The Guardian reports that the Israeli Foreign Ministry is encouraging people to reproduce their spin on news websites and blogs, and providing talking points for “volunteers”.
Elsewhere: Lyn Calcutt at Public Opinion.
Update: Thread continues here.
Life, Culture and Politics from BrisVegas
Larvatus Prodeo was an Australian group blog which discussed politics, sociology, culture, life, religion and science from a left of centre perspective. more»
Yes Tzipi. Of course Tzipi. I’ll get onto it right away. Yes, the cheque arrived thank you very much. Er, I will be able to shag Sarah Silverman when this is all over, right?
The phrase in the dot points about being at war with the Hamas rather than the Gazan people is slippery as the election of Hamas was considered by Jimmy Carter as the best he and his friends had supervised.
Where is a modern-day Leni Riefenstahl when you need one?
Oh, that position opening has been filled.
Actually I’m surprised with Israel’s crypto and IT capabilities that there are not swarms of bots writing posts and comments all across the net. Time to start hitting suspicious comments and send them to the spam bucket! (At least the battle of spam/authorize/spam/authorize doesn’t kill anyone).
It’s not a real information war without good old fashioned denial of service attacks.
I doubt Israeli online propaganda campaigns are going to be successful in swaying public opinion. The first comment on the Guardian article: “The dead speak louder than spam”. Especially dead child photos.
The Israeli attempts at manipulating the mainstream media know no bounds!
Any Israeli spokespeople that make it onto the visual media are usually pathologically Western (with polished English), ridiculously even-tempered and full of the standardised responses-USA style. This, contrasted with the broken English and zealousness of most Arab interviewees plays into the mainstream media’s grubby hands and exacts the sympathy of Westerners. The great PR propaganda ploy has been this manipulation of the media.
However, to go to such lenghts surely only exposes the illegitimacy and defunct morality of Israel’s agenda.
Let’s not forget the role of the humble computer game in information warfare.
Who cares? The Palestinian cause gets all its spin carried for free on the news networks, when fraudulent video is often run, makes its impact, and then is quietly withdrawn later when its authenticity is shown to be doubtful.
When both sides in this conflict tell such blatant falsehoods so often, they lose credibility.
(Think one side saying it can establish settlements and dispossess people because someone wrote some stories thousands of years ago, so it’s true, and the other side shooting off thousands of rockets saying they are mere fireworks).
So who does one trust if one has had lie after lie thrust at one from both sides to the extent that you just cannot believe either?
Obviously direct and indirect sources from both sides are out. I tune out now whenever I hear a ‘spokesbot’ from either side.
What about other sources?
The UN? After Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe, Bosnia, Myanmar, Tibet?….riiiight. Add up the casualties from those conflicts and we have had a holocaust in our own era under the noses of those incompetent and venal fools.
The press? Apart from the normal inaccuracy that you get when dealing with the press, how many independent journalists are there that have not joined one side or the other at least tacitly? Looking at the news commentary just conflates back to propaganda for one side or the other.
I put it that the situation is now one that there are two sides so deep into propaganda and with almost no credible independent commentary, that the rest of us have no choice but to give it up as a bad job. Which statement will no doubt bring accusations of ‘fence sitting’ or ‘callous indifference to our suffering’ or ‘moral relativism’ etc etc.
Well, if both sides stop lying to me for a year or so, maybe I will be able to trust the information to the extent that I can decide rationally which is right.
Oh, and all this fanciful storytelling from both sides might just give a clue as to why there are large sections of the thinking community who are totally switched off to it all.
latest rumour circulating among Palestinian community as to why Kevin Rudd is pro-Israeli (seriously):
Rudd was in fact Jewish and used to attend a Bondi synagogue. he only converted to Xanity just before he ran for Opposition leader. And in any case he’s a Zionist.
#8 Isn’t he a Scientologist (like Malcolm Turnbull and Bob Brown)? If not, why not?
Oddly like the Hansonite/Howardian email doing the rounds before last year’s election RE Rudd being ethnically Chinese therefore he takes his orders from Hu like a good little Manchurian Candidate.
Strange that those two groups should think alike in their fever dreams.
Yeah, if I was acting like a rent-a-quote for one side or the other I guess I would invoke the name of a don’t-give-a-shit hipster icon. To try and prove I’m all, like, talk to the hand, sistuh, I’m no humourless loser.
Slightly off-topic…
I am beginning to wonder what it takes to be charged with war crimes these days.
If it were possible to identify and arrest every wild-eyed, scruffy, conniving, extremist who intentionally killed civilians, we’d be locking them up or executing them by the dozen.
Yet when the perpetrators are in uniform such crimes are dismissed as bad luck.
Doesn’t seem right, does it?
Elsewhere: Lyn Calcutt at Public Opinion.
Writing on the orders of Jerusalem, I am instructed to draw attention to another video which shows Hamas launching rockets from a schoolyard.
Very strange site, Rob.
nice to see they’ve got Joe the Plumber’s network on their blogroll
in case anyone was wondering if they should bother clicking on the link above, I say DO! it will show you how little some “people” need to justify the murder of scores of children: a pathetic, grainy video released by the their murderers – a notorious terrorist organization with a long history of shameless, bald-faced lies.
UN: IDF officers admitted there was no gunfire from Gaza school which was shelled (Haaretz)
That should be front page news around the world.
Yeah Mars08 @ 11
They’ve been doing it in uniform in Tibet, Myanmar, Zimbabwe, Sudan (add your own favourite crime zone here) for years, and apart from a bit of hand wringing in the media on off-news days when Britney Spears isn’t doing anything interesting, no one seems to give a toss.
While it appears that the rest of the world will not lift a finger to help if you are a victim of genocide/ethnic cleansing (oil producing nations excepted of course), it is not surprising that people turn to violence in pursuit of justice (The Palestinians) or self preservation from those who would exterminate them (The Jews).
Which is, of course, the propaganda position of both sides justifying their use of violence.
For some reason these Eyeless in Gaza threads are beginning to remind me of this boxer played by Sylvester Stallone…
.
What is with RWDBs, and grainy video evidence from unrelated episodes? Why the love affair, when you have so often been duped? Unless the IDF is holding up today’s newspaper as they bomb, one should be very skeptical of what you’re seeing.
So, to recap: the IDF admits there was no fire from the UN school sites. So are they are either incompetent, reckless with civilian life, or deliberate child-killers.
Either way, I do some commentators now learn to be skeptical of any IDF ‘evidence’ provided in the immediate wake of an atrocity. Ditto for videos purportedly demonstrating “surgical strikes” too.
#11: mars08: “I am beginning to wonder what it takes to be charged with war crimes these days.”
Well by all means don’t let us stop you, mars08! You see, you merely have to build and maintain an army and navy sufficiently large to define world ‘peace’ as what you say it is and then negotiate what your reasonable allies will agree it is, then convince everybody else, and then hold steadfastly to your definitions in spite of a smug ignorant and cthonically hostile press and other worthless tools (though finding anyone more worthless than the present-day press I admit these days would be T-U-F-F tuff.) I look forward to your own brilliant peace initiatives once you have showed dem bastuds how it’s done!! Give it a go, eh? Generations of hapless diplomats are just plain paralyzed, waiting for your wisdom, punk.
Okay. And I copped the “punk” because…?
Mark at #19. Are you sure that the Palestinians have the desire or the means to exterminate all the Jews?
LeftyE: So, to recap: the IDF admits there was no fire from the UN school sites.
Do they? Seems a strange thing to do if they are really such liars. Why wouldn’t they just tough it out?
From the UNWRA website:
Not a lot you can make of that.
It’s a cunning ploy. They’re telling the truth to trick us, yet again.
Criticism of Israel’s conduct mounts (Financial Times)
As Israel’s offensive in Gaza enters its third week, the Jewish state appears to be rapidly losing the public relations war abroad as criticism from United Nations officials and humanitarian agencies has mounted amid the constant stream of pictures of dead and wounded women and children.
Israeli strikes on UN convoys and schools sheltering hundreds of Palestinians who fled their homes, as well allegations that Israeli troops prevented medical workers from retrieving dead and injured Palestinians, have increasingly called into question Israel’s conduct of the war.
A UN agency added to the increasing negative news flow with a report that cited witness testimony alleging that Israeli troops evacuated Palestinian civilians to a house in Gaza City and then repeatedly shelled the building 24 hours later, killing some 30 people inside.
And from the outset, Israel has been under fire for preventing foreign journalists from entering the strip – restrictions that were in place weeks before the bombardment started.
However, a team of reporters from the Al-Jazeera satellite channel were already in Gaza and Arab television stations have broadcast a constant stream of images of death and destruction that have been picked up across the world. International news agencies also have local staff on the ground.
Al-Jazeera reported that a building used by journalists working in the strip, including Turkish and Chinese outlets, was hit by Israeli fire on Friday.
“There’s definitely been a step up for the Israelis in their attempt to control the information flow. But if you actually look at the news, information and pictures emerging from Gaza, there’s been tons of it and it’s all been hugely detrimental to the Israeli cause,” said Charlie Beckett, a media specialist at the London School of Economics. “The fact that the Israelis seem to be trying to blockade the media only hurts their argument that they are somehow more democratic, more open and not terrorists.”
Israel officials have insisted they regret civilian deaths and have accused Hamas of using civilians as human shields. They have also sought to highlight the threat posed by rockets fired by Palestinian militants into southern Israel – which have killed three Israelis since the offensive started – saying some 950,000 Israelis are vulnerable to attacks.
But analysts say the scale of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza overwhelms the impact.
Anthony Cordesman, at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, says Israel has failed to talk to the world “in ways that the outside world finds relevant.”
“We are now two weeks into the war and nobody has a clear idea what the Israelis are attempting to accomplish,” he says. “They have not communicated the ways in which they are attempting to reduce civilian casualties; it is not clear that they have provided proper guidance to the troops in the field [and] they have not managed the issue of humanitarian relief with any effectiveness.”
…
The Israeli military did allow a pool of three Israel reporters and one foreign correspondent to embed for a day with troops this week. But it has not given clear responses to many of the recent allegations.
It also became embroiled in a controversy after Israeli mortars struck outside a UN-run school used as a shelter, killing at least 40 people. The Israeli army insisted militants fired at Israeli troops from within the compound – claims rejected by UN officials. Shortly after the attack, the military emailed journalists a link to a video that purported to show assailants firing from a school, but that footage was dated October 2007.
…
Israel Is Committing War Crimes (Wall Street Journal – Opinion)
Israel’s current assault on the Gaza Strip cannot be justified by self-defense. Rather, it involves serious violations of international law, including war crimes. Senior Israeli political and military leaders may bear personal liability for their offenses, and they could be prosecuted by an international tribunal, or by nations practicing universal jurisdiction over grave international crimes. Hamas fighters have also violated the laws of warfare, but their misdeeds do not justify Israel’s acts.
