Bert Sacks
6550 Greenwood Ave N, #11
Seattle, WA 98103
June 16, 2011
The Honorable Rob McKenna
Washington State Attorney General
1125 Washington Street SE
Olympia, WA 98501-2283
Dear Attorney General McKenna:
I hope that you will choose to read beyond the first page of my attachment – and that you will decide that I have been fair to you in what I write. I have been three times to Gaza and the issue I write about is a very serious health matter for the million inhabitants of that small area.
The great majority of water there is unsafe to drink, sewage processing is virtually non-existent, and adequate and varied food is either not available or not affordable for most of the people of Gaza. The Israeli blockade is a principle cause of these conditions – a blockade put in place to punish the Gazans.
I have lived in Israel for five years and was raised in the Jewish tradition. I am deeply concerned about the current government policies of Israel for what they portend for the future of Israel. Just as so many of us who protested the Bush invasion of Iraq in 2003 were not anti-American, so my protest of Israel's blockade of Gaza is not anti-Israeli; it is done out of a deep concern for Israel's legitimacy.
You last wrote us in August 2009, “I share your concern for the innocent people of Gaza – the women, children and others harmed during the military action and by the restrictions on supplies that were put in place to prevent the movement of weapons." (my emphasis)
You may be aware that the The Israeli mainstream newspaper Ha'aretz wrote on February 25, 2009: “When Senator John Kerry visited the Strip, he learned that many trucks loaded with pasta were not permitted in. When the chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee inquired as to the reason for the delay, he was told by United Nations aid officials that "Israel does not define pasta as part of humanitarian aid - only rice shipments."” Macaroni became a minor cause célèbre of the blockade.
Macaroni is not a weapon. Macaroni is not a security threat to the State of Israel. Denying macaroni – and halva and jam and coriander, cardamom and cookies – is done only as collective punishment.
I would be very happy – and quite satisfied – if you would change your position on the matter of the blockade. If you correct what you have previously stated I will simply post your statement on my website and consider the matter closed. In any event I welcome any comments you might offer.
Sincerely,
Bert Sacks
Enclosures: June 11,2011, posting to IraqiKids.org
Monday, June 20, 2011
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Sept 18, '09 - email to Rob McKenna on UN Israel-Gaza mission
Dear Attorney General McKenna,
I am sure that by now you must have seen reports of the UN's mission concerning recent actions between Israel and Gaza.
I wish to point out three paragraphs relevant to the letter you co-signed, to our meeting, and to my subsequent request.
In the letter your office received from me at the start of this week, I asked this question: "What is the basis for your belief that the restrictions on supplies to the people of Gaza had anything to do with preventing the movement of weapons?
The position of the UN mission on this issue is stated below:
"The Mission found that, in the lead up to the Israeli military assault on Gaza, Israel imposed a blockade amounting to collective punishment and carried out a systematic policy of progressive isolation and deprivation of the Gaza Strip."
There is no mention of preventing smuggling of weapons. This would be very strange, especially given that Judge Goldstone is a self-described Zionist and lover of Israel.
(He is, in my judgment, a greater lover of truth and fairness.)
I ask again, Do you still believe restrictions on humanitarian supplies by Israel at its border with Gaza had anything to do with stopping weapons from entering? If so, on what basis?
I thank you again for your prompt reply to this question.
Sincerely,
Bert Sacks
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict
PRESS RELEASE
15 September 2009
UN Fact Finding Mission finds strong evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the Gaza conflict; calls for end to impunity
NEW YORK / GENEVA - The UN Fact-Finding Mission led by Justice Richard Goldstone on Tuesday released its long-awaited report on the Gaza conflict, in which it concluded there is evidence indicating serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law were committed by Israel during the Gaza conflict, and that Israel committed actions amounting to war crimes, and possibly crimes against humanity.
...
In compiling the 574- page report, which contains detailed analysis of 36 specific incidents in Gaza, as well as a number of others in the West Bank and Israel, the Mission conducted 188 individual interviews, reviewed more 10,000 pages of documentation, and viewed some 1,200 photographs, including satellite imagery, as well as 30 videos. The mission heard 38 testimonies during two separate public hearings held in Gaza and Geneva, which were webcast in their entirety. The decision to hear participants from Israel and the West Bank in Geneva rather than in situ was taken after Israel denied the Mission access to both locations. Israel also failed to respond to a comprehensive list of questions posed to it by the Mission. Palestinian authorities in both Gaza and the West Bank cooperated with the Mission.
