Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer: "The Talmud teaches us"

Justice Breyer Recalls Legal Lessons of the Holocaust

By Jess Bravin | Wall Street Journal | May 17, 2011

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer on Tuesday, May 17, capped the National Days of Remembrance, the congressionally mandated commemoration of the Holocaust, by focusing on a legal legacy stretching from the Nuremberg Tribunal to present-day efforts to hold war criminals accountable, such as the International Criminal Court.

Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen Breyer attends a reception hosted by President Barack Obama in honor of Jewish American Heritage Month at the White House, Tuesday.

“I come here as a judge and a Jew,” Justice Breyer said at a Capitol ceremony sponsored by the Holocaust Memorial Museum, in part to remember “that the Holocaust story ended with a fair trial.”

Justice Breyer recalled that the late Justice Robert Jackson called his service as chief prosecutor at Nuremberg, which tried 24 surviving Nazi leaders for crimes against humanity, “infinitely more important than my work on the Supreme Court.” Justice Jackson had opened his case by telling the world that “the wrongs we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant and so devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored because it cannot survive their being repeated.”

While Justice Jackson aimed to defuse Holocaust deniers by building a “drab case” on the Nazis’ own records of their crimes, Israeli Attorney General Gideon Hausner “sought out survivors of the Holocaust to bear witness” in the 1961 trial of Nazi official Adolf Eichmann. With the trial televised internationally, “for the first time many people heard the Holocaust survivors tell their stories with their own voices.”

“Both trials had a role to play,” Justice Breyer said. “The documented record prevents history from doubting what was done; the compelling personal stories help prevent the future from forgetting the victims themselves, their stories and their humanity.”

Justice Breyer linked those trials to more recent efforts to establish accountability for genocide and war crimes. He mentioned the European Court of Human Rights, the United Nations tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda and the International Criminal Court, whose prosecutor this week said he would seek to try Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi for crimes against humanity. (Justice Breyer makes no mention of Israeli massacres in Gaza, or of Israeli war crimes in Lebanon, in Beirut in August, 1982; at the El Khiam concentration camp, or in Qana against a United Nations refugee camp (twice). There has been no accountability for any of these atrocities perpetrated by “the Jewish state” — they are unpunished by international courts. Elie Hobeika, a former Lebanese ally of Ariel Sharon, was mysteriously rubbed out gangland style shortly before he was to testify against Sharon in a proposed European war crime trial that collapsed in the wake of Hobeika’s murder.  - Hoffman).

Such institutions are “imperfect,” the justice said. “We need only look around today’s world to see that the rights, rules, and obligations that the law sets forth are no more powerful than the human will to enforce them.

“The Talmud teaches us ‘it is not incumbent upon you to complete the work,’” Justice Breyer said. “’But neither are you free to evade it.”

A webcast of the event, "Justice and Accountability in the Face of Genocide: What Have We Learned?" is here. Justice Breyer’s address begins at 55:35.

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Thirteen Editorial Rules for Middle East Reporting

1) In the Middle East it is always the Arabs who attack first and always Israel that is defending themselves. This defense is called a reprisal.

2) The Arabs, Palestinian or Lebanese have no right to kill civilians. That is called “terrorism.”

3) Israel has the right to kill civilians. That is called “legitimate defense.”

4) When Israel kills civilians en masse, the western powers claim that it is more measured. This is called “reaction of the international community.”

5) The Palestinians and the Lebanese have no right to capture soldiers of Israel inside military installations with sentries and combat posts. This is called, “Kidnapping of defenseless people.”

6) Israel has the right to kidnap anytime and anywhere as many Lebanese and Palestinians as they want. Currently there are more than 10 thousand, 300 of whom are children and a thousand are women. No proof of guilt is needed. Israel has the right to keep kidnapped prisoners indefinitely, even if they are authorities democratically elected by the Palestinians. This is called “terrorist prisoners.”

7) When the word Hezbollah is mentioned, it is compulsory in the same sentence to contain the words “supported and financed by Syria and by Iran.”

8) When the word "assassination" is mentioned, it is compulsory to say in the same sentence, "Syria's role in an assassination in Lebanon in 2005," and never mention Israel's role in the assassination of Elie Hobeika in Lebanon in 2002 (shortly before Hobeika was to testify in Belgium concerning Ariel Sharon's war crimes).

9) When you mention “Israel” it is forbidden to make any mention of the words “supported and financed by the U.S.” This may give the impression that the conflict is uneven and that Israel’s existence is not in danger.

10) When referring to Israel, expressions that are prohibited: “Occupied Territories,” “UN resolutions,” “Violations of human rights” or “Geneva Convention.”

11) Both the Palestinians and the Lebanese are always “cowardly,” they are hidden among the civilian population, which does not want them. If they sleep in their homes and live with their families, they are using "human shields." Israel has a right to destroy with bombs and missiles the homes, apartment blocs and neighborhoods where they are sleeping. This is called a “precision surgical operation.”

12 The Israelis speak better English, French, Spanish or Portuguese than the Arabs. Therefore they and those who support them must be interviewed more and have more opportunities than the Arabs to explain the present Rules of the Editorial Staff (from 1 to 11) to the general public. That is called “journalistic neutrality.”

13) All those who are not in accordance with the preceding editorial rules are “highly dangerous anti-Semitic bigots and terrorist sympathizers."

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