The United Nations charter preserved the customary right of a state to retaliate against an “armed attack” from another state. The right has evolved to cover nonstate actors operating beyond the borders of the state claiming self-defense, and arguably would apply to Hamas. However, an armed attack involves serious violations of the peace. Minor border skirmishes are common, and if all were considered armed attacks, states could easily exploit them — as surrounding facts are often murky and unverifiable — to launch wars of aggression. That is exactly what Israel seems to be currently attempting.
Israel had not suffered an “armed attack” immediately prior to its bombardment of the Gaza Strip. Since firing the first Kassam rocket into Israel in 2002, Hamas and other Palestinian groups have loosed thousands of rockets and mortar shells into Israel, causing about two dozen Israeli deaths and widespread fear. As indiscriminate attacks on civilians, these were war crimes. During roughly the same period, Israeli forces killed about 2,700 Palestinians in Gaza by targeted killings, aerial bombings, in raids, etc., according to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem.
But on June 19, 2008, Hamas and Israel commenced a six-month truce. Neither side complied perfectly. Israel refused to substantially ease the suffocating siege of Gaza imposed in June 2007. Hamas permitted sporadic rocket fire — typically after Israel killed or seized Hamas members in the West Bank, where the truce did not apply. Either one or no Israelis were killed (reports differ) by rockets in the half year leading up to the current attack.
Israel then broke the truce on Nov. 4, raiding the Gaza Strip and killing a Palestinian. Hamas retaliated with rocket fire; Israel then killed five more Palestinians. In the following days, Hamas continued rocket fire — yet still no Israelis died. Israel cannot claim self-defense against this escalation, because it was provoked by Israel’s own violation.
An armed attack that is not justified by self-defense is a war of aggression. Under the Nuremberg Principles affirmed by U.N. Resolution 95, aggression is a crime against peace.
Israel has also failed to adequately discriminate between military and nonmilitary targets. Israel’s American-made F-16s and Apache helicopters have destroyed mosques, the education and justice ministries, a university, prisons, courts and police stations. These institutions were part of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure. And when nonmilitary institutions are targeted, civilians die. Many killed in the last week were young police recruits with no military roles. Civilian employees in the Hamas-led government deserve the protections of international law like all others. Hamas’s ideology — which employees may or may not share — is abhorrent, but civilized nations do not kill people merely for what they think.
Deliberate attacks on civilians that lack strict military necessity are war crimes. Israel’s current violations of international law extend a long pattern of abuse of the rights of Gaza Palestinians. Eighty percent of Gaza’s 1.5 million residents are Palestinian refugees who were forced from their homes or fled in fear of Jewish terrorist attacks in 1948. For 60 years, Israel has denied the internationally recognized rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes — because they are not Jews.
Although Israel withdrew its settlers and soldiers from Gaza in 2005, it continues to tightly regulate Gaza’s coast, airspace and borders. Thus, Israel remains an occupying power with a legal duty to protect Gaza’s civilian population. But Israel’s 18-month siege of the Gaza Strip preceding the current crisis violated this obligation egregiously. It brought economic activity to a near standstill, left children hungry and malnourished, and denied Palestinian students opportunities to study abroad.
Israel should be held accountable for its crimes, and the U.S. should stop abetting it with unconditional military and diplomatic support.
Mr. Bisharat is a professor at Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco.
War in Gaza: Israel accused of killing 30 after shelling safe house (Times)
The United Nations has accused Israel of evacuating scores of Palestinians into a house in the suburbs of Gaza City, only to shell the property 24 hours later, killing some 30 people.
In a report published today on what it called “one of the gravest incidents” of the 14-day conflict, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) complained that the Israeli Defence Force then prevented medical teams from entering the area to evacuate the wounded, including young children.
The Israeli military said it was investigating the claim but had no knowledge of the incident.
Citing “several testimonies” – but without identifying its sources – OCHA said that Israeli foot soldiers evacuated around 110 Palestinians into a house in Zeitun, south of Gaza City, on Sunday. Half of them were children.
“Twenty-four hours later, Israeli forces shelled the home repeatedly, killing approximately 30,” OCHA said. “Those who survived and were able walked two kilometres to Salah Ed Din road before being transported to the hospital in civilian vehicles. Three children, the youngest of whom was five months old, died upon arrival at the hospital.”
OCHA added that the International Committee of the Red Cross took several days to gain access to the area but managed to do so on Tuesday during the first daily three-hour humanitarian ceasefire. “Due to the limited time allowed, ICRC was not able to reach all houses in the area,” it said. “In all, ICRC evacuated 30 Palestinians, including 18 wounded.”
The ICRC had already issued a statement on the Zeitun incident yesterday, accusing Israel of “unacceptable behaviour” and of breaching international humanitarian law.
In that statement, the ICRC said its team had discovered four emaciated children living next to the corpses of their dead mothers in a house on which there were 12 dead bodies lying on mattresses. In another house, they found 15 survivors of the Israeli bombardment, several of them wounded, and, in a third, three corpses.
The ICRC declined to comment on the allegations in the OCHA report but a spokeswoman said that Red Cross teams had returned to Zeitun yesterday and evacuated around 100 people.
An Israeli human rights group, B’Tselem, quoted a Zeitun resident giving details of the alleged incident over the telephone but stressed that it was unable to independently verify the account.
Meysa Fawzi al Samuni, 19, said soldiers forced her and dozens of others to move into the warehouse-like home of another resident. Two men who left the house to pick up a relative were struck by “a missile or a shell,” she said.
“My husband went over to them to help, and then a shell or missile was fired onto the roof of the warehouse. Based on the intensity of the strike, I think it was a missile from an F-16,” B’Tselem quoted her as saying.
“After the smoke and dust cleared a bit, I looked around and saw 20-30 people who were dead, and about 20 who were wounded. As far as I know, the dead and wounded who were under the ruins are still there.”
The allegations risk further souring relations between Israel and the United Nations. The main UN aid agency in Gaza, UNRWA, said yesterday that it was suspending operations after two of its drivers were killed in an Israeli attack on an aid convoy.
Late last night in New York, the UN Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, where around 800 Palestinians have been killed in a two-week Israeli offensive.
The 15-member council backed a resolution drafted by Britain in a 14-0 vote after the United States lifted its veto threat – infuriating the Israelis – but decided nevertheless to abstain.
The resolution “stresses the urgency of and calls for an immediate, durable and fully respected ceasefire leading to the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.”
But the Israeli shelling continued unabated this morning, small plumes of white smoke rising every few minutes from the battered apartment blocks of Gaza City.
Israel carried out more than 50 air strikes in Gaza overnight, in which 12 Palestinian civilians were reported to have been killed. The Israeli military said that the militant group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, and its allies fired more than 15 rockets into southern Israel, wounding one person.
After a meeting of his security cabinet, Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, rejected the resolution as “unworkable” today and said that Israel had “never agreed to let an external body decide its right to protect the security of its citizens”.
“The firing of rockets this morning only goes to show that the UN decision is unworkable and will not be adhered to by the murderous Palestinian organisations,” he added.
Hamas, the Islamic militant group which controls the Gaza Strip, also rejected the UN resolution.
100 Survivors Rescued in Gaza From Ruins Blocked by Israelis
Relief Agencies Fear More Are Trapped, Days After Neighborhood Was Shelled
JERUSALEM, Jan. 8 — Emergency workers said they rescued 100 more trapped survivors Thursday and found between 40 and 50 corpses in a devastated residential block south of Gaza City that the Israeli military had kept off-limits to the International Committee of the Red Cross for four days.
…
My humble opinion is that both sides in the Israel/Palastine conflict are equally responsible for the situation in Gaza degrading to its current state. However only Israel is calling itself a western democracy and claiming ownership of our liberal democratic traditions. Therefore I believe that the western world has the right to hold Israel to greater account for the level of maturity, pragmatism and concern for all human life it has displayed during this conflict. After all, we are the good guys for some reason, aren’t we?
The question we are all sweating on I’m sure is how much value Obama places on our liberal democratic values. We shall find out in a couple of weeks when he can’t hide from this issue any longer.
Israelis Watch the Fighting in Gaza From a Hilly Vantage Point
They Come With Binoculars and Lawn Chairs; Nurse Znaty: ‘I’m Sorry, but I’m Happy’
(Wall Street Journal)
GAZA BORDER — Moti Danino sat Monday in a canvas lawn chair on a sandy hilltop on Gaza’s border, peering through a pair of binoculars at distant plumes of smoke rising from the besieged territory.
An unemployed factory worker, he comes here each morning to watch Israel’s assault on Hamas from what has become the war’s peanut gallery — a string of dusty hilltops close to the border that offer panoramic views across northern Gaza.
He is one of dozens of Israelis who have arrived from all over Israel, some with sack lunches and portable radios tuned to the latest reports of the battle raging in front of them. Some, like Mr. Danino, are here to egg on friends and family members in the fight.
Others have made the trek, they say, to witness firsthand a military operation — so far, widely popular inside Israel — against Hamas, the militant group that controls the Gaza Strip.
Over the weekend, four teenagers sat on a hill near Mr. Danino’s, oohing and aahing at the airstrikes. Nadav Zebari, who studies Torah in Jerusalem, was eating a cheese sandwich and sipping a Diet Coke.
“I’ve never watched a war before,” he said. A group of police officers nearby took turns snapping pictures of one another with smoking Gaza as a backdrop. “I want to feel a part of the war,” one said, before correcting himself with the official government designation for the assault. “I mean operation. It’s not a war.”
…
Yeti: Let’s not forget that Palestinian claims of the massacre of 3,000 at Jenin in 2002 turned out to be a hoax – after being unquestioningly peddled as fact by the MSM (including Robert Fisk at the Independent). Then there was the Lebanese ambulance hoax in 2006 – which was thoroughly debunked despite desparate defences from the left.
Time will tell about these latest accusations, but it is difficult to see what Israel has to gain by attacking UN safe havens where there are no terrorists. Why would they do that?
“Why would they do that?”
Because they want to commit genocide against the Palestinian people?
It should be noted that there’s zero parallels to be drawn here to the examples you mentioned above as the IDF does not deny targeting UN shelters and aid convoys.
Linking to free republic now, at least we know your true wing-nut colours PeterTB. Yes, the early estimates of dead in Jenin were overstated – many Palestinians claiming hundreds of dead when the actual number was “only” 52. The fact that Israel refused entry from humanitarian groups for several days while they bulldozed Jenin into dust certainly contributed to the confusion. I also remember watching TV on September 11th 2001, when many people expected the death toll to be around 10,000. I guess the fact that it was less than one third of that made all of those people hoaxters.
