BS: Israel Moves in.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 22 Feb 09 - 06:46 PM

I don't often find myself wanting to amplify the words of Fareed Zakaria, but in this case, I'll make an exception...

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/fareed_zakaria/2009/02/israels_existential_dilemma.html

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 23 Feb 09 - 06:14 PM

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/23/military-aid-israel-amnesty

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Peace
Date: 23 Feb 09 - 06:23 PM

'The human rights group said that those arming both sides in the conflict "will have been well aware of a pattern of repeated misuse of weapons by both parties and must therefore take responsibility for the violations perpetrated".'

Even if the US does withdraw weapons aid, will Iran?

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 23 Feb 09 - 06:32 PM

The report said that Hamas is getting its weapons (some of which are Iranian made, and also Russian and Chinese made) on the black market, not from Iran.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: GUEST,Peace
Date: 23 Feb 09 - 07:08 PM

I read that also. Thing is, Israel ends up with no way to defend itself against people who want to exterminate the Jews in that country. So I don't think Israel will go for it--nor will the US admin.

I DO know I wish the killing on both sides would stop.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 23 Feb 09 - 10:20 PM

Israel currently has more than enough weapons with which to defend itself. It doesn't need any more from the US taxpayers. Israel is also perfectly capable of producing its own weapons without handouts from the US taxpayers.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Peace
Date: 24 Feb 09 - 12:18 AM

OK. Have a nice day.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Sawzaw
Date: 02 Mar 09 - 12:21 AM

"I called the consequences in Iraq some 7 years ago."

Bobert 20 Jul 07

    Anyone else notice that every day the Bushites push back the date that ***The Surge*** will work???

    Seems like it's been moved back twice this week from Septmeber to next summer??? At that rate, give the Bushites another week an' it will be sometime in the next century...

    Face it folks... The surge ain't gonna work... This is a civil war we are now in the middle of... We ain't gonna win this one... Might of fact, this is alike rootin' for the home team late in the 4th quarter and down by 4 touchdowns... Yeah, I think we can all relate... Yeah, we hope that we just get one more touchdown but understand that the game is lost...

    Iraq is lost...

    The folks sayin', "Oh geeze, we just can't afford to loose" won't change this very simple truth...

    Iraq is lost...

    Better just dig in, bite the bullet and make the most of it...

    So I would think the question at hand isn't about whether or not the war can be won but what to do now...

    That involves a major paradyme switch...

    There are things that a militarially defeated US can do... Lot's of them... BUt they can't do them until they give up this false hope that **the surge*** will bring victory, or stability... That won't happen...

    Bobert

Obammer on the surge: "It's succeeded beyond our wildest dreams."

Andrea Mitchell: "clearly, the surge has worked, and not only in terms of security. There is some level of political reconciliation. The Sunnis rejoined the government"

Peter Mansoor - How The Surge Worked - Washingtonpost.com
The arrival of additional U.S. forces signaled renewed resolve. Sunni tribal leaders, having glimpsed the dismal future in store for their people under a regime controlled by al-Qaeda in Iraq and fearful of abandonment, were ready to throw in their lot with the coalition. The surge did not create the first of the tribal "awakenings," but it was the catalyst for their expansion and eventual success. The tribal revolt took off after the arrival of reinforcements and as U.S. and Iraqi units fought to make the Iraqi people secure.

New York Times: The surge, clearly, has worked.

Bartle Bull: How we’ve won the war in Iraq - Times Online

Michael Yon: "we’ve won the war in Iraq and all that remains is clean-up"

Bobert enjoys living in the past, denying the present and boasting about his non existent facts.

I am still waiting for him to get back to me about that M16 that he swears Rumsfeld gave to Saddam, the bad gas that the US sold him to gas the Kurds with, the booty he got from the US for doing so and the source of these "facts" but he hightailed it out of that thread real quick like, rather than answer. A real drive-by stink bomb toss.

"Heck, the US even provided the bad gas that was used against the Kurds... Even rewarded Saddam ****afterwards**** with all kinds of booty, including a gold plated M-16 rifle..."

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: robomatic
Date: 13 Mar 09 - 11:55 AM

A hopeful development, if it is not mere window dressing:

"Hamas, which runs Gaza, said it had nothing to do with the attacks and would act against those responsible."

I heard it on the BBC

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 13 Mar 09 - 01:33 PM

I hope Robomatic is right on this, but I'm not so sure....

Last update - 16:02 12/03/2009                           
Hamas condemns Gaza rocket strikes on Israel
By The Associated Press

"Gaza's Hamas rulers issued rare criticism Thursday of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel from the strip, saying now is the wrong time for such attacks."

The implication of that statement is there is a right time to attack Israel...when Hamas is ready to do so.

I note that today Israel has agreed to exchange 450 Palesinian prisoners for one kidnapped IDF soldier. Another victory for Hamas!

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: robomatic
Date: 13 Mar 09 - 02:29 PM

JotSC

Maybe one IDF soldier is the equivalent of 500? Maybe Israel's getting a deal!

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Teribus
Date: 13 Mar 09 - 02:34 PM

All depends whether he is alive

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: beardedbruce
Date: 18 Mar 09 - 08:40 AM

Hamas not budging in Israel, Fatah talks
         
Karin Laub, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 1 min ago

Reuters KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip – An opening of Gaza's blockaded borders, access to billions of dollars in foreign aid, a popularity boost — Hamas would have much to gain by working out a prisoner swap with Israel and a power-sharing arrangement with its West Bank rivals.

Instead, Gaza's Islamic militant rulers have been clinging to their demands and displaying a stubbornness that would seem irrational considering the enormous stakes.

But Hamas apparently believes that time is on its side and that its adversaries — Israel, moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the West — will eventually fold, analysts say.

"They are not acting like people who are negotiating from a position of weakness," said Robert Blecher, an analyst with the International Crisis Group think tank.

Egypt has been mediating parallel sets of talks involving Hamas — with Israel on exchanging a captured Israeli soldier, Gilad Schalit, for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, and with Abbas' Fatah movement on a transitional government that would pave the way for new elections.

Hamas wants Israel to release 450 prisoners with lengthy terms for Schalit, and resists demands by Abbas that the unity government commit to the Palestine Liberation Organization program, including its recognition of Israel.

In both cases, Hamas is refusing to make concessions that could lead to a lifting of the Gaza closure, imposed by Israel and Egypt after Hamas' violent takeover there in 2007.

"Hamas is sticking to its demands," spokesman Ayman Taha said after the failure of the prisoner talks Tuesday, even adding a threat that Hamas would try to capture more Israeli soldiers. On Wednesday, Hamas' military wing said it might harden demands in future talks.

Such swagger comes, in part, from surviving the border blockade and Israel's recent military offensive in Gaza, which served to emphasize how hard it would be to bring Hamas down.

Ending Gaza's isolation has become more urgent since the war — reconstruction requires open borders and huge sums in foreign aid, already promised by donor countries. But Hamas seems in no hurry.

In the final stage of negotiations over prisoners this weekend, outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered to free 320 prisoners of the 450 Hamas was demanding.

Compromise on the prisoners might be seen in Gaza as inadequate compensation for the hardship that befell the territory after Hamas-allied militants captured Schalit in a cross-border raid in 2006. Israel closed Gaza's borders, bombed Gaza's only power station and unleashed military strikes that killed hundreds.

Hamas is also under pressure from the families of prisoners not to leave any lifers behind.

"Getting the prisoners out is more important than open borders," 70-year-old Khadije Salameh said Tuesday, flanked in her living room in the town of Khan Younis by the gold-framed posters of her imprisoned sons Hassan and Akram.

Hassan Salameh is among the 11 prisoners Israel says it will never free. Arrested in 1995, he is serving 48 life terms for masterminding several suicide bombings that killed dozens of Israelis.

The release of the 11 names and Olmert's pledge not to lift the blockade without Schalit will tie the hands of his designated successor, hard-line Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu. Hamas could have a tough time getting a better deal from Netanyahu.

