Time for a Nuremberg Trial for Hamas and the Pipers of Death

Back in the 1970s, law expert Yoram Dinstein argued that according to UN definitions, terrorism and incitement against Israelis constituted genocide. That’s why Israel, with the help of a few Western democracies, should set up a Nuremberg-type initiative for Palestinian terror leaders, who must be charged for inciting and committing genocide. In the name of the peremptory principle nullum crimen sine poena, ”No crime without a punishment,” we should prosecute Palestinian terrorists, whether as individuals or entities. They are hostes humani generis, “common enemies of humankind.”

The initiative would be a powerful rebuke of the failed International Criminal Court in the Hague, which should have prosecuted these evil leaders and promoters of genocide. The Islamic regimes of the world succeeded in changing the Court’s statute to eliminate terrorism as an offense and, at the same time, to define the Jewish inhabitants of Judea and Samaria as “war criminals.”

If Israel has no right to defend itself from genocidal attacks and the Jews have no right to live in their historic land, then Israel has no right to exist.

The Palestinian Authority tried to submit criminal cases against individual Israeli soldiers and leaders, but the prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said Palestine was not yet a state, and only states could file cases. With the UN General Assembly having upgraded the Palestinians’ status to that of a non-member state, the PA will try to re-file.

The Arab clerics, who describe the Jews as sub-humans with expressions like “pig,” “cancer,” “filth,” “microbes” and “vermin,” should be put on trial for fomenting lethal anti-Jewishness reminiscent of the 1930s. An example of this religious incitement is the fatwa issued by the Muslim Brotherhood’s guru, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, permitting the killing of Jewish fetuses, on the logic that when Jews grow up they might join the Israeli army. Unfortunately, Europe is freeing these clerics, like Abu Qatada, who was recently released by the UK.

The suicide vest costs only $150 for Palestinian terror groups. But it needs “software” to operate. This is the role of the clerics who put in motion the robots of death. It’s like the piper and the rats in the famous Hamelin fairy tale.

The same with the Arab media, which distribute hate material such as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion or maps without Israel. Western jurisprudence would find these media outlets guilty, like the Nazi war criminal Julius Streicher, who published the anti-Semitic Der Stuermer and was found guilty by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. Another example is the trial in which the Rwandan journalists were charged by the International Criminal Tribunal for inciting fellow Hutus to commit genocide against the Tutsis. At the very least, Europe must block the access to these malignant websites and include the journalists on a black list.

The legal basis for the campaign against this hatred is the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, ratified on January 12, 1951.

International tribunals have ruled that hate speech targeting a population based on discriminatory grounds constitutes crimes against humanity per Article 7 of the Rome Statute.

In 2004, three Arab intellectuals, Jawad Hashim, Shakir al-Nabulsi and Lakhdar Lafif, sent a request to the UN Security Council, urging the establishment of an international tribunal for the prosecution of Islamist incitement against Jews, Muslim “apostates” and Christians. Thanks to satellite channels, Hamas’ Al-Aqsa TV can beam its incitement and hatred into European living rooms, radicalizing Muslim immigrants. Israel must ask Europe to turn off this terror offspring, which every evening repeats the same monstrous message: “The Jewish infidels are less than human, killing them is a meritorious act.” Words lead to mass murder.



Israel and its Western allies must launch a campaign to charge NGO leaders who commit incitement, enlisting the help of attorneys, journalists and writers to testify on the endless litanies of paranoia and genocidal perversion. Such people risk their careers and lives daily by denouncing the blood libels, and Israel should support them.

Hamas and other incitement leaders should be placed on a “watch list” by Western countries preventing their entrance as “inadmissible persons” (Qaradawi is already banned in the UK and US).

Brave groups, such as UN Watch, can support the battle in global forums. In 2009, a similar campaign prevented Farouk Hosni, the Egyptian minister who said that he “would burn Israeli books himself if found in Egyptian libraries,” from becoming UNESCO’s head.

Moreover, human rights groups should be flooded with the untold Israeli statistics: the 17,000 people wounded in terror attacks; the 2,000 civilians killed; the 15,000 rockets fired on southern Israeli cities; the fact that some 40% of wounded Israelis will remain with permanent disabilities.

There are wounded Israeli heroes who just want to tell their story. I can provide a list of these maimed fighters who should be invited to speak in the courts because they are the survivors of current-day genocide. In European faculties, there are still brave academicians who can denounce Hamas-supporting speakers among them. We must ask Europe to expel them.

This is an historic battle that Israel can win with the support of Westerners who still care about the fate of their civilization. To the Spanish fascists who were saying, “Viva la muerte!” the Republicans replied: “No pasarán.” We must offer the same response to contemporary death cultists.

No pasarán. They shall not pass.