BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Emma B
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 09:12 PM

They did not use it to inflict casualties. It would not be effective for that because it is not a weapon.
25 Jul 10 - 12:58 PM

I agree WP is too dangerous to use in populated areas, but it is not a weapon
25 Jul 10 - 03:18 AM

"You called it a chemical weapon attack to make it sound much worse than it was.
You just spout propaganda.
I try to be honest.
You also called it genocidal.
Do you stand by that description?
Do you Emma? "

Please show me anywhere atall I either called WP anything other than an Incendiary weapon or used the word genocidal in connection with its use
Be honest
Do you stand by your accusations?
Can you Keith?

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: pdq
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 08:47 PM

Keith I don't know if your continual assertions against all scientific and military evidence that WP can not inflict harm because it is 'not a weapon' is pathological or simply perverse..." ~ Emma B

Talk about misquotes and misrepresentations.

You owe Keith an apology, not the other way around.

Everybody knows that WP can hurt people, but marking targets, illuminating the battlefield and obscuring troop movements with smoke are normal everyday activities in war. Neither civilians or combatants are directly targeted.

The WP "incendiary devices" are used to start fires, but I see no honest evdence that coalition forces are using them in Iraq or Afghanistan, and precious little evidence that the Israelis used them in Gaza.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Emma B
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 08:28 PM

"Jim, Don and Emma, your calling WP a chemical weapon does not make it so"

You know Keith I have often wondered if you ever actually read what I ACTUALLY posted rather than what you wanted to read - now I have it confirmed

If you pay me the basic courtesy of reading my posts you will see that no where have I ever referred to WP as a 'chemical weapon'; indeed I have been very careful to refer to it by it's official designation as an 'incendiary weapon' although you have continually denied this universally accepted definition too

Blame my scientific training for this!
I rejoice in the title of 'feminist fact finder' bestowed upon me by another catter although this was intended as a gross insult :)

As I have repeated consistently, there are chemicals used militarily that are not scheduled by the Chemical Weapons Convention, and thus are not controlled under the CWC treaties.
These include Incendiary or explosive chemicals (such as napalm, extensively used by the United States in Vietnam, white phosphorus or dynamite) because their destructive effects are primarily due to fire or explosive force, and not direct chemical action and also biological weapons and defoliants

For the purposes of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons Protocol III an "Incendiary weapon" means any weapon or munition which is primarily designed to set fire to objects or to cause burn injury to persons through the action of flame, heat, or combination thereof, produced by a chemical reaction of a substance delivered on the target.

There is unfortunately the possibility of fudging this definition as the protocol also maintains that
Incendiary weapons do not include: munitions which may have incidental incendiary effects, such as illuminants, tracers, smoke or signalling systems;

What I have attempted to demonstrate in several posts is that most authorities consider and describe air fired missiles containing white phosphorus which rain 100s of flaming phosphorous soaked pieces of felt as indeed an incendiary weapons

While WP is used as a smokescreen it is also used as an incendiary weapon , BUT can also be deployed as an anti-personnel flame compound capable of causing potentially fatal burns
When used against enemy combatants in this way it is not actually 'illegal' under the existing protocols - hence the 'shake and bake' operation in Iraq I mentioned in a previous post

"During the Vietnam War, the "White Phosphorus (WP), M110, was also used as a marker round. It could be fitted with PD, VT, and MT fuzes. When the situation called for it, white phosphorus became a devastating weapon against personnel". - The 1/92nd Field Artillery Association - Vietnam


HOWEVER

Under the Convention on Certain conventional weapons

It is prohibited in all circumstances to make the civilian population as such, individual civilians or civilian objects the object of attack by incendiary weapons.
It is prohibited in all circumstances to make any military objective located within a concentration of civilians the object of attack by air-delivered incendiary weapons.
It is further prohibited to make any military objective located within a concentration of civilians the object of attack by means of incendiary weapons other than air-delivered incendiary weapons, except when such military objective is clearly separated from the concentration of civilians and all feasible precautions are taken with a view to limiting the incendiary effects to the military objective and to avoiding, and in any event to minimizing, incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects.
It is prohibited to make forests or other kinds of plant cover the object of attack by incendiary weapons except when such natural elements are used to cover, conceal or camouflage combatants or other military objectives, or are themselves military objectives.



The Israeli government released a report in July 2009 that confirmed that the IDF used white phosphorus in BOTH exploding munitions and smoke projectiles
Contrary to eyewitness testimony and physical evidence, the report argues that the use of these munitions were limited to unpopulated areas for marking and signalling

(Please refer back to my previous post for photographic evidence that in fact WP air fired missiles were fired over densely populated urban areas in Gaza City)


Keith I don't know if your continual assertions against all scientific and military evidence that WP can not inflict harm because it is 'not a weapon' is pathological or simply perverse
It is certainly grossly inaccurate and whether it is your motive or not effectively sabotages any debate on the subject

As someone whose first career was in the chemical industry I really do recommend that you do some simple basic research on the effects of phosphorous

"For your benefit, that is called combustion, or burning.
It can not take oxygen from water. Water puts the fire out."

WP ignites spontaneously when exposed to the air and will continue to smoulder either until it is completely burnt up or when deprived of oxygen.
IT CANNOT BE PUT OUT BY WATER, ONLY BY SAND OR MUD.

(While water will put out white phosphorus very temporarily as soon as the phosphorus has access to air, it will start burning again. White phosphorus wounds are very unpleasant, since the phosphorus must be thoroughly washed out with a nonpolar solvent that is also noninflammable, for obvious reasons, before the burn can be treated. Carbon tetrachloride would be suitable, but it is dangerous because of the cancer hazard.)

Wounds resulting from phosphorous burns gradually become whiter and then toxic. Even small burns continue to expand. In some cases, the patient's condition deteriorates and results in death.

A doctor reporting on treating patients in Gaza said
"Some of these patients burn for hours. One of the patients, after two hours we opened the wound and noticed smoke came out of the wound!"
Dr Abu Shaban said he removed some of the particles from the wound and when he held them up and they came into contact with the air "a flame came out".

