Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Beware The Psychopath, My Son By Clinton Callahan

http://connect.bioneers.org/profiles/blogs/1233360:BlogPost:34533




The following is largely extracted from two articles: Twilight of the Psychopaths, by Dr. Kevin Barrett (http://www.agoracosmopolitan.com/home/Frontpage/2008/01/02/02073.html) and The Trick of the Psychopath’s Trade by Silvia Cattori (http://www.tinyurl.com/53qjml). Both articles are recommended. Both articles reference the book Political Ponerology: A science on the nature of evil adjusted for political purposes, by Andrzej Lobaczewski. Cattori’s article is longer and includes an interview with the book’s editors, Laura Knight-Jadczyk and Henry See.

I make the effort to share this information because it gives me, at last, a plausible answer to a long-unanswered question: Why, no matter how much intelligent goodwill exists in the world, is there so much war, suffering and injustice? It doesn't seem to matter what creative plan, ideology, religion, or philosophy great minds come up with, nothing seems to improve our lot. Since the dawn of civilization, this pattern repeats itself over and over again.

The answer is that civilization, as we know it, is largely the creation of psychopaths. All civilizations, our own included, have been built on slavery and mass murder. Psychopaths have played a disproportionate role in the development of civilization, because they are hard-wired to lie, kill, cheat, steal, torture, manipulate, and generally inflict great suffering on other humans without feeling any remorse, in order to establish their own sense of security through domination. The inventor of civilization – the first tribal chieftain who successfully brainwashed an army of controlled mass murderers – was almost certainly a genetic psychopath. Since that momentous discovery, psychopaths have enjoyed a significant advantage over non-psychopaths in the struggle for power in civilizational hierarchies – especially military hierarchies.

Behind the apparent insanity of contemporary history, is the actual insanity of psychopaths fighting to preserve their disproportionate power. And as their power grows ever-more-threatened, the psychopaths grow ever-more-desperate. We are witnessing the apotheosis of the overworld – the overlapping criminal syndicates that lurk above ordinary society and law just as the underworld lurks below it.

During the past fifty years, psychopaths have gained almost absolute control of all the branches of government. You can notice this if you observe carefully that no matter what illegal thing a modern politician does, no one will really take him to task. All of the so called scandals that have come up, any one of which would have taken down an authentic administration, are just farces played out for the public, to distract them, to make them think that the democracy is still working.

One of the main factors to consider in terms of how a society can be taken over by a group of pathological deviants is that the psychopaths’ only limitation is the participation of susceptible individuals within that given society. Lobaczewski gives an average figure for the most active deviants of approximately 6% of a given population. (1% essential psychopaths and up to 5% other psychopathies and characteropathies.) The essential psychopath is at the center of the web. The others form the first tier of the psychopath’s control system.

The next tier of such a system is composed of individuals who were born normal, but are either already warped by long-term exposure to psychopathic material via familial or social influences, or who, through psychic weakness have chosen to meet the demands of psychopathy for their own selfish ends. Numerically, according to Lobaczewski, this group is about 12% of a given population under normal conditions.

So approximately 18% of any given population is active in the creation and imposition of a Pathocracy. The 6% group constitutes the Pathocratic nobility and the 12% group forms the new bourgeoisie, whose economic situation is the most advantageous.

When you understand the true nature of psychopathic influence, that it is conscienceless, emotionless, selfish, cold and calculating, and devoid of any moral or ethical standards, you are horrified, but at the same time everything suddenly begins to makes sense. Our society is ever more soulless because the people who lead it and who set the example are soulless - they literally have no conscience.

