BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 22 Jul 10 - 05:48 AM

I will say again that I have not supported the use of WP in Gaza.
Everything I have said has been accurate.
The first picture here shows the projectiles bouncing along the roof of the shool. Anyone inside was safe.
A classroom did catch fire, but the school was also hit by high explosive shells.
http://www.france24.com/en/20100721-israel-restrict-use-white-phosphorus-munitions

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 22 Jul 10 - 05:51 AM

Click on image to enlarge.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 22 Jul 10 - 06:38 AM

WP munition "the projectiles bouncing along the roof of the school. Anyone inside was safe. A classroom did catch fire, but the school was also hit by high explosive shells."

ROFLMAO.... and you are trying to tell us that civilians are NOT targeted?

Just love that understatement .. "but the school was also hit by high explosive shells"

ROFL....

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Emma B
Date: 22 Jul 10 - 06:54 AM

video of attack on school

It is disingenuous in the extreme to claim "Anyone inside was safe."

This certainly was NOT true for the family of Sabah Abu Halima

"The phosphorus smoke bomb punched through the roof in exactly the spot where much of the family had taken refuge — the upstairs hall away from the windows.

The bomb, which international weapons experts identified as phosphorus by its fragments, was intended to mask troop movements outside. Instead it breathed its storm of fire and smoke into Sabah Abu Halima's hallway, releasing flaming chemicals that clung to her husband, baby girl and three other small children, burning them to death"

Richard Silverstein quoting from a news report Tikun Olam

Even if you limit this misleading remark to the attack on the school it is obvious that anyone in the playground area at the start of this phosphorus attack was at risk as were the people who attempted to deal with the flaming pieces of phosphorus which can not be extinguished using ordinary fire fighting euipment.

Nevertheless I'm gratified to see that Israel has, in the face of irrefutable evidence that it used phosphorus munitions in densely populated areas and the universal disapprobation to the attempt to cover this up as well, decided to 'restrict' their use in future.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 22 Jul 10 - 06:57 AM

"ROFLMAO.... and you are trying to tell us that civilians are NOT targeted?"

There is nothing funny about any of this.
It is for smoke. It is dangerous, but not a targetted weapon.

"Just love that understatement .. "but the school was also hit by high explosive shells""
The school was hit by HE shells. Should I have used capitals.

Jim raised the issue of WP.
I challenged two of his statements.
He described it as a chemical weapon attack. That is wrong.
He described it as an act of genocide. That is ludicrous.
All the other stuff you raise, no one is arguing with you.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Emma B
Date: 22 Jul 10 - 10:20 AM

"Israel did not use WP in confined spaces." 21 Jul 10 - 07:47 AM

Israel used WP in densely populated civilian areas - proved, despite all earlier attempts to deny it.

"US intelligence classified white phosphorus as 'chemical weapon"

Sigfrido Ranucci who made the film "The Hidden Massacre" looking at the effects of white phosphorous bombs on the civilian population of Fallujah in the November 2004 assault on the Iraqi city said that a 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."

When Saddam used WP it was a chemical weapon," said Mr Ranucci, "but when the Americans use it, it's a conventional weapon. The injuries it inflicts, however, are just as terrible however you describe it."

From The Independent 23 November 2005

Used in a densely populated area in Gaza and NOT as the legal 'battlefield obscurant'** or 'means of illumination' (the attack seen on the school was in full daylight) WP can only be described - as its use was by Saddam Hussein - as a 'chemical weapon'


"The Israeli military may be using legal weapons, but it is using the weapons in an illegal manner"

Marc Garlasco
Human Rights Watch

** White phosphorus is permitted on the battlefield to make smoke screens to allow troops to move undetected, and also to impede infrared anti-tank weapons.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 22 Jul 10 - 10:39 AM

Thanks Emma.
I have said all along that its use in Gaza was reckless and possibly illegal.
Confined space means as in an enclosed spaced.
The Israelis WERE using it as a battlefield obscurant which is legal, the complication being that there were also civillians in the combat zone.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Emma B
Date: 22 Jul 10 - 12:44 PM

"the complication being that there were also civillians in the combat zone"??

Gaza city is 45 km2 and home to about 400,000 people.
At the start of the Israeli ground invasion, operation Cast lead,even more Palestinians flooded in to the heart of Gaza City in the hope of finding shelter

As all borders were sealed Palestinian civilians were unable to escape from the 'orbit of harm'

There is no doubt that the Israeli forces had far superior fire power

Using modern weaponry on a large scale against an already weakened occupied people living under the very confined conditions that existed in Gaza City has to pose the question - is it possible to distinguish between legitimate military targets and the civilian population?

If this is not possible then such actions are not lawful.