I await an apology or at least an explanation from you Keith for misquoting me

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: pdq
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 07:19 PM

Here is another oustanding source of facts about chemical and biological agents:


                                                                   http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/crs/98042705_npo.html

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 07:18 PM

You are now playing with words - phosphorus is a CHEMICAL - it is by definition poisonous, it can severely burn and it can kill - that is part of the definition of its effects.
It is a war crime to use it on civilians and the Israeklis have used it in such a manner; therefore, whatever word games you are now attempting to play, the Israelis are war criminals.
Genocide;
Again you play with words.
The Shatila and Sabra refugee camp massacres were directed towards Palastinian and Lenanese Arabs. the death toll is unknown but is reckoned between 800 and 3,500. The Israelis in charge allowed the massacres to take place and provided the weapons.
A bit of cut-n-paste for you as you seem so fond of it.
"In 1982, an independent commission chaired by Sean MacBride concluded that the Israeli authorities or forces were, directly or indirectly, involved. The Israeli government established the Kahan Commission to investigate, and in early 1983 it found Israel indirectly responsible for the event, and that Ariel Sharon bears personal responsibility for the massacre for allowing the Phalangists into the camps. The Israelis had been supplying the Phalangists with weapons and equipment, and had provided transportation of the Phalangists to the camps. The commission, which was not a judicial body which could recommend criminal charges, but an investigative body only, demanded that Sharon resign as head of the Defence Ministry. Sharon initially refused to resign, but after the death of an Israeli and the injury of ten other Israelis from a hand grenade thrown into a dispersing Peace Now rally, a compromise was reached where he resigned as Defense minister, but remained in the cabinet as Minister without portfolio. Sharon would later be elected Prime Minister of Israel."
Genocide in my book, especially as you have taken it upon yourself to re-define 'chemical weapons'
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: pdq
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 07:03 PM

Coalition forces in Iraq have used white phosphorus in both illumination rounds and in smoke-producing ones. This is standard, everyday warfare stuff.

White phosphorus can be used in incendiary rounds which are to be used against targets such as buildings.

They are neither "chemical weapons" nor "anti-personel" rounds.

Illumination shells are set to activate at a certain elevation so that they drift slowly downward, with the help of a fire-proof parachute, and illuminate the battlefield.

If such a shell were to fired directly into a building, it would not trigger the elevation sensor and would not activate.

Smoke rounds could be fired into a building to injure occupants, but this is not an authorized use. Those ordering such actions woud be in some trouble with the brass.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 06:50 PM

Jim, You said that this attack was genocidal.
You can not substitute ethnic cleansing for genocidal.
It is not a less severe form of genocide, it is totally different.
How can this attack be called ethnic cleansing?

Jim, Don and Emma, your calling WP a chemical weapon does not make it so.
USA has very publically, on the international stage, destroyed its chemical weapons, but not WP.
No international outcry because all armed forces use it including all those that have outlawed chemical weapons.
It is not a chemical weapon.
You are not in a position to change an internationally agreed classification.
Can you name one government that agrees with you?

I have not supported or defended Israel on any of this.
I have just called for some honesty from you propagandists.
Calling it a chemical attack was wrong and calculated to make it sound infinitely worse than the truth (which is bad enough).
Calling it genocide was a ludicrous flight of propagandist fantasy.

(Science leson for Don)
You said "White Phosphorus, when exposed to air, is so reactive that it instantly rips the oxygen out of the air and undergoes an exothermal chemical reaction (for Keith's benefit, that is a chemical reaction which gives out heat! Lots of it!)"

For your benefit, that is called combustion, or burning.
It can not take oxygen from water. Water puts the fire out.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 06:15 PM

""They neither make nor supply them, so it was not a chemical weapon and it is hyped up propaganda to call it that.""


White Phosphorus, when exposed to air, is so reactive that it instantly rips the oxygen out of the air and undergoes an exothermal chemical reaction (for Keith's benefit, that is a chemical reaction which gives out heat! Lots of it!)

It continues to burn, as long as it has access to oxygen (not necessarily air - once it is burning it will rip oxygen from most liquids), or until it is totally combined and the reaction ceases.

I have seen a small piece of White Phosphorus burn completely through a human arm, and continue to burn into a table top beneath.

However the US military may conveniently choose to classify it, Injury caused by White Phosphorus is a chemical process, so it is disingenuous in the extreme to continue to deny that it is a chemical weapon.

Anybody in close proximity to an exploding WP shell, or grenade, will almost certainly suffer at best severe permanent disfigurement and internal damage, and at worst, a long drawn out and agonising death.

I'd like to understand why you would set yourself up as an apologist for any state which authorises its use against civilians, and pleae don't insult my intelligence by claiming that a house to house operation requres a smoke screen. Such a screen would be as much to the advantage of defenders, as to attackers.

Don T

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 05:38 PM

""Often exaggerating, sometimes inventing.""

Difficult, I'd say, to exaggerate, or invent, the piles of rubble that pass for towns in Gaza, or to exaggerate or invent the origin of the explosive devices which produced those piles of rubble.

The many pictures and videos of sheet covered corpses of men, women, and children wantonly destroyed by well armed, but not apparently so well trained, Israeli soldiers, are neither invented, nor exaggerated.

Israel's activities are among the most comprehensively recorded in history, and yet their PR hacks continue to insult the intelligence of the rest of humanity, by use of exaggerated, and often invented, excuses.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 04:38 PM

"By calling it a chemical weapons attack..."
I'm doing no such thing - it was an attack with chemical weapons therefore it was a chemical attack (which was at first denied then admitted by the perpetrators) - I compared it to nothing; you are, as usual, making it up as you go along and putting words into my mouth.
It is really immaterial when I used the term 'ethnic cleansing'; if I used it yesterday I had overlooked having done so (that's what their policy amounts to as far as I'm concerned); but my point was that I agreed to use it instead of genocide (my attitude to this was made in my previous post) some time ago and you have deliberately overlooked this in order to score points and divert attention from your own totally untenable position.
"The USA who made and supplied it insist it is not."
Would this be the same USA that used Napalm and Agent Orange on peasant farmers in Viet Nam? Hardly a trustworthy source of information I would have thought (though a fairly apt bedfellow).
I wonder why my dictionaries haven't picked up their assurances?
"That was blatantly untrue.."
Israel's purity laws suggest otherwise - and you've never responded to the Shatila and Sabra massacres that Israel played a full part in - another of your convenient little 'oversights'!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 03:52 PM

You used the term "ethnic cleansing" yesterday.
By calling it a chemical weapons attack, you liken it to actual chemical weapons attacks, e.g. Halabja, but all far more horrific.
You and Emma call it a chemical weapon. The USA who made and supplied it insist it is not.
They neither make nor supply them, so it was not a chemical weapon and it is hyped up propaganda to call it that.
The reality is bad enough.