The deadlock complicates the international community's plans for Gaza reconstruction.

"We are not able to bring anything in for rebuilding Gaza until the case of the Israeli soldier Schalit is resolved, and that's what the Israelis are telling us," Karen Abu Zayd, who runs the major U.N. aid agency in Gaza, said Tuesday.

Donor countries are ready to give billions of dollars to fix the war damage, including repairing or rebuilding 15,000 homes, but can't do so without open borders and won't give the money to Hamas.

The purpose of the Palestinian unity talks is to form an interim government made up of both rival factions until new elections are held by January 2010.

Such an arrangement would let funds start flowing, but would force Hamas to soften its opposition to Israel. And Hamas can't afford to compromise on its principles, especially with the possibility of elections in less than a year, said Hani Basoos, a Gaza analyst now based in Europe.

Hamas is committed to Israel's destruction, in contrast to Fatah, which seeks a Palestinian state alongside Israel. An implicit recognition of Israel would also undercut Hamas' main argument in any election campaign that Fatah's 16 years of peace talks with Israel have been a waste of time.

Hamas has shown that its stubbornness is not a negotiating tactic, Basoos said.

"If they wanted to compromise, they would have done it last year or the year before," he said. "It is a waiting game."

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Barry Finn
Date: 18 Mar 09 - 01:03 PM

"They are not acting like people who are negotiating from a position of weakness,"

That's statement that says exactlly how Israel would want the situation to be!

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 19 Mar 09 - 06:53 AM

Terrorists raising funds for the assassination of leaders

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: beardedbruce
Date: 19 Mar 09 - 11:20 AM

Palestinian reconciliation talks break up, no deal
         

Salah Nasrawi, Associated Press Writer – 46 mins ago

AFP CAIRO – Egyptian-mediated talks between the rival Palestinian groups Hamas and Fatah broke up Thursday, without a deal on a national unity government, participants said.

The break-up of the talks came just two days after negotiations in Cairo between Hamas and Israel over a prisoner swap ran aground.

The deadlock in both negotiating tracks raises questions about plans by the international community to rebuild parts of Gaza, devastated in Israel's recent military offensive against Hamas. Gaza's borders have been virtually sealed since Hamas seized the territory by force in June 2007, and international aid groups have said reconstruction of the war damage is impossible without open borders.

However, reconstruction plans hinged on the success of parallel negotiations — on a Palestinian unity deal and on the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit, held in Gaza, for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

Without progress on either front, Gaza's borders will likely remain closed.

In the unity talks, Hamas and its moderate Fatah rivals were trying to agree on the terms of a joint coalition for an interim unity government that would set the stage for elections by January.

The key sticking point was the program of the new government. Another unresolved issue is to what extent Hamas would abide by past accords with Israel.

Fatah negotiators said the new government must commit to the program of the PLO, which recognized Israel in 1993. Hamas refuses to recognize Israel, and only wants the new government to "respect" the PLO commitments. Earlier this week, Egyptian envoys sounded out U.S. and European diplomats about whether they would be willing to accept something less than a commitment to the PLO agreements.

After the break-up Thursday, Hamas official Fawzi Barhoum reiterated that his group will not agree to "commit" to the accords or recognize Israel.

Samir Ghosheh, a negotiator for a tiny PLO faction, said Egyptian mediators told the Palestinian representatives on Thursday to pack their bags. The Egyptian hosts did not set a date for a new round, he said. Negotiations had begun last week.

"Personally, I don't think there will be a resumption of talks unless there are clear indications that the problems will be solved," said Ghosheh.

However, Fatah's Azzam al-Ahmed said the talks will continue after an Arab summit at the end of March.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 19 Mar 09 - 12:56 PM

An interesting link about Israeli soldiers giving some pretty worrying testimony about their own officers.


Click here


Note, this is testimony coming from Israeli jews, being reported on the BBC.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Teribus
Date: 19 Mar 09 - 04:51 PM

If one tenth of that is true then the Israeli Armed Forces and Government have to prosecute the guilty to the full extent of the law in as clear and transparent a manner as possible. If permissable under Israeli Military Codes of Justice the worst offenders should be executed by firing squad, like Admiral Byng - in order to encourage the others never to act in such a manner ever again.

They must also address the vital importance of teaching their conscript soldiers what are, and what are not, lawful commands. They must drill that same instruction into the very souls of their officer cadets in order that such things never occur again. It is quite simple:

"Thou shalt not do murder"

As for the roles in this played by the Rabbi's as reported, clear instructions must be given to Commanding Officers and passed to the troops of the Israeli Defence Force under their command if it ever occurs again - Shoot the Rabbi on the spot.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 Mar 09 - 08:00 AM

Report from Financial Times, via the Irish Times.
Prosecuting ranking soldiers for their behaviour in war without holding the officers or the Government to account is equivilent to blaming the camp guards for the Holocaust - whatever happened to 'The Buck Stops Here'?
Jim Carroll

Israeli soldiers admit Gaza abuses
Criminal inquiry ordered in wake of soldiers' testimony
TOBIAS BUCK in Jerusalem
ISRAELI SOLDIERS have provided the most damning indictment yet of the army's conduct during the recent Gaza war, claiming they committed serious abuses against civilians, including the shooting of unarmed women and children.
One incident, in which a Gaza woman was killed by Israeli sharpshooters, was described as "coldblooded murder" by a soldier who served in the conflict. In response to a string of testimonies compiled by an army training school, published in the media yesterday, Israel's military advocate general has ordered a criminal investigation.
The revelations are likely to further undermine Israel's image, already dented by the war in January. Palestinian and international human rights groups, have long claimed that Israeli forces operating in the Gaza Strip committed grave violations against the civilian population. More than 1, 400 Palestinians were killed during Israel's three-week assault on the Hamas-controlled strip.
Claims of war crimes, as well as the mounting international effort to prosecute Israeli officials and soldiers for alleged violations, have met angry denials from the government and army.
Speaking on the night Israel ended its offensive, prime minister Ehud Olmert applauded the army for its "great sensitivity in exercising its force", adding that few countries would have behaved with such restraint.
That claim has been undermined by the testimony of Israel's soldiers. In a 35-page eyewitness report compiled by the head of a military preparation programme, soldiers reported cases in which troops shot civilians and vandalised homes. Several said there was a general disregard for the safety of civilians.
"I felt there was a lot of thirst for blood, " one soldier is quoted as saying. "This is the beauty of Gaza. You see a person walking down a street or path; he does not have to be with a weapon. You just have to see him with something, and you shoot him. " Another soldier said: "The atmosphere in general - how should I say this? - the life of the Palestinians is much less important than the life of our soldiers. " One officer described the behaviour of soldiers occupying a Palestinian house, highlighting abuses including "writing sentences on the walls like 'Death to the Arabs', taking family pictures and spitting on them, burning everything that reminds us of the family.
"Talking about the IDF being a 'moral army' - that's not the case in the field. " - [Financial Times)

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 20 Mar 09 - 08:23 AM

From CNN:

Israeli military to probe Gaza campaign allegations

Story Highlights
Claims made by Israeli graduates of a pre-military course at an Israeli college

First reported in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz on Thursday

Case refers to Israel's recent military campaign in Gaza

One soldier claims an elderly woman was shot on orders of a commander

   
JERUSALEM (CNN) -- The Israeli military plans to investigate claims by Israeli soldiers that Palestinian civilians were killed and Palestinian property intentionally destroyed during Israel's recent 22-day offensive in the Gaza Strip.

Many Palestinian civilians were killed after being caught up in the 22-day conflict in Gaza.

The claims were made by Israeli soldiers who were graduates of a pre-military course at an Israeli college. They were first reported in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz on Thursday.

At a gathering at the college following the Gaza operation, the newspaper reported, soldiers gave testimony that ran counter to persistent claims by the military that "Israeli troops observed a high level of moral behavior during the operation."

The testimony was taken down by the head of the college's pre-military program, Danny Zamir. He told Haaretz that he did not know what the soldiers were going to say and that what they heard "shocked us."