Has Tzipi thought of posting false-flag pamphlets?
It worked a treat for the Howard-led Libs in 2006.
Once upon a time an argument could be made that there was a difference between the Israeli Centre and the Israeli Far Right.
Thus perhaps, just perhaps, the massacre of many, many Gazans could be seen as a horrible, but necessary blood sacrifice to keep the likes of Netanyahu from leadership.
Alas, by peddling lies and by hi-jacking the methods, if not the motives of the Far Right, the Israeli Centre has dug its own political grave. The future of Israel is messianism, chauvinism and expansionism in the face of world opinion that is turning hard against those policies.
Yes there’s been some sloppy reporting, PeterTB…
Does that mean that thousands of Palestinians haven’t been killed by Israeli forces in the past decade?
Watching this tragedy unfold daily two images sum up better than words the suffering
1.The Scream by munsch
2. Picasso’s guernica
Yeti, please don’t reproduce the full text of articles from the press here. It’s a breach of copyright. It’s acceptable to link and summarise, or extract a quote, but you really shouldn’t be lifting all the text.
Well, since yeti’s so fond of long citations, here’s a long one from me in response to #38. And this list only takes us up to 2006. I’ll try to find a more up-to-date one. Apologies for chewing up band-width.
“The self-righteousness is a powerful act of self-denial and justification. It explains why the Israeli Jewish society would not be moved by words of wisdom, logical persuasion or diplomatic dialogue. And if one does not want to endorse violence as the means of opposing it, there is only one way forward: challenging head-on this righteousness as an evil ideology meant to cover human atrocities.”
http://pacificfreepress.com/news/1/3563-gaza-separating-the-truth-from-the-hype.html
I take it that this list of casualties (IDF storm-troopers and settlers included along with civilians) is the best response that Rob can come up with to this:
The United Nations has accused Israel of evacuating scores of Palestinians into a house in the suburbs of Gaza City, only to shell the property 24 hours later, killing some 30 people.
Pathetic. He knows as well as anyone that Palestinians dead outnumber Israeli dead by more than three to one – down from seven to one in the year 2000.
And anyway, what do you expect when a fascist army occupies and colonises foreign land – flowers and chocolate?
Rob, what I said to yeti applies to you as well – please don’t post comments of such excessive length. There must be a source from which you’re cutting and pasting, and it’s a breach of copyright to use so much, so please just post a link and a description and/or an excerpt.
In addition, such lengthy screeds really make the thread much more difficult to read.
The next person who does this will have their comment deleted, and be placed in moderation, and I’m unlikely to be on line much more this weekend, so comments might be stuck in the filter for quite some time.
Thanks.
Mark I apologize if I breached any copyright (I deliberately refrained from posting the whole WP article for that reason) – but I’m quite sure that Democracy Now does not copyright its interviews and would be more than happy for them to have the maximum possible exposure. I think it would be a good idea if you would allow that debate to be posted.
yeti, please just post a link.
As I’m saying, there are a number of reasons why it’s undesirable to post very lengthy comments, and to reproduce others’ content in full in the context of a blog thread regardless of copyright concerns.
Recognise the cause and effects.
Palestinian militants didn’t just suddenly appear. They are a symptom:
How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe
Oxford professor of international relations Avi Shlaim served in the Israeli army and has never questioned the state’s legitimacy. But its merciless assault on Gaza has led him to devastating conclusions
he only way to make sense of Israel’s senseless war in Gaza is through understanding the historical context. Establishing the state of Israel in May 1948 involved a monumental injustice to the Palestinians. British officials bitterly resented American partisanship on behalf of the infant state. On 2 June 1948, Sir John Troutbeck wrote to the foreign secretary, Ernest Bevin, that the Americans were responsible for the creation of a gangster state headed by “an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders”. I used to think that this judgment was too harsh but Israel’s vicious assault on the people of Gaza, and the Bush administration’s complicity in this assault, have reopened the question.
I write as someone who served loyally in the Israeli army in the mid-1960s and who has never questioned the legitimacy of the state of Israel within its pre-1967 borders. What I utterly reject is the Zionist colonial project beyond the Green Line. The Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the aftermath of the June 1967 war had very little to do with security and everything to do with territorial expansionism. The aim was to establish Greater Israel through permanent political, economic and military control over the Palestinian territories. And the result has been one of the most prolonged and brutal military occupations of modern times.
Four decades of Israeli control did incalculable damage to the economy of the Gaza Strip. With a large population of 1948 refugees crammed into a tiny strip of land, with no infrastructure or natural resources…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/07/gaza-israel-palestine
earlier I said that the number of dead Palestinians outnumber the dead Israelis by 3 to 1. Just to clarify – from 2005 to 2007 the ratio is closer to 15 to 1 (IDF soldiers included, numbers from the UN Office of Coordinate of Humanitarian Affaris in the Occupied Palestinian Territories). Including the current violence I think the ratio over the past 12 months has been something on the order of 100 to 1.
This is not to diminish the tragedy experienced by Israeli victims of Palestinian terrorism. However I doubt many are aware of where the balance of terror lies in this conflict.
Former Amb. Martin Indyk vs. Author Norman Finkelstein: A Debate on Israel’s Assault on Gaza and the US Role in the Conflict
Nice work Rob, did the Ministry send it to you or did you manage it all by yourself, I see we have 3 members of the Ministry in now, the overtime bill must be mounting,do you fax the time sheet in,or are you independent contractors,judging by Robs last effort must pay by the word.
Do they pay super and holiday pay.
Gosh, Rob. Only 6,730 words. At the current AJA Freelance rate, that’s worth $6,331.90. But you might have a slight problem getting paid, as it’s plainly evident that you pinched those words from elsewhere.
Since Rob didn’t bother to post a link, I will post one for him.
Suicide and Other Bombing Attacks in Israel Since the Declaration of Principles (Sept 1993)
And yes John Ryan, it is directly from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs website.
Yeah, right from old Tzipi. Told you I was under orders.
Idiots.
See if you can find this one:
Hint: You won’t like it when you find it.
http://dover.idf.il/IDF/English/News/the_Front/09/01/0902.htm
Why are Israelis so determined to become a pariah people again? Why are the children of the innocent victims of the Holocaust now seen to be the oppressors of a dispossessed people? After weeping as an adolescent over the victims of the Nazi concentration camps I had never thought to think of Jewish people as vengeful and racist. How can they believe that wars like this will bring them peace and security in their ‘promised land’? Who will want to support a Jewish state in the midst of a Moslem world when its only response to threat is exponential violence?
Aren’t they smarter than this?
yeti: “where the balance of terror lies in this conflict”
The notion that one can attribute blame based on the flow of casualties is flawed in many ways, and should not seriously be put forward. For instance, when a suicide bomber blows himself up prematurely, it would count as a mark against the lucky victims.
The uneven casualty count is reflective only of the relative efficiency, intelligence and common sense of each side.
yeti: “The United Nations has accused Israel of evacuating scores of Palestinians into a house in the suburbs of Gaza City, only to shell the property 24 hours later, killing some 30 people.”
The point of my post at 33 was that you shouldn’t take these reports on face value. The IDF makes mistakes, and often admits to them afterwards, but this sort of bastardry makes no sense at all. Why would they do this?
“The uneven casualty count is reflective only of the relative efficiency, intelligence and common sense of each side.”
I reckon it says a bit more than that. For a start it reflects the POWER wielded by each side. And the level of consent/support they can count on locally and from abroad.
Israel isn’t winning the body count simply because it has more guns and better intel. They are stacking up more corpses because they’ve decided it will lead to a solution. Still not too clear on the actual problem though…
yeti: “I guess the fact that it was less than one third of that made all of those people hoaxters.”
You’re really reaching now yeti. Comparing the misreporting and hoax claims of the Jenin incident over many months with some initially pessimistic 9/11 casualty estimates which were made more accurate within days.
Stop taking these reports out of Gaza at face value and propagating them as fact – at least until more reliable infomation is available. Keep an open mind
PeterTB, I already explained it. Once you realise that Israel is hell-bent on eradicating the Palestinian people and “purifying” the land, sickening attacks like that fit in to the whole context.
On a similar note, Federal Labor MP Julia Irwin who was chastised a few years ago for having the balls to call Israeli policy “ethnic cleansing” and refer to Gaza as a “concentration camp” has come out in an opinion piece today calling for Western governments to condemn Israel.
why shouldn’t I believe reports of IDF bastardry – when they have a long established record of pure bastardry going back decades? What I don’t understand is how people can take the IDF’s word at face value given their record of lies, murder and terror. If a link to some official IDF propaganda or the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs is all you got, then you got nothing.
Hamas Reinstates Crucifixions of Christians
Nicole Jansezian, 9 January 2009, Newsmax
While the world focused on Hamas militants launching rockets from Gaza at southern Israel, the terrorist organization also voted quietly to implement Islamic law in the Gaza Strip, including crucifixion of Christians, according to reports in the Arabic press.
The traditional Muslim criminal code, known as Sharia law, includes penalties such as amputation of limbs for stealing and the death penalty, including crucifixion, for actions Hamas deems detrimental to “Palestinian interests,”
…….
The new law was reported on the Al-Arabiya Web site and in the London-based Saudi-owned newspaper Al-Hayat,
…….
But the media scarcely took notice when the decision was reported during the Christian holidays
…….
“Hamas’ endorsement of nailing enemies of Islam to crosses came at the same time it renewed its jihad,” Jerusalem Post columnist Caroline Glick wrote on Dec. 26. “Here, too, Hamas wanted to make sure that Christians didn’t feel neglected as its fighters launched missiles at Jewish day care centers and schools.”
Christians are a minority in Gaza, numbering fewer than 2,000 residents among 1.6 million in the Strip.
…..
Comment: Tell me again about these nice, caring people in Hamas, their religion of peace, and why the Joooooos are to blame for all their actions? I seem to have missed that bit. Perhaps I been too busy watching the 12,500 muslim terrorist attacks (not counting rockets and mortars into Israel) since the Fall of the Towers?
MarkL
Canberra
A question for all the Israeli Government apologists on this thread:
Santayana said, just over a century ago, that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” I take it that the Israeli authorities have not forgotten about the Warsaw Ghetto of the 1940s — so why have they re-created it in Gaza?
Chasing down the source of the crucifixion story provides an interesting insight into the labyrinths of Middle eastern politics. Here are the original sources:
Both of these outfits are funded by the Saudi government. They are mouthpieces of Saudi anti-Iranian sentiment. Not unexpectedly, this meme has spread like wildfire through the MSM and the blogosphere. Yet there appears to be no independent confirmation of the story. Odd that.