To call it genocidal was more than hyped up propaganda.
That was blatantly untrue..

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 03:28 PM

"You called it a chemical weapon attack to make it sound much worse than it was."
She called it a chemical weapon attack because it was a chemical weapon attack.
You have denied it was a chemical weapon attack despite the fact that it was a chemical weapon attack.
"He called it a chemical weapon attack to liken it to Halabja."
When and where? (I don't really expect a reply to this - you don't do awkward questions - but I just thought I'd try).
"I also objected to him calling it genocidal."
I believe that if they were not in the public eye Israel would have no hesitation in wiping out any Palestinian in the way of their territorial ambitions - or anybody else for that matter. However, I did offer to modify the term to 'ethnic cleansing' some time back so as not to offend your sensibilities and I have not used either term since (though I have no doubt that this is a fair description of their behaviour) - yet, in the true spirit of debate, you have chosen to ignore this fact - methinks the lady doth protest too much!
The state you are defending is a terrorist state, it has slaughtered unarmed civilians including the elderly, women and children, it has destroyed homes hospitals and schools, it has used chemical weapons upon civilians, it has attempted to starve the population into submission and it has seized Palestinian land (and is now making it legal to do so by altering their laws.
As a terrorist state it has carried out assassinations, is involved in wholesale espionage (only recently it carried out an assassination using forged Irish passports) and has been publicly seen in an act of piracy.
As I said - a terrorist state.
The fact that its policy is heavily influenced by religious fundamentalism makes it as unstable as any of the Muslim states of a similar leaning and the fact that is a nuclear power makes it a world threat.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 02:22 PM

Emma, your report made it clear what they meant by those terms.
Everyone knows that phosphorus burns, but WP smoke is not an effective way of hurting people. Weapons do the job better.
The writer of your report confirmed that.

All along I have just been attacking Jim's emotive hype and propaganda.
He called it a chemical weapon attack to liken it to Halabja. Remember those mounds of mothers and children.
That was misleading propaganda.
USA does not supply chemical weapons.
I objected to that while agreeing that the use was deplorable.
I also objected to him calling it genocidal.
Was it Emma?

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Emma B
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 02:11 PM

Oh for heavens sake! - are you trying to drive me to total frustration or simply drive anyone who disagrees with you off this thread again Keith?


"As an INCENDIARY WEAPON WP burns fiercely and can set cloth, fuel, ammunition and other combustibles on fire. Since WWII, it has been extensively used as a weapon, capable of causing serious burns or death" - Wiki from the US Army Center

Want to disagree with the US Army too?

It is ALSO a highly efficient smoke producing agent used by tanks and armoured vechicles to mask movement from the enemy
Are you stating this was solely how it was used in the urban densely populated area of Gaza city - because the photos and other evidence don't seem to support this

In fact, the Israeli government released a report in July 2009 that confirmed that the IDF used white phosphorus in BOTH exploding munitions AND smoke projectiles.
The report acknowledged the use of exploding munitions by Israeli ground and naval forces.
Contrary to eyewitness testimony and considerable physical evidence to the contary, the report continued to deny the use of these munitions in populated areas and maintained smoke screening projectiles were the 'majority' of the munitions containing white phosphorus employed by the IDF

The Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, not the Chemical Weapons Convention in its Protocol III prohibits the use of all air-delivered incendiary weapons against civilian populations, or for indiscriminate incendiary attacks against military forces co-located with civilians but specifically excludes weapons whose incendiary effects are purely secondary, such as smoke grenades.

To claim that white phosphourous missiles fired from a distance which rain 100s of burning pieces of phosphourous soaked felt into urban areas fall into this category is blatent contempt for the Protocol

The legal position however, is not the only consideration in any war.
For instance, concerning the U.S. use of WP in Iraq, the British Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman at the time Sir Menzies Campbell, said

"The use of this weapon may technically have been legal, but its effects are such that it will hand a propaganda victory to the insurgency.
The denial of use followed by the admission will simply convince the doubters that there was something to hide"

Finally -
"They did not use it to inflict casualties. It would not be effective for that because it is not a weapon."

Keith have you seen the photographs of phosphorus burns - the description of a child simply 'melting'?

'Bake' is a sick expression to use against combatants but it means what it says! and not - you will notice - 'shake and smoke'

To 'burn out the enemy' means exactly that when the 'versatle' phosphorous is used in a house

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 01:45 PM

Israel got the munition from USA.
USA does not make or supply chemical weapons.

You called it a chemical weapon attack to make it sound much worse than it was.
You just spout propaganda.
I try to be honest.
You also called it genocidal.
Do you stand by that description?
Do you Emma?

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 01:17 PM

Emma
The only way this clown can justify his stance on chemical weapons is to ignore the facts put before him - to date he hasn't even acknowledged, let alone disputed them.
He will continue to wriggle like a worm cut in half - all movement - no substance.
He is really not worth the time and effort expended on his non-arguments.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: pdq
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 01:12 PM

Also, all the napalm that the US had was systematically destroyed, and was completely gone by 2001.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 01:02 PM

From pdq's link.
On November 12, 2004, the U.S. Department of Defense issued a denial of the chemical weapons charge, stating:

"The United States categorically denies the use of chemical weapons at anytime in Iraq, which includes the ongoing Fallujah operation. Furthermore, the United States does not under any circumstance support or condone the development, production, acquisition, transfer or use of chemical weapons by any country. All chemical weapons currently possessed by the United States have been declared to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and are being destroyed in the United States in accordance with our obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention."