According to Haaretz, Zamir passed on the testimony to the Israel Defense Forces chief of staff, saying he "feared a serious moral failure in the IDF."

Contacted by CNN, Zamir said he would not comment to the foreign press on the matter and that the full testimony would be appearing in Haaretz newspaper. Portions of the testimony appeared in the Thursday edition of Haaretz and more is expected in coming days.

In one account, a squad leader from a brigade serving in Gaza described an incident in which he said an elderly Palestinian woman was shot and killed at the orders of a company commander.

According to the testimony, the squad leader protested the rules of engagement, which he said allowed soldiers to fire on Palestinian homes without giving residents a warning. After the rules were changed, his soldiers complained that "we should kill everyone there [in the center of Gaza]. Everyone there is a terrorist."

According to Haaretz, the squad leader went on to testify that, "You do not get the impression from the officers that there is any logic to it, but they won't say anything. To write 'death to the Arabs' on the walls, to take family pictures and spit on them, just because you can. I think this is the main thing: To understand how much the IDF has fallen in the realm of ethics, really. It's what I'll remember the most."

In a statement released Thursday, the Israeli military spokesman's office said Gen. Avichai Mendelblit, the Israeli military's advocate general, had ordered an immediate investigation be opened that will "examine" what was said by the soldiers.

Israeli Defense minister Ehud Barak told Army Radio Thursday that "Israel has the most moral army in the world" and that the testimonies will be checked carefully.

In addition, a coalition of nine Israeli human rights groups called on Israeli Attorney General Menachem Mazuz to reconsider his refusal to establish an independent investigative body to examine the military's actions during the Gaza campaign, known as "Operation Cast Lead."

The groups -- The Association for Civil Rights in Israel, Bimkom, B'tselem, Gisha, Hamoked, The Public Committee Against Torture, Yesh Din, Physicians for Human Rights, Rabbis for Human Rights, Adalah, and Itach - Women Lawyers for Social Justice -- said accounts by Palestinians raise the possibility that acts by the military were worse than previously suspected.


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Every case should be looked at, and if illegal acts were commited the responsible parties should be held accountable.







Now, waiting on the investigation of Hamas war crimes.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 20 Mar 09 - 08:43 AM

Rights group names 1,417 Gaza war dead

AP - Thursday, March 19, 2009 3:16:08 PM
By KARIN LAUB

The final tally of Palestinians killed in Israel's recent war on Gaza's Hamas rulers is 1,417, including 926 civilians, according to a Palestinian human rights groups that published the names, ages and other information about the dead on its Web site Thursday.

Israel disputed the findings by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), saying it believes the majority of the dead were combatants or legitimate targets, but offered no evidence. An Israeli think tank said its analysis of the PCHR's data suggests the number of civilians is lower than the rights group claims.

Israel waged a three-week war in Gaza, ending with a unilateral cease-fire Jan. 18, in an attempt to weaken the Islamic militant Hamas and halt persistent rocket fire from Gaza on Israeli border towns.

After a week of air strikes, Israeli tanks and ground forces entered the territory, flattening several neighborhoods and industrial areas near the border. Some 15,000 houses and hundreds of businesses were destroyed or damaged, according to independent assessments.

Human rights groups have accused Israel of using excessive force, noting that heavy civilian casualties were inevitable in densely populated Gaza. Israel said Hamas militants intentionally operated from residential areas in order to use civilians as human shields.

The PCHR said in a statement that the large number of civilians among the dead is proof that Israeli troops "used excessive and random force through the entire period of aggression, violating the principle of distinction (between combatants and civilians)."

Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev rejected the allegation. "Israel, during the military campaign, made every possible effort to target enemy combatants only," he said.

The PCHR said its list, including determining the number of civilians, is based on thorough research. It said among the dead were 926 civilians, including 313 minors under the age of 18 and 116 women. The group counted 236 combatants and 255 members of the Hamas security forces.

Of the security forces, 240 were killed on Dec. 27, the first day of the war, when Israeli aircraft unleashed massive strikes on Hamas security compounds, the report said.

During the war, the group's field workers were deployed at seven Gaza hospitals, recording names and other information about the dead as the bodies were brought in, said the group's deputy director, Jabr Wishah. After the war, researchers checked all those initially listed as civilians, interviewing their family members and neighbors and collecting ID numbers, medical records and death certificates, he said.

Researcher Mohammed Ghannam said he would sometimes change a classification after a follow-up visit.

For example, the Dughmush family in Gaza City insisted Hamdan Dughmush, 19, was watching clashes between Hamas gunmen and Israeli soldiers when he was killed near his home.

However, neighbors told Ghannam that Dughmush was planting a roadside bomb, and the researcher said he moved the young man from the "civilian" to the "combatant" column.

In another case, a 16-year-old initially listed as a civilian because of his age was later labeled a combatant because of circumstantial evidence, Ghannam said.

In a reverse example, one member of the Hamas military wing was listed as a civilian because he was killed at home, along with 21 other members of the family, when an Israeli airstrike flattened the building on Jan. 6, the researcher said.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said after the war that more than 700 Hamas members were among the dead and Israel had their names. However, Israel has not released its own list of Palestinians killed, and hasn't said when it would do so. It remains unclear how the military, without access to Gaza, would compile a thorough list.

Still, Regev said that "the overwhelming majority of casualties were Hamas operatives and others who were, under international law, legitimate targets."

Also Thursday, the International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism, an Israeli think tank, presented its own analysis of the PCHR data, based on preliminary lists, not the final one published Thursday.

Researchers Yael Shahar and Don Radlauer said they did not dispute the final tally, since they have no access to Gaza, but they believe the number of dead combatants is higher.

They said they found 314 confirmed combatants -- 78 more than PCHR listed. Their figure is based on checking the PCHR's list against those claimed as dead fighters on Web sites of militant groups.

The researchers also classified 518 of the dead as unknown, arguing that not enough information is available to put them in either category. They noted that about 80 percent in the group of unknowns were men, including many in their 20s.

This gender and age distribution refutes allegations that Israeli forces targeted Palestinians randomly, the researchers said. "We are being accused of not aiming, of indiscriminate attacks, and the demographics clearly contradict that," said Radlauer.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Mar 09 - 03:26 PM

"the testimonies will be checked carefully"

I hope that isn't a coded way of indicating that the whistleblowers are going to be leaned on.

Pretty clearly the Israeli Government and the IDF should be the last people to be in charge of any investigations into these allegations.

But pretty evidently they are going to be in charge - as always happens in this kind of situation, no matter which country is involved. Which means that even if the allegations were in fact exaggerated or false no one will believe any finding to that effect.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Mar 09 - 05:00 PM

"Dead Palestinian babies and bombed mosques - IDF fashion 2009"

A nightmarish story - for example "A sharpshooter's T-shirt from the Givati Brigade's Shaked battalion shows a pregnant Palestinian woman with a bull's-eye superimposed on her belly, with the slogan, in English, '1 shot, 2 kills.'

The only good thing about it is that the story was published by the Israeli paper Haaretz. "For the sake of even just ten good people, I will not destroy the city..."

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Mar 09 - 03:37 AM

Reported war crimes and abuses by Israelis have been investigated in the past - by Israel - they were overwhelmingly judged to be unfounded.
Now there's a surprise!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 21 Mar 09 - 05:58 AM

jim,

And the reported war crimes by Hamas have been investigated... when???

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Mar 09 - 08:56 AM

Meaning one autricity justifies another Bruce?
There is a call out to investigate ALL war crimes and abuses in Palestine by an independant body - can't fault that - can you?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: GUEST,Diggory Venn
Date: 21 Mar 09 - 11:49 AM

'There is a call out to investigate ALL war crimes and abuses in Palestine by an independant body'

That can only be good. Independent bodies investigated such claims of 'war crimes' and autrocities (sic) before; they were judged by these to be unfounded (see Jenin, and others).

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Mar 09 - 05:51 PM

"they were judged by these to be unfounded (see Jenin, and others).