I suppose if you re-define the city as a 'combat zone' then anything is permissible   - even the use of phosphorus in densely built up residential areas or 'enclosed spaces' if you prefer; certainly the wanton destruction of the civilian infrastructure in an attempt to bring down the government

(One of the most important questions raised by the Goldstone Report is whether there was an intentional Israeli objective to destroy Gaza's civilian infrastructure)

"The Dahiya doctrine is a concept said to be used in the Israel Defense Forces regarding asymmetric warfare in an urban setting, according to which a conventional army targets civilian infrastructure that is used by terrorists" - wiki

Gadi Eizenkot, a general in the IDF is credited with being the most prominent exponent of the Dahiya doctrine, a proposed and approved defence strategy of Israel under which "Israel finally realizes that Arabs should be accountable for their leaders' acts"
He stated -

"What happened in the Dahiya quarter of Beirut in 2006 will happen in every village from which Israel is fired on. We will apply disproportionate force on it and cause great damage and destruction there. From our standpoint, these are not civilian villages, they are military bases. [...] This is not a recommendation. This is a plan. And it has been approved."


"In several areas of Gaza, the IDF destroyed or damaged civilian structures-including a flour mill, food factories, cement factories, and greenhouses-without military necessity as required by international law.
In total, Israeli forces damaged or destroyed 14,000 homes, around 60 health facilities, 68 government buildings, and 31 offices of nongovernmental organizations, according to the UN.

Throughout the war Israeli authorities banned journalists and human rights monitors from entering Gaza, and placed restrictions on peaceful protests against the war.

Israeli government authorities sought to cut off funding to Breaking the Silence, a group of IDF veterans that published the testimonies of 26 Israeli soldiers who participated in and were critical of abuses committed during Operation Cast Lead"

Human Rights Watch

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 22 Jul 10 - 01:09 PM

There have been two previous threads on the incursion, which I did not have much to do with.
The Gazan suffering and loss of life was deplorable, but it should be remembered that Israel only went back into Gaza to try to stop the rockets.
They who fired the rockets must share the blame for what happened.
The largest single donor of aid to Gaza is the EU.
Inn the aftermath of the incursion, an EU envoy visited Gaza.
"Humanitarian aid chief Louis Michel called the destruction left by Israel's offensive "abominable", but said Hamas bore "overwhelming responsibility".

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

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 22 Jul 10 - 01:18 PM

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7851545.stm

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 22 Jul 10 - 01:21 PM

Sorry about post getting split up.

You and others will not accept that view, but there it is.
I really have nothing to add about the incursion into Gaza.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Emma B
Date: 22 Jul 10 - 02:13 PM

EU Development and Humanitarian Aid Commissioner, Louis Michel, ALSO said in an interview
"Israel is ridiculing international humanitarian law" - which obliges states to protect the civilians.

"One must continue to put a maximal pressure to stop the operations and secure the access to humanitarian aid. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic.
No more drinking water, no more electricity, hospitals in very bad shape."

"I am indignant when I see that there is little notice of the side damages suffered by one and a half million people who live in a tiny strip of land," he added.

He has also been reported as saying -
"blocking access to people who are suffering and dying is also a breach of humanitarian law."


Of course in stating a refusal to enter into formal discussions with Hamas Michel is echoing the official position that -

'Political contacts with Hamas are banned under the rules of the international Quartet for Middle East peace – which groups the US, the EU, Russia and the UN – on the grounds that the Palestinian faction remains committed to the destruction of Israel.
The international community insists that the ban will only be lifted once the Islamists agree to recognise Israel and renounce violence.

But this policy, set out in 2006 following the Hamas victory in Palestinian elections, has been called into question since the three-week war in Gaza'

Extract from an article in The Independent 19 February 2009

Earlier this month, Former EU commissioner Chris Patten suggested it was time to reassess the isolation of Hamas, saying that approach had failed to weaken it.

'Patten, who found it "easier to get into a maximum security prison in the UK than to enter Gaza", said Israel's relaxation of its blockade had not gone far enough. "It's moved from about minus 10 to about minus eight. It doesn't do anything to help restore economic activity in Gaza.

"It's difficult to understand what preventing exports has to do with security. It has everything to do with the view that Gaza should be collectively punished to discredit Hamas. Unfortunately there are some centuries, if not millennia, of history that show that does not work.

On negotiations with Hamas, Patten referred to his involvement with the Northern Ireland peace process, which "would not have been successfully concluded if we hadn't – with considerable American encouragement – agreed to talk to Sinn Fein/IRA.

"You don't always agree with people you talk to – indeed sometimes you find them despicable – but you need to ease them out of the corners into which they've painted themselves rather than lay on the paint much thicker.