In his book Political Oenology, Andrej Lobaczewski explains that clinical psychopaths enjoy advantages even in non-violent competitions to climb the ranks of social hierarchies. Because they can lie without remorse (and without the telltale physiological stress that is measured by lie detector tests), psychopaths can always say whatever is necessary to get what they want. In court, for example, psychopaths can tell extreme bald-faced lies in a plausible manner, while their sane opponents are handicapped by an emotional predisposition to remain within hailing distance of the truth. Too often, the judge or jury imagines that the truth must be somewhere in the middle, and then issues decisions that benefit the psychopath. As with judges and juries, so too with those charged with decisions concerning who to promote and who not to promote in corporate, military and governmental hierarchies. The result is that all hierarchies inevitably become top-heavy with psychopaths. Since psychopaths have no limitations on what they can or will do to get to the top, the ones in charge are generally pathological. It is not power that corrupts, it is that corrupt individuals seek power.

How can we distinguish between psychopaths and healthy people? What is the portrait of a true psychopath?

Such a dangerous question has almost never been successfully asked. The reason is because we mistakenly confuse healthy for normal. Human psychological diversity is the health of our race. There is no normal because healthy humans continuously evolve beyond all normalizing standards. The terrorism of searching through hierarchies for anyone deviating from normal is no different from witch hunts or Inquisitions. You must remember that hierarchies thrive on such low dramas, torturing victims until they confess to evil beliefs. Not so long ago the church and state ongoingly acquired significant income and property through witch hunts and Inquisitions. This continued for over two hundred and fifty years. Ten generations of Europeans understood pogrom as normal life. Let us not return to that nightmare. Testing for normal is guaranteed to backfire in our face. There is no normal. But there is conscience.

We have very little empirical evidence to support the idea that true psychopathy is the result of an abused childhood, and much empirical evidence to support that it is genetic. The neurobiological model offers us the greatest hope of being able to identify even the most devious psychopath. Other recent studies lead to similar results and conclusions: that psychopaths have great difficulty processing verbal and nonverbal affective (emotional) material, that they tend to confuse the emotional significance of events, and most importantly, that these deficits show up in brain scans! A missing internal connection between the feeling heart and the thinking brain is detectable.

Psychopaths are incapable of authentic deep emotions. In fact, when Robert Hare, a Canadian psychologist who spent his career studying psychopathy, did brain scans on psychopaths while showing them two sets of words, one set of neutral words with no emotional associations and a second set with emotionally charged words, while different areas of the brain lit up in the non-psychopathic control group, in the psychopaths, both sets were processed in the same area of the brain, the area that deals with language. They did not have an emotional reaction until they intellectually concluded that it would be better if they had one, and then they whipped up an emotional response just for show.

The simplest, clearest and truest portrait of the psychopath is given in the titles of three seminal works on the subject: Without Conscience by Robert Hare, The Mask of Sanity by Hervey Cleckley, and Snakes in Suits by Robert Hare and Paul Babiak. A psychopath is exactly that: conscienceless. The most important thing to remember is that this lack of conscience is hidden from view behind a mask of normality that is often so convincing that even experts are deceived. As a result, psychopaths become the Snakes in Suits that control our world.

Psychopaths lack a sense of remorse or empathy with others. They can be extremely charming and are experts at using talk to charm and hypnotize their prey. They are also irresponsible. Nothing is ever their fault; someone else or the world at large is always to blame for all of their problems or their mistakes. Martha Stout, in her book The Sociopath Next Door, identifies what she calls the pity ploy. Psychopaths use pity to manipulate. They convince you to give them one more chance, and to not tell anyone about what they have done. So another trait – and a very important one – is their ability to control the flow of information.

They also seem to have little real conception of past or future, living entirely for their immediate needs and desires. Because of the barren quality of their inner life, they are often seeking new thrills, anything from feeling the power of manipulating others to engaging in illegal activities simply for the rush of adrenaline.

Another trait of the psychopath is what Lobaczewski calls their special psychological knowledge of normal people. They have studied us. They know us better than we know ourselves. They are experts in knowing how to push our buttons, to use our emotions against us. But beyond that, they even seem to have some sort of hypnotic power over us. When we begin to get caught up in the web of the psychopath, our ability to think deteriorates, gets muddied. They seem to cast some sort of spell over us. It is only later when we are no longer in their presence, out of their spell, that the clarity of thought returns and we find ourselves wondering how it was that we were unable to respond or counter what they were doing.