That is somewhat of a distortion of the findings of the various independent inquiries held into what happened at Jenin - See here - with links to various other inquiries, including the United Nations report, which had some difficulties in getting access to information.

The UN Secretary General in the introduction to the report: "The report was written without a visit to Jenin or the other Palestinian cities in question and it therefore relies completely on available resources and information...

...The Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs wrote to the Permanent Representative of Israel and the Permanent Observer of Palestine to the United Nations requesting them to submit information but only the latter did so."

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: beardedbruce
Date: 22 Mar 09 - 12:49 AM

"Meaning one autricity justifies another Bruce?"

NO.

But it seems that Israel at least investigates, while Hamas rewards.


"There is a call out to investigate ALL war crimes and abuses in Palestine by an independant body - can't fault that - can you?"

No, that would be a good thing.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Barry Finn
Date: 22 Mar 09 - 01:43 AM

Israel seems to only investigate after they've been caught with their dants down & are embrassed by exposure. They should allow the UN investagator to go in & do their own independant investagation & I got just the man for the job, Blix!

Or else we invade

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Gervase
Date: 22 Mar 09 - 04:21 AM

From Haaretz. Boys will be boys, eh?

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 22 Mar 09 - 06:47 AM

"No, that would be a good thing."
Then join us in condemning ALL abuses, outrages and massacres instead of hiding behind "He hit me as well sir!!!"
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Emma B
Date: 22 Mar 09 - 07:58 AM

A reminder that today is World Water Day

On the occasion of 2009 World Day for Water the ICRC call on governments to ensure safe water and decent sanitation for civilians in conflict zones. In many conflicts, disease kills more civilians than bullets

"The Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions has released a report entitled Hostage to Politics: The impact of sanctions and the blockade on the human right to water and sanitation in Gaza. The report is available at www.cohre.org.

The report shows that sanctions imposed on the Gaza administration by both Israel and western states and Israel's closure of Gaza's border crossings has left more than 250,000 people without adequate water supply and the restrictions on fuel may leave 1.5 million people without water and sewage services.

The report shows that financial sanctions imposed on the Gaza administration have caused the near collapse of basic service provision in the water and waste-water sectors.

The blockade has prevented the entry of essential materials required to operate and maintain water and sewage services as well as the entry of chemicals and filters necessary for water purification, putting the people of Gaza's health at risk.

The sanctions imposed on the Gaza administration by both Israel and western states and Israel's closure of Gaza's border crossings have caused a humanitarian crisis which includes the widespread denial of economic, social and cultural rights."

EMWIS* report 2008

*EMWIS is an initiative of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership. It provides a strategic tool for exchanging information and knowledge in the water sector between and within the Euro Mediterranean partnership countries
All the countries involved in the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership are concerned:
The 27 EU member states
The 10 Mediterranean Partner Countries (Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 22 Mar 09 - 09:25 AM

Comment by Israeli sniper re that T-Shirt:-


""I mean it's not like someone is gonna go and shoot a pregnant woman.""


Yeah, RIGHT!!

Gives a whole new slant on the high moral tone of the IDF, doesn't it, and not out of some Hamas propaganda publication, but straight from the horse's arse.


And incidentally BB, while we're watching the Israelis wriggle, with regard to your earlier comment about Hamas war crimes, tell me how many Israeli civilians were slaughtered during that campaign?


Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Mar 09 - 02:31 PM

"Israel investigates" the same way the British government investigated after Bloody Sunday... Or the Americans when they shot down an Iranian airliner and killed hundreds.

I'm sure Hamas are quite as capable of doing a similar "investigation" into the stuff their lads have been doing, and producing a similar whitewash.

You can't sit in the judge's seat when you are standing in the dock.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 08:38 AM

"You can't sit in the judge's seat when you are standing in the dock."

A fairly convincing confirmation of this statement from the Irish Times letter column this morning
Jim Carroll

Israeli killings of civilians
Madam, - Nadav Cohen of the Israeli Embassy (March 14th) is being disingenuous or economical with the truth when he writes that the bombing of a UN compound in Qana in 1996 was a "tragic accidental killing" and that Hizbullah was using the civilians as human shields.
On the day of the bombing, April 18th, there were several hundred civilians - mostly women, children and old people from surrounding towns and villages -taking refuge in the compound, which was a long-established headquarters for the UN's observer force Unifil.
The bombing of the compound by Israeli artillery resulted in the deaths of 106 civilians and serious injuries to scores more, as well as four Fijian peacekeepers. Israel immediately claimed the attack was "accidental" and "an unfortunate mistake", blaming Hizbullah for using the compound as a shield, just as Mr Cohen claims.
The UN secretary general at the
time, Boutros Boutros Ghali, immediately commissioned a report carried out by Maj Gen Von Kappen. The report documented clearly, despite repeated Israeli denials, the presence of one remotely piloted vehicle (a drone) and two Israeli helicopters in the immediate area before, during and after the bombing. The report concluded: "It is unlikely that the shelling of the United Nations compound was the result of gross technical and/or procedural errors. "
Human Rights Watch concluded, in its investigation: "The decision of those who planned the attack to choose a mix of high-explosive artillery shells that included deadly anti-personnel shells designed to maximize injuries on the ground violated a key principle of international humanitarian law". And Amnesty International reported: "The IDF intentionally targeted the UN compound".
-Yours, etc,
TOMAS McBRIDE, Letterkenny, Co Donegal.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 03:57 PM


Gaza war crimes investigation - Civilians, medics and investigators talk to the Guardian about allegations of war crimes during Israel's 23-day campaign in Gaza

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 20 Apr 09 - 01:32 PM

Report: Hamas killed, maimed dozens of opponents
         

Karin Laub, Associated Press Writer – Mon Apr 20, 9:58 am ET

RAMALLAH, West Bank – Hamas directed gunmen to eliminate political opponents and suspected collaborators under the cover of Israel's military offensive in Gaza, killing 32 people and wounding dozens in such attacks since December, an international human rights group said Monday.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch urged Gaza's Hamas rulers to halt what it described as a pattern of arbitrary arrests, torture and summary executions by the Islamic militant group.

Human Rights Watch portrayed the attacks as the worst outbreak of internal violence since Hamas violently seized control of Gaza in June 2007 and expelled rivals in the more moderate Fatah movement of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who now controls only the West Bank.

Such practices are aimed, in part, at quashing dissent in Gaza and make a mockery of Hamas' claim it upholds the law, the group said.

During the war, "Hamas authorities ... took extraordinary steps to control, intimidate, punish and at times eliminate their internal political rivals as well as persons suspected of collaborating with Israel," the report said.

Eighteen Palestinians were killed by Hamas-linked gunmen during the three-week war, which ended Jan. 18, and 14 others were killed afterward, the report said. In addition, 49 Gazans were shot in the legs by masked gunmen between Dec. 28 and Jan. 31, and 73 had their arms or legs broken, the report said, citing a rights group linked to Abbas.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum dismissed the Human Rights Watch report as unbalanced. He said Hamas was willing to investigate any complaints, and denied the group is going after political opponents.

He said suspected collaborators with Israel who fled Gaza's central prison after it was destroyed in Israeli bombing raids in December were killed by relatives of people they had harmed, not by security forces.

Other international and Palestinian human rights organizations have provided similar accounts of shootings and beatings. Fatah has also said 14 of its members in Gaza were killed by Hamas during the Israeli offensive and that more than 160 were shot in the arms or legs or beaten.

Human Rights Watch said repressive measures are also on the rise in the Abbas-controlled West Bank.

Abbas' security forces have been cracking down on Hamas in the West Bank since the militants seized Gaza. Hamas detainees in West Bank prisons have complained of mistreatment, including beatings and being tied up in painful positions. In January and February, one detainee died in custody, and 31 complained of mistreatment, Human Rights Watch said.

The report about the Gaza abuses is based on interviews with witnesses and victims, as well as reports by Palestinian human rights groups, Human Rights Watch said.