Now perhaps there may be a kernel of truth in the story. It is not unexpected that Hamas might institute Sharia Law. This seems to be a penchant of Islamists, especially those associated with Iran. For example, here is the relevant section from the current constitution of Iraq:
In other words, Sharia Law! Yes. Under George W. Bush, the US has spent a trillion dollars establishing Sharia Law.
So folks who are a little prone to Islamophobia need to clear up in their own minds whether they object to Sharia Law per se, or how it may sometimes be interpreted.
But most relevantly, perhaps accepting the word of Saudi mouthpieces as (ahem) gospel displays an overeagerness to have one’s prejudices confirmed.
(I’d be interested to know if there are any other sources of info about the crucifixion angle besides those listed above.)
I just love the planks on this site
You can always tell that it’s spin by the tone of selfrighteousness
BTW how many innocents are going to die till Israel feels that it has accomplished its mission
which coincidentally seems to be how many innocents can they kill before Obama comes in
Yes Rob I found it came straight from the fount of honesty called the IDF,well do you and Mark L with help of others that are still here keeping an eye on the heretics who don’t believe the word according to the Ministry.
I love the idiots bit,a flash of temper perhaps, I think the same can be applied your good self, I am just waiting for you to admit that the Ministry employs you.
I don’t have a problem but it would make life a bit better,we know you spin like mad but are reasonably nice about and very very polite about it,while Mark L is the nasty side of the Good cop Bad cop, seeing as how Mark comes from Canberra,maybe you and he might like to be honest and tell us all which section of the Ministry your in.
It can’t be that difficult,do you compare notes wave to one another over the partition,have lunch together,just curious ???
Sorry about the ‘idiots’ bit, yeti & Mr Ryan.
“They should be true to their own principles. Rather than pander to messianics and chauvinists, they should demonstrate to Palestinians that they are willing to address their just demands.”
That’s a good analysis, Katz. The only problem with it is that it will only work – with a massive effort on both sides – with Abbas and the PA. I can’t see it working with Hamas, for reasons I’ve given more times than I can remember on this series of threads. However, I believe that Abbas’ tenure as President expired yesterday. If that’s true, it’s going to be that much more difficult in the months ahead if Hamas tries to gain control of the West Bank as well as Gaza.
I was a little reluctant to ask this question, but on the basis that it can’t be much more ridiculous than some earlier comments on the purity of the IDF, I’ll go ahead anyway: Since when were the ancient Romans who strung up Spartacus and Jesus of Nazareth Muslims?
That item about Hamas crucifying Xtans has got to be the stupidest piece of propaganda put out against Hamas by anyone, no matter where it comes from.
No wonder the Israelis are losing the propaganda battle, with that sort of stuff flying around.
Also this link to netherworld talks about GIYUS-seems there are a few on this blog
http://netherworld.wordpress.com/2006/11/12/ten-tips-for-dealing-with-giyus/
note the date at the top of the blog!
The Saudi’s accusing Hamas of crucifying Christians because and implementing Shariah are not only ludicrous by highly hypocritical, considering Saudi Arabian law is based on an extreme version of Islam itself.
And the West having an issue with Shariah law? Well it was the West who tore up the secular law of Iraq which enshrined many rights of women and replaced it with religious and tribal laws.
Despite my extreme skepticism, I would believe Hamas crucifies Christians if there were trustworthy secondary sources for that ‘information’. Haaretz would do nicely, as would Al Jazeera, BBC, CNN. But there’s nothing. When I was searching around, I found that the whole story is quoted on a blog, and then another blog links to that and quotes the whole story again, and then a third blog would link and quote and so on. Indignation? Lots. Fact-checking? Absent. That’s not secondary sourcing.
1996, Qana, southern Lebanon.
Israeli shelling kills 106 refugees sheltering in UN camp, with more wounded.
Oooops.
2006, al-Khuraybah, southern Lebanon.
IAF bombers kill 28 civilians, including 16 children. Many wounded.
Oh dear.
Shit happens… surprisingly often, in some places.
First we have citations from Free Republic, now Newsmax. These are two of the most absurd websites on the internet, they make the IDF website look credible by comparison. I suggest that PeterTB and MarkL do something more productive with their time, such as helping their mentally ill wingnut friends plan Sarah Palin’s 2012 campaign.
Good to know @ 72 that Ha’aretz is regarded as reliable. Here is its latest on the Jabilya school incident:
It would appear that the attack was lawful under the Law of Armed Conflict, viz:
Perhaps our news sites are being directed by that same ministry to delete all reference to non-Palestinians attending all the pro-Palestine rallies being held around Australia and the world, and to chop the attendance figures by about 2-thirds.
According to the news bulletins I watched last night, a pro-Palestine rally/march I attended in Brisbane yesterday was attended by ‘about 500 members of Brisbane’s Palestinian community’ (SBS)and ‘about 1,000 members of Brisbane’s Palestinian community (Channel 9).
The ‘Palestinian community’ were there all right. But a glance at the faces in the crowd revealed that at least 50% comprised every race and culture that makes up the Australian population – including Jews.
Of the 8 (or so) speakers that addressed the ‘Palestinian community’, one was Jewish, one Aboriginal, one a Catholic priest, one a non-Palestinian representative of Australians for Palestine, one a Trades and Labour union rep and one a Labour MP. An Irish-born Australian provided the entertainment.
As for the numbers given, the march stretched at least a block and a half, shoulder to shoulder and densely packed – you do the Maths and just try to come up with either 500 or 1,000.
Good Grief!
There were civilians in that “object”. What does the Law say about that?
And doesn’t a Qassam rocket need a sturdy launcher to send it on it’s way? Was the thing totally obliterated by Israeli fire?
“There were civilians in that “object”. What does the Law say about that?”
This, I think:
Which the IDF attack was.
“Noncombatants may not be made the object of direct attack. They may, however, suffer injury or death incident to a direct attack on a military objective without such an attack violating the LOAC, if such attack is on a lawful target by lawful means.”
Well that sums up this WHOLE Glorious Gaza adventure, doesn’t it? Any civilian death can be dismissed as incidental to the military objective. Sorted.
Denial is state of mind experienced when one has undergone, or is currently undergoing, massive trauma.
It appears to be what Rob is currently experiencing. Viewing the images of dead children and hearing the death tally every night on the news eventually takes it toll. People react differently. Some, who can’t handle it, bury their heads in the sand and pretend it just isn’t happening – accepting it is happening is just too much for them to cope with.
That’s the only explanation I can come up with to explain what I would consider irrelevant references to massacres that occurred a few years. Clearly, since the figures were conflated then, they must be now, and since the death toll isn’t high the offensive is morally, ethically and legally right.
#79 – you are closer to the mark than you think, mars08.
#80 – see the Ministry’s latest bulletin for the explanation you’re after wrt dead children, oz.
Haaratz here is simply reporting on the IDF’s official statements. Rob hasn’t cited anything from anyone other than the Israeli government and military. I hope he understands why nobody takes these professional liars and child-murderers seriously. I agree with Oz that he is likely to be in a state of cognitive dissonance, trying desperately to rationalise acts that he knows are evil.
So what evidence, then, do you adduce, yeti, that the IDF’s account is false? Simply saying that the IDF are “professional liars and child-murderers” is neither evidence nor an argument.
He knows the IDF wouldn’t lie
Once again you make my point for me, yeti – or rather teh Ministry’s.
It’s highly relevant to note that the Israeli State and the IDF are doing everything within their power to prevent journalists from having access to any capacity for reporting from Gaza what’s occurring:
http://firedoglake.com/2009/01/10/gaza-update-journalists-the-new-targets-in-israeli-attacks/
the only point that you’re making is that you’re too idiotic to work out why a terrorist army with a long established history of official lies and cold-blooded murder (that’s a FACT, not an opinion) would lie in the course of defending the bloodbath that the whole world has watched them create. I suggest you go to some ultra-Right website, where you might find people fascist enough to take you seriously. Over here the only thing you’re convincing anybody of is that you are a revolting, loathsome apologist for the most sickening crimes, a complete racist who is totally unable to see the humanity in the innocent people being murdered at the hands of these monsters. You are an enabler of their murder. Godwin said that given enough time a thread will result in invocations of Nazism, but he didn’t say that it wasn’t sometimes appropriate. And here it is appropriate, because that’s the exact you’ve displayed nothing more than the morality of the most repulsive species of Nazi. Some people will defend Israel’s actions because they aren’t in possession of all the facts, some will defend Israel’s actions because they aren’t in possession of the smallest element of humanity. I thought you might have belonged to the first category, I was wrong. This pointless conversation is over.
Mark @ 8: a contrary view from PJM:
Sorry, here’s the link. Or should that be teh link?
Israel lives by a constant reinforcement that it is persecuted and pilloried worldwide.
The culture of “woe is me” extends to such outlandish statements as those expressed in post 88
Perhaps if the JP was fair dinkum it would actually understand that most of the world is law abiding and has some forms of civility.Until israel has the maturity to self examine it will persist as the most PARANOIC nation on earth.
“….most of the world is law abiding ….”
So it what way, Gusface, is Israel currently breaching the only international law that is in effect in this situation – the Law of Armed Conflict? And in what way is Hamas, the government of Gaza, abiding by it?
I’ll get to yeti’s comment @ 87 in a moment.
Israel is a bully,imposing ww2 tactics on a largely defenceless people (warsaw ghetto anyone)
Unfortunately as the bastard child of the west Israel has not had the correct parental control and its national pysche exhibits the worst of mental illnesses
debate with such a state and consequently its people is impossible as the central tenent of Israel is that they are the chosen people and we gentiles are little better than sub-humans
or so their Torah says,doesnt it Rob?
So that’s an answer to my question….how? It was you that raised the issue of legality. Please be prepared to support it when challenged.
But be that as it may, you say, “….as the central tenent of Israel is that they are the chosen people and we gentiles are little better than sub-humans.”
Please provide some evidence for this. It looks like classic anti-Semitism, but you may have a higher purpose in making your point.
Having no knowledge, I can’t comment on what the Torah says.
Meanwhile, you might like to look at the multitude of videos on YouTube which catalogue how Palestinian children in both Gaza and the West Bank are taught the virtues of martyrdom and genocide and which call for racial extermination of the Jews – and then, perhaps, point me in the direction of similar state-sanctioned educational programs conducted by Israel.
Horrific as this latest massacre is, the real crimes against the Palestinians are actually long over and forgotten.