Psychopaths learn to recognize each other in a crowd as early as childhood, and they develop an awareness of the existence of other individuals similar to themselves. They also become conscious of being of a different world from the majority of other people surrounding them. They view us from a certain distance.

Think about the ramifications of this statement: Psychopaths are, to some extent, self-aware as a group even in childhood! Recognizing their fundamental difference from the rest of humanity, their allegiance would be to others of their kind, that is, to other psychopaths.

Their own twisted sense of honor compels them to cheat and revile non-psychopaths and their values. In contradiction to the ideals of normal people, psychopaths feel breaking promises and agreements is normal behavior.

Not only do they covet possessions and power and feel they have the right to them just because they exist and can take them, but they gain special pleasure in usurping and taking from others; what they can plagiarize, swindle, and extort are fruits far sweeter than those they can earn through honest labor. They also learn very early how their personalities can have traumatizing effects on the personalities of non-psychopaths, and how to take advantage of this root of terror for purposes of achieving their goals.

So now, imagine how human beings who are totally in the dark about the presence of psychopaths can be easily deceived and manipulated by these individuals, gaining power in different countries, pretending to be loyal to the local populations while at the same time playing up obvious and easily discernable physical differences between groups (such as race, skin color, religion, etc). Psychologically normal humans would be set against one another on the basis of unimportant differences (think of Rwanda 1994, think of Israelis and Palestinians) while the deviants in power, with a fundamental difference from the rest of us, a lack of conscience, an inability to feel for another human being, reaped the benefits and pulled the strings.

We are seeing the final desperate power-grab or endgame (Alex Jones) of brutal, cunning gangs of CIA drug-runners and President-killers; money-laundering international bankers and their hit-men – economic and otherwise; corrupt military contractors and gung-ho generals; corporate predators and their political enablers; brainwashers and mind-rapists euphemistically known as psy-ops and PR specialists – in short, the whole crew of certifiable psychopaths running our so-called civilization. And they are running scared.

Why does the Pathocracy fear it is losing control? Because it is threatened by the spread of knowledge. The greatest fear of any psychopath is of being found out.

Psychopaths go through life knowing that they are completely different from other people. Deep down they know something is missing in them. They quickly learn to hide their lack of empathy, while carefully studying others’ emotions so as to mimic normalcy while cold-bloodedly manipulating the normals.

Today, thanks to new information technologies, we are on the brink of unmasking the psychopaths and building a civilization of, by and for the healthy human being – a civilization without war, a civilization based on truth, a civilization in which the saintly few rather than the diabolical few would gravitate to positions of power. We already have the knowledge necessary to diagnose psychopathic personalities and keep them out of power. We have the knowledge necessary to dismantle the institutions in which psychopaths especially flourish – militaries, intelligence agencies, large corporations, and secret societies. We simply need to disseminate this knowledge, and the will to use it, as widely and as quickly as possible.

Until the knowledge and awareness of pathological human beings is given the attention it deserves and becomes part of the general knowledge of all human beings, there is no way that things can be changed in any way that is effective and long-lasting. If half the people agitating for truth or stopping the war or saving the earth would focus their efforts, time and money on exposing psychopathy, we might get somewhere.

One might ask if the weak point of our society has been our tolerance of psychopathic behavior? Our disbelief that someone could seem like an intelligent leader and still be acting deceptively on their own behalf without conscience? Or is it merely ignorance?

If the general voting public is not aware that there exists a category of people we sometimes perceive as almost human, who look like us, who work with us, who are found in every race, every culture, speaking every language, but who are lacking conscience, how can the general public take care to block them from taking over the hierarchies? General ignorance of psychopathology may prove to be the downfall of civilization. We stand by like grazing sheep as political / corporate elites throw armies of our innocent sons and daughters against fabricated enemies as a way of generating trillions in profits, vying against each other for pathological hegemony.