It reviewed killings and shootings since Dec. 27, when Israel launched its Gaza offensive, meant to weaken Hamas and halt rocket attacks from Gaza on Israel.

Many of the assailants were members of Hamas' security forces, while others were masked men with suspected ties to Hamas or other militant groups, said Fred Abrahams, a researcher for Human Rights Watch.

"Hamas is the undisputed political and security leader of Gaza, so even if there were gunmen from other groups (involved in attacks), they are operating with the approval of Hamas," he said.

Hamas has begun investigations into four deaths, dismissing and detaining members of the security forces involved in two killings, said Bill Van Esveld, another Human Rights Watch researcher.

"What we have not seen is accountability for (the killing of) collaborators and Fatah guys getting shot in the legs," he said.

In a recent case under investigation, gunmen wearing headbands of Hamas' military wing, Izzedine al-Qassam, reportedly opened fire Thursday on three cousins loyal to Abbas' Fatah movement in the Gaza town of Jebaliya.

The three men were each hit by several bullets in the legs and remain hospitalized, the Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights said.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Barry Finn
Date: 20 Apr 09 - 02:53 PM

The "cut & paste" was to long to bother with

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 20 Apr 09 - 02:56 PM

Not Just A Slogan On A T-shirt


Some selections...

"[T]wo-thirds of the 621 children killed at checkpoints, in the street, on the way to school, in their homes, died from small arms fire, directed in over half of cases to the head, neck and chest - the sniper's wound".

- Dr Derek Summerfield, reporting on the results of a four-year field study in the occupied Palestinian Territories for the British Medical Journal. (cite)

Photo: T-shirt printed for members of an IDF elite unit who had completed sniper training, reads "The smaller they are - The harder it is!".
Source: Dead Palestinian babies and bombed mosques - IDF fashion 2009 (Ha'aretz); via Mondoweiss.

"The Smaller They Are, The Harder It Is!" [Quote]


Sixteen-year-old Asma Mughayer (back row, left, in this family photo from the Sydney Morning Herald) and her thirteen-year-old brother, Ahmed (front row, left) were shot dead while hanging out laundry on the roof of their home in Rafah, on the morning that the IDF launched a major attack ("Operation Rainbow") on the Tel al-Sultan refugee camp where they lived, on 18 May 2004.

The IDF said of their deaths: "A preliminary investigation indicates they were killed by a bomb intended to be used against soldiers. It was set outside a building by Palestinians to hit an Israeli vehicle". But the Mughayer family said that the children had not been killed by a bomb, but shot by an Israeli sniper, operating out of a neighboring building.

An Australian journalist visited the Mughayer house, and found no signs of an explosion there, though he did find bullet holes on the roof, made by bullets which seemed to have been fired from the neighboring building. He visited the neighboring building, and found that its occupants had been held prisoner by an Israeli sniper team that had operated out of their house on the morning that Asma and Ahmed were killed, and left behind MRE wrappers and ammunition boxes (labelled in Hebrew) .

Mughayer2 British journalists who examined the children's bodies at the morgue (AP Photo - Kevin Frayer) found no signs of injuries except for a single bullet hole through the head.

After the British and Australian journalists published their findings, the IDF announced it would hold an internal investigation into the death of the Mughayer siblings. But six months later, while world attention was distracted by a new, large-scale invasion of the Gaza Strip refugee camps, the IDF quietly dropped its investigation.

The following year, some of the soldiers who took part in Operation Rainbow gave their testimonies to the Breaking the Silence exhibition. They testified that they had killed innocent Palestinian civilians, under orders from their superiors to kill any Palestinian they encountered, armed or not. They were concerned, in retrospect, that they were guilty of carrying out illegal orders, and one of them knew what had happened in the specific case of Asma and Ahmed Mughayer, who the IDF assured us were blown up by a Palestinian bomb:

According to Rafi, an officer in the Shaldag, an elite unit connected to the air force, the whole mission was about revenge. "The commanders said kill as many people as possible," he said.

He and his men were ordered to shoot anyone who appeared to be touching the ground, as if they might be placing a roadside bomb, or anyone seen on a roof or a balcony, as if they might be observing Israeli forces for military reasons, regardless of whether they were armed.

Asma Moghayyer, 16, and her brother Ahmed, 13, were shot as they went to collect clothes from a rooftop washing line. The Israeli army insisted the children had been blown up by a roadside bomb. However, journalists visiting the morgue saw only single bullet wounds to the head.

The truth, said Rafi, was that they were shot by an Israeli soldier following clear orders to shoot anyone on a roof regardless of their role in the conflict.

Rafi says that his overriding impression of the operation was "chaos" and the "indiscriminate use of force". "Gaza was considered a playground for sharpshooters."

-- Israeli Soldiers Tell of Indiscriminate Killings by Army and a Culture of Impunity by Conal Urquhart; 6 Sept 2005.


Photo: T-shirt printed for members of an IDF elite unit who had completed sniper training, reads "The smaller they are - The harder it is!".

Source: Dead Palestinian babies and bombed mosques - IDF fashion 2009 (Ha'aretz); via Mondoweiss.

"The Smaller They Are, The Harder It Is!" [3]


Till we confirm the kill
"Another paediatrician and another baker
Got a bullet in the face from a paratroopers unit
All day we search houses and kill children"

- Extract from a song of an Israeli paratroopers' unit that participated in Operation Calm Waters in Nablus, beginning of 2004.

On 16 September 2005, the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot published an interview with the commander of the IDF paratroopers unit that came up with that song. "Commander R" described the extraordinarily permissive open-fire rules under which his unit operated when they were based in Nablus, which on some nights mandated the killing of any Palestinian who happened to be seen on the street:
"My team killed six innocent people, or probably innocent," says "R", a commander in an elite paratroopers' unit. "We would joke about it and give them code names: the baker, the woman, the child, the old man, the drummer. Some of them by mistake, but as I see it, they were simply executed on illegal orders.

"There were many nights on which we received orders that whoever we see on the street between two and four in the morning is sentenced to death [dino mavet]. Those were the exact words..."

"The Baker, whose death provided such a source of amusement for the Israeli soldiers who killed him was a 25-year-old Palestinian named Ala Adin Masud Adawiya. He was walking to his job at the a-Silawi Bakery in Nablus at about 3:00am on 18 December 2003 when he was shot once by an IDF sniper, then eight more times from close range as he lay wounded on the ground by IDF soldiers who arrived on the scene in a Jeep to "confirm the kill". Adawiya was shot because, unbeknown to him, he was walking to work on one of the nights when soldier R's paratroop unit had received orders that whoever we see on the street between two and four in the morning is sentenced to death...

Of the six codenames Commander R's unit assigned to the people they killed, "The Baker" is the easiest to identify, and the circumstances of his death are easiest to reconstruct, largely because the unusual brutality of his death attracted the attention of human rights groups and international journalists. He was killed in an IDF operation called Calm Waters, which ran from 16 December 2003 to 6 January 2004, the purpose of which was ostensibly to capture one wanted man, Naif Sharekh. Nineteen Palestinians were killed in the course of the operation, fifteen of them (including Adawiya) were unarmed civilians, six of them were children. There were indications that two of the dead (again, including Adawiya) had been killed execution style when they were already wounded, and this is what prompted journalists and civil rights groups to investigate the deaths. It is because of their involvement that we know much more about the death of Ala Adawiya than we do about most Palestinians killed by the IDF.

In addition to that of the paratrooper R, who was involved with the sniper team that fired the first shot, eyewitness testimony is available from a second IDF soldier who watched the killing from the house opposite the sniper's nest; also from a 50-year-old Palestinian woman, As'ad Hanun, who lived in the house in front of which Ala Adawiya was killed; and from Adnan Soso, the ambulance driver who was summoned after the first shot was fired. These last three witnesses all saw the "confirmation of kill" procedure carried out.