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 12:58 PM

I could agree to your last statement if you delete "incendiary weapons" and insert "smoke munitions" which more accurately describes the incident.

You posted this.
"WP proved to be an effective and versatile munition. We used it for screening missions at two breaches and, later in the fight, as a potent psychological weapon against the insurgents in trench lines and spider holes when we could not get effects on them with HE.
We fired 'shake and bake' missions at the insurgents, using WP to flush them out and HE to take them out"

They used it "for screening", as a "psychological weapon" and to "flush them out."
They did not use it to inflict casualties. It would not be effective for that because it is not a weapon.

We are not going to agree on this. We have both stated our views.
Do you say it was genocidal?
Does it compare with an accepted "chemical weapons attack" like the attack on Iraqi Kurds at Halabja?
If not, it is misleading to use the same description.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: pdq
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 12:50 PM

If anybody wants the facts, try this site:

                                                            http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/2005/050127-fallujah.htm

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Emma B
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 12:36 PM

"read that story carefully and you will see that WP smoke alone was not an effective weapon."

Keith make your mind up - was it a smokescreen or a 'versatile' weapon as clearly stated?
Or are your numerous allegations that phosphorus weapons produce only smoke a smokescreen themselves?

"They were firing it into defensive positions to force the fighters into the open"

The operation was termed 'shake and bake'
An incendiary weapon was fired directly at combatants to inflict chemical burns (ro 'bake' combatants!) for a 'potent psychological' effect

The US Marine Corps Gazette is clear about the 'practical' uses of phosphorus, which ignites on exposure to oxygen and produces an intense heat: "Used when contact is made in a house and the enemy must be burned out."


Keith - please note
The Pentagon now admits that phosphorus was indeed "used as an incendiary weapon against enemy combatants" but denies its use against civilians despite reports such as the embedded reporters that it was fired indiscriminately.

Washington's (and Israel's) Washington's position is that phosphorus is "not a chemical weapon" and "not outlawed or illegal".

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which polices the 1993 convention prohibiting chemical weapons, accepts that position.

Its spokesman said that phosphorus was covered instead by the 1980 Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May be Deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects.

Both the US and Israel have failed to enact Protocol III, which bans the use of incendiary weapons against civilian populations and in air attacks against military forces in civilian areas

As a result of international disapprobation following the dreadful burns suffered by civilian casualties during Cast Iron the Israeli government has said it will limit (although not outlaw) the use of WP weapons

In a 37 report to the UN the Israeli government said

"the IDF is in the process of establishing permanent restrictions on the use of munitions containing white phosphorus in urban areas,"

"Some Palestinians were killed and injured by Israeli use of a smoke screen.
We could all agree on that."

It seems the Israelis, after initial denials and fudging, have now accepted that fatalities and dreadful burns were inflicted on civilians by the indiscriminate (and for many other nations illegal) use of phosphorus incendiary weapons in densely populated residential urban areas - whatever their alleged purpose

Any chance you could agree on that?

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 11:45 AM

Emma, read that story carefully and you will see that WP smoke alone was not an effective weapon.
They were firing it into defensive positions to force the fighters into the open .
The Israelis were using it to screen their soldiers. They have plenty of effective ways of killing. The wanted screening.

This whole debate was started by Jim saying the Israelis attacked civillians with chemical weapons, in an act of genocide.
That was a travesty of the truth.
Some Palestinians were killed and injured by Israeli use of a smoke screen.
We could all agree on that.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 11:37 AM

I do think that they should stop waging war.
Then the incursion which we all wish had never happened, would never have happened.
You still want the rocketing to continue.
You want more Israelis dead.
Resistance?
Hate.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Emma B
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 11:29 AM

"Israel's were made by USA which does not manufacture or use chemical weapons"

The USA has not ratified Protocol III on Incendiary Weapons either

"While the use of incendiary weapons against civilians is illegal by Protocol III of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (1980), this is not binding on the United States because it is not a signatory" - Wiki

"WP proved to be an effective and versatile munition. We used it for screening missions at two breaches and, later in the fight, as a potent psychological weapon against the insurgents in trench lines and spider holes when we could not get effects on them with HE.
We fired 'shake and bake' missions at the insurgents, using WP to flush them out and HE to take them out. .. We used improved WP for screening missions when HC smoke would have been more effective and saved our WP for lethal missions."
From Fighting For Fallujah: A New Dawn for Iraq, by John R. Ballard (2006)

The use of WP as a weapon against enemy combatants, as justified by the US above, is not actually specified in Protocol III of the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. BUT if used as a weapon in a civilian area, it WOULD be prohibited.

An embedded reporter for the North County News, a San Diego newspaper, Darrin Mortenson wrote of watching Cpl Nicholas Bogert fire WP rounds into Fallujah. He wrote: "Bogert is a mortar team leader who directed his men to fire round after round of high explosives and white phosphorus charges into the city Friday and Saturday, never knowing what the targets were or what damage the resulting explosions caused."

Commenting on the use of WP by American forces in Fallujah
Kathy Kelly, a campaigner with the anti-war group Voices of the Wilderness, said:

"If the US wants to promote security for this generation and the next, it should build relationships with these countries. If the US uses conventional or non-conventional weapons, in civilian neighourhoods, that melt people's bodies down to the bone, it will leave these people seething.
We should think on this rather than arguing about whether we can squeak such weapons past the Geneva Conventions and international accords."

The same advice surely applies to Israel

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 11:25 AM

Once again you excuse the use of chemical weapons by denying their effect - we saw precisely the effects described by Foolstroop on the film footage of the incursion - I suggest you address the points made in Emma's previous postings and others on the effects of phosphorus.
Or perhaps you'd like my dictionary definition.
"A highly reactive, poisonous, no-metalic element occurring naturally in phosphates".
"Every slaughtered Jew counts."
No - every ounce of resistance to Israeli state terrorism might, just might stop it, or at least draw attention to it and make them think twice - or maybe the Palestinians should completely surrender, d'you think?   
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 10:55 AM

No, you refuse to read them properly.
White phosphorus, like petrol, can be used as a weapon and has been by the likes of Sadaam.
White phosphorus smoke munitions are designed to produce maximum smoke.
Though hazardous, they are not designed to be effective weapons.
Israel's were made by USA which does not manufacture or use chemical weapons.
All armed forces use them including signatories to the chemical weapons treaty.

