The Decommissioners Trial

In January 2009 Israel waged a war against Gaza using weapons systems produced in a factory in Brighton UK. This prompted nine British activists to break into the factory and "decommission" it by damaging the machines. They then decided to remain at the scene until they were arrested. This meant they were charged with conspiracy to commit criminal damage and remanded in custody awaiting trial.

17 months later that trial has finally now begun and the nine will be using the defence of lawful excuse. That is to say that because the products made by EDO MBM at the factory were being used by Israel in the commission of a war crime the nine were allowed to break the law in order to prevent a greater crime being committed. So any damage they did was in fact not criminal damage. In a spectacular display of bad timing this trial began on Monday June 7th, just one week after Israels assault on the Mavi Marmara. The judge does not seem at all happy to be hearing this case at this time. He appears to be attempting to delay the proceedings by instructing the defence to provide a short summary of the executive summary of the Goldstone report to the jury. The Goldstone Report is the United Nations report into the Israel - Gaza war. It is some 550 pages long and the executive summary alone is around 40 pages so editing it down to a relevant 3-4 page summary is no simple task.

However if I was preparing such a document I would start with a brief introduction explaining what the report is, who carried it out, what issues they were looking at and how they went about producing the report. I would also explain that the Israelis objected to the investigation being carried out and did not co-operate with the investigators

I would then provide a brief background to the history of the Gaza blockade and Israels obligations to the people of Gaza under the 4th Geneva convention. I would also include the impacts that the blockade has on life in Gaza as explained in section 13 of the executive summary.

I would then explain Israels military objectives for the war mentioned in section 12. I would focus on Israels superior military strength and the extensive system of legal training and advice that it was able to provide it's soldiers with before and during the war. I would also explain the Dahiya military doctrine that Israel used in Gaza despite being told not to use it again after the 2006 Lebanon war.

Most importantly I would provide an overview of the military operation detailed in section 2 highlighting the central role of the EDO equipped Israeli air force played in the entire operation. Here I would also include information on Israel's use of aircraft launched flechette missiles as mentioned in section 8.

Finally I would summarise; Section 5: failure to protect civilians especially the practice of "roof knocking." Section 6: indiscriminate attacks. Section 7: deliberate attacks on civilians. Section 9: attacks of foundations of civilian life especially the mentioned incidents that are linked to EDO technology.

As for the trial itself I'm not really able to predict the outcome of what is a complex case. However I think the accused have a strong defence. There is evidence that EDO technology was used in the commission of war crimes. There is also evidence that stopping these crimes was the sole motivating factor behind the accused actions. There may be a problem in proving that there was a reasonable expectation that damaging the factory would stop the war crimes being committed. Also the court will be under significant pressure to avoid criticising Israel or EDO and avoid strengthening the precedent that protesters are some times permitted to destroy property. A possible outcome that has been mentioned is a guilty verdict with the accused released on time already served. At the time a verdict is expected this will be nearly two years in prison. So it appears that the state has made sure that the accused have already been harshly punished long before the question of their guilt or innocence has even been asked.