Public prosecutors in Germany are looking into a war crimes complaint filed against Israel by two members of parliament with the far-left Left Party and a human rights activist who were on board the Mavi Marmara when Israeli troops stormed it 11 days ago.
According to international criminal law expert Florian Jessberger of Berlin’s Humboldt University, “there is cause to believe that false imprisonment was perpetrated as understood by German law.” He says that German criminal law would have jurisdiction “irrespective of the fact that the act was perpetrated on the high seas.”
This is very good news.
ReplyDeleteUnlike, say, SA countries like Brazil and Venezuela that the U.S. and Israel (wrongly) write off as little upstart backwaters, everybody takes Germany seriously. And given Germany's reluctance to raise its voice to Israel (for understandable if long worn-out reasons) this could be a real sign of the dam starting to crack.