Israel Defense Forces IDF Hero Doron Almog Takes On UK Justice
By Joel Leyden
Israel News Agency
http://www.israelnewsagency.com/generaldoronalmogidfisraeldefenseforcesentebbegazaheroukenglandjusticepolicearrestwarcriminal48060809.html
Jerusalem, Israel ---- August 6, 2009 ..... Israel has a rich history of brave Jewish heroes which include King David, the Maccabiahs and hundreds of Israel Defense Forces, Mossad and Shabak men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice.
But of all these Jewish heroes, one stands very tall among the others for the professional work he has dedicated himself to for over three decades.
IDF Major General Doron Almog (res.) has served in the Israel Defense Forces from 1969-2004.
Almog served as head of the IDF Doctrine and Training Division at General Headquarters (GHQ), where he applied the management principle of “Learning Organization” to the IDF, establishing simulation and war games to improve the learning process and developing strategies for force activation, combat doctrine and management doctrine.
During his army service General Almog accumulated a great deal of operational experience in leading people during war and battle conditions and in managing complex divisions.
Key landmarks in his IDF army career include commanding of the first task force to land in the Entebbe airport rescue operation in 1976, command of the elite paratroopers brigade force on its journey from the Awali River to Beirut during the first Israel Lebanon War, and the airlift of about 6,000 Ethiopian Jews during various clandestine missions.
| "This was not an attack on me," Almog said. "This was an attack on every Israel soldier, every Israel citizen, every Jew around the world." |
But it was his role as head of the IDF Southern Command during the years 2000-2003, where he led the battle against Palestinian terrorism, Hamas rockets slamming into Israel cities and towns and his success in deterring every suicide bombing attempt to breech IDF defenses, that has placed him against the UK police and judicial system.
Almog, now retired and targeting his voluntary activities on the establishment of the Aleh Negev-Nahalat Eran Rehabilitative Village on behalf of disabled children and young adults was faced with an arrest and possible prison time as he was about to leave an El-Al Israel airways civilian aircraft in England in September 2005.
Maj. General Almog and his wife had flown to the UK for social and charitable visits to Jewish communities in Solihull, in the West Midlands and Manchester.
But lawyers acting for Palestinian terror groups lobbied the UK Metropolitan Police to act over blatant lies that Almog had ordered the destruction in 2002 of more than 50 innocent Palestinian homes in the Gaza Strip. These were homes, facilities and people where Hamas and other Islamic Jihad terrorists were using as human and physical shields to launch attacks on Israel civilian population.
News of the UK arrest warrant reached the Israel Embassy. Israel officials told the general and his wife not to leave the El Al flight which sat for two long hours at a London airport terminal.
"This was not an attack on me," Almog said. "This was an attack on every Israel soldier, every Israel citizen, every Jew around the world."
Could one just imagination the humiliation of seeing Almog handcuffed, fingerprinted, photographed and had DNA swabs taken from his mouth by the London Metropolitan Police?
Almog, who currently serves as Chairman of Athlone Global Security (AGS), a capital group that invests in high-tech Israel companies specializing in the development and distribution of homeland security-related solutions, most likely sat eating peanuts with a smile as he awaited for the El-Al aircraft to return him to Israel.
The brave men of the Met police initially refused to get involved, citing massive pressures on counter-terrorism teams in the wake of the London 7/7 Islamic terror bombings.
But the legal representatives successfully applied to a UK judge for an arrest warrant for prosecution.
Almog, who has served as an anti-terror consultant to several governments, knew that his best defense in this situation was to duck, avoid a media PR bullet by Palestinian terror groups and get safely back to Tel Aviv.
Since September 2005, Almog has had no desire to visit the UK.
Nor should he.
One should not place blame on the London Met Police but rather the UK justice system which was about to embarrass them as well. Someone at the UK Ministry of Defense could have stated that Almog for purposes of UK national security should be allowed into the the UK without an arrest, without humiliation, without harassment. But this never happened.
In the same manner that Geert Wilders, a Dutch MP who had been invited to Westminster to show his 17-minute anti-terror film Fitna, by a member of the House of Lords, and then deported at the airport, both men fell victim to Islamic extremist pressure in the UK. Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary refused Wilders entry because his opinions "would threaten community security and therefore public security" in the UK.
When Maj. Gen Almog arrived back in Israel, the planned arrest caused a minor diplomatic storm, with Israel foreign minister Silvan Shalom describing the incident as an "outrage".
In turn, the then UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw apologised to his counterpart for any embarrassment caused.
John O' Connor, a former head of Scotland Yard's flying squad, told the BBC: "All they needed to do was to stop the plane from taking off and negotiate through the Foreign Office."
