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• Call to prosecute tobacco executives  

The son of the man who prosecuted Nazi arch-murderer Adolph Eichmann for crimes against the Jewish people proposed prosecuting the world's tobacco executives in an international tribunal, for their "deception," which has "killed tens of millions of people every year."

Attorney Amos Hausner, son of the late MK and attorney-general Gideon Hausner, recently called on Israel Radio for the prosecution of senior tobacco company officials for adding addictive substances to cigarettes and other "crimes." Hausner, for decades the country's leading anti-smoking activist, is currently suing local and foreign tobacco companies on behalf of Clalit Health Services for the billions of shekels it costs the health fund to treat members who smoked.

"The deaths of smokers and non-smokers exposed to second hand smoke are not accidental. The people involved in its manufacture, sale, and marketing are fully aware of the consequences. They deliberately manipulate the degree of addiction. They have defrauded the public. They have been involved in worldwide smuggling as well as many other illegal acts," Hausner argued.

"Two days after the World Trade Center was destroyed, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres compared the war against terrorism to the war against smoking - good versus evil. Thomas Friedman of The New York Times, in his article of September 14, 2001, agreed and called the tobacco people 'peddlers of cancer.'" Hausner continued.

The time has come to fill these words with content, Hausner said. "Today people (such as Milosevic are tried in an international court in the Hague for crimes which did not cause even one percent of the death toll from smoking. Moreover, these crimes are a matter of the past, while the tobacco crimes are carried out on a continuous basis, and their consequences are felt today and will continue for many years to come - even if everybody stopped smoking today."

His proposal, which has not been raised publicly before, is that "we define the international crime of tobacco. Those behind it have to face an international tribunal for their ongoing crimes and past behavior. The nature of an international crime is that the illegal acts committed were actually lawful at the time and place; but this is an invalid defense for the international criminal.

"The consequences of some acts are so horrific that their illegality transcends the boundaries of any local law. Indeed, the concept of 'banality of evil' is apt here. People who are considered honorable citizens, good family people, members of the mainstream of society, and yet their day-to-day functions involve the deaths of tens of millions - deaths that are masterminded not with knives and bullets, but at a managerial desk. It is time that these evils remains 'banal' no longer."

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[We must] define the international crime of tobacco. Those behind it have to face an international tribunal for their ongoing crimes and past behavior. . . The consequences of some acts are so horrific that their illegality transcends the boundaries of any local law. Indeed, the concept of 'banality of evil' is apt here. People who are considered honorable citizens, good family people, members of the mainstream of society, and yet their day-to-day functions involve the deaths of tens of millions - deaths that are masterminded not with knives and bullets, but at a managerial desk. It is time that these evils remains 'banal' no longer.
Clalit Health Services Attorney Amos Hausner, son of the man who prosecuted Nazi arch-murderer Adolph Eichmann, has called for the prosecution of senior tobacco company officials. Siegel, S.