Richard Kemp - Testimony On The Gaza War

Testimony On The Gaza War

Kemp has disputed allegations that Israel engaged in war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Gaza War in December 2008 to January 2009. Kemp did not visit Gaza, but based his assessment on publicly available information from both sides, from press reports, as well as from his 30-year experience as a participant in the war on terror.

In June 2009, Kemp wrote a document entitled "HAMAS, THE GAZA WAR AND ACCOUNTABILITY UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW" for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. In the article, Kemp writes that Hamas discarded their uniform once fighting began and deployed women and children as suicide attackers. Kemp also states that during the Gaza War "women and children are trained and equipped to fight, collect intelligence and ferry arms and ammunition between battles".

In October 2009, Kemp made a presentation to the United Nations Human Rights Council in response to the introduction of the Goldstone report that accuses Israel and Hamas of committing war crimes and possible crimes against humanity during the Gaza War. Kemp spoke to the UN HRC on behalf of UN Watch. While Kemp acknowledges that "of course innocent civilians were killed. War is chaos and full of mistakes. There have been mistakes by the British, American and other forces in Afghanistan and in Iraq, many of which can be put down to human error. But mistakes are not war crimes.", Kemp states the following: "based on my knowledge and experience, I can say this: during operation Cast Lead, the Israeli Defense Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in the combat zones than any other army in the history of warfare".

Kemp has also claimed to have relied on Israeli expertise in Afghanistan, stating that he received help from an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) anti-suicide bombing expert. He also claimed to have received help from the Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency, following the 2005 London bombings, and is well-acquainted with Israeli intelligence from past cooperation. Kemp has been highly critical of what he calls "the automatic assumption that everything the IDF does is illegal", stating that "there is harsh criticism against the US and British armies as well, but they are given the benefit of the doubt. Israel is always automatically condemned, no matter what. It's a joke. Even the conspiracy theory that the one responsible for the 11 September attacks is not al-Qaeda but Israel refuses to die out, it's unbelievable".