CASMII Press Release
15 July 2008
Israel threatens to wage illegal, pre-emptive military attack on Iran
On Monday July 14th Israel's senior defence official, General Amos Gilad
during an interview with BBC Radio four's Today programme said that
Israel is preparing itself to take military action against Iran and that
it would do so if diplomacy fails. The statement came only a day after
the Sunday Times revealed that "President George W Bush backs Israeli
plan for strike on Iran".
These threats are being made following reports of Israeli aerial
military exercise in the first week of June which involved over 100 F-15
and F-16 fighters and was described by a senior Pentagon official as a
dress rehearsal for a military strike on Iranian nuclear plants. In the
same week, Shaol Mofaz, Israel's deputy prime minister publicly stated
that if Iran continues with its nuclear programme, Israel "will attack
it".
All of Iran's nuclear plants are under Safeguards agreements with the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which after over five years
of intrusive inspections has found no evidence of any diversion into a
weaponisation programme. In mid June, Dr ElBaradei, the Agency's
Director General threatened to resign if there is any attack on Iran.
Israel's threats against Iran are in gross violation of the UN Charter
which clearly states in Article 2 that "All Members shall refrain in
their international relations from the threat or use of force against
the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in
any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations."
The Nuremberg Tribunal, which brought Nazi leaders to justice for their
wars of aggression, confirmed
<http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/proc/09-30-46.htm> that "War is
essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the
belligerent states alone, but affect the whole world. To initiate a war
of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the
supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that
it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."
In relation to the US led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Benjamin Ferencz, a
former chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials who worked on the U.S.
legal team and successfully convicted 22 Nazis, stated
<http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/38604/> that "The United Nations
charter has a provision which was formulated by and agreed to by the
United States after World War II. It says that from now on, no nation
can use armed force without the permission of the U.N. Security Council.
They can use force in connection with self-defence, but a country can't
use force in anticipation of self-defence." Israel is neither under
attack nor threat of immediate attack by Iran.
CASMII calls on all the international community, the UN, the US
Congress, the EU, in particular the UK, France and Germany as well as
Russia and China to condemn Israel's threats of military action against
Iran. We call on the US to enter into immediate, direct, unconditional
and comprehensive negotiations with Iran on all points of dispute so
that a catastrophic war and a major conflagration in the Middle East and
beyond can be averted and the present stand-off can be resolved in a
peaceful manner.
For more information or to contact CASMII visit
http://www.campaigniran.org