The incident began when the IDF sniper team used the "worm procedure" to tunnel their way undetected to the house they intended to use as their sniper position. This is the trail they left behind the through neighboring houses when they left the following morning:

Soldier R testifies:
The next man was the baker. We entered the Old City in Nablus, and as usual the open-fire regulations were that every man walking on the street at night is sentenced to death...

That night we took over a house in an excellent position, and about four in the morning the sharpshooters' position identified a man walking with a bag. I saw him on Jami'at al-Kabir Street with the bag in his hand. I went down to report, and the sniper, a friend of mine, was on duty. I reported to the commander who reports to the company commander. The order was "take him down." And so a man fell, 70 metres from his house.

That shot wounded Ala Adawiya in the chest, and woke As'ad Hanun, who called an ambulance. The ambulance arrived within three minutes, at which point Adawiya was still conscious, sitting up, and calling out that he was hurt. A jeep drew up from the nearby IDF command post, and stopped a few metres from where Ala Adawiya was sitting. Over the course of the next several minutes, the soldiers inside fired 8-10 individual shots at Adawiya, then dropped two grenades on the body, to ensure he was dead.

Having checked the contents of Adawiya's bag, which was found to contain nothing more dangerous than some floured-dusted clothing and pita bread, the soldiers permitted Adnan Soso to remove the body to Rafidia Hospital. Upon arrival, it was examined by Dr Samir Abu Zarour, who reported that Ala Adawiya had been shot between eight and 10 times, including twice in the face and once in the testicles, and had a series of fragmentation wounds in his legs.

Ala Adawiya's only crime was that he was a Palestinian whose job required him to arrive at work very early in the morning, and on the way to that job he happened to unknowingly cross the path of an IDF unit under orders to kill anyone they saw. But Soldier R said in conclusion: This thing was never investigated. The regiment commander cheers us up. 'Listen guys, don't be demoralised. This man wasn't just walking around innocently.' Of course he didn't have any substantive information - 'Be assured that anyone walking round the Casbah at that hour is no friend of Zion. He probably had a terrorist agenda, and you performed a good job'...

Further information on the killing of Ala Adawiya is available here.

Photo: T-shirt printed for members of the IDF's Haruv Battalion, reads: "We Won't Chill Till We Confirm The Kill".

Source (via Mondoweiss): Dead Palestinian babies and bombed mosques - IDF fashion 2009 (Ha'aretz):

"We Won't Chill Till We Confirm The Kill" [3]


No one deluded himself that the Palestinian Ministry of Culture, which takes up five of the eight floors of a new building in the center of El Bireh, would be spared the fate of other Palestinian Authority offices in Ramallah and other cities - that is, the nearly total destruction of its contents and particularly its high-tech equipment.

After all, Israel Defense Forces troops were deployed in the building for about a month...

On the evening of Wednesday, May 1, when the siege on Arafat's headquarters was lifted and the armored vehicles and the tanks had rumbled out, the executives and officials of the ministry who had rushed to the site did not expect to find the building the way they had left it.

Employees of the local radio and television station, Amwaj, also hastened to the scene, as did the employees of the local television channel, Istiqlal, which take up three stories of the building.

But what awaited them was beyond all their fears, and also shocked representatives and cultural attaches of foreign consulates, who toured the site the next day.

In other offices, all the high-tech and electronic equipment had been wrecked or had vanished - computers, photocopiers, cameras, scanners, hard disks, editing equipment worth thousands of dollars, television sets. The broadcast antenna on top of the building was destroyed.

Telephone sets vanished. A collection of Palestinian art objects (mostly hand embroideries) disappeared. Perhaps it was buried under the piles of documents and furniture, perhaps it had been spirited away. Furniture was dragged from place to place, broken by soldiers, piled up. Gas stoves for heating were overturned and thrown on heaps of scattered papers, discarded books, broken diskettes and discs and smashed windowpanes.

In the department for the encouragement of children's art, the soldiers had dirtied all the walls with gouache paints they found there and destroyed the children's paintings that hung there.

In every room of the various departments - literature, film, culture for children and youth books, discs, pamphlets and documents were piled up, soiled with urine and excrement.

There are two toilets on every floor, but the soldiers urinated and defecated everywhere else in the building, in several rooms of which they had lived for about a month. They did their business on the floors, in emptied flowerpots, even in drawers they had pulled out of desks.

They defecated into plastic bags, and these were scattered in several places. Some of them had burst. Someone even managed to defecate into a photocopier.

The soldiers urinated into empty mineral water bottles. These were scattered by the dozen in all the rooms of the building, in cardboard boxes, among the piles of rubbish and rubble, on desks, under desks, next to the furniture the solders had smashed, among the children's books that had been thrown down.

Some of the bottles had opened and the yellow liquid had spilled and left its stain. It was especially difficult to enter two floors of the building because of the pungent stench of feces and urine. Soiled toilet paper was also scattered everywhere.

In some of the rooms, not far from the heaps of feces and the toilet paper, remains of rotting food were scattered. In one corner, in the room in which someone had defecated into a drawer, full cartons of fruits and vegetables had been left behind. The toilets were left overflowing with bottles filled with urine, feces and toilet paper.

Relative to other places, the soldiers did not leave behind them many sayings scrawled on the walls.

Here and there was the candelabrum symbols of Israel, stars of David, praises for the Jerusalem Betar soccer team.

Someone had forgotten to take his dog tag with him. His name is recorded in the newspaper's editorial offices.

Now the Palestinian Ministry of Culture is considering leaving the building the way it is. A memorial.

-- Someone even managed to defecate into the photocopier, by Amira Hass; Ha'aretz, 6 May 2002. (h/t Angry Arab)

"If You Believe It Can Be Fixed, Then Believe It Can Be Destroyed!" [3]


A mother and son, both American citizens, were savagely beaten last week by Israeli security at the Israeli entry point from Jordan: Allenby Bridge. The victims were 47 year old Tina Hannouneh and her 17 year old son...

Hannouneh, who was born in the West Bank, moved to Arizona in 1986, where she now works as banker. She and her son Michael had come to Palestine, on a holiday, to visit friends and family. The incident occurred because 17 year old Michael, who suffers form a chronic heart condition, was listening to his i-pod.

Tina Hannouneh1

Tina underwent surgery last week in Beit Jala. Afterwards, she spoke to PNN about her ordeal:

"We were entering through security when a guy dressed as a civilian approached Michael. He grabbed Michael's neck with his right hand and reached for the i-pod with his left hand, shouting `give me that' in Arabic."

Michael, who has spent most of his life in the US, does not speak or understand Arabic. He was unaware that the man choking him was a security officer, and refused to give him the mp3 player. Hannouneh added, "The security officer was not wearing a uniform. My son couldn't have recognized him as army or police. He payed $400 for that i-pod, he's not just going to give it to anybody."

Confused and bewildered about what was happening, Michael held on to his i-pod. It was then that the officer became violent. Hannouneh explained that "the guy punched him, dropped him to the ground, and started banging his head against on the floor." She continued, "He shouted in Arabic `you can't say no to a police officer.'"

After trying to protect her son, the officer turned on Hannouneh. She commented, "As hard as he could he hit my face. I fell to the floor and hit my head on the metal bar in the security fence. I have two stitches and my nose is really smashed. My shirt and my pants were covered in blood".

Tina Hannouneh2

The terrorized family's ordeal only came to an end when other officials realized they were American. Like all Palestinians, Hannouneh and her son were victims of institutional racism at the heart of the Israeli security service. Hannouneh told PNN, "They did this to me because of the color of my skin, because I'm Palestinian". She continued, "I can't even travel through the checkpoint and complain to the US Consulate in Jerusalem because I am Palestinian. It's humiliating".

Adi Dagan, from Machsom Watch, an Israeli human rights organization that monitors checkpoints, told PNN: "To them she is just a Palestinian. Palestinians are without protection. In 2004 we documented 100 complaints of violence and we only received about 10 responses, sometimes soldiers are punished, but often nothing happens. This is what ordinary Palestinians go through everyday."

-- American family brutally assaulted at Israeli checkpoint; PNN, 17 Jul 06. (via After Downing Street).

