{"id":4583,"date":"2008-08-11T23:50:00","date_gmt":"2008-08-11T20:50:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2025-03-21T13:43:53","modified_gmt":"2025-03-21T11:43:53","slug":"epalestine-blogspot-com-66","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/2008\/08\/epalestine-blogspot-com-66\/","title":{"rendered":"[ePalestine] JPOST: Israel battles Spanish arrest warrants"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Jerusalem Post  <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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Israel battles Spanish arrest warrants<\/strong><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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Aug. 8, 2008<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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KSENIA SVETLOVA , THE JERUSALEM POST<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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Israel is battling hard to overturn a Spanish court’s decision to issue arrest warrants against six current and former politicians and senior military officials, a source in the Attorney- General’s Office told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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Late last month, Audiencia Nacional, the National Court of Spain (the highest Spanish judicial council), issued arrest warrants against the six – Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, Doron Almog, Moshe Ya’alon, Dan Halutz, Giora Eiland and Mike Herzog – accepting a petition from the Palestinian Center for Human Rights that suggested they were guilty of war crimes in the Gaza Strip during the summer of 2002.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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At that time, Ben-Eliezer was serving as defense minister; Ya’alon was IDF chief of General Staff; Eiland headed the National Security Council; Halutz was commander of the IAF, Almog was OC Southern Command and Herzog was a senior Defense Ministry official.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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The plaintiffs claimed that Ben-Eliezer personally oversaw the killing of Hamas commander Salah Shehadeh, a Palestinian terror chief who was responsible for killing of dozens of Israelis, in which 14 civilians also died. Israel subsequently apologized for the civilian deaths.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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The Foreign Ministry has said only that the matter is being taken care of. However, the Post has learned from a source in the Attorney-General’s Office that active negotiations between Madrid and Jerusalem were taking place to overturn the warrants.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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This is not the first time that PCHR has filed suit against high-ranking Israeli military commanders, but if the court’s decision is not reversed it will set a disturbing precedent in international law, said Ofer Zalzberg, co-chairman of YIFC (Young Israeli Forum for Cooperation), an organization that promotes relations between Israel and the European Union.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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Zalzberg recalled a 2005 incident in which Almog, travelling to London to raise funds for handicapped children, stayed in his plane upon arrival in London rather than risk arrest. Shortly thereafter, a British warrant for his arrest was revoked.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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"This time," Zalzberg said, "we are talking about several people and a very significant and drastic step. It might also cause a shower of law suits from various groups and individuals in Europe against various Israeli officials."<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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Almog told the Post that he believes the warrants issued against him, first by the British and now by Spanish courts, are not directed at him personally, but at Israel and its right to defend itself.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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"Some elements with very clear motives and intentions use these lawsuits as a weapon against Israel. The combat between Israel and terrorists continues on different scenes, and the legal scene is just one of them," he said. "I don’t think the decision of the Spanish court indicates a crisis in Israel-EU relations, but it seems that these elements exploit the law in these countries to act against the State of Israel."<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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PCHR head Raji Sorani, welcoming the decision of the Spanish court to issue the warrants, said, "We believe that these persons are criminals and that they committed horrible crimes against humanity. A one-ton bomb was thrown at a civilian neighborhood in Gaza and 15 people died."<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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http:\/\/www.jpost.com\/servlet\/Satellite?cid=1218104239557&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull<\/u> <\/span> <\/font> <\/a><\/p>\n

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The Jerusalem Post  Israel battles Spanish arrest warrants Aug. 8, 2008 KSENIA SVETLOVA , THE JERUSALEM POST Israel is battling hard to overturn a Spanish court’s decision to issue arrest warrants against six current and former politicians and senior military officials, a source in the Attorney- General’s Office told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday. Late […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1401],"ppma_author":[936],"class_list":["post-4583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-hamas"],"authors":[{"term_id":936,"user_id":4,"is_guest":0,"slug":"sambahour","display_name":"Sam Bahour","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/bca109c333bf6d8ae807746dd512adde46265d37c923f6cd0fc4aab437f8e9aa?s=96&d=mm&r=g","author_category":"1","first_name":"Sam","last_name":"Bahour","user_url":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour","job_title":"","description":"

Sam Bahour<\/strong> is a Palestinian-American business consultant, writer, and commentator based in Al-Bireh\/Ramallah, Palestine. He is the principal of Applied Information Management (AIM)<\/a>, a consultancy specializing in business development and startup advisory services.<\/p>\r\n

Bahour played a foundational role in establishing two of Palestine\u2019s publicly traded companies: the Palestine Telecommunications Company (PALTEL) and the Arab Palestinian Shopping Centers (APSC). He co-founded Americans for a Vibrant Palestinian Economy (A4VPE), of which he is now an emeritus member, and served as an independent director on the board of Arab Islamic Bank P.L.C. from 2004 to 2025. He currently serves on the board of Just Vision<\/a> and The Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute (MAS)<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n

He frequently gives talks to delegations visiting Palestine on the subjects of Palestine\u2019s political economy, Palestinian Politics 101, and a general orientation to the state of affairs under Israeli military occupation.<\/p>\r\n

A prolific writer on Palestinian affairs, Bahour has been published in major international outlets including The New York Times, The Guardian, Haaretz, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, Al Jazeera America, Le Monde diplomatique, Al-Monitor, +972 Magazine, The Hill, and Arab News. He has appeared as a commentator on NPR, CNN, BBC, and other broadcast media.<\/p>\r\n

Bahour is the co-editor of Homeland: Oral Histories of Palestine and Palestinians<\/a><\/em> (Olive Branch Press, 1993) and was profiled in the bestselling anthology Kingdom of Olives and Ash<\/a><\/em>, edited by Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman, in a chapter authored by Chabon titled \u201cThe Tallest Man in Ramallah<\/a>.\u201d He holds an Associate\u2019s and Bachelor\u2019s degree in Computer Technology from Youngstown State University, and a Kellogg-Recanati International Executive MBA \u2014 a joint program of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and the Recanati Business School at Tel Aviv University.<\/p>\r\n

He tweets at @SamBahour<\/a>, blogs at www.epalestine.ps<\/a>, and may be reached at sbahour[AT]gmail[DOT]com.<\/p>"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4583"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4583\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7874,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4583\/revisions\/7874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4583"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=4583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}