Shall we discuss the legality of Hamas' rockets which Israel solely entered Gaza to try to stop.
Instead of a full explosive payload, maximising their effect on buildings, the explosive is packed around with ball bearings, nuts, bolts and metal fragments.
With what hope for all that metal Jim.
Remember these are fired indiscriminately at towns.
You have refused to even say either that they are wrong, or that they should stop.
You said of them, "every little counts."
Every slaughtered Jew counts.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Emma B
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 10:45 AM

Jim wrote

"it is a weapon and the effect on people is as described - they knew that and attempted to deny its use when challenged"

White Phosphorous, of the type used in shells in Gaza is defined as an incendiary weapon (Causing or capable of causing fire or containing chemicals that produce intensely hot fire when exploded) with legal use restriced to open battlefield conditions as a smokescreen.

NB Israel has not ratified Protocol III on Incendiary Weapons and Protocol V on Explosive Remnants of War.


But let's look at the second part of Jim's statement.....

"FIRST, THERE WAS TOTAL DENIAL OF USE; THEN THE IDF ADMITTED USE BUT CLAIMED THAT IT WAS LEGAL.
WHEN BREAKING THE SILENCE PUBLISHED CLEAR TESTIMONIES OF ITS ILLEGAL USE, TOGETHER WITH THE PHYSICAL EVIDENCE AND TESTIMONIES OF THE GAZANS, THE RESPONSE WAS TO SHOOT THE MESSENGER

WELL, NOW, RIBONO SHEL OLAM, ISRAEL HAS FINALLY ADMITTED TO ILLEGAL USE OF WHITE PHOSPHORUS IN THE GAZA CAMPAIGN IN ITS REPLY TO THE GOLDSTONE REPORT. WE ARE EVEN TOLD WHAT OFFICERS GAVE THE COMMANDS, AND THAT THEY WERE "REPRIMANDED."
(** see below)

HOW MANY CHANCES DOES THE IDF GET TO CHANGE ITS STORY BEFORE PEOPLE STOP TAKING IT SERIOUSLY? AND AT EACH STAGE THE HASBARA MOONIES PARROT WHATEVER HAPPENS TO BE THE CURRENT VERSION!

WILL SOMEBODY EXPLAIN TO ME WHY ANYBODY SHOULD GIVE ANY CREDENCE TO WHAT THE IDF SPOKESPERSON SAYS – EVEN IF IT HAPPENS TO BE TRUE? "


Is this a quote from one of those human rights organization like Christian Aid so 'hated' and smeared by the supporters of NGO Monitor etc?

No!, It is from the blog of an orthodox Jewish studies and philosophy professor, who divides his time between Israel and the US


However, the accurately recorded stages of denial, until refuted by evidence, protests of contentious 'legality' and placing blame on almost anyone else is repeated elsewhere not least in the official reports of the attack on the flotilla - the difference being on this occasion that photographic evidence that might disagree with the IDF version of events was confiscated

** Haaretz reported on 01.02.10 that -

'In an official response provided to the United Nations over the weekend in response to last September's Goldstone Commission report, the government said that a brigadier general and another officer with the rank of colonel endangered human life during by firing white phosphorous munitions in the direction of a compound run by UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency

But the IDF on Monday flatly denied that Division Commander Brig. Gen. Eyal Eisenberg and Givati Brigade Commander Col. Ilan Malka been subject to disciplinary action by GOC Southern Command Maj. Gen. Yoav Gallant. It did not deny that the munitions were in fact used during the war, however.

Nonetheless, the report that the Israeli government gave to the United Nations last Friday explicitly states that the two senior officers were disciplined after one of the investigating committees noted among its findings that they approved the firing of phosphorus shells at Tel al-Hawa "exceeding their authority in a manner that jeopardized the lives of others." '

From the same Haaretz report -

"The army also contended that the munitions were used in
locations remote from heavily -populated areas. "

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 10:35 AM

"That is not true of me"
Happy to put up your (2) quotes if you wish.
"White phosphorus smoke is not a weapon and certainly not a chemical weapon"
Then you DO dispute the Wikipedia definition, Foolstroup's description of events and Emma B's - last posting - my, my, we do seem to be in the presence of an eminent expert!!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 10:15 AM

Jim,
"If this thread in any way reflects the outside world, the support that the Israelis are getting for their actions come from the rabid right - from those who would "wish the Irish to return from where they came from" or would support or excuse military brutality against civilians or throw their weight behind sectarian bullying "

That is not true of me, and I doubt you have any reason to say that about any other contributor here.
Once again you are making up lies about contributors instead of discussing their actual contributions.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 10:12 AM

White phosphorus smoke is not a weapon and certainly not a chemical weapon.
Jim and Emma both imply that it was used as a weapon on the palestinians.
Do you think the Israelis lack actual, effective weapons if they had wanted to kill Palestinians?
They are well stocked with seriously effective anti personel weapons.
The fact is that they needed smoke to protect their forces, and they themselves now acknowledge that it was wrong to use it in that area.
It was hamas fighters that chose a populated area as their battleground.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Emma B
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 06:35 AM

Keith, it is said that 'the pen is mightier than the sword'

Now I don't believe this is meant in anything other than a figurative sense although some written criticisms of Israeli government policy and breaches of international law here appear to have produced a predictable patellar reflex

So while the adage is obviously not meant to be literal, what is obvious is that if you deliberately stab your pen in the eye of an adversary then you ar using it as a weapon

Once more

White phosphorus is an indiscriminate killer that ignites once it is exposed to oxygen, producing such heat that it bursts into a yellow flame.

It has thermal properties which burn by heating everything around it, rather than chemical properties which attack the body's life systems . It therefore does not fall under the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention.

But protocol III of the 1980 Convention on Conventional Weapons bans its use as an incendiary weapon against civilian populations

The treaty also restricts their use against military targets "inside a concentration of civilians except when such military objective is clearly separated from the concentration of civilians".