Nearly everyone who has been part of an organization working for social change has probably seen the same dynamic play out: The good and sincere work of many can be destroyed by the actions of one person. That doesn't bode well for bringing some sort of justice to the planet! In fact, if psychopaths dominate political hierarchies, is it any wonder that peaceful demonstrations have zero impact on the outcome of political decisions? Perhaps it is time to choose something other than massive, distant hierarchies as a way of governing ourselves?

So many efforts to provide essays, research reports, exposés and books to leaders so they might take the new information to heart and change their behavior have come to naught. For example, in the final paragraph of his revised edition of the book, The Party’s Over, Richard Heinberg writes:

I still believe that if the people of the world can be helped to understand the situation we are in, the options available, and the consequences of the path we are currently on, then it is at least possible that they can be persuaded to undertake the considerable effort and sacrifice that will be entailed in a peaceful transition to a sustainable, locally based, decentralized, low-energy, resource-conserving social regime. But inspired leadership will be required.

And that is the just-murdered fantasy. There are no inspired leaders anymore. And in hierarchical structures there can’t be. Assuming that you can elect men or women to office who will see reason and the light of day, and who will change and learn and grow, make compassionate decisions and take conscientious actions… is a foolish, childish dream. Continuing to dream it simply plays into psychopathic agendas.

Only when the 75% of humanity with a healthy conscience come to understand that we have a natural predator, a group of people who live amongst us, viewing us as powerless victims to be freely fed upon for achieving their inhuman ends, only then will we take the fierce and immediate actions needed to defend what is preciously human. Psychological deviants have to be removed from any position of power over people of conscience, period. People must be made aware that such individuals exist and must learn how to spot them and their manipulations. The hard part is that one must also struggle against those tendencies to mercy and kindness in oneself in order not to become prey.

The real problem is that the knowledge of psychopathy and how psychopaths rule the world has been effectively hidden. People do not have the adequate, nuanced knowledge they need to really make a change from the bottom up. Again and again, throughout history it has been meet the new boss, same as the old boss. If there is any work that is deserving of full time efforts and devotion for the sake of helping humanity in this present dark time, it is the study of psychopathy and the propagation of this information as far and wide and fast as possible.

There are only two things that can bring a psychopath under submission:
1. A bigger psychopath.
2. The non-violent, absolute refusal to submit to psychopathic controls no matter the consequences (non-violent noncompliance).

Let us choose path 2! If individuals simply sat down and refused to lift a hand to further one single aim of the psychopathic agenda, if people refused to pay taxes, if soldiers refused to fight, if government workers and corporate drones and prison guards refused to go to work, if doctors refused to treat psychopathic elites and their families, the whole system would grind to a screeching halt.

True change happens in the moment that a person becomes aware of psychopathy in all its chilling details. From this new awareness, the world looks different, and entirely new actions can be taken. Distinguishing between human and psychopathic qualities begins the foundation of responsibility upon which we have a real chance to create sustainable culture.

Clinton Callahan, originator of Possibility Management, author of Radiant Joy Brilliant Love, founder of Callahan Academy, empowers responsible creative leadership through authentic personal development. www.just-stop.org


British Arrest Warrent against former Israeli Foreign Minister Tipzi Livni for war crime


Tuesday, December 15, 2009



Dec 15, 2009 17:55

Deputy FM: Livni warrant 'makes a mockery of universal jurisdiction'





The arrest warrant issued against former foreign minister Tzipi Livni in a British court "makes a mockery of universal jurisdiction," Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said Tuesday.
Ayalon, who was also the subject of a potential arrest warrant on a trip to the UK last month, urged the British government to address the loophole in the legal system making the warrants possible.
"I don't see how Israelis and other officials can continue to visit the UK if this troublesome situation continues," the deputy foreign minister said.
"There could be a big diplomatic cost if Israeli leaders cannot visit London and it will affect our relationship and will impact on the ability of the British government to contribute to the Middle East peace process which is not something we would like to see."



