Now that Israeli forces have left the Gaza Strip and fighting has largely ended, human-rights organizations are combing the detritus of war, surveying the extensive destruction, interviewing shell-shocked victims and building cases of war crimes against both combatant parties.
While Israel is not a signatory to the Rome Statute and, therefore, is not subject to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, nearly all European courts have claimed authority to investigate and prosecute war crimes of other countries.
It was a Spanish magistrate who prosecuted the case of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and, just Friday, another Spanish court announced it was investigating several Israeli officials for their alleged role in a 2002 military assault on Gaza.
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(Are you getting just a little bit worried, George Bush and Dick Cheney? These are the same courts that can take up your crimes against humanity even though the US is also not a signatory to the International Criminal Court.)
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