The Mission found that, in the lead up to the Israeli military assault on Gaza, Israel imposed a blockade amounting to collective punishment and carried out a systematic policy of progressive isolation and deprivation of the Gaza Strip.
Full UN press release at: http://www.tikkun.org/
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Sept 12, '09 - Letter back to Rob McKenna with key question
Bert Sacks
6550 Greenwood Ave N, #11
Seattle, WA 98103
September 12, 20098
The Honorable Rob McKenna
Washington State Attorney General
1125 Washington Street SE
Olympia, WA 98501-2283
Dear Attorney General McKenna:
Thank you for your letter of August 31, 2009 to all of us who met with you on July 15th to voice our concerns regarding your sign-on to the NAAG letter regarding Israel.
In that letter to us you wrote, “I share your concern for the innocent people of Gaza – the women, children and others harmed during the military action and by the restrictions on supplies that were put in place to prevent the movement of weapons.”
I am writing to ask you: What is the basis for your belief that the restrictions on supplies to the people of Gaza had anything to do with preventing the movement of weapons?
Of course we are speaking of restrictions on supplies at the Israeli border to Gaza (not the Egyptian border). In the two articles from the Israeli press I supplied you – and in the many pages of material your office received from the Israeli Consul General – I am not aware of any reference at all to a concern to stop the smuggling of weapons from Israel.
Additionally, data from the IDF itself shows that during Israel’s military incursion into Gaza, 577 shipments of food were allowed to cross from Israel into Gaza. Yet during the ceasefire with Gaza (referred to as the “period of the lull”), Israel allowed an average of 92 shipments of food into Gaza. If there was a concern about movement of weapons with food, how could six times more food be allowed to cross to Gaza during the fighting?
If I am mistaken in my understanding, I welcome more information – just as you were open to hearing from us. I thank you again for your willingness to engage in this exchange of information and concerns. And I await your prompt reply to my question.
Sincerely,
Bert Sacks
Reference: http://docs.google.com/View?id=dfjj4rpq_206c4g42khm is a link to the IDF data I mentioned. I supplied this to you during our July meeting and in a previous letter.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Sept 9, '09 - "McKenna and Israel" in Real Change
Just Heard
by: Adam Hyla , Editor
McKenna and Israel
Sep 9, 2009, Vol: 16, No: 40
State Attorney General Rob McKenna is getting some heat on a rare front: U.S. relations with Israel.
In the first 100 days of the Obama administration, the top lawyers of 10 states sent Secretary of State Hillary Clinton a group letter defending that country’s actions in the Gaza Strip. They asked that Clinton view Israel’s retaliatory actions as taken “in furtherance of its right to self-defense.”
Among the signers-on to that March 31 letter: McKenna, the state’s foremost Republican elected official.
Seattle activist Bert Sacks took McKenna’s stance as an invitation to clarification — seeking his legal opinion on whether the Israeli blockade of imports into Gaza was also justified.
Sacks received a letter in reply from the AG last week — a letter which expressed regret for the humanitarian consequences of the blockade following the January 2008 war with Hamas.
“I share your concern for the innocent people of Gaza — the women, children and others harmed during the military action and by the restrictions on supplies that were put in place to prevent the movement of weapons,” says McKenna’s Aug. 31 letter.
Weapons, shmeapons, says Sacks, who has found statements by Israeli military leaders forecasting massive deprivation — resembling the effects of U.S.-led sanctions in Saddam-era Iraq, where an estimated half million children died — will undermine the population’s support for its leaders.
A report last month by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says Israel’s blockade has resulted in a “protracted human dignity crisis with negative humanitarian consequences.” Israeli restrictions on industrial, agricultural and construction materials have prevented reconstruction and limited the amount of fuel coming in to power Gaza’s only power plant.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Sept 1, '09 - Bruce Ramsey column on Rob McKenna
Tuesday, September 1, 2009 - Page updated at 04:16 PM
JIM BATES / THE SEATTLE TIMES
Attorney General Rob McKenna cosigned a letter defending Israel's 2008-2009 invasion of Gaza
AG Rob McKenna's letter about Israel's response to Gaza ignores broader issues
Seattle Times editorial columnist
Last winter, Israel shelled Gaza, rolled in the tanks, shot it up and left much of it in ruins. Some 1,400 Gazans and 13 Israelis died, a ratio of 100-to-1.
Israel was defending itself, or so it said. To persuade the new Obama administration of that, a letter was circulated among U.S. state attorneys general who had visited Israel, some as guests of the America-Israel Friendship League. The letter is addressed to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. It begins:
"The undersigned Attorneys General write to convey our strong support for the State of Israel's actions in Gaza." The letter deems it unfair to compare the dead on each side the way I just did. It says Israel was not bound to be "proportionate" in its response to Gazan rocket attacks. "Israel's acts were justified and, in our view, met the international legal standards required of a modern state."