He said he felt the arrest had been "written off", putting "British justice is in the dock."
O'Connor had it wrong.
There was no British justice involved.
Today, as the recent Gaza war stirs up more accusations of offenses, Israel and Islamic groups are gearing up for more potential criminal cases against IDF officers and Israel political leaders in Europe and possibly elsewhere.
But instead of international tribunals or the Israel justice system, the main venue for the cases is expected to be European domestic courts that cite a legal approach known as "universal jurisdiction" that allows for the trial of cases of heinous acts, torture, or war crimes that allegedly occur outside their own borders.
Israel considers the threats part of an ongoing political witch hunt. Palestinians and so-called humanitarian activists, on the other hand, see the domestic courts as the only forum to argue whether war crimes were committed.
"The systems in place across a number of countries will be tested.... We have legal teams working across and beyond European countries" on behalf of Palestinian plaintiffs claiming war crimes, says Daniel Machover, an Israeli-born British lawyer who works in coordination with the Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights and pushed for Almog's arrest in 2005. "There's no other way a country under occupation or a land under occupation can seek justice."
Machover also helped bring before a Spanish national court the case of the Israel assassination of a Hamas terror chief in 2002.
Recently, a Spanish judge announced an investigation, sparking tension between Israel and Spain, and spurring more speculation in Israel of war crimes efforts.
Dogged by a series of allegations ranging from targeting civilian locations to preventing the evacuation of noncombatants, Israel's government in recent weeks reaffirmed a commitment to offer legal defense to IDF soldiers and politicians implicated in the cases. It has also decided to keep the identities of soldiers secret to protect as many as possible from prosecution.
One Israel legal expert dismissed the effort to try the war crimes abroad as an extension of a "media war" against the Jewish state for the Gaza operation. Daniel Reisner, the former head of the Israel military's international division, says universal jurisdiction is being used to pursue allegations against Israel only and not Hamas.
"The danger to Israel now are those countries that have extra territorial jurisdiction that don't have a nationality requirement," says Reisner. "The question is whether that is a major danger or a minor danger."
A Belgian court considered in 2001 an indictment of former Israel Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for his role in alleged massacres during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982.
Meanwhile, Doron Almog shies away from the media and a coordinated PR campaign to clear his name in Europe.
He has placed his priorities into helping disabled children in the Negev walk and smile.
This Jewish hero has gone from protecting all of Israel from terror attacks and rockets emanating from Gaza to providing comfort and support to children confined to hospital beds and wheelchairs.
As chairman of Aleh Negev, Almog leads a project to maintain Israel's first facility for the care of severely disabled adults - like Eran. The 100-dunam village recently constructed near the Negev town of Ofakim provides a home for 200 mentally and physically disabled adults. The spacious facility includes a special education school, paramedical center, hospital wing, workshop for rehabilitative aids and occupational and professional framework along with a full range of therapies - from music and art to hydrotherapy and horseback riding.
"The idea is to provide these adults with a homey, warm atmosphere and, at the same time, help them use their full potential and become productive," explains Almog.
It appears that Almog has his priorities finely targeted, while the UK continues to bow under Islamic terror pressure.
Britain has blocked the sale of spare parts for Israel’s fleet of missile gunships because they were used in the recent campaign in Gaza.
The first country to revoke an arms licence in response to the war in Gaza six months ago, Britain told the Israel Embassy in London that five of the export requests for parts for the Sa’ar 4.5 gunships had been rejected because the vessels had fired on Gaza during Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s controversial 23-day campaign against the terror group Hamas. The spare parts were intended for the ships’ guns.
As for global terrorism, Iran institutions not only continue to operate in the UK but continue to use the UK justice and court system. A London based subsidiary of Iran's largest bank, Bank Melli, said that it would take action in British courts to challenge the legality of sanctions imposed on Iran by the European Union.
The subsidiary, Melli Bank Plc, said it would apply to the British courts for judicial review and an interim injunction to suspend the application of an EU asset freeze.
The EU agreed on the move because of the parent bank's alleged role in financing firms linked to Iran nuclear and missile programmes.
It was also recently revealed by the Jewish Chronicle in London that British taxpayers are funding anti-Israel and extremist teaching in the Palestinian territories.
The TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA) said millions of pounds had been spent on Palestinian Authority-funded TV broadcasts, school textbooks and newspaper articles discouraging a two-state solution.
The TPA report, Palestinian Hate Education since Annapolis, concludes that money from the UK Department for International Development (DFID), which totalled almost £100 million in the 2007/08 financial year, is being used directly to promote hatred of Israel and the West.
The United Kingdom, a proud, democratic Anglo nation which once served as the birthplace of the Magna Carta, now shivers in the face of Islamic MP's and Islamic terror pressure groups.
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