were known, people may remember, as the Great March of Return. And the UN says that the vast majority of these protesters were peaceful, although small numbers, in some cases, threw stones or Molotov cocktails towards Israeli forces or flew incendiary kites and balloons. The IDF responded with tear gas, rubber bullets, and live ammunition, and more than 200 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces during those protests, including 46 children, more than 35,000 were injured. The Israeli military did investigate soldiers' conduct during these protests, but the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem called the investigations a, quote, whitewashing mechanism. Why would they have

received this kind of criticism? It was the exact same thing as World Central Kitchen. In other words, they essentially said, oh, there were a few soldiers here who exceeded orders, we're going to punish them. They did not address the rules of engagement, which are set, you know, not by low level soldiers, but by senior officials. These are policy decisions, what the rules of engagement are. And the rules of engagement allow the use of lethal force, live ammunition, against peaceful protesters who are unarmed. If they simply approach the fence, they risk being shot and killed. Those are blatantly illegal orders. In a situation like that, which is not a war, it's a policing situation, Israeli forces are allowed to use lethal force only as a last resort to address an imminent threat to life. That's not what these peaceful protesters represented. And that illegal set of orders was never addressed by this Israeli self-investigation, which is why B'Tselem, the leading Israeli human rights group,

called it a complete whitewash, and they were right. I'll just note before we move on that the Israeli military rejected B'Tselem's findings. They said that the protests were aimed at providing cover for cross-border attacks. They alleged abuses were investigated, and as we just talked about, that soldiers were held accountable. life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix.

I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo, 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Cups. Let's go back now to 2006, to the war between Israel and Hezbollah. I know this is a case that you had personal experience with,

and I wonder if you could tell me about that and what happened. Yes. In that case, Israel gave warnings to people in southern Lebanon, which is what they're supposed to do, and said, you know, clear out because we're going to attack Hezbollah. And so many people left. But, you know, significant numbers of civilians stayed. And if you think about it, there are lots of reasons why people stay. They could be old. They could be infirm. They could have a disability. They could be afraid. They could not afford the exorbitant tax affairs, you know, whatever it is. And Human Rights Watch, our on-the-ground investigation showed that Israeli forces basically treated anybody who stayed as

if they were Hezbollah and shot and killed them, including many civilians. And I went, actually went to Tel Aviv, I went to the IDF headquarters, and I met with what's called the MAG, the most senior Israeli military lawyer who was in charge of the self-investigation. And he, you know, utterly refused to address these orders. He said, oh, well, you know, Hezbollah hides among civilians, you know, again, a version of the human shields, you know, ignoring the fact that the duty is on the attacker not to pull the trigger until they know that they're firing at a combatant. They said, oh, they had secret evidence, but, you know, they never told us what the secret evidence was. And we had on the ground evidence that they didn't have showing that this was, you know, an utterly illegal set of orders.

When push comes to shove, they never addressed the rules of engagement. And the self-investigation that they did was, you know, yet again, a whitewash of the senior officials who were responsible for giving these illegal orders. where there actually was some blame laid at the feet of a senior individual, something that happened in 1982 during the Lebanese Civil War, during a time when Israel occupied part of Lebanon. It was an event known as the Sabra and Shatila Massacre. And before we go to the investigation, can you just briefly explain what that was for people who might not remember it? explain what that was for people who might not remember it. Yes. Israel had invaded Lebanon, basically with the aim of clearing out the Palestine Liberation Organization, which had taken up residence as their kind of headquarters at the

time in Beirut. And so Israel was kind of in control of most of Lebanon at that stage. Sabra and Shatila are two Palestinian refugee camps just on the outskirts of Beirut. And so at a point where the Israeli forces were in control, they allowed allied Falangist militias, Christian militia, to go into these Palestinian refugee camps, knowing that it was very likely that these militia were going to commit a massacre. And they then did start massacring Palestinian civilians and did it for about two and a half days straight. Everybody knew it was happening. And the Israeli forces did nothing to stop it, even though it was happening, you know, in territory they controlled right under