"Let Every Arab Mother Know That Her Son's Fate Is In My Hands!" [3]


New widower Shukri al-Makadama lies on the floor of his brother's house, lighting cigarette after cigarette. His neck is encased in plaster, due to a possible fractured vertebra caused by a wall falling on top of him. He mourns his dead wife and moans in pain.

Staring at the ceiling, he quietly describes - in fluent Hebrew, from all the years he worked in Tel Aviv - the events of that terrible night when the Israel Defense Forces destroyed his house and his world, and killed his wife - Noha al-Makadama, a mother of 10, who was in her ninth month of pregnancy.

Late one night last week, the army came to demolish the house of the family of teenage terrorist Sami Abdel Salam, who was shot dead on February 9 after he and several others started shooting at IDF soldiers in the El Bureij refugee camp in Gaza. In the process, they also demolished the homes of seven other families - without warning and while the residents were inside. Before she lost consciousness, Noha, who was due to give birth any day, managed to shout to her husband to protect the children and to hand him the small purse that held the money she was saving for a washing machine. He shows us the blue purse, still full of coins.

Noha was buried alive under the rubble of her house last Monday, and her unborn child died with her. Brigadier General Gadi Shemani, the Gaza division commander, said the next day that the IDF has "no evidence" of the woman's death and thereby exempted himself and his soldiers from any responsibility for the despicable killing. Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said something similar and just as outrageous at the cabinet meeting. So, as a service to the defense minister and the division commander, the full story of the killing of Noha al-Makadama and her unborn child, crushed to death when their home was demolished by the IDF, is hereby presented�

-- 'Save the children, Shukri!', by Gideon Levy; Ha'aretz, 12 Mar 2003.


My army killed a woman in her ninth month of pregnancy. I know that, her husband knows that, her brother knows that, her kids know that, the hospital team at Dir-El- Balakh knows that, those who dug her grave and covered it know that.

Only my army does not know. Brigadier General Gadi Shamani, the man in charge of the Gaza Strip, notified us publicly that "evidence was not found" for the Palestinian claim.

"Evidence was not found..." What a perfect bureaucratic phrasing. An under-clerk in the customs office would not have phrased it better. Probably Reduction Form AC/6416, for the sum of 1 FCP (Fetus Carrying Palestinian) was not filled out properly.

Following, Mister Brigadier General, please find enclosed the evidence: The name of the buried was Nuha Al-Makadma, and she was 33 at the time of her death. Nuha, RIP, was buried alive in her house, in front of her husband and children.

You could easily identify the house; this is the ruin next to the other ruin that your soldiers demolished deliberately. Her husband's name, by the way, is Shukri, and for an unknown reason he has been very sad lately. Perhaps because he saw his wife's body at the hospital, namely - found the evidence to account for the fact that she is dead. The fetus in her womb died with her (attached Enemy-Fetus Termination form in three copies).

A dead fetus is a very unpleasant thing from the explanatory aspect. Therefore, Mister Brigadier General, it is worthwhile for you to quickly find evidence that Nuha's womb was indeed a munitions cache, in which a potential Sha'hid was hidden, caught attached with his navel to a bleeding cord. There is no doubt that the majority of the Israeli people will eagerly buy the evidence brought forth. They are good at that.

-- Evidence Hereby Submitted, by B. Michael; Yediot Ahronot, 7 March 2003. (link)


Photo: A sharpshooter's T-shirt printed for members of the Shaked Battalion of the IDF's Givati Infantry Brigade. The design depicts a pregnant Palestinian woman with a bull's-eye superimposed on her belly, with the slogan, in English, "1 shot, 2 kills.".

Source: Dead Palestinian babies and bombed mosques - IDF fashion 2009 (Ha'aretz); via Mondoweiss.

"One Shot - Two Kills" [1]


Aviv: "I am squad commander of a company that is still in training, from the Givati Brigade. We went into a neighborhood in the southern part of Gaza City. Altogether, this is a special experience. In the course of the training, you wait for the day you will go into Gaza, and in the end it isn't really like they say it is. It's more like, you come, you take over a house, you kick the tenants out and you move in. We stayed in a house for something like a week.

"Toward the end of the operation there was a plan to go into a very densely populated area inside Gaza City itself. In the briefings they started to talk to us about orders for opening fire inside the city, because as you know they used a huge amount of firepower and killed a huge number of people along the way, so that we wouldn't get hurt and they wouldn't fire on us.

"At first the specified action was to go into a house. We were supposed to go in with an armored personnel carrier called an Achzarit [literally, Cruel] to burst through the lower door, to start shooting inside and then ... I call this murder ... in effect, we were supposed to go up floor by floor, and any person we identified - we were supposed to shoot. I initially asked myself: Where is the logic in this?

"From above they said it was permissible, because anyone who remained in the sector and inside Gaza City was in effect condemned, a terrorist, because they hadn't fled. I didn't really understand: On the one hand they don't really have anywhere to flee to, but on the other hand they're telling us they hadn't fled so it's their fault ... This also scared me a bit. I tried to exert some influence, insofar as is possible from within my subordinate position, to change this. In the end the specification involved going into a house, operating megaphones and telling [the tenants]: 'Come on, everyone get out, you have five minutes, leave the house, anyone who doesn't get out gets killed.'

"I went to our soldiers and said, 'The order has changed. We go into the house, they have five minutes to escape, we check each person who goes out individually to see that he has no weapons, and then we start going into the house floor by floor to clean it out ... This means going into the house, opening fire at everything that moves , throwing a grenade, all those things. And then there was a very annoying moment. One of my soldiers came to me and asked, 'Why?' I said, 'What isn't clear? We don't want to kill innocent civilians.' He goes, 'Yeah? Anyone who's in there is a terrorist, that's a known fact.' I said, 'Do you think the people there will really run away? No one will run away.' He says, 'That's clear,' and then his buddies join in: 'We need to murder any person who's in there. Yeah, any person who's in Gaza is a terrorist,' and all the other things that they stuff our heads with, in the media.

"And then I try to explain to the guy that not everyone who is in there is a terrorist, and that after he kills, say, three children and four mothers, we'll go upstairs and kill another 20 or so people. And in the end it turns out that [there are] eight floors times five apartments on a floor - something like a minimum of 40 or 50 families that you murder. I tried to explain why we had to let them leave, and only then go into the houses. It didn't really help. This is really frustrating, to see that they understand that inside Gaza you are allowed to do anything you want, to break down doors of houses for no reason other than it's cool.

"You do not get the impression from the officers that there is any logic to it, but they won't say anything. To write 'death to the Arabs' on the walls, to take family pictures and spit on them, just because you can. I think this is the main thing in understanding how much the IDF has fallen in the realm of ethics, really. It's what I'll remember the most."

"One of our officers, a company commander, saw someone coming on some road, a woman, an old woman. She was walking along pretty far away, but close enough so you could take out someone you saw there. If she were suspicious, not suspicious - I don't know. In the end, he sent people up to the roof, to take her out with their weapons. From the description of this story, I simply felt it was murder in cold blood."

Zamir: "I don't understand. Why did he shoot her?"

Aviv: "That's what is so nice, supposedly, about Gaza: You see a person on a road, walking along a path. He doesn't have to be with a weapon, you don't have to identify him with anything and you can just shoot him. With us it was an old woman, on whom I didn't see any weapon. The order was to take the person out, that woman, the moment you see her."

...

Ram: "What I do remember in particular at the beginning is the feeling of almost a religious mission. My sergeant is a student at a hesder yeshiva [a program that combines religious study and military service]. Before we went in, he assembled the whole platoon and led the prayer for those going into battle. A brigade rabbi was there, who afterward came into Gaza and went around patting us on the shoulder and encouraging us, and praying with people. And also when we were inside they sent in those booklets, full of Psalms, a ton of Psalms. I think that at least in the house I was in for a week, we could have filled a room with the Psalms they sent us, and other booklets like that.