Signing the letter were four Democrats and six Republicans, including Washington's Rob McKenna.
This is a remarkable thing. The chief legal officers of Colorado, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska, Ohio, Rhode Island, Utah and Washington — state governments, with no authority over foreign affairs — were lobbying the U.S. secretary of state on behalf of a foreign power.
I asked our attorney general about the propriety of that. "We're elected officials," McKenna said. "All the attorneys general have constituencies for which Israel is important."
They do — and on both sides. Some friends of Gaza heard about the letter and went to see McKenna in July. One was Craig Corrie, whose daughter Rachel was killed in Gaza in 2003 by an Israeli soldier. Corrie told me he objected to a state official who had supported "increased violence in the Middle East."
That is what the letter does. McKenna focused on what it says. "The letter was narrowly crafted around whether Israel has a right to self-defense," he said.
I asked him whether 1,400 deaths were not excessive in response to rocket fire that had killed no one by the time the Israelis responded.
"You have to wait until enough of your people die so that it's roughly equal to the number of people you're going to kill?" he asked. "Nobody operates on that principle."
Indeed not. But under the rules of war, surely the other side had just cause as well. After the people of Gaza had elected the Hamas government, Israel had blockaded Gaza for a year and a half, by land and sea. The Gazans could export nothing, and could not make a living in the world. Israel had reduced them to living on handouts, and only a ration of those.
A blockade of such a small place — less than twice the area of Seattle — can be more lethal to civilians than rockets. It is also an act of war. But there is nothing in the letter about any of this.
Nor was there any mention that Israel's centrist Kadima Party government was facing an election Feb. 10 and was afraid of losing to the rightist Likud Party. The Gaza incursion was part of an election campaign. (Likud was elected anyway.)
McKenna said the letter came across his desk and he turned it around in 24 hours. He is a lawyer, and he responded like one.
But in this state he is Mr. Republican, his party's brightest and most successful standard-bearer. Someday he will run for U.S. Senate, where his foreign-policy views count. He should be careful about what he signs.
Bruce Ramsey's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is bramsey@seattletimes.com
Copyright © The Seattle Times Company
Monday, August 31, 2009
August 31, '09 - Response of Rob McKenna to our group
Dear Mr. Nelson:
Please forgive this email response; I had planned to send a letter but I do not have a mailing address on file for you.
Thank you for taking the time to meet with me about the National Association of Attorneys General sign-on letter concerning the conflict in Gaza. I am grateful for the effort you made to prepare for our meeting, and for your willingness to travel to our office in order to communicate your views. I have had the opportunity in the two meetings I've hosted recently to hear a wide range of views on the letter specifically and Israel-Gaza issues generally.
During these conversations, many questions and views were expressed about aspects of the conflict that go well beyond whether or not Israel was justified in its military response to rockets fired from Gaza. However, the letter that we signed was narrow in focus, responding only to Israel’s right to defend itself from these rockets. I stand by Israel’s right to self-defense. Israel was justified in responding with military force to the thousands of rockets being fired into its civilian areas from Gaza.
I share your concern for the innocent people of Gaza – the women, children and others harmed during the military action and by the restrictions on supplies that were put in place to prevent the movement of weapons. I share your deep regret that many innocent Gazans were hurt, both by Hamas’ positioning of weapons in densely populated areas and by Israel’s subsequent bombing of those locations.
It is critical that the people of Gaza receive relief and opening up supply lines will bring the food, medicine and rebuilding materials urgently needed. Achieving this will require a concentrated international effort by Israel, Gaza, the Palestinian Authority, neighboring states, the European Union, the United States and the United Nations.Regardless of one’s point of view on this longstanding conflict, we can all agree that our focus today must remain on the plight of those caught in the crossfire who have suffered through no fault of their own.
Again, thank you for the effort you made to educate me on many aspects of this conflict. I look forward to future conversations.