their noses. And so in this case, there's something called the Qaham Commission that was set up to investigate this. It was such an outrage, even though the world was completely outraged. So Israel had to do something. And in this case, the Qaham Commission actually did say that Ariel Sharon, who at that point was the defense minister, was at fault for allowing the Falangist militia into Safrin Shatila and for not stopping them once they were in there. Now, the initial reaction was actually nothing. Sharon refused to step down. Ultimately, Menachem Begin, the Israeli prime minister at the time, did push him out. So he resigned. But there was never a criminal investigation, never criminal charges. And indeed, you know,

after a period of time, Ariel Sharon was elected prime minister of Israel. So he came out of it just fine. Now, there actually was an effort to pursue justice against Sharon, not in Israel, but in Belgium, using a concept known as universal jurisdiction, which allows, you know, the most serious atrocities to be pursued criminally in any competent tribunal around the world. And a case of universal jurisdiction against Sharon was opened. Belgium was put under so much pressure, including by the United States, that threatened to move NATO headquarters out of Brussels if this case continued, that the case was which, as you noted, obviously didn't happen. What kind of lessons do you think Israel's political and military class learned from this?

learn from this? Well, I think that the lesson to date has been that this strategy of, you know, on the occasional moment when there is, you know, something that outrages the world, that they announce a self-investigation. And then the outrage dies down because people can say, you got to wait for the investigation results. And then usually people forget about the investigation. The time passes and you never hear anything. Or if you hear anything, it is that a couple of low-level soldiers have been sacrificed, but that the policy decisions never happened. Now, what we just learned this week is that Israel actually took this a step further, an outrageous step further,, the big threat has been the International Criminal Court, which has jurisdiction over war crimes committed in Gaza, or for that matter,

by Palestinians in Israel. And the Israeli government, Netanyahu in particular, have long been worried about, might they face war crimes charges by the ICC? And what we learned through an investigation that was done by The Guardian in London, 972 and local call to Israeli media organizations, is that the Israeli Mossad launched an operation against the prior chief prosecutor of the ICC, a Gambian woman by the name of Fatou Bensouda. And they hacked her phones. They monitored her conversations with Palestinians. You know, I mean, they literally threatened her, her welfare, the welfare of her family. They set up a sting operation against her husband. It was really ugly. But coming back to our topic today, what Israel would do is when they learned that the ICC was interested in a particular incident, they would suddenly announce an investigation.

And then they would go to the Hague, where the ICC is located, and say, oh, look, we have this investigation, so you don't have to worry about this. And that's an argument, the form of which is legitimate, because the ICC is supposed to defer to good faith national investigations. But what we have seen, you know, through this revelation, is that these were all retroactive investigations mounted not with any indication of pursuing justice, but rather with the aim of obstructing justice, keeping the ICC out of anything that Netanyahu and his government was involved with. Given all of that, and sort of given everything that we've been talking about today, how significant is it, do you think, that the prosecutor of the ICC is now pursuing charges against Netanyahu and his defense minister? I think it's extremely significant. The ICC is meant as a backstop when national justice systems fail. And so even though, you know, within the green line, Israel is a democracy, even though

Israel has a sophisticated legal system, it has deliberately deployed that in a way that precludes meaningful justice for Palestinians. And finally, I wish it was earlier, but finally, the International Criminal Court is on the scene. And I hope that that will break the impunity. They still have to get physical custody of people to prosecute them. But even having war crimes charges filed is very significant, because it means that, you know, the people who have been charged cannot travel to 120 plus nations around the world that have joined the court without being arrested and sent to the Hague for trial. So that includes, you know, all of Europe, it includes Canada, it doesn't include

the United States, but includes, you know, a big part of the world. All right. Ken, thank you very much for taking the time today. It was really a pleasure to listen to you. And thank you very much. Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure. All right, that is all for this week. Front Burner was produced this week by Matt Alma, Ali Janes, Matt Mews, Derek Vanderwyk, and Ben Lopez-Steven. Sound design was by Matt Cameron and Marco Luciano. Music is by Joseph Chavison. Our senior producer is Elaine Chao.

Our executive producer is Nick McCabe-Locos. And I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening and talk to you on Monday. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.