Judge Bathurst-Norman:
the full summing-up

The Jewish Chronicle Online has made the full summing up of the case we discussed in the Hove Alternative available here. It’s long reading but it is clear that the judge directed the jury to acquit. There are plenty of grounds for appeal if the state wants to keep this as a criminal case. If not, I still thinks a civil case for damages is the way to go.

I can’t give a complete critique of the legal reasoning and acceptance of the Hamas narrative in its entirety† but the paragraphs below stick out.

As Edmund Burke says: “For injustice to flourish, all that is needed is for good men to do nothing. “Indeed, people like Mr. Osmond, who put themselves in harm’s way to protect others may, in fact — there may be much to be admired about people like that. Perhaps if he had done it in this country in the last war he would probably have received a George Medal‡.
However, that does not give anyone a licence without any justification to commit offences. It is your task in this case to decide whether it is possible that such justification existed.

The judge said the defendant(s) deserves a medal for what he did. No jury could possibly convict with instructions like these. On second thought, with instructions like these a jury member would probably feel it was his duty to smash up a factory.

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† Perhaps some of our legally trained readers might like to comment?
‡ The George Medal is Britain’s third highest decoration after the Victoria Cross and the George Cross. The medal is granted in recognition of “acts of great bravery”!

Al Jazeera artillery spotters sued in New York

Kol Hakavod to Shurat HaDin: Israel Law Center
Bankrupting terrorism – one lawsuit at a time

Shurat HaDin filed the lawsuit in a New York court on behalf of “91 American, Israeli and Canadian victims of Hezbollah rocket attacks” that were launched during the 2006 conflict between Israel and the Lebanese group.

The suit seeks some 1.2 billion dollars in compensation from Al-Jazeera, claiming that the Qatar-based television station “intentionally provided real-time coverage of the locations of missile strikes inside Israel in violation of Israeli security regulations, thereby enabling Hezbollah to aim its missiles more accurately.”

Lawfare is a form of asymmetric warfare. It is waged by the use of domestic or international law with the intention of damaging an opponent. Examples include winning a public relations victory, financially crippling an opponent, or tying up the opponent’s time so that they cannot pursue other ventures such as run for public office.

In the Middle East it has been mostly it has been waged against Israel. Some high ranking Israeli soldiers have been forced to cancel trips, once while the plane was on the tarmac. Even when the case is specious and the court refuses to continue with it, lawfare can score a public relations victory both by giving publicity and credence to the Destroy Israel Lobby’s claims and by the guilty until proved innocent assumption of many whenever they here someone has been charged†.

Naturally we wish them success in their suit but even if unsuccessful it puts the Mainstream Media on warning. There are financial consequences when they cavalierly ignore Israeli military censorship beyond the deaths of Israeli civilians and soldiers, something they don’t seem to think is important. See: FYI FOI and FOI OMG

• Al-Jazeera sued over Hezbollah ties, report Ya Libnan
• Hezbollah rocket attack victims sue Al-Jazeera in US court Yahoo News
• Suing Al Jazeera for Aiding and Abetting Hezbollah’s 2006 Rocket Attacks on Israel PJTV

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† Actually I’m not that much different. Whenever I hear of the latest drunken adventures of Mel Gibson or Lindsay Lohan I believe it without checking the possibility that the charge may be a lazy or malicious journalist’s fantasy.

Follow-up on FYI FOI

The BBC has a long tradition of making information available and accessible. It seeks to be open and accountable and already provides the public with a great deal of information about its activities. BBC Information operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week handling telephone and written comments and queries, and the BBC’s website bbc.co.uk provides an extensive online information resource.

Stephanie Harris
Head of Accountability, BBC News

The BBC partially answered my Freedom of Information Act queries. I say partially because they refused to answer any of the specifics of the legal advice that the BBC Guidelines mandates must be given given to their journalists.  Their rationale is that the information I requested is excluded from the Act because it is held for the purposes of ‘journalism, art or literature.’ Those three, especially the first category,  are the BBC’s key business. That can be translated as, We have guidelines but we won’t tell you if we follow them or not.

I asked the BBC about James Stephenson not sending reports to the IDF Censor. Please read the complete report here. The gist of their answer is, No laws were infringed; the head of the Jerusalem bureau did not judge that any material needed to be referred to the Israeli Censor.  The purpose of the censorship is to prevent the publication of security information which could benefit the enemy or harm the State and by law applies to foreign journalists unless apparently they are the BBC. It does not seem at all likely that the BBC will volunteer what material it does submit.

In a second FOI request I asked about BBC correspondent Alpa Shah‡ interviewing the banned (in India) Maoist insurgents. Please read the complete report here. As with James Stephenson no information was given about the legal advice she received or if indeed there was any. The gist of the answer from Huh Levinson, a senior editor in BBC Radio Current Affairs was, I would respond to your wider issue by saying that the Indian Maoist movement is not a proscribed organisation under the Terrorism Act. We have considered the editorial issues involved in the broadcast according to the usual procedures of the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines. Translated, the BBC doesn’t feel obliged to follow its own guidelines on terrorism and criminal acts if the group in question is not proscribed in Britain.

Taking it from here

Challenging the BBC is a time consuming and expensive task. As we have seen from the Balen Report saga the BBC is prepared to spend huge sums not to make information available and accessible. Still making FOI requests is still not a waste of time. The results become publicly available. Is there a lawyer out there willing to help?

The Indian material will be passed on to the Indian Government who hopefully will take it further.

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† Five Minutes for Israel is developing a tradition of photoshopping clown noses on people whose arrogance, bias or ignorance on the subject of Israel makes a degree of personal ridicule justified. We found it unnecessary here. It’s hard to believe the BBC with its billions of Pounds Sterling in resources couldn’t have found a better photograph.
‡ Alpa Shah seems a surprisingly common name. As I couldn’t be sure I found the ‘correct’ Ms. Shah I haven’t displayed a photograph.

Canada’s heart was definitely in the right place when she introduced legislation against hate speech on the Internet but was her head?

Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act prohibits online messages that are “likely to expose” identifiable groups to “hatred or contempt.” According to Ezra Levant, one man Richard Warman has essentially made Section 13 his playground.

Have you seen the Jerusalem Post article Foreign Ministry to hire 7 lawyers to battle int’l legal assault ?

All I could think was,  it’s about time! You lawyers out there. Are you the ones the Foreign Ministry is looking for?