The use of White Phosphorus solely as an obscurant in battlefield conditions is legal. However.......

"Article 1 of Protocol III of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons defines an incendiary weapon as 'any weapon or munition which is primarily designed to set fire to objects or to cause burn injury to persons through the action of flame, heat, or combination thereof, produced by a chemical reaction of a substance delivered on the target'.
The same protocol also prohibits the use of incendiary weapons against civilians (already forbidden by the Geneva Conventions) or in civilian areas.

This protocol is only binding upon those who have signed it; the United States, has not signed or agreed to Protocol III. - Wiki

While the United States opted out of signing it descxribed the use of WP by Saddam Hussain as a chemical weapon although the Chemical Weapons Convention does not list WP in its schedules of chemical weapons

Saddam's use of WP against civilians in 1991 was included on the list of war crimes which was used in part justification of the 2003 invasion.

Incendiary weapons: The big white lie

'Mike Gapes, the Labour chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, said: "I think there is an issue here about whether the chemical weapons convention should be strengthened to include this particular substance because it is defined as an incendiary not a chemical weapon, therefore it is excluded from certain definitions." '

parlimentary report 2005

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 04:31 AM

Roberto; with respect, it would be more helpful if you tried to explain the behaviour of Israel as outlined on this thread rather than malign the people who find that behaviour offensive and, in effect anti-Semitic. It is shameful to use the fate of millions of Jews as a defence of the persecution and murder of another race.
Keith - once again you are defending the use of chemical weapons on a civilian population by distorting the effects that they can have - or do you dispute the definition given above? Whatever the Israelis' 'motive' in using phosphorus, it is a weapon and the effect on people is as described - they knew that and attempted to deny its use when challenged.
"....threadcreep and I did not reopen a lapsed thread to make them."
And once again you are trying to manipulate a thread because you are unable to cope with its direction.
It is not your job to tell us what is and is not relevant to this thread - that's the job of the adjudicator - if you disapprove, complain to him.
No thread is permanently 'lapsed' (unless it has been closed by the site administrator) and can be re-opened at any time by anybody who feels a further point needs to be made. If you want to be in charge - apply for the job
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 03:18 AM

Emma, I agree WP is too dangerous to use in populated areas, but it is not a weapon and was not used as a weapon, but as a mechanism to produce smoke to screen their soldiers from those firing at them.
Don, my comments were only in response to the threadcreep and I did not reopen a lapsed thread to make them.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Roberto
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 03:14 AM

Haters. Israeli haters. I don't like the term very much, but a term has to be found to describe the phenomenon. The very special attention in finding and denouncing Israeli wrongs. Often exaggerating, sometimes inventing. No other Country in the world undergoes a treatment like the one deserved to Israel. No other Country in the Middle East, where wrongs are many and often bigger than those committed by Israel. A Middle East under "Hama rule" (the town razed to the ground by Assad in 1982, thousand and thousand and thousand people killed, to crush a revolt lead by the Muslim Brotherhood). Many of these people specialized in denouncing Israel ignore what happens around Israel and apply the worst political terms in the world to label Israeli acts alone. The most shameful practise is to equalize Israel wrongs to the Nazism. (I suspect this demanding nothing in terms of human rights to the Middle East regimes except Israel has to be considered a form of racism). Them who don't share their obsession get branded, put in the bunch with the worst enemies of humanity, they decide who they are, a party to the worst crimes, they select what they are. But you're not allowed to put them in the bunch with anti-semite (although they often find themselves side by side with the anti-semite scum), because they are so touchy. I'm not sure the anti-Israel special obsession has nothing to do with anti-semitism, but if these activists retain the idea that anti-semitism (that is, hatred against the Jews) is a shame, I hope this truth will help them in the future to correct their one-sided, sectarian view, and OK, let's use another term to name this phenomenon. Ok for Israeli haters, then.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 02:51 AM

"Perhaps you can spare some of your vitriol...."
And now we have the apoligists scurrying into their anti-Semitism bunkers.
Are you really claiming that the way Arab women are treated justifies Israeli war crimes and that those of us who are opposed to those crimes support such treatment?
If this thread in any way reflects the outside world, the support that the Israelis are getting for their actions come from the rabid right - from those who would "wish the Irish to return from where they came from" or would support or excuse military brutality against civilians or throw their weight behind sectarian bullying - here acting as apologists for chemical warfare, the persecution, killing and ghettoisation of a people whose existance is an inconvenience.
I have no vitriol. My generation grew up with the images of skeletons emerging from the death camps and from stories of the attempted anihilation of the Jewish people. We are now witnessing continuing and growing anti-Semitism and as far as I am concerned, Israeli behahavior feeds that anti-Semitism and is an essential part of that growth.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Emma B
Date: 24 Jul 10 - 09:19 PM

I see we have now moved from labelling ANY critic of the Israeli government policy as anti semitic or a self-hating Jew to a collective one of 'haters'

I was a staunch and vocal critic of Bush's administration and Blair's decision to take the UK into Iraq so I suppose that makes me a 'hater' too or does it only apply to criticising Israeli policies?

I have argued on this forum against the cultural practice of female genital mutilation and the imposition of the burka sometimes with 'disappointing' support from other members so please don't question my (often unpopular) stance on 'women's rights'

My own personal belief is that there is no excuse for the killing of women OR men in the name of ANY 'religion', 'culture' or 'tradition' - maybe I just don't 'hate' enough!


Stoning is largely prescribed, either by law or by custom/practice in particular communities, for the crime of "adultery of married persons"

It is a unique form of punishment in that there is no single executioner.
The simplistic act of gathering the victim's peers around him creates killers out of everyone

"Although it takes many different forms, stoning has been used throughout history and in many religious and cultural traditions as a kind of community justice or capital punishment.
For instance, the practice has been documented among the ancient Greeks to punish people judged to be prostitutes, adulterers or murderers.
It is also documented in the Jewish Tradition via the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, and the Talmud, or Jewish Oral Law.
In the Old Testament of the Bible, stoning is prescribed a method of execution for crimes such as murder, blasphemy or apostasy.