"I think it's wholly reasonable to say we couldn't deal with Hamas unless they agreed to a comprehensive and complete ceasefire.
But do we need to insist on them accepting all past agreements?
Has Israel accepted all past agreements?
If you simply isolate them, do you weaken them?" In fact, he said, "you strengthen people who are even more extreme than they are".

The Guardian Sunday 18 July 2010

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: bobad
Date: 22 Jul 10 - 03:20 PM

"Human Rights Watch"


Not-so-secret motives

Israelis often wonder if the vilification of their country has anything to do with the fact that they are the world's only Jewish state.

Jews historically have played the role of scapegoat in many societies, and Israelis wonder if the effort to delegitimize their country is a modern gloss on an age-old tradition.

Israel-haters usually deny any suggestion they are motivated by hostility toward things Jewish, and they complain that the accusation of anti-Semitism is tossed about recklessly in order to silence them. The best way to approach this subject is case-by-case, which inevitably reveals that some attacks on Israel are motivated by anti-Semitism and some are not.

Yet there does seem to be a surge in cases where anti-Zionism is a vehicle for some deeper animosity.

The most sinister example was the hallucinatory anti-Israel documents which found their way onto the United Church of Canada website this summer. The documents circulated the libel that Canadians affiliated with Israel -- i.e., Jews -- have dual loyalties and can't be trusted in sensitive government jobs. In the ensuing uproar, the larger church membership wisely disassociated itself from those sentiments.

Also this summer, protests against a Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition in Toronto were carried out in the name of anti-Israel activism, but protesters were essentially arguing that the Jews of today are impostors and thieves who have no ancestral connection to the Holy Land -- another standard anti-Semitic trope.

Now there is the case of Marc Garlasco, a senior official with Human Rights Watch. In his capacity as an influential "human rights" activist, Garlasco has made a career of painting Israel as a criminal state. Scholars and other researchers have exposed Garlasco's reports as inaccurate and malicious, but no matter -- among anti-Israel activists, Garlasco is a hero.

This week, Human Rights Watch suspended Garlasco after learning that he has a, um, thing for Naziism. Among other things, he collects Nazi paraphernalia. Using fake names on the Internet, he has talked about how "cool" the leather SS jackets are. One pseudonym he reportedly used was "Flak88" -- "88" being code for the neo-Nazi salute, "Heil, Hitler" ("H" is the eighth letter of the alphabet).

Those Human Rights Watch reports attacking Israel always were a bit puzzling, being so one-sided and hostile. Sadly, they're perhaps not so puzzling anymore.
© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Emma B
Date: 22 Jul 10 - 06:32 PM

Well copied from an op ed by Gerald Steinberg!

N.B.
'The next time any respectable news media outlet quotes or interviews Gerald Steinberg, I'd hope they'd note that his NGO Monitor was hauled into Israeli court for smearing the reputation of a Palestinian NGO by claiming that it "justified violence."
The group in question, the Applied Research Institute-Jerusalem (ARIJ), whose purpose is to "promote applied research, technology transfers, sustainable development, and the self-reliance of the Palestinian people through greater control over their natural resources," did not take kindly to this libel and responded with a lawsuit.
Prof. Steinberg was forced to eat humblepie and released this "Correction" which should have also included the title "Apology:" '

article by Richard Silverstein


It seems unlikely that Garlasco is ever going to read this repetition of an attack on him from last year but he has defended himself elsewhere

The Huffington Post September 11, 2009

"I'm used to taking heat for my job as a military analyst for Human Rights Watch, because our findings that this government or that armed group has violated the laws of war frequently provoke accusations that we're biased or siding with the enemy.

Now I've achieved some blogosphere fame, not for the hours I've spent sifting through the detritus of war, visiting hospitals, interviewing victims and witnesses and soldiers, but for my hobby (unusual and disturbing to some, I realize) of collecting Second World War memorabilia associated with my German grandfather and my American great-uncle.
I'm a military geek, with an abiding interest not only in the medals I collect but in the weapons that I study and the shrapnel I analyze. I think this makes me a better investigator and analyst.
And to suggest it shows Nazi tendencies is defamatory nonsense, spread maliciously by people with an interest in trying to undermine Human Rights Watch's reporting

As an American child, I learned that Germans were the bad guys; as I got to know my grandfather, I realized that not all Germans were Nazis. Because of him, and my great-uncle, a gunner on an American B-17 bomber, I developed an interest in German and American war memorabilia, and I wrote a long monograph, published last year, on German Second World War Air Force and anti-aircraft medals

I told my daughters, as I wrote in my book, that "the war was horrible and cruel, that Germany lost and for that we should be thankful." I meant what I wrote. And because of the intense suffering during the Second World War and the genocidal campaign against the Jewish people, I spend my days doing what I can to ensure that such horrors are never allowed to happen again"


John H Richardson writing in Esquire October 13, 2009 asks
"Why Is This Good Man Getting Hung Out to Dry?