Sincerely,
Rob McKenna, Attorney General(emphasis added)
Friday, August 14, 2009
August 14, '09 - Op-ed on our meeting with Rob McKenna
Op-ed on our meeting with A.G. Rob McKenna -- by Bert Sacks
At noon on June 4th, our Washington State Attorney General’s office sent an urgent email to the Israeli NW Consul General asking for help: “We would like advice about how to counter certain arguments, most prominently, the accusation that Israel has blocked the entry of humanitarian supplies into Gaza.”[1]
Two hours before this, I had asked that question of our Attorney General Rob McKenna during a call-in radio show. Since even the Israeli government admits that it does restrict humanitarian supplies into Gaza, my actual question was: Does our Attorney General believe it is legal for Israel to do this?[2]
This issue began when Rob McKenna signed an unfortunate and ill-informed letter with nine other Attorneys General. The letter begins “The undersigned Attorneys General write to convey our strong support [for all of] the State of Israel’s actions in Gaza.” (The forty other AGs chose not to sign on.)[3]
On July 15th, I joined 13 other critics of his letter to meet with Rob McKenna. Despite the 60 pages of material provided by the Israeli Consulate to his office, our AG did not offer an answer to my question.
Here is the evidence I supplied to Attorney General McKenna:
- a statement from Dov Weissglas, the official head of the Israeli team responding to Hamas' election victory in 2006. He said there will be an embargo and made a joke that Israel will put Gazans on a diet, saying that they will "get a lot thinner."[4]
- data the Israeli Consulate sent to the AG which (inadvertently) showed that humanitarian shipments to Gaza during the months of the ceasefire -- which Hamas abided by, but Israel did not – were restricted by Israel to 20% of normal.[5]
- a statement by the former head of the Israeli Mossad intelligence service: “If Israel’s goal were to remove the threat of rockets from the residents of southern Israel, opening the border crossings would have ensured quiet for a generation.”[6]
- Barack Obama’s statement that “if the people of Gaza can’t even get clean water at this point, if the border closures are so tight that it is impossible for reconstruction and humanitarian efforts to take place, then [it’s not a recipe for] peace.”[7]
- a letter from ten international lawyers and legal scholars confirming: "This siege [of Gaza] -- an act of war under customary international law -- violates Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention as a form of collective punishment."[8]
- a New England Journal of Medicine report that studied the results of a similar embargo on child mortality: When scaled to Gaza, the data suggest ten Palestinian children die every day in Gaza as a result of water-borne and opportunistic diseases due to their malnourished condition.[9]
What does our Attorney General not understand?
Legally, this is a “no-brainer.” What basis is there to believe that denying civilians including children any amount of food is legal – let alone 80% of what is considered essential?
Rob McKenna has egg on his face.
When confronted with a serious, legitimate issue over Israel’s actions, he looked for an answer only to the Israeli consulate. In effect, he acted as an agent for a foreign government.
Rob McKenna’s office wrote me that he did “not know if [denial of food] was illegal,” but the Israelis “led him to think” it wasn’t. If he asked only Hamas if their rockets were legal – and then accepted what they led him to believe – what would we think?[10]
And true, we all heard, “What how would we act if rockets fell on us? But did anyone ever hear, “What would we do if we were denied 80% of our food, medicine, fuel and water?
I have proposed to his office that the best way out of this dilemma is to make a clear, honest statement that he was ill informed about Israel’s actions in Gaza. He does not need to withdraw his legal opinion that sending rockets into civilian areas was illegal. But – since he’s publicly weighed into this conflict – he needs to decide whether it is legal to deny civilians including children basic humanitarian aid.
I hope this opinion piece will encourage Mr. McKenna to do just that.
###
[1] Email document obtained by FOIA request of the AG’s office: http://docs.google.com/View?id=dfjj4rpq_190ch98xqhn
[2] See transcript of KUOW “Weekday” radio interview: http://docs.google.com/View?id=dfjj4rpq_179dx4n62c4
[3] letter to Hillary Clinton: http://www.cpjnews.com/State%20Attorney%20General%20Letter%20March%202009.pdf
[4] See article in Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz by Gideon Levy: http://docs.google.com/View?id=dfjj4rpq_164hj5p5vzf
[5] Chart provided to the AG by the Israeli Consul from the IDF: http://docs.google.com/View?id=dfjj4rpq_206c4g42khm
[6] See article from The Guardian (UK) quoting the Israeli press: http://docs.google.com/View?id=dfjj4rpq_208cj46frhm
[7] See Press Release from the White House website: http://docs.google.com/View?id=dfjj4rpq_211fsb9k9gn
[8] See letter from international lawyers and scholars: http://docs.google.com/View?id=dfjj4rpq_197gsw569cf
[9] See New England Journal of Medicine survey: http://docs.google.com/View?id=dfjj4rpq_212hrcjcwcc
[10] Letter from Chief of Staff Mike Bigelow to Bert Sacks: http://docs.google.com/View?id=dfjj4rpq_191c8gdrmgw
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