Although there is no mention of stoning in the Quran, the practice has since grown to be associated with Islam and Muslim culture

Stoning is a highly debated topic within the Muslim religious community, and reputable Iranian clerics, such as Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi, Ayatollah Yousef Saneii and Ayatollah Seyyed Mohamamd Mousavi Bojnourdi, have spoken out against it.

Nobel Peace Prize Winner Shirin Ebadi, too, has spoken out against the practice, explaining that stoning should not be accepted as Islamic Law and only serves to humiliate and defame Islam.

Others have led lively theological debates to convey that the practice is not Islamic.

Many Muslim nations such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Tunisia, Algeria and others have banned death by stoning. Despite calls for abolition from around the globe, stoning still occurs in several countries, either under law or by the community."

From The Global Campaign to stop killing and stoning women

Stoning is one example, albeit a brutal one, of how culture and religion are being misused to control and perpetuate violence against women.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: bobad
Date: 24 Jul 10 - 07:22 PM

I see the haters are reaching to dig up more Israeli atrocities upon which to heap their scorn. Perhaps you can spare some of your vitriol for the issue of women's rights in the Muslim countries. I can just imagine the posts here if the Jews were stoning their women to death for adultery.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Emma B
Date: 24 Jul 10 - 06:32 PM

'Remember ALL armed forces use WP smoke.
WP smoke is not a chemical weapon.'

Can we please bury your specious claims along with the civilian victims of these phosphorus attacks?

Maybe the smoke produced itself on an open battlefield is not harmful but the many pieces of burning, falling phosphorus that cannot be extinguished by normal fire extinguishers cause particularly severe and often fatal burns

Please read my post of 22 Jul 10 - 05:06 AM about this form of munition

'Phosphorus burns carry a greater risk of mortality than other forms of burns due to the absorption of phosphorus into the body through the burned area, resulting in liver, heart and kidney damage, and in some cases multiple organ failure.
These weapons are particularly dangerous to exposed people because white phosphorus continues to burn unless deprived of oxygen or until it is completely consumed.' - Wiki

In densely populated residential areas and school playgrounds people are exposed!

To refer again to my post of 22 Jul 10 - 10:20 AM

US intelligence assessment had characterised WP after the first Gulf War as a "chemical weapon".

"In late February 1991, an (American) intelligence source reported, during the Iraqi crackdown on the Kurdish uprising that followed the coalition victory against Iraq, "Iraqi forces loyal to President Saddam may have possibly used white phosphorous chemical weapons against Kurdish rebels and the populace in Erbil and Dohuk.
The WP chemical was delivered by artillery rounds and helicopter gunships."

Rain of Fire

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 24 Jul 10 - 05:45 PM

""but it has nothing to do with "New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid."""

Which would also apply to most of your recent posts. People who live in glass houses...........

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 24 Jul 10 - 05:45 PM

You forgot ethnic cleansing, genocide and baby eating Jim.
How you hate.
Remember ALL armed forces use WP smoke.
WP smoke is not a chemical weapon.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Jul 10 - 02:54 PM

"It is unlikely to stand,"
Tell the feller serving time.
"Do you plan to continue every time you find something you think shows Israel in a bad light? "
Bombing of civilians, use of chemical weapons, destruction of homes schools and hospitals, racist laws, piracy amd murder, land usurpation - all part of the same picture Keithie - do you plan to defend every act of ethnic cleansing, war crime, racist law that the Israelis come up with?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Emma B
Date: 24 Jul 10 - 02:35 PM

NGO Monitor (of which Steinberg is the president) has criticized several major international human rights organizations, apart from Human Rights Watch including such as Christian Aid, Amnesty International, Oxfam, the Center for Constitutional Rights and Médecins Sans Frontières (also known as Doctors Without Borders)of anti Israeli bias

In an 2005 article "Monitoring the Monitor", Jewish writer and critic of NGO Monitor Leonard Fein writes that NGO Monitor is "an organization that believes that the best way to defend Israel is to condemn anyone who criticizes it…

Fein, a former Professor of Politics and Klutznick Professor of Contemporary Jewish Studies at Brandeis University, also takes issue with NGO Monitor's statement that Human Rights Watch places "extreme emphasis on critical assessments of Israel" and has issued more reports about HRW than on any other of the 75 NGOs it concerns itself with.

In his article, Leonard Fein writes that HRW has devoted more attention to five other nations in the region — Iraq, Sudan, Egypt, Turkey and Iran — than they have to Israel; but that, despite extensive correspondence, Mr Steinberg has failed to correct the "misleading" statement about HRW on the NGO Watch website


In an opinion column he writes for the The Jerusalem Post, Larry Derfner asserted that
"NGO Monitor doesn't have a word of criticism for Israel, nor a word of acknowledgment, even grudging, for any detail in any human rights report that shows Israel to be less than utterly blameless.
In fact, on the subject of Israel's human rights record, NGO Monitor doesn't have a word of disagreement with the Prime Minister's Office.

"Rattling the Cage: The smearing of human rights organizations"


NGO Monitor has been characterized as a "right-wing Israeli NGO" by Inter Press Service.
Didi Remez, a spokesperson for the Peace Now group, said NGO Monitor "is not an objective watchdog:
IT IS A PARTISAN OPERATION THAT SUPPRESSES ITS PERCEIVED IDEOLOGICAL ADVERSARIES THROUGH THE SOPHISTICATED USE OF MCCARTHYITE TECHNIQUES – BLACKLISTING, GUILT BY ASSOCIATION AND SELECTIVE FILTERING OF FACTS."

Mideast: Israel Declares War on Peace NGOs IPS, Dec. 24, 2009

While it is, of course, legitimate to post copy and paste pieces from NGO Monitor sources on the forum, I believe it is important to look at what this privately funded, free of public funding regulations organization (unlike the other organizations it targets) seeks to achieve by its press releases.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 24 Jul 10 - 02:13 PM

"'rape by deception'. He was found guilty and sentenced to eighteen months imprisonment."

How can sex between consenting adults ever be considered "rape". This kind of reading of the law is a problem for women who treat genuine sexual assault seriously! This kind of stuff offends me deeply. If she consented she consented. If she learned afterwards that he was a cock, or a Rabbi, or a Gay man seeing if he liked it with women, is neither here nor there. The act was consensual. The lie was secondary. She was capable of consent, he didn't force her. Full stop.