Every person in every country that officially supports Israel’s ‘right to defend itself’ should be forced to take a long hard look at maps of Palestine, dated especially … 1946, 1948, 1967, 1980, 1990, 2000, 2007 – especially 2007. (Even under the worst excesses of Apartheid South Africa, its government did not have the inhumane audacity to actually create Whites-only roads.)
The ruthless progression of Israel’s dispossession of the Palestinian people is so horrendous, the violence of Palestinian insurgency is not the part that should amaze us … but its restraint.
Israeli tanks drive into hostile territory in Gaza.
This is the military moment of truth.
Frankly, I’m a little surprised that the Israelis have chosen to do this. Perhaps unfavourable world opinion has induced them to try to bring high-profile hostilities to an end.
I think those who accuse the world media of being pro-Palestinian need to stop equating Al Jazeera to “world media”. Every American cable news network is either ridiculously pro-Israel (Going as far as to call their segments on the war “Target: Hamas”) or attempt to balance themselves.
I think the issue is that when the media doesn’t ignore the fact that hundreds of Palestinian civilians are dying and Israel is being accused of breaking international law by the UN, then they are “biased”.
This sentence:
“while not always making clear that Israeli military actions came in response to Palestinian attacks.”
Is either an attempt to describe the current situation in isolation of decades of history or to perpetuate the lie that Hamas broke the ceasefire. Both have been shredded on this blog.
Rob
read your old testament its all there in black and white,then pop into your local synagogue and ask for a quick read of the Torah as regards the historical basis for Israel
then understand that from birth,like your ARAB bloodbrothers, you are inculcated with values that are manifestly wrong
and yes they call for the destruction or cite either of you as the chosen ones.
BUT no ARAB state currently has the “green light” to perform state sanctioned terror from the West.
Just remember that you are not without sin and Israels “holier than thou” attitude dont ring true anymore.
Its time for Israel to grow up
You seem to assume I’m Jewish, Gusface. Why is that?
Rob
I assumed you were a seeker of truth,like me
but if you want to derail this by raising ethnocentricity go ahead and give it your best shot sunshine
Fair enough, leave it there, although I think your assumptions speak for themselves. I note that you have not been able to provide any fact or argument to sustain the points I challenged at #93. Could it be that you can’t?
Rob
If somehow you think Israel is acting legally in the invasion of Gaza I cant help you.
suffice to say that if a people think they are the “chosen” ones and only respect yahweh’s laws (which only apply to them and not us sub-human “gentiles”) then i think Western civilised concepts of laws are beyond their cloitered minds.sadly.
Rob is right. Palestinian children are indoctrinated to hate Israel. They are therefore likely to grow up to be terrorists. Israel is therefore perfectly right to kill them.
It appears the senior command decided to shock the Palestinians by killing as many people connected to Hamas as possible. The assumption was, apparently, that killing several hundred people would make the Hamas leaders surrender or plead for a cease-fire. This is one of the reasons the air attack was carried out as a surprise. The IDF, which planned to attack buildings and sites populated by hundreds of people, did not warn them in advance to leave, but intended to kill a great many of them, and succeeded. (Haaretz)
Now let’s hear from the non-Nazis:
Leading British Jews call on Israel to halt ‘horror’ of Gaza (Guardian)
Israel’s Vichy “native police”:
Palestinian security forces break up Gaza protest (Haaretz)
Ramallah residents were shocked on Friday when a protest against the Israeli offensive in Gaza was forcibly dispersed by Palestinian Authority security forces using tear gas and clubs. Youth from the Fatah movement assisted security forces in breaking up a rally of solidarity with the Palestinian faction’s rival Hamas in the Gaza Strip…
No, Gusface, I asked you to support your position that it was illegal. I have no difficulty arguing it was legal. I want to hear your contrary argument.
Rob
I think better people here than me have tried to expalin international law,covenenants,treaties etc to yourself.
As mamonides said a long time ago
“their are none so deaf as those that will not hear”
So to yeti @ 87.
The personal abuse I’ll pass by. I’m trying not to argue on that basis, but on the basis of fact, historical sequence and rational argument. yeti has lost every argument he has advanced (if his positions could be described as such, which I doubt), and so he resorts to the ancient time-honoured formula. But buried in yeti’s comment is an almost-legitimate complaint – why do I come here and trouble the likes of him with arguments he doesn’t like and can’t confute.
Well, without me and the few rational voices here, this thread and those that preceded it would have been just another, simple anti-Israel (and latterly, verging on anti-Semitic) hate fest. Uninterrupted paeans of hatred are tiring; they need interruptions. So I interrupt. Sorry if I keep breaking up your fun.
As the star-shells go off to commemorate this 100th comment on the thread, I’ll attempt a brief answer to Rob’s question re: “The Law of Armed Conflict.”
Attacks shall be limited strictly to military objectives
As far as I’m aware — and as far as numerous experts in this field are aware — “military objectives” does not include civilian hospitals, civilian universities, civilian schools, or clearly-marked compounds belonging to non-combatant international organisations (i.e. the United Nations). Stating after the fact that “we thought there may have been a belligerent combatant in the general vicinity” is not a valid excuse.
Distinction means discriminating between lawful combatant targets and noncombatant targets such as civilians, civilian property, POWs, and wounded personnel who are out of combat. The central idea of distinction is to only engage valid military targets. An indiscriminate attack is one that strikes military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction. Distinction requires defenders to separate military objects from civilian objects to the maximum extent feasible. Therefore, it would be inappropriate to locate a hospital or POW camp next to an ammunition factory.
Much of the IDF attack relies on this argument, using it to justify assaults on compounds.
Proportionality. Proportionality prohibits the use of any kind or degree of force that exceeds that needed to accomplish the military objective
Hamas have lobbed unguided missiles into Israel, killing no-one. In response, Israel launches an air/sea/land invasion and bombardment of a densely-populated area without a standing army, any form of navy and no air power (apart from unguided ballistic missiles), killing nearly 1,000 (most of whom were civilians) in a week. How is that a proportional use of force? Maybe Israel are using the British precedent of the late 1970s/early 1980s which saw the RAF launch air raids over Dublin and a naval blockade of Cobh in retaliation for the IRA’s bombing campaign in Northern Ireland and major cities of England? Oh, that’s right, the British didn’t do any such thing, did they?
The Geneva Conventions of 1949, which you apparently regard as irrelevant. It’s strange that the Law of Armed Conflict explicitly states that its most important rules come from these same international Conventions.
And before the moderator jumps in and accuses me of firing off ‘anti-Semitism’ without cause, can I say that I have several times, and very politely, asked Gusface to explain why he believes Jews consider gentiles to be subhuman.
Rob – Rand McNally (the author) is delusional. That’s not unexpected of of your average Pajamas Media blogger, but I feel I better explain why I think this this to you. First, he thinks the world’s press is pro-Palestinian. Nonsense – it would be easy to print counterexamples, and most journalists are probably not taking sides.
But what is worse is that he sees all motives as political. That is utter nonsense. Why is so much press being given to the victims of the conflict? (And let’s not have any nonsense about “perceived” – when 800 people are dead, that’s enough for me not to trust the bastard.) One reason is that death sells issues and advertising. That’s been true since the USS Maine exploded, and before. But more considerable reason is feeling shared by many journalists, most of their audience, and the public at large. It is (ta-dum!) sympathy to the underdog. Or to be precise, … the deserving underdog. Hamas may not have the upper hand, but they’re seen as a group of nasty neer-do-wells by most people. There isn’t much kindness for them. But when families are killed by bombs, I can guess how most Australian feel – and it isn’t in sympathy with the Israeli Defense Forces planes.
I doubt “sympathy for the underdog” is a cultural universal (although I’ve seen a lot of it in Vi?t Nam). But it is very common in Western countries like Australia.
Maybe the meme goes back to when plucky, scrappy David went up against Goliath some 3000 years ago. And Israel has benefited from it, or at least. Look at the widespread feeling of benevolence for Israel in the 40s – after the Holocaust, the Jews finally get a state of their own! Wonderful! And consider 1967. Egypt, Syria and Jordan gangs up on Israel in tandem, and then gets their clock cleaned in 6 days flat. I know who I side with, and it isn’t with the military dictatorships.
But Israel’s problem is that it is not the underdog any more. The Palestinians are. Tough, isn’t it?
Rob
I feel you pain.
Re your woe is me the world’s agin me line -boring as batshit old son
as i stated before,read the old testament and then if you are still in doubt,trot around to your local synagogue and ask for a reading of the Torah-esp. the historical basis of Israel.
ps the Gentile-subHuman thing is direct from both sources
Now back to your disinformation campaaign for you dear chap.
(remember you said “fair enough” earlier sunshine when first I cautioned you against your “ethnocentricity ” line)
Just for interest, I went to my mother’s for lunch today. She was in the middle of culling some old books. I stumbled across the Consolidated Encyclopaedia 1936 yearbook. Apart from some consolidating some fascinating news snippets from round the world, the following might resonate seventy two years later:
“Conflict between Arabs (sic) and Jews in Palestine causes over five hundred deaths and twelve hundred injured.
Riots between arabs and jews.”
The entry for Palestine was large relative to many other world events, so I infer that it was a sore point for the world even in the shadow of Herr H in Germany.
You get the flavour.
It also went into some of the problems the Brits had in keeping them apart. Not particularly confidence filling for anyone who thinks that having monitors stuck in the middle will do the slightest good.
Tangeree @ 109.
Here again, very patiently, are the facts.
“As far as I’m aware — and as far as numerous experts in this field are aware — “military objectives” does not include civilian hospitals, civilian universities, civilian schools, or clearly-marked compounds belonging to non-combatant international organisations (i.e. the United Nations). Stating after the fact that “we thought there may have been a belligerent combatant in the general vicinity” is not a valid excuse.”
The target is Hamas’ military capability, infrastructure, installations and weapons caches. These are legitimate military targets. If such are concealed within, or located beside, civilian installations such as schools or hospitals or mosques, these latter lose the immunity afforded them by the LOAC. The responsibility for their destruction, and of collateral civilian casualties, lies with those who violated the LOAC by so positioning them.
You clearly do not understand the doctrine of distinction. Israel has gone to every possible (as opposed to feasible, as required by the LOAC) to ensure that civilians are given every chance to get out of the way. Leaflets air-dropped, warnings over broadcast radio, break-ins to the cell-phone system, etc. Each time they give away the advantage of surprise.
As for proportionality – “Hamas have lobbed unguided missiles into Israel, killing no-one” – allow me to quote myself here:
Haha Rob, since when have I lost a rational fact-based argument (yes, I know I’m ignoring my own advice to feed the Nazi, I’ll have to forgive myself later).