'Before becoming a human-rights worker, Garlasco worked in military intelligence.

Because of this unusual background, he has none of the lefty peacenik prejudices common to many human-rights workers. "Israel has every right to defend itself," he told me. "Not only a right, but an obligation to defend its people." Another time, he argued in favor of using bulldozers to clear a "free-fire zone." But Garlasco also criticized Israel for a number of human-rights violations, like "white flag killings" of people who were trying to surrender and using drones to kill too many people from a distance — including some twenty-five children.

BECAUSE OF THIS, AN ISRAELI ORGANIZATION CALLED NGO MONITOR HAS DECIDED TO TRY TO DESTROY MARC GARLASCO — NOT TO ARGUE WITH HIM OR DISPUTE HIS STATISTICS, BUT TO DESTROY HIM PERSONALLY.

Run by an Israeli academic named Gerald Steinberg, NGO Monitor is a rabidly partisan organization that attacks just about anyone who dares to criticize Israel on any grounds. It is dedicated to fighting "the narrative war," as Steinberg puts it in one editorial. ("Many Israeli Jews now realize that the narrative war threatens national survival.")

He has made a special project of attacking Human Rights Watch in editorials with titles like "Israel V. Human Rights Watch" and "Human Rights Watch has betrayed its original mission." H
e is so overwrought, he even attacks Jews who criticize Israel as "anti-Zionists" who are secretly in favor of "wiping Israel off the map."

Recently, Steinberg learned that Garlasco collects Nazi memorabilia. Garlasco also wrote a book about a certain kind of Nazi badge and made some goofy comments on collectors' Web sites about how his "blood ran cold" when he saw certain rare items, like a leather SS Jacket. There's a simple reason for this: Garlasco's grandfather was in the German Army, and the badge he collected happened to be his grandfather's unit badge.
Garlasco never hid this. When I first visited his home about three years ago, his grandfather's Nazi uniform was on display in a glass box. I didn't think there was anything particularly surprising about it — but then, my father was in the CIA, and I have CIA books and memorabilia coming out of my ears." '


Well Steinberg has had his 'victory' and Garlasco has resigned from Human Rights Watch so won't be publishing exposés on the use of White Phosphorus in Gaza City any more or on the 'Mass Home Demolitions in the Gaza Strip'

'Well done'!

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 22 Jul 10 - 06:58 PM

My apologies for

"
"ROFLMAO.... and you are trying to tell us that civilians are NOT targeted?"

There is nothing funny about any of this.
It is for smoke. It is dangerous, but not a targetted weapon."


Could not find the Sarcasm Font.

But from your approach to this thread, I'm not surprised that it went over your head.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: bobad
Date: 22 Jul 10 - 07:04 PM

"This week, Human Rights Watch suspended Garlasco after learning that he has a, um, thing for Naziism. Among other things, he collects Nazi paraphernalia. Using fake names on the Internet, he has talked about how "cool" the leather SS jackets are. One pseudonym he reportedly used was "Flak88" -- "88" being code for the neo-Nazi salute, "Heil, Hitler" ("H" is the eighth letter of the alphabet).

Those Human Rights Watch reports attacking Israel always were a bit puzzling, being so one-sided and hostile. Sadly, they're perhaps not so puzzling anymore."

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: bobad
Date: 22 Jul 10 - 07:12 PM

Marc Garlasco – Is HRW's Anti-Israel Investigator A Nazi-Obsessed Collector?
By
Omri Ceren
Published: September 8, 2009Posted in: Diplomacy, Global

UPDATE: I've published a critical followup to this post, both because I've gotten specific emails accusing Garlasco of being a Stormfront.org contributor (100% not true) and because there's a general risk that this controversy is becoming one about him personally (misses the point). 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.

He should never have been tasked with producing reports about the Middle East, if for no other reason than there's something moving him other than level-headed analysis. It's not straightforward and its not vulgar, but it's obviously doing work.

But this isn't about him as an individual. It's about HRW's institutional culture, where people couldn't tell that something was amiss because everyone holds the same opinions he does. His anti-Israel biases are literally institutionalized in that organization. As I said at the bottom of this post, this is their mess as much or more than it is his. More elaboration at the followup.

http://www.mererhetoric.com/2009/09/08/marc-garlasco-is-hrws-anti-israel-investigator-a-nazi-obsessed-collector/

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Emma B
Date: 22 Jul 10 - 07:16 PM

didn't you just say that?

or rather didn't the discredited Steinberg?

Unfortunately however it is true - if you chuck enough dirt at people who criticize the actions of the IDF and Israeli coverups and use the usual despicable tactic of accusing them of anti-semitism - as seen on this thread!

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.

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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 - 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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.