Israel: British arrest warrant threatens ties

By AMY TEIBEL (AP) – 1 hour ago
JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected on Tuesday the issuing in Britain of an arrest warrant against Israel's former foreign minister for alleged war crimes, part of a Palestinian campaign against Israeli officials and soldiers.

Netanyahu had his top aide tell the British ambassador that Israel expected London to work to thwart such attempts, according to a statement from Netanyahu's office.

At the center of the dispute is a law that has allowed Palestinians to go after Israelis in British courts.

The statement from Netanyahu's office quoted the prime minister as rejecting the notion that leaders and army officers "who defended our civilians bravely and morally against a despicable and brutal enemy could be branded war criminals. We firmly reject this absurdity."

Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni was targeted for her role in last winter's brutal offensive against Hamas in Gaza, when she was foreign minister.

Israeli Public Information Minister Yuli Edelstein warned Tuesday that such attempts in Britain to pursue war crimes charges against Israeli leaders were harming relations between the two countries.

Netanyahu aide Uzi Arad told the British ambassador that Israel "expects the British government to act against this immoral phenomenon that attempts to damage Israel's right to self defense," according to the statement.

Livni's office refused to confirm media reports that she had been forced to call off a trip to London because of legal concerns. But on Tuesday, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said a warrant had been issued for Livni. The ministry said the warrant for Livni's arrest was later canceled after officials learned Livni was not on British soil.

"We see it as really a diplomatic offense against the state of Israel," Edelstein told The Associated Press. "I think that it's high time that the British parliament does something about it. It definitely hurts relations."

Livni, a one-time lead negotiator with the Palestinians, enjoys a dovish reputation in much of the West. But as foreign minister, she staunchly defended Israel's devastating military offensive in Gaza.

Her support for that operation, launched to end years of rocket fire by Gaza militants against Israel, has remained strong, despite widespread international criticism and allegations of war crimes due to the hundreds of civilian casualties.

Livni did not directly address the arrest warrant in a speech at a security conference on Tuesday, but said of her wartime conduct, "I would make the same decisions all over again."

The British Foreign Office said Monday it was looking urgently into the case, adding that Britain was determined to do its best to be a strategic partner of Israel.

"To do this, Israel's leaders need to be able to come to the U.K. for talks with the British Government," it said.

The incident was the latest in a string of attempts by pro-Palestinian activists to have Israeli officials arrested.

Pro-Palestinian lawyers attempted earlier this year to invoke the "universal jurisdiction" law to arrest Gaza war mastermind Ehud Barak, Israel's defense minister, but his status as a Cabinet minister gave him diplomatic immunity.

In 2005, a retired Israeli general, Doron Almog, returned to Israel immediately after landing in London because he was tipped off that British police planned to arrest him. The warrant against Almog — who oversaw the 2002 bombing of a Gaza home in which 14 people were killed along with a leading Palestinian militant — was later canceled.

Other Israeli leaders, including former military chief Moshe Yaalon and ex-internal security chief Avi Dichter, have also canceled trips to Britain in recent years for the same reason.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.











Opposition leader TzipiLivni ElyseePalace inParis.
(AP)






Last update - 19:09 15/12/2009





Miliband: Arrest warrant against Livni is insufferable

By Barak Ravid, Haaretz Correspondent







The British foreign secretary, David Miliband, denounced an arrested warrant issued in Britain for opposition leader Tzipi Livni as insufferable, after Israelwarned that the matter could harm ties between the two country. 

Also Tuesday, the Foreign Ministry summoned the British envoy to 
Israel to rebuke him over the warrant, issued for alleged war crimes in Gaza. 

Israel views the arrest warrant with utmost gravity, Naor Gilon, deputy director at the Foreign Ministry in charge of Western Europe, told British ambassador Tom Phillips. 

 

Gilon also called on Phillips to urge his government to change the law that allows for arrest warrants to be issued against senior Israeli officials over alleged war crimes perpetrated in 
Gaza during the winter conflict betweenIsrael and Hamas. 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday issued a statement saying that 
Israel will not agree to have its leaders be recognized as war criminals.