You’ve been wrong about the 1948 war (Zionists accepted the partition)
You’ve been wrong about the 1967 war (never heard of the Allon Plan, thought Israel wanted to give it all back).
You’ve been wrong about Camp David in 2000 (thought Israel offered a two-state settlement).
You’ve been wrong about who broke the ceasefire (ignore the attack on November 4, ignore the illegal blockade of Gaza).
You’ve been wrong about who’s blocking the negotiated settlement (doesn’t know that everybody except Israel is ready to accept the 1967 borders, or maybe does but doesn’t care)
You’ve been wrong about who constitutes a reputable source (unable to come up with a single incorrect fact published by Chomsky or Fisk, yet pathetically demanding that people take the word of one of an army with one of the worst human rights records on the face of the planet – and a long history of official lies).
You’ve been wrong about international law (totally ignorant of the World Court’s 2004 ruling against Israelis consistent ongoing violations of international law).
You’ve been wrong about IDF war crimes (parroting their every last blood-soaked lie, telling everyone to assume that everything these war-criminals say is true and everything that journalists, humanitarian aid agencies and the United Nations is false).
What else have you been wrong about? Basically everything. But probably the wrongest thing you’ve said has been that you’ve been arguing on the basis of fact, historical sequence and rational argument. Your “facts” come direct from the mouth of a fascist army that expells and kills the journalists who are the only people who could verify what they say. Everything you know about Israeli history would fit on a post-it note, I’d like to pack you off to a library, since you clearly have zero acquaintance with most serious scholarship on the issue. And when you’re called on your ignorance you just change the subject by posting the latest piece of IDF shit, well congratulations, it takes a real dedication to the truth to cut and paste from a criminal Army’s website.
Yes, a rational voice. It is so irrational to oppose the deliberate slaughter of children. If you’re a fucking Nazi, that is.
You know what Rob, I’ll make your job a lot easier.
Here I’ll link to the IDF and the Israeli MFA.
Now since your entire contribution to this thread has been spamming it with their garbage, these links basically have everything you’ve got to say covered.
Ah Rob, I wondered how long it would take one of the Ministry men to raise the Anti-Semite blame game,criticise Israel and your an Anti-Semite, but praise Israel and have a go at the Palestinians I think your being anti-Semitic as well.
Me I dont know what you are Rob I don’t think your Greek,but you lack of honesty on here is a bit annoying,I,m retired so it gives me time to read blogs at my leisure,so you either work for the Ministry or you dont.
But however given that the IDF and the US which backs them have problems with the truth, about what their troops do we have had lots of that from the US so i should thik the IDF has learned well,HAMAS are the elected Govt of Gaza,your lot the Israeli Govt and the US under Bush who is to put it mildly a conniving liar, did not like that one little bit,so the turned Gaza from a proto-concentration Camp into a free fire zone,and when the locals got mad and started to resist Israel decided to try and destroy it.
Its 800 odd so far Rob, will Israel stop at 1.6 mil,when they have killed everyone in Gaza because believe me they will have to,because all they are doing is making the next generation hate them even more.
I assume we will then move onto the West Bank,where the Apartheid state is being created where the Israelis have the best land, water supplies,stolen from the Palestinians, and lots of right wing crazies who believe in fairy tales(bible,Torah) to murder the Palestinians there,if the Israeli Govt think that Fatah is going to save their ass in the West Bank I think they might be very very wrong,all they are doing is strengthening Hamas,and if you are not bright enough to see that that you and your Ministry friends will be spin doctoring away in another 60yrs,unless the US says enough and cuts off arms and money,we will see how long the war lasts then.
Fortunately not everybody in Israel is as sick as you are.
The time of the righteous (Gideon Levy – Haaretz)
This is a detailed article on the months leading up to the conflict and the strategies of the parties involved, and should be interesting to anybody who wants to know more about the background to the conflict.
Birth Pangs of a New Palestine (Mouin Rabbani)
A partial excerpt:
I reckon it’s neat the way some media outlets are calling it a “war”.
Sort of like Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Bogong are mountains.
Rob would put the good Dr Joseph Goebbells to shame, still I give him full marks for defending the indefensible.The pretense Israel have, that they are only defending their people from rocket attacks is long gone.They are ethnically cleaning out Gaza,and the ones that wont go by military means, will be slowly starved out.It is becoming crystal clear to the world apart from the U.S., this is the end game.
As John Ryan said cut off the arms and money from the U.S.they wouldn’t last long, their economy would probably be on par with the Sudan.
Yes, we at the Ministry know Gideon well.
Logic and reason died here, Larvatus Prodeo, 11th Jan 2009. RIP.
I’ll leave you guys to it.
Rob
I’ll leave you with a very old and very poignant judaic goodbye.
“next year in jerusalem”
Rob… the undeserving underdog…
LOL!!! I somehow missed it, but at 89 Rob posted a link to PAJAMAS MEDIA to back up his claims of media bias – guess who’s reporting for Pajamas Media… yes, that’s right, Rob’s favorite “journalist”:
JOE THE PLUMBER!
(I guess he wasn’t kidding when he said that’s where he got his news.)
And some of us may leave you Rob with this question: When is it enough for you and those like minded, in this most recent murderous operation–1,000, 5,000, 20,000, 100,000 Gaza Palestinians dead ???
How much blood of innocent children in particular, do you want before it becomes disproportionate in your opinion?
The logic and reason of humanitarianism and proportionality died in you, by the sound of it, a long time ago.
A last quotation for you Rob, from the Torah apparently, said to Oskar Schindler by one of his Schindlerjuden
He who saves one life, saves the whole world.
Contemplate that, and who it was written for, now and for the future.
Shalom, Rob.
Disarming Gaza
UN levels war crimes warning at Israel
Killing of 30 people in Gaza when army shelled house full of evacuees ‘has all hallmarks of war crime’, says high commissioner for human rights
So how should we judge the a wild-eyed extremist who detonates a car-bomb at a busy intersection, in order to kill a couple of soldiers at a checkpoint?
Does the responsibility for collateral civilian casualties lie with those who positioned the checkpoint?
Well Rob you still never had the courage to admit to what you are,or will you return under another nick,or will Piers Ackerman morph into Rob,cant win em all Rob.
I hope you don’t bugger up your promotion prospects, by for now till you next incarnation
Well Mars, we could close the checkpoint, build a bloody big wall and allow nobody through. That would solve the problem.
Just goes to show they are using the same accusations at each other imo.
Yeti, @ post 129,
The house incident I fist saw reported on this blog, by a medic over there back on the 6th Jan:
“The Shifa director also told me that emergency medics still cannot reach the Zaytoun house that yesterday morning was bombed with inhabitants locked inside. There are two main accounts of the story, both criminal. One: Israeli soldiers rounded up the inhabitants of the multi-story house, separated the men –15, I was told–and shot them point blank in front of the women and children of the family, 20, I was told. Then, laid explosives around the house and bombed the rest of the extended family.
“Two: Israeli soldiers rounded up the inhabitants of the multi-story house, locked them in one room for a day, and bombed it the following morning.
“Either way, Israeli soldiers intentionally imprisoned and bombed the inhabitants of the house. And are actively preventing medics from reaching any potential survivors. The medics have tried to coordinate with the ICRC (international committee of the red cross) without success: no one can reach the house.”
http://ingaza.wordpress.com/2009/01/06/where-would-you-go/
Details were obviously sketchy then, but it’s good to see the MSN now picking up on the story.
“Just goes to show they are using the same accusations at each other imo.”
True enough. But only one side gets to do it year after year without copping the “terrorist” tag.
Israelis accused of ‘human shields’ tactic
25 July 2006
BBC News, Gaza
The Israeli army has been accused of using Palestinian civilians as human shields in an operation in northern Gaza.
According to the Israeli human rights group, B’tselem, six civilians including two minors were subjected to the illegal tactic during an incursion into the town of Beit Hanoun… http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5212870.stm
+++++
Israeli troops used Palestinian as human shield
April 11, 2007
JERUSALEM – Sameh Amira was fast asleep when he was jolted awake by pounding at the front door. Israeli troops were on a manhunt for wanted militants in the West Bank and decided to draft help.
The terror-stricken 24-year-old Palestinian soon found himself forced onto the front lines of Israel’s shadowy war against militants, a human shield as he led heavily armed soldiers from house to house. “I was afraid I would die,” he said in a recent interview.
For several years, Palestinians had complained about the army’s use of human shields, but proof was difficult to come by. Then in late February, Associated Press Television News captured footage… http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18058725/
GOSH. It’s hard to believe, isn’t it?
Now be honest… isn’t your first instinct to give the Israelis the benefit of the doubt?
“True enough. But only one side gets to do it year after year without copping the “terrorist” tag.”
Most certainly, although I suggest that those on the opposite side have plenty of tags to use. Working through these threads provides plenty of examples of name calling.
As for your ‘Now be honest…” question, I guess what would weigh in many peoples’ minds is the question: “Who is more likely to blow me up in some holiday destination or on a plane five miles up?” Sounds cynical I know, but I am not sure if there is instinct out there to give the Isrealis the benefit of the doubt, as much as the perception of who one is likely to be threatened or killed by. Of course the logical answer to that is some bloody hoon P plater, but in the context of this argument I suspect that my reasoning is closer to people’s gut feel than any reasoned analysis of what is happening in Palestine.
I mean for example, if one is standing in line going through xray machines and security checks and looking at $$ extra for the privilege on our travel costs – is one going to ‘blame’ the Israelis?
Added to my feeling that most people believe they are being propogandised by both sides, that cynical self absorbed answer is probably the best we will come up with.
You see, while one can ping from site to site reading horror stories of what the ‘other side’ has done and why it is ‘their’ fault and that ‘they are criminals’ and come to no conclusion other than they seem essentially to be laying the same charges at each others’ doors, one can fairly observe that the Israelis have not been associated with much in the way of aircraft or holiday destination bombing. If you have nothing else you can see, feel and touch, that is as good as anything in forming opinions.
Another report confirming what Rob was doubting on the first thread – that Hamas offered a renewal of the ceasefire in December, and that Israel rejected it. The Israeli Embassy has refused to comment:
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45350
Mark, I think you were right in your introduction to one of these earlier threads — that things will never improve so long as both sides continue to frame the issues in their present mindset and continue to use the same calculus, which has brought only cruelty from and to everyone.
These threads make very depressing reading, as they replicate in miniature the fixed and frozen assumptions which drive the violence. What’s needed is a change of heart all around.
I think a neutral observer or a space alien would conclude very rapidly that the benefits of a shared peaceful future far outweigh a winner-takes-all gambit. Unrealistic as it is, I’ve always thought a two-state solution (which would devolve into endless mutual suspicion and hostility) would be less beneficial than a well-structured regional Federation with internal and external mutual security guarantees — a sort of Levantine Switzerland.
