Various outlets quoted that “The Media Review Network (MRN) is pleased to announce that urgent steps are underway to secure the arrest of a senior Israeli war criminal, Shimon Peres.”
By GREER FAY CASHMANUpdated: FEBRUARY 24, 2016 03:28Former President Shimon Peres talks to the press after meeting with US President Barack Obama in the Oval Office of the White House during his presidency last June(photo credit: REUTERS)
The Muslim Lawyers Association have lodged documents to arrest former president Shimon Peres, who is due in South Africa next week.Various outlets quoted that “The Media Review Network (MRN) is pleased to announce that urgent steps are underway to secure the arrest of a senior Israeli war criminal, Shimon Peres.”Peres will travel to South Africa to fund-raise for the Israel United Appeal and the United Communal Fund.A group of professional lawyers, the Muslim Lawyers Association (MLA), have lodged documents with the National Prosecution Authority, requesting its intervention, the MRN statement said.“We at the MRN, are deeply perturbed that Peres, known for various human rights violations and unspeakable war crimes such as the Kana massacre [shelling of a UN compound in Lebanon in 1996], has been invited to South Africa.“The MRN fully supports the position taken by the MLA.”The statement continues that “Peres has been an enigmatic politician all his life. He has never won an election. In a democracy, a politician is expected to be elected and reelected. He never was. Even his position as president of the Zionist state was by default. When the incumbent, Moshe Katzav, uncovered as a women molester and had to resign, was Peres elected by a contrite Knesset. This was his definitive humiliation.“And now this man, whom almost everybody loved to hate, is coming to South Africa.“The MRN is hopeful that the request to have Peres arrested and charged will be successful. We pledge our full support for this initiative and call on all relevant authorities to give expression to South Africa’s obligations under the provisions of the Rome Statute.”Most talkbacks to the report ridicule the idea.
Comments include: “Pathetic fools,” “Nothing is quite as nauseating as Islamic groups lecturing the rest of humanity about human rights,” “But Hamas was welcomed here. Explain that.”There are several Twitter responses, however, that support the move.The Council of Muslim Theologians whose motto is “Educating, Enlightening, Serving” published a black banner with red blood-stained hands and a white heading urging “Stop Israeli Terrorism.”Meanwhile, the Foreign Ministry and ambassador to South Africa have been in contact with all the relevant authorities in Pretoria to ensure this BDS provocation will not hinder Peres, Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nachshon told The Jerusalem Post.A spokeswoman for Peres declined to comment saying that until there was actually need to do so, there was no point in doing so.In June, 2013, the Muslim Lawyers Association called for the arrest and prosecution for war crimes of US President Barack Obama. The request submitted to the public prosecutor covered more than 600 pages.