"We will not accept a situation in which Ehud Olmert, Ehud Barak and Tzipi Livni will be summoned to the defendants' chair," Netanyahu said in a statement. 

Livni served as foreign minister alongside Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak during the Israel Defense Forces offensive in
Gaza. The three figures comprised the "troika" of top decision-makers who charted the course of the war. 

"We will not agree to have Israel Defense Forces soldiers, who defended the citizens of 
Israel bravely and ethically against a cruel and criminal enemy, be recognized as war criminals. We completely reject this absurdity taking place in Britain," the premier added. 

Netanyahu also instructed National Security Council adviser Uzi Arad to call the British envoy on Tuesday to protest the move. 
Arad stressed to Phillips that Israel expects Britain to quash the "immoral act that allows arrest warrants to be issued against Israeli officials and harms Israel's right to self-defense." 

A statement from the British embassy in 
Israel said the U.K. is determined to work for peace in the Middle East and to be a strategic partner to Israel. 

"To do this, 
Israel's leaders need to be able to come to the U.K. for talks with the British government. We are looking urgently at the implications of this case." The embassy statement said. 

Israel's Foreign Ministry earlier Tuesday called on the British government to end the "absurd situation" in which arrest warrants were being issued to Israeli officials over alleged war crimes in Gaza, warning that ties between the two countries could suffer as a result. 

"Only actions can put an end to this absurd situation, which would have seemed a comedy of errors were it not so serious," said the Foreign Ministry, a day after it emerged that Livni had canceled her trip to Britain after a warrant was issued for her arrest. 

The ministry warned that in indulging the arrest warrant, the British government was hampering its own efforts at playing a role in 
Middle Eastpeace negotiations. 

"We appreciate the British government's desire to play a central role in the
Middle East peace process, and thus we expected it to translate the importance it gives its relations with Israel into actions," said the ministry. 

"
Israel urges the British government to once and for all honor its promises to take action to prevent anti-Israel forces from exploiting the British legal system to act against Israel and its citizens, the ministry said. The absence of resolute and immediate action to redress this distortion harms relations between the two countries," it added. 

Vice Premier Silvan Shalom urged the ministry to make "real diplomatic" efforts to make it clear that 
Israel would not accept such behavior. 

"We are all Tzipi Livni," he said. "The time has come for us to move from the defensive to the offensive. We must use real diplomacy here, to tell 
Britain,Spain and all those other states that we will not stand for this anymore." 

Livni: World can judge us, but don't equate IDF with terrorist 

In response to the warrant, Livni said Tuesday that she would not accept any accusation that compared Israel Defense Forces soldiers to terrorists. 

"I have no problem with the fact that the world wants to judge 
Israel," said Livni. "We are part of the free world. The problem starts when they equate terrorists and Israeli soldiers." 

Senior officials in 
Israel confirmed reports on Monday that a British court issued the warrant against Livni for her role in orchestrating Israel's military offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip nearly a year ago. The request for the warrant was submitted by a pro-Palestinian organization. 

British sources reported late Monday that though a British court had issued an arrest warrant for Livni over war crimes allegedly committed in 
Gaza while she served as foreign minister, it annulled it upon discovering she was not in the U.K.

The incident was the latest in a string of attempts by pro-Palestinian activists to have Israeli officials arrested. 

Pro-Palestinian lawyers attempted earlier this year to invoke the universal jurisdiction law to arrest 
Gaza war mastermind Ehud Barak, Israel's defense minister, but his status as a Cabinet minister gave him diplomatic immunity. 

In 2005, a retired Israeli general, Doron Almog, returned to 
Israel immediately after landing in London because he was tipped off that British police planned to arrest him. The warrant against Almog - who oversaw the bombing of aGaza home in which 14 people were killed - was later canceled. 

Other Israeli leaders, including former military chief Moshe Ya'alon and ex-internal security chief Avi Dichter, have also canceled trips to 
Britain in recent years for the same reason.