I’m fuzzy on Swiss history but it’s my impression that the cantons were once at perpetual war with one another (linguistic religious and ethnic differences — sound familiar?) prior to forming up in league. Does anyone know the specifics of that history, and whether there are any useful lessons to be applied here?
“Who is more likely to blow me up in some holiday destination or on a plane five miles up?”
If I’m not mistaken, Hamas has never launched an attack outside the area of conflict. Don’t have time for the research right now.
BTW. There was an article by Pres Jimmy Carter floating about a few days ago, which touched on Hamas offers to renew and widen the ceasefire in return for UN aid and better living conditions.
Okay, class. Anyone want to explain why those terms could never be considered as serious by Israel?
War should only ever be the last option…
Gaza an unnecessary war
by Jimmy Carter
http://www.iviews.com/Articles/articles.asp?ref=WP0901-3778
“Okay, class. Anyone want to explain why those terms could never be considered as serious by Israel?”
Well they were the terms in the initial ceasefire that Israel agreed too and then didn’t implement.
Maybe because they wanted a war instead? They were, after all, the exact same terms that Israel had agreed to in June 2007 – although without ever abiding by them.
mars at 140, I don’t think it can be overstated the impact that Jimmy Carter’s “Peace Not Apartheid” has had in changing the tone of the debate. Prior to his book, it was standard practice to slime anyone criticising Israel – let alone using the A-word – as an anti-Semite. Back in 2002 that would have been the end of discussion.
But when they tried to do the same thing with America’s most respected ex-President they went a bridge too far. Now the “anti-Semite” term of abuse has been exhausted, compared to several years ago almost nobody takes it seriously any more, even the most shameless Israeli apologists hardly bother with it now.
There has been a real shift in popular perception, and the Israeli PR machine is clearly floundering (witness their lame efforts that were the original subject of this thread). Mainstream American media accounts are still extremely biased, but even there you can see cracks appearing in what used to be a solid wall of fascist propaganda. The neo-con sound-bites have passed their expiry date. Israel’s latest actions are just putting the nails in the coffin of its international reputation.
I think that’s right, Yeti – there’s been a shift in the capacity of apologists to use the cheaper suite of tricks. Now you’ll only see that sort of nonsense among a few fringe manicheans like CL at Catallaxy, with his silly non-sequitirs (opposing IDF war crimes = supporting ‘genocide’ against Israelis)- and it even gets contested there.
These threads make very depressing reading, as they replicate in miniature the fixed and frozen assumptions which drive the violence. What’s needed is a change of heart all around.
And what are your examples of these “fixed and frozen assumptions”, j_p_z? Your statement is so broad as mean anything.
Mars @ 138
“If I’m not mistaken, Hamas has never launched an attack outside the area of conflict. Don’t have time for the research right now.”
I am sorry if I misinterpreted your initial question. I thought you were asking why I thought that people would favour the Isreali version of events in a general sense.
Those I had in mind (people who might be concerned about their travel safety and security and land based terrorist attacks) are generally aware that the situation in Palestine has been the inspiration and driver of many of the attacks, but I would be surprised if many would know the distinctions between even the main Palestinian groups.
That does not prevent people from saying in their own heads “I dunno who all these Palestinian groups (and those who are in sympathy worldwide) are, but I do know that the IDF has not done any of this stuff”.
That’s enough for most people.
excuse my indulgence here but
Does anyone know the specifics of
1.Aust citizens fighting for another country-can they be tried in Oz for acts committed overseas
2.Is it legal to Draft Australian born citizens into another countries army,whilst said citizen is visiting that country.
Ta
Yes. http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/wca1945121/
If the laws of that other country allow it then it is legal in that country. This is a common problem for Australian citizens born in Greece (and some other countries) who migrated to Australia as young children and who have taken out Australian citizenship. They can find that if they subsequently return to Greece they may required to perform national service in the Greek Army and may be prosecuted and jailed for not performing their national service obligations. Their arguments that they are citizens of another country are not sufficient to excuse them from national service under Greek law.
GregM
Ta for the link re point 1
As regards point 2, I would be grateful if someone could clarify where the person is Australian BORN the legalities of being drafted into a foreign Army
(quite pertinent to the current topic,but for obvious reasons I dont want to go into too much detail)
Further to (1) above see also S. 268 of the Commonwealth Criminal Code
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/cca1995115/sch1.html which lays out, among there things, what comprise war crimes under Commonwealth legislation and their penalties.
I think that that would depend on the laws of the foreign country. If the Australian born person held dual citizenship (say because of the citizenship of his/her parents) of the other country I expect that he/she could be drafted like anyone else who was a citizen of that country.
Then again a country might have a law allowing it to draft anyone resident in the country irrespective of that person’s citizenship. It wouldn’t make that country popular with the other countries whose citizens are affected and would probably be contrary to international law, which offers protection of citizens of other countries from such laws, but that would not make it illegal in that country.
That leaves aside the right of citizens of Australia to voluntarily join the armies of foreign countries.
And this leads us to Obama’s Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, who signed up to volunteer with the IDF when the Gulf War broke out.
Bad luck everyone who thinks Obama’s going to tough on Israel.
True story: that was the early Vietnam-era policy of the Menzies Government, which considered every overseas-born male of the right age resident in Australia a British subject for the purposes of conscription registration. At least five other countries issued official diplomatic protest.
Then again a country might have a law allowing it to draft anyone resident in the country irrespective of that person’s citizenship. It wouldn’t make that country popular with the other countries whose citizens are affected and would probably be contrary to international law, which offers protection of citizens of other countries from such laws, but that would not make it illegal in that country.
One clear example is the United States Selective Service system. My bolding.
That’s the current law, and I guess it was something similar in the 60s. At the time, my dad wanted to emigrate from the UK, and thought long and hard about moving to the US. The problem was that as a British citizen, he’d still be eligible for the draft, and he wanted no part of the war that was in Nam. So he went to Canada instead.
Hey,
It realy dosen’t matter if the Israeli forign minister encourage Israleies to express themselves in the media. The fact is that the media is biased and dose not present the real situation, shows partial perspective and ignores reality.
I started commenting on my own decision, trying to show you things you are not aware of. 2 samples:
Hey again,
My comment was interupetd so i’l add the 2 samples here:
1) We are sorry for the lost lifes of innocents but they are hurt becasue of Hamas cinical use of civilians as human shields and public places like Masques and schools as launching pads and arms storage. There are lots of pictures and videos to proove it.
2) have you looked at Math book of elementary school in Gaza (also in the UNRA one) ? Question include suicide bommber herros and satan jewish murderred
In Saturday’s Canberra Times (Forum page one, no less, on Forum p.2 was an article on SIM theory, debunking human-caused glowball warmenating, so that myth dies by inches, too), Philip Dorling’s article “A Diplomatic Silence” gave an excellent accounting of the Rudd Government’s solid support for Israel’s defensive war against Hamas.
Interestingly, he also pointed out that this was a very long-standing ALP policy, dating indeed from 1948, when the ALP government played an important international role in the creation of Israel by the United Nations (one of the few times it’s done something truly worthwhile). Indeed, Israel is the only nation created by the international community with United Nations support. Prime Minister Ben Chifley (and of course, the estimable Doc Evatt) received and deserve much credit for this, and Australia was the first nation in the UN to vote for the creation of Israel during that historic process.
While the ALP left is pro-paleosimian, what is fascinating about Dorling’s article is is open acknowledgement of their marginalisation and relative powerlessness. After all, it was Gillard who was making the public statements supporting the Israeli position, and Rudd who was attending the funeral of Private Sher in a mourning Yarmulk. (I thoroughly applaud this action, and cannot speak highly enough of the dignity of Rudd’s address at Private Sher’s funeral.)
Of course, the ALP policy regarding Israel is indistinguishable from that of the previous Coalition government, which is naturally a Very Good Thing.
I have been following this discussion here on and off. Mostly off, as it has been stereotyped in too many ways. What has struck me about it is the strong double standard in acceptance of data. Generally, raw propaganda fed by Hamas into the MSM is accepted rather uncritically,and ‘trusted to be true’. Data emanating from Israeli sources is automatically ‘trusted to be untrue’. When (as in the case of the UN schools), the IDF story is demonstrated to be true, this has no impact on the underlying belief system of the pro-terrorist types. There is no critical reassessment of sources based on factual assessment of their outputs where they can be validated.
Too many of the minds here are demonstrably closed in this matter, impervious to re-evaluation based on facts which can be validated. Whether this is bigotry or ideology is moot – there are few sceptics at LP in relation to anything a paleosimian says.
And what on earth have you people done to IT? For years he and I have been friendly sparring partners on opposite sides of the line. Never once have I been able to shift his rock-ribbed belief in Marxism (yes, he’s a card carrying Marxist in the literal sense of the term). I mean, he despises the Latte-Left, but you guys have quite removed his dislike of Israel and have him sounding like a neocon.
Well done!
MarkL
Canberra
Letter (in part, though I don’t think they’d complain of copyright for anyone to post it whole) of lawyers and academics to the London Times
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/letters/article5488380.ece
Oz @ 152 – Rahm Emmanuel was hired to be an enforcer on Congress and to keep tight discipline over the White House staff and the cabinet departments, not for his foreign policy expertise. So I wouldn’t read too much into any stance Obama may or may not take from that appointment alone.
Meni @ 156, I’ll believe UN-run schools in Gaza use math books that include questions about suicide bombers and murdering Jewish people when I see it. Even articles like this from 8 years ago mention nothing of the sort. In any case, surely you’re not suggesting hundreds of Palestinian children needed to die because of what you allege was printed in their math books?
And MarkL @ 157
“paleosimian” for goodness sake?? And you just had the gall to suggest the conversation has been stereotyped! Anyone unfamiliar with that term, feel free to do some quick googling and observe the intellectual company MarkL keeps.
On second thoughts, mentally strip that smiley from my last comment. There’s absolutely nothing to be humorous about.
the saddest thing is that Arab and Jew are of the same semitic heritage.fratricide I think the Talmud/Old Testament calls it.
a term like paleosimian fits neatly alongside gentile.
MarkL @157
The following quote might be of interest to you. It was taken from the website of the United Jewish Federation of Pittsburgh:
Now can you explain to us how your use of the term “Paleo-Simian” to refer to the Palestinians differs from the propaganda image which Goebbels created nearly 80 years ago and helped make the tragic events of the mid-20th century so much easier to accomplish?
MarkL, re:
Shorter MarkL: I want to establish my racist credentials at the earliest possible opportunity.
