It harms my feelings to read or listen the news, or post on my blog, the deplorable daily news from my homeland Hebron. The daily crimes, illegal measures and restrictions which the Israeli military occupation implements against the Palestinians and which are in contradiction of the Geneva Conventions and other International law. The crimes of the Israelis are bigger than my words are able to describe and than what the people are able to understanding.

I asked myself what I could do to stop these crimes, or at least to bring these crimes before the international public opinion. I am a journalist, a peace activist, and a defender of the human rights. I don't believe in violent actions, intifada, suicide bombers, or in any other kinds of revenge. And neither do I believe in the legality of the occupation and in the right of Israel to exist in my homeland.

The world understands the language of law and justice better than the language of violence. The world thinks that Israel is a State of law, but I know otherwise, just like millions of Palestinians. I read the international laws about war crimes, crimes against humanity, and about genocide. I also read the Geneva Convention. I read the law which Israel passed in 1950 based upon the "Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide", which Israel signed.

I know from personal experience that the Israeli occupation, Palestinians have no rights, have no access to justice, are seen as less than animals. Many figures from public life, members of the Knesset, many Rabbis have stated exactly that. Not once, not twice, but hundreds of times, constantly, over decades. And still the world believes that Israel is a state of laws, a democracy.

We Palestinians know otherwise because of our daily experience under the illegal Israeli occupation. What we Palestinians know and what the rest of the world believes about Israel is so different and distant like Earth and Mars. I decided to try to change this, with help of the Israelis themselves.

Last Friday I sent a letter to the Israeli Attorney General, Menachem Mazuz, accusing several officers from the IDF and the "Civil Administration" of Genocide and Crimes against Humanity committed by them against the population of Hebron and surroundings. The charges which I include in my accusation are documented by paper trails, pictures, videos, and happened before many witnesses, they have been reported in the print media and on the Internet. The organizers, instigators and perpetrators of these crimes are widely known.

I wrote

Why do I do this when I expect the Israelis to do exactly nothing about these charges ?

I do this to let Menachem Mazuz and the other Israelis show the world how things are. As a Palestinian, I expect that few will believe me, so I decided to let the Israeli Menachem Mazuz lend credibility to my words with his actions, or with his lack of action.

Israel has a law which sanctions with heavy punishments exactly what the Israeli military and the hundreds of thousands of Jews who live illegally on stolen Palestinian property do every day: murder, torture, terrorism, arson, violence, theft, pillage and looting, destruction of private and public property, prevention of births, poisoning, abduction and illegal detention, denying equal access to the judicial system ...

I decided to send this letter to Menachem Mazuz, not because I know that he or anybody else in Israel will care about what I write, but because I am almost certain that they will do nothing at all, use subterfuge and legal hair-splitting to deny all charges, or at best institute sham proceedings in order to protect the accused from any consequences. Their extreme racism and hatred towards Palestinians will never let them to act upon the accusation of a Palestinian. And their racial hatred will be their undoing.

I expect Mazuz to act upon his worst racist instincts in this case. And I want Mazuz and his team to show the world that they are not willing and not able to prosecute the accused under their own laws.

Mazuz, who recently stated that it is OK to kill Palestinian demonstrators along the illegal and murderous apartheid wall, will show the world that the laws which he is supposed to enact are not worth the paper they are written on. He will in fact abdicate his jurisdiction over this case and other similar cases - thousands and thousands of them, because, after all, genocide against us Palestinians is the official policy of Israel.

Menachem Mazuz will show the world that Jews are above the law, that he abdicates the duties contracted by Israel under international agreements which Israel has signed in order to make Jews be above the law and Palestinians devoid of any protections at all, or, perhaps, he will show the world that Israel signs international agreements without the earnest will of honouring them.

Menachem Mazuz will make all this clear through his reaction to my letter. Not with the almost non-existent credibility which is accorded to me as a Palestinian, but with all the weight and credibility of an Israeli Attorney General. I expect that this will contribute towards easing the restrictions regarding jurisdiction which make it so difficult to bring charges against these people in other countries. I expect that, with the help of Menachem Mazuz, other signatories of the Fourth Geneva Convention and of the Rome Statute of the ICC will see their subsidiary jurisdiction as given in the case of the continued crimes of the Israel against us Palestinians.

• The cover of my letter to AG Mazuz is here. (.PDF, 61KB)
• The text of Fourth Geneva Convention is here.
• The text of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide is here.
• The text of the Israeli "Law to Punish and Prevent and Punish Genocide of 1950-5710" is here. It is based on Convention with the same name.
• The text of the Rome Statute of the ICC is here (look for subtitle "Rome Statute", click on appropriate language). It is based upon various international treaties and conventions, and it describes in far more detail what the terms Genocide, Crimes against Humanity and Crimes of War mean. Look in sections 5 to 9 of the statute.

Depending on the reaction of the Israelis, I will publish the full text of my accusation or a partial quote during the next weeks or days.