UK court 'issued warrant for Livni'


Livni served as Israel's foreign minister during the country's war in Gaza earlier this year [REUTERS]

A British court reportedly issued an arrest warrant for Israel's former foreign minister on charges relating to Israel's 22-day war on Gaza, before apparently withdrawing it after it was found she was not in the country.
Tzipi Livni, the leader of the opposition Kadima party, had been expected to travel to London this week for an event organised by the Jewish National Fund, followed by meetings with British government officials.

Livni cancelled the visit two weeks before the event was due to take place.

Israeli media reported on Monday that Livni had called off the trip fearing that she would be arrested after a pro-Palestinian group won a warrant for her arrest.

But Livni's office said in a statement after the reports that she had declined a request to attend the event in London due to a scheduling conflict and not because of fears of being arrested.
'Threat of prosecution'
The British foreign office issued a statement on Monday saying it was looking into the incident and its possible effect on the peace process.


"The UK is determined to do all it can to promote peace in theMiddle East and to be a strategic partner of Israel," it said.
"To do this, Israel's leaders need to be able to come to the UK for talks with the British government. We are looking urgently at the implications of this case."
Bill Bowring, a professor of law at the University of London, said the threat of prosecution is making international travel increasingly difficult for Israeli officials.
"This has happened before. It's under quite old legislation, under the fourth Geneva Convention of 1949," he told Al Jazeera.
"Basically what it says is that if a person anywhere in the world commits grave breaches against civilians then that person should be arrested and prosecuted wherever they turn up in the world."
Israeli land, air and naval forces began bombarding the Gaza Strip last December, saying that it wanted to stop rocket attacks by Palestinian fighters. 
In depth

 Video: Interview with Richard Goldstone
 Timeline: Gaza War
 Analysis: War crimes in Gaza?
 Goldstone's full report to the UN rights council
 Key points of the Goldstone report
 UN inquiry finds Gaza war crimes
 'Half of Gaza war dead civilians'
 PLO: History of a Revolution
 'Israel has to be accountable'

Al Jazeera is not responsible for external websites' content 

A UN-sponsored report, known as the Goldstone report, has called on both Israel and the Palestinians to investigate accusations of human-rights violations committed during the conflict.
The report accuses both Israel and Hamas of war crimes, and was endorsed by the UN General Assembly last month by a margin of 114 to 18, after two days of debate.
Forty-four member-nations abstained from voting.
The report, which was compiled by a panel led by Richard Goldstone, a South African judge, had already been endorsed by the UN Human Rights Council, which sponsored the fact-finding commission.

Most of the criticism in the Goldstone report was directed towardsIsrael's conduct during the offensive, in which it concluded thatIsrael used disproportionate force, deliberately targeting Gazacivilians, using them as human shields, and destroying civilian infrastructure.

More 1,400 Palestinians were killed in the offensive, while 13 Israelis, including 10 soldiers, died over the same time period.



http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601102&sid=as8GR71v5p9g
Israel Urges Britain to Stop Warrants Against Leaders (Update1)

By Gwen Ackerman and Caroline Alexander


Dec. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Israel, reacting to reports that an arrest warrant was issued by a U.K. court for former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, said the failure by Britain to prevent such actions harms relations between the countries.
“If Israeli leaders cannot visit Britain in a proper, dignified fashion, this will, quite naturally, seriously compromise Britain’s ability to play the active role in the Middle East peace process that it desires,” the Israeli Foreign Ministry said today in an e-mailed statement.
The ministry summoned British Ambassador Tom Phillips to stress the gravity of the situation, which, it said, will prevent Israeli leaders from visiting Britain until the issue is resolved.
A British judge issued the warrant for Livni, 51, on war crimes allegations connected to a 22-day Israeli military operation against the Islamic militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip that ended on Jan. 18, Al-Jazeera reported yesterday. The Qatar-based news channel added that authorities searched for Livni at a conference she was due to attend in London.
Livni’s office said she decided against the London trip two weeks ago because of scheduling issues. Westminister Magistrates Court said today that it had no record of having issued a warrant for Livni, following reports that it had done so. The Guardian newspaper said the court issued the warrant at the request of lawyers acting for Palestinian victims of the fighting, and withdrew it when it was discovered Livni wasn’t in Britain.
‘Strategic Partner’