"There was a huge gap between what the Education Corps sent out and what the IDF rabbinate sent out. The Education Corps published a pamphlet for commanders - something about the history of Israel's fighting in Gaza from 1948 to the present. The rabbinate brought in a lot of booklets and articles, and ... their message was very clear: We are the Jewish people, we came to this land by a miracle, God brought us back to this land and now we need to fight to expel the gentiles who are interfering with our conquest of this holy land. This was the main message, and the whole sense many soldiers had in this operation was of a religious war. From my position as a commander and 'explainer,' I attempted to talk about the politics - the streams in Palestinian society, about how not everyone who is in Gaza is Hamas, and not every inhabitant wants to vanquish us. I wanted to explain to the soldiers that this war is not a war for the sanctification of the holy name, but rather one to stop the Qassams."

    -- Shooting and Crying by Amos Harel; Ha'aretz, 20 Mar 2009 (Israeli soldiers who served in the Israeli attack on Gaza, Dec 2008-Jan 2009 discuss their experiences).

Photo: T-shirt printed in January 2009 for members of the "Night Predators" demolitions platoon from Battalion 13 of the IDF's Golani Brigade. T-shirt depicts a devil detonating a charge that destroys a mosque. An inscription above it says, "Only God forgives."

Source: Dead Palestinian babies and bombed mosques - IDF fashion 2009 (Ha'aretz); via Mondoweiss.

"Only God Forgives"

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 20 Apr 09 - 03:19 PM

This part right here...

"The rabbinate brought in a lot of booklets and articles, and ... their message was very clear: We are the Jewish people, we came to this land by a miracle, God brought us back to this land and now we need to fight to expel the gentiles who are interfering with our conquest of this holy land"


That makes it genocide.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Peace
Date: 20 Apr 09 - 03:22 PM

Hitler was a master at editing, picking and choosing. Lovely to see the tradition being carried on in the name of 'whatever the fuck' is on the table at any given time.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 20 Apr 09 - 09:22 PM

I would say that the tradition is being carried on by the people who are committing genocide today, and that would be the government of Israel.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 20 Apr 09 - 09:43 PM

Anyway, since we doing the Hitler comparisons, let's try this one on for size. I'm speaking out against genocide. That makes me the opposite of Hitler. The person who is trying to silence me using slimy smear tactics is trying to silence people who speak out against genocide, and that's the one (between the two of us) who is carrying on Hitler's work.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 21 Apr 09 - 05:24 AM

The palestinian population is exploding.
Something like half the people are under 25.
How does that equate to a genocide?

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Peace
Date: 21 Apr 09 - 05:47 AM

You speak about genocide yet ignore the Hamas charter. You are an artisan of duplicity. No more--no less.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: C. Ham
Date: 21 Apr 09 - 08:03 AM

She's not merely an artisan of duplicity. She does Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proud with her complete solidarity with his vision.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: beardedbruce
Date: 21 Apr 09 - 01:50 PM

Hamas's Bloody Hands

By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Some residents of Gaza were taken from their homes and shot in the legs or feet. Some were brutally beaten, and some were simply murdered, sometimes after hideous torture. If you are expecting -- based on everything that has happened -- that the awful Israelis did this, guess again. It was Hamas, the authentic and genuine government of Gaza. Well, no one's perfect.

The information about the shootings is taken from a report issued yesterday by Human Rights Watch. It says that "Hamas security forces or masked gunmen believed to be with Hamas" executed 18 people, most of whom were accused of collaborating with Israel, sparing the expense and bother of a trial. Others were shot, maimed or beaten, not for allegedly collaborating with the enemy -- or, as is often the case, having a house or woman that a snitch covets -- but for belonging to the opposition political party, Fatah.

Many of these murders and assaults took place during Israel's recent pummeling of Gaza. Yet, as Human Rights Watch goes to some pains to document, at no time did Hamas's security forces lose control of Gaza, so the murders and maimings were not a consequence of chaos but of government policy. Whatever the case, the murders, shootings and beatings continued even after the hostilities ended. Since then, at least 14 more people have been executed extrajudicially, which is to say murdered. Some were also tortured.

You can only imagine what would happen if Israel dealt with its internal political enemies or dissenters in such a fashion. Last month, for instance, Israel got a heap of criticism and abuse when it was reported in the Israeli media that some Gaza civilians had been unjustifiably shot by Israeli soldiers. The report was widely cited, not just for its shocking allegations but also because it was supposedly indicative of the sort of place Israel has become. The government said the allegations were based on hearsay. We shall see.

No doubt the Human Rights Watch report will be ignored or dismissed in the greater cause of demonizing Israel. This has been the trend of late. No doubt, too, some will excuse Hamas's criminality as the inevitable result of Israeli actions -- the Officer Krupke School of Behavior made famous by the singing gang members of "West Side Story." But as much as some would like to criticize Israel -- and I have done so myself -- they still have a minimal obligation to acknowledge the difference in core values between Israel and its enemies.

This does not mean that Israel is above criticism. After all, it has made life unbearable for some Palestinians, supported illegal settlements in the West Bank, been too harsh in squeezing Gaza, and, maybe most important, it ought to get out of the West Bank -- for reasons of justice and for its own sake. Still, it remains unimaginable that Israel would murder its domestic critics or silence dissent with the occasional kneecapping. These are the tactics of thugs.

Read the Hamas charter. It is not some uplifting cry of a downtrodden people seeking its freedom but a repellent anti-Semitic screed. It sees the Jews behind every major world event since the storming of the Bastille: "They were behind the French revolution, the communist revolution and most of the revolutions we heard and hear about, here and there. With their money they formed secret societies, such as Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, the Lions . . . for the purpose of sabotaging societies and achieving Zionist interests." The Rotary? The Lions? Why not Welcome Wagon?

When Israelis talk of the practical difficulties of pulling out of the West Bank, they mean the likelihood that Hamas will oust Fatah and launch rockets into Israel. They are both concerned and appalled by a Hamas charter that, in part, reads like it could have been written by Hitler. Withdrawal is necessary and right, but it cannot be done naively and without the participation of the United States. It's going to take American peacekeepers. It is that simple. No Israeli can trust Hamas to keep the peace.

Human Rights Watch is to be commended. It does not have one standard for Israel and another for Hamas, Hezbollah or the other despotic regimes of the Arab world. That is more than can be said, though, for critics who vilify Israel, romanticize Hamas and clearly have never had the inexpressible pleasure of living in a place where a chance remark can get your legs riddled with lead. Say what you will, but that place could never be Israel.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 21 Apr 09 - 02:01 PM

Genocide, from what I have been told by one of the advocates for Israel in this forum, doesn't require that vast numbers of people have already been killed. It's genocide as soon as the first person is killed, if the killing is for the purpose of doing what is defined in the United Nations thus...

[G]enocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.


Under the UN's definition (endorsed by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, what the Israeli government is doing to the Palestinians is genocide.

Now, on the subject of Hamas and its charter... the hypocrites are the smear mongers on this thread who fail to mention that not only is the US not refusing to talk with Israel because of its genocide against the Palestinians, it is actively supporting it, and even providing it with the weapons it is using to carry out that genocide and also sending US taxpayer money to help finance the apartheid settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Whereas, the US and many Western governments have not only refused to talk with Hamas, they are even preventing the people of Gaza from being able to get basic necessities of life through their support of Israel's blockade of Gaza.

So the hypocrites (and the racist hate mongers) are the people who support Israel's genocide of the Palestinians (the above posters who are using smear tactics to try to silence me, for instance), and the ones who support the blockade of Gaza and the isolation of Hamas, even despite the fact that Hamas is responsible for a fraction of the number of Israeli civilians killed as compared to the number of Palestinian civilians Israel has killed.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 21 Apr 09 - 02:06 PM

And I would point out that I would be perfectly happy if the US government would just deal with both sides (both of whom people have accused of genocide) equally. This definitely cannot be said of the racist hate mongers in this thread who think that only Hamas should be held responsible for their crimes against humanity, but the Israeli government should be supported in theirs.