Though this topic doesn't really belong here - bar it representing possible legal prejudice against Muslims in Israel - but it might be worthy of another thread which addresses other broader issues that it may relate to.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 24 Jul 10 - 01:56 PM

Thanks Emma.
What is the position on mixed marriage in other Middle East countries?
Jews are not allowed to live in Jordan, so there could be no marriage with them.

Is this thread to become a general Israel bashing thread?
Jim, you have reopened it after it lapsed twice now.
Do you plan to continue every time you find something you think shows Israel in a bad light?

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Emma B
Date: 24 Jul 10 - 01:38 PM

Off topic but an interesting legal question

Even some of the Israeli press are none too happy about this ruling

"In the framework of a plea bargain agreement, Kashour was convicted of a rape offense as well as a charge of performing an indecent act. In addition to the prison term, he was also slapped with a 30-month conditional sentence and a NIS 10,000 (roughly $2,800) fine to be paid as compensation to the complainant.

Notably, the judges did argue that this was not a "classic case of rape," as the sexual relations were consensual.
So what was this act all about then?
According to the judges, the sexual act was elicited via fraudulent means and reliance on false information

This raises just one question: What would the court decide had a Jewish, married man falsely presented himself to a woman in order to get her into bed? For example, what if someone like that told a woman that he is a wealthy single man, while he was in fact poor and married? Would he too be convicted of rape?"

And if he were Jewish?
Ynet report today

Marriage between a Jew and non-Jew is not legally permitted in Israel any Jewish person who wants to marry a gentile must travel to another nation to marry

However the marriage laws can go a little further still...

"Irina Plotnikov cannot marry the man she loves, Shmuel Cohen, even though she is Jewish according to halakha (Jewish religious law). A rabbinic court in Jerusalem ruled recently that even though Plotnikov is Jewish, she is not eligible to marry a Cohen since her father is not Jewish. According to Jewish tradition, people with the surname Cohen are descendants of the priests that served in the Temple in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago.....

Since civil marriage and non-Orthodox religious marriage in Israel are not legally recognized, the sole option remaining to the couple is to wed overseas"

Haaretz 18.02.05

In March this year the Jerusalem Post reported that

"A court petition filed last week by the Jerusalem Institute of Justice on behalf of a mixed-religion couple could have far-reaching consequences for Israel's stringent marriage laws

Filed in the Jerusalem Administrative Court on behalf of a woman identified only as Miss Jackson, an Israeli-born former member of the Black Hebrews community in Dimona, and her partner, Michael Johnson, a Nigerian Christian, the petition identifies a gap in the law where the two cannot be married due to their differing religious identities and cannot live together in a recognized common law marriage because she is a permanent resident and not a citizen. Johnson, who arrived here in 2007 after meeting Jackson in Ghana the same year, has no official recognized status in Israel.

"There is a gap in the marriage law in Israel because there is no recognition of civil marriages," said attorney Michael Decker, representing the Jerusalem Institute of Justice. "People here cannot get married to someone of a different religion, and yet someone who is a permanent resident has no option to live in a common law marriage."

"It is totally unreasonable. They either have to allow civil marriages or allow people, even if they only have the status of a permanent resident, to live together under common law marriage."

Jackson and Johnson were married last year in a symbolic ceremony at their African church in Tel Aviv, but because the church's denomination is not officially recognized by the state, neither is the marriage. When the two applied for common law marriage status at the Interior Ministry, Johnson was threatened with deportation."

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Greg F.
Date: 24 Jul 10 - 01:33 PM

It's about HRW's institutional culture... anti-Israel biases are literally institutionalized in that organization.

And your supporting documentation for this allegation is?

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 24 Jul 10 - 01:25 PM

An unusual court decision that would make a rapist out of every person who lies his way into someone's bed.
It is unlikely to stand, and anyway such unusual legal decisions tell us nothing about the regime in which the court happens to be placed.
It might make liars feel uncomfortable, but it has nothing to do with "New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid."

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Jul 10 - 12:54 PM

An interesting peep into the current philosophy of the Israeli regime from yesterday's paper.
Sabbar Kashur, an Arab resident living in East Jerusalem met an Israeli woman and told her he was a Jewish bachelor; the two went off and had sex in a nearby deserted building.
When she found out he wasn't Jewish, she accused him of rape – not that the sex had not been consensual, but that she hadn't known that he was an Arab.
He was arrested and charged with rape, but on a plea bargain, the sentence was reduced to 'rape by deception'. He was found guilty and sentenced to eighteen months imprisonment.
Question:
What is the difference between the Nazi racial purity laws, the U.S. Anti-miscegenation Laws and the laws of present-day Israel?
Answer:
Very little, it would appear.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 23 Jul 10 - 08:10 AM

""He's a guy who has a lot of inchoate sensibilities when it comes to Jews and the Jewish State, and there's obviously something going on that's consistently tilting his reports in an anti-Israel direction. If he was just incompetent then 50% of his mistakes would favor Israel.""

You mean that any observer who is not in favour of fifty percent of Israel's human rights violations, is by definition biased and anti Israel?

Your post, in the light of the evidence against Steinberg's allegations, and the fact that he was forced to retract, has to be arguably the most inane comment so far on this subject.

Don T.

---

From Joe, in the first post to this thread:

No Guest Posts Will Be Allowed On This Thread.

If you'd like to post, be sure you are logged in as a member.
Thank you.
-Joe Offer, Forum Moderator-

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 22 Jul 10 - 08:20 PM

"there would be no dialogue with the "terrorist" movement until it gave up violence and recognised Israel"

The typical pure intellectual fanatic position. Held identically by their Opposition who also wish to have an equivalent state.

Pragmatists realise this blind pigheaded madness ends only in death and destruction on both sides.

But the narrow minded fanatics on both sides use the resultant carnage against them to incite more hatred for their opponents and increase the carnage they inflict on their opponents,

Ireland would still be war torn if both sides had not moved away from this sort of rigid position of stupidity.