“The U.K. is determined to do all it can to promote peace in the Middle East and to be a strategic partner of Israel,” the British Foreign Office said in an e-mailed statement. “We are looking urgently at the implications of this case.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he viewed the reported U.K. court action “with great severity.”
“We will not tolerate our soldiers and commanders, who defended our citizens in a heroic and ethical manner against a cruel and dreadful enemy, being denounced as war criminals. We absolutely reject this absurdity,” Netanyahu said in a statement issued to journalists by pager message.
The issuing of warrants against Israeli leaders in Britain isn’t new and comes across as “strange and off-the-wall,” said Jonathan Spyer, a political scientist at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya.
‘Embarrassing’
“It doesn’t harm Israel and is not likely to have an effect either way on the peace process, where Britain and other European countries play an important role as main financers of the Palestinian Authority,” Spyer said by phone. “It is mostly embarrassing for the British government.”
Four years ago, the military warned Major General Doron Almog, former army chief of the Gaza Strip, not to get off a plane at London’s Heathrow Airport on concern he would be arrested. A warrant for Almog was issued after a British law firm and a Gaza-based Palestinian group alleged he had a role in the bombing by warplanes of a Gaza apartment building housing a Hamas commander. British police canceled the warrant a week later for procedural reasons, Israel said then.
“We demand Britain find an unequivocal and satisfactory solution to this absurdity, caused by an exploitation of the British legal system, turning it into a battering ram used against Israel and its leadership,” Foreign Ministry official Naor Gilon told Phillips today.
Gaza Conflict
Peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians have been suspended for almost a year, after they were halted during the fighting in Gaza. The Palestinian Authority asked the United Nations General Assembly on Nov. 4 to seek prosecution of Israel for alleged war crimes during the Gaza offensive, as a necessary path to Middle East peace.
The UN said in a report published Sept. 15 that both Israel and Hamas committed war crimes during the three weeks of fighting. The report was compiled by a team led by the UN’s former chief war crimes prosecutor,Richard Goldstone, a South African. On Nov. 5, the UN General Assembly voted to adopt a non-binding resolution calling for Israeli and Palestinian authorities to begin probes of their behavior in the conflict within three months.
Israel, which declined to cooperate with the UN investigation, has said the Gaza operation it called Cast Lead was a defensive response to eight years of rocket attacks from Hamas and other militant groups. The Israeli military has said that more than 10,000 projectiles were fired from Gaza into Israel since 2001.
‘Lawfare’
“Previous Israeli governments tended to dismiss these kind of legal proceedings as marginal harassment,” Gerald Steinberg, professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University outside Tel Aviv, said in a telephone interview. “The Netanyahu government, because of the harsh reactions to the Gaza war, especially the Goldstone report, sees this type of demonization of Israel and Israeli officials through ‘lawfare’ as a much higher priority.”
Livni is “proud of all the decisions she made relating to Cast Lead, an operation that achieved its goals of protecting and defending Israeli civilians and returning to Israel its power of deterrence,” her office said in a statement. “This is Livni’s position, whether or not an arrest warrant is issued against her.” Livni currently leads Kadima, the largest party in the Israeli parliament.
Palestinians say 1,450 Gazans were killed in the Gaza fighting. Israel has put the number of Palestinian deaths at 1,166 and said 13 Israelis died.
The Palestinian Authority has conditioned resumption of the negotiations on a total Israeli construction freeze in the West Bank, and has called Israel’s 10-month building moratorium announced last month insufficient.
To contact the reporters on this story: Gwen Ackerman in Jerusalem atgackerman@bloomberg.net; Caroline Alexander in London atcalexander1@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: December 15, 2009 10:24 EST