Shorter MarkL: Like I did with the raw propaganda of the “ambulance hoax” at “Zombietimes” by swallowing it hook, line and sinker.
http://zombietime.com/fraud/ambulance/
Especially MarkL’s
Shorter MarkL: If you’re not with me and the Israeli government, you must be with the terrorists.
You need to do more research MarkL on those perfidious lefties:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2005/08/08/the-question-on-everyones-lips/#comment-19213
Peter, see here on the ambulance hoax.
Mate, if you can’t admit the ambulance hoax was a hoax, then there is no chance of discussing anything sensibly with you. Surely Zombietime’s brutal dissection of that pathetic scam is one of the better examples of serious internet blogging, and an embarrassment to the MSM who bought it.
I agree with you, however, that the Paleosimian line was stupid. I suggest you focus on it intensely from now on to avoid grappling with the actual serious issues that MarkL raises. If I was you I’d raise it like a flag every time MarkL posts from now on. That’ll stop him from driving a wedge between you and your belief system.
Rob
had a nice kip-the people in gaza havent for a cuppla weeks now
anyway what talking points from the ministry of disinformation today are you about to regale us with.
One question before your orwellian justifications of the Israeli’s invasion of gaza
If the UN finds the IDF committed war crimes in gaza-should the IDF be charged or will the Israeli gvt ignore yet again the UN
Why would anyone bother answering a question phrased so insultingly? Can’t you just ask the question without the front-end crap you know is untrue? Oh, that’s right, putting all that guff in there undermines the legitimacy of anything Rob may care to post. Nice “debating”.
AC
thanks for answering the question-I’ll take that as no the IDF are beyond discussion and everything Israel does is good and wholesome.
Hmmm arrogance assumes new forms almost daily
Gus @ 67 – no, I just dropped by to put Peter right about the ambulance thing.
Oops, 167.
I would say it’s obtuseness and rudeness that assume new forms.
Here’s an idea: try answering your own question, phrased in regard to Hamas atrocities.
AC
If Hamas’s military arm is found guilty of war crimes most definitely they should tried
In fact if any combatants were charged directly they should be handed over-no matter where they reside
BUT the same should apply to the IDF. Dont you agree?
HRW report.
Actually:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=44566
Refuting “Evidence” of the “Hoax”
http://www.hrw.org/legacy/backgrounder/mena/qana1206/5.htm
Shorter Rob: Lebanese ambulance drivers, Lebanese Red Cross workers and Human Rights Watch are all liars and hoaxers.
Geez Rob, you really do have all the best sources covered – Zombie Time/Pyjamas Media/MFA.
I didn’t realise that anyone was desperate enough to be still trying to talk up that Ambulance Hoax story.
AC, it would seem that you too need to join MarkL in his RESEARCH on lefty belief systems.
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2005/08/08/the-question-on-everyones-lips/#comment-19213
Yeah, right, Michael. Peter, as always I’m happy to admit my mistakes. If the IAF uses Predator-like drones for weapons delivery, I’ll concede that point, although I did qualify my reference with ‘as far as is publicly known’. Any other points of refutation?
Wow, looks like Beavis and Butthead have decided to saunder over from their IDF-deepthroating Nazi blog to proudly show LP that they have a new authority to add to the IDF and Joe the Plumber.
Introducing “US blogger Zombietimes” (we have yet to confirm that this is his real name).
Without ever setting foot in Lebanon, speaking to any witnesses or visiting the scene of the incident, he “disproves” the Human Rights Watch report by asserting that on his inspection of the photographs, “Hezbollah propagandists removed a pre-existing circular air vent in the roof of the ambulance to make it appear that a missile pierced the ambulance”. The Red Cross workers, the physical evidence, the hospital records and all the available witnesses were clearly part of Hezbollah’s nefarious “pre-existing circular air vent” hoax to make the poor little IDF look bad.
Ergo, the United Nations, the international media, humanitarian aid agencies and human rights organisations must also be trying to hoax the world about Israeli crimes in Gaza! Clearly the only reason that the IDF is being accused of shelling a building full of evacuees is because Hamas did it to make them look bad! What does a poor gang of marauding fascists have to do to get a break around here??
As far as I know, a “zombie” is a brain-dead monster that can’t think for itself, so it’s a totally appropriate label for “Zombietimes”, as well as Rob and AC.
Using an insulting term implying that terrorists are primitive apes upsets you, my dear, delicate little Peter?
Dry your eyes, princess.
Not once is the word associated with Arab, muslim, palestinian etc. The ONLY non-Israeli group referred to in the comment was Hamas – terrorists. Which your own government considers a terrorist organisation.
Did you miss the nuance, Peter?
And insulting Hamas terrorists upsets you. How… revealing… that is.
I have yet to see you take similar umbrage at any of the terms the verminous, murdering, terrorist paleo-simian terrorist scum who form Hamas, Hizb’allah, MILF, Jemaah Islamiya, FARC and all the other terrorist organisations use in relation to infidels/class enemies like you and I.
I feel quite justified in referring to Hamas in particular as primitive apes and worse because they deliberately perform acts such as was done to Tali Hatuel (34 and pregnant), Meirav Hatuel (2), Roni Hatuel (7), Hadar Hatuel (9), and Hila Hatuel (11), and regard it as worthy of celebration:
I judge Hamas by their actions, oh precious little petal, not by vapid fantasies about them, which appears to be your method. And their actions reveal such terrorists to be verminous, murdering, terrorist paleo-simian scum irrespective of their race, colour or creed, deserving of a bullet and very little else.
And this upsets you. Very revealing indeed.
MarkL
Canberra
yeti, I think the killer point (and I’m not sure it was Zombie’s) was those neat little holes in the otherwise unmarked tarmac under the ambulances. If the missiles didn’t explode on the way down (which they couldn’t have, given the holes), and didn’t explode after they impacted the road surface (ditto) – well, where were they?
Rob, this is the second thread here of late where the so called “ambulance hoax” was claimed as such. I did look at the other link and after it took about 2 minutes to load all the BS from the page, and after reading rather a lot of said BS, I concluded that the authors of the site were somehow possessed with an inclination to disprove the IDf ambulance strike by boring me to death with about a bazillion words that proved nothing.
And in response to that previous link, I did post another link, although albeit very late in the thread and which may have been missed by you and others, telling of a death of an ambulance driver in this latest conflict. For your benefit (and others who perhaps missed it) here is an account from a medic:
“When Arafa and Alaa arrived, they managed to load Thaer into the ambulance, and were working on getting Ali’s body to the clearly-marked vehicle when the shell came. Ali lost his head, killed twice. Alaa is riddled with shrapnel over his body and to his groin. Arafa’s lung came out.
“Arafa underwent heart surgery and doctors worked on his mutilated body. He went into shock and died an hour or so later.”
http://ingaza.wordpress.com/2009/01/05/i%E2%80%99ll-tell-you-how-he-died/
Now mate, are you going to tell me that this is a hoax too?
No, mate, I’m telling you it didn’t happen that way.
My favourite part of the ‘ZombieTime’ (was there ever a more appropriate name?) claims was that it was a hoax because of the presence of rust on the exposed metal of the ambulance.
It’s sad/amazing to see what lengths the one-eyed partisans will go to explain away facts that they don’t like.
Though it is interesting that they are still trying to defend this one. Afterall, the main purpose isn’t to discover the truth, but to sow confusion and doubt at the time of the incident. The IDF understands this well, which is why some of their claims as so ridiculous. The golden rule is to establish immediately an alternative explanation which the media have to report and check out. Even if there isn’t the slightest basis for it, the ‘IDF spokesman said that the shelling was in response to terrorist…’ statement appears and throws doubt on the events, with the hoped for effect of causing people to withhold judgement. If a few days of a week later it turns out the alternative explanation is bollocks, it doesn’t matter so much. That’s a problem in itself, but a much smaller one than the orginal, as it will be relegated to back pages in papers and probably won’t get much of a run TV.
Exact quote MarkL
Watch the coverup/retreat/RWDB memory loss.
Not once folks did MarkLsimian make a racist statement.
Miss the nuance old chum?
That’s just bollocks, Michael. At the time the IDF spokesman said the IDF had a policy of not targeting ambulances. This was re-played endlessly on CNN to make Israel look bad. Even after the zombie expose of the hoax, the IDF said they couldn’t verify one way or another, because they never got access to the vehicle.
Whether zombie was right or wrong – I think he was right, of course – the exposure of the hoax had nothing to do with the IDF.
So your comment is way off the beam.
Rob @182, an amusing and irrelevant opinion piece to my question.
That question being, are you asserting that Israel is not now firing on ambulances.
I’d be highly interested to hear how the ambulance driver in the link I provided didn’t die.
But of course, there must have been a Hamas member in the ambulance? Perhaps he was the one “twice’ killed?
182 cites… you guessed it – the IDF!!! The Red Cross are liars, the UN are liars, the eye-witnesses are all liars, Human Rights Watch are liars, everyone’s a lying hoaxter except the noble IDF, Zombietimes, Rob and Joe the Plumber of PAJAMAS MEDIA.
And Regev, of course.
Jewish Women Occupy Israeli Consulate in Toronto full story (You Tube)
The youngest casualties of the conflict in Gaza (Guardian)
Having lost that one, smokey, let’s deal with this:
“That question being, are you asserting that Israel is not now firing on ambulances.”
If Hamas uses ambulances for military purposes – the transport of gunmen or munitions – they lose their immune status under the LOAC and become legitimate military targets. If civilians are also on board the vehicles at the same time and are killed in any military strike, the responsibility for those deaths would lie with Hamas.
Peter K., am I wrong?
San Franciscans Stage Pro-Massacre Rally (Indymedia)
You gotto love the volunteer propagandists for Israel – they know it’s a hoax, they just can’t decide how; it’s the rust! – nope…OK, it’s the lack of/type of bandages/injuries – nope……OK, drones can’t fire missles- yes they can……OK, it’s the missing vent fan from the top of the ambulance- found…..OK, it’s the tarmac, the tarmac the tarmac!!!
What is clear, is that it simply can’t be true and an explantion must be found that will confirm the received truth.
Rob
why wont you answer the question?
If the UN finds the IDF committed war crimes should they,the IDF , be charged by Israel or the UN.
Israel’s bombardment of Gaza is not self-defence – it’s a war crime (Times)
Ian Brownlie QC, Blackstone Chambers
Mark Muller QC, Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales
Michael Mansfield QC and Joel Bennathan QC, Tooks Chambers
Sir Geoffrey Bindman, University College, London
Professor Richard Falk, Princeton University
Professor M Cherif Bassiouni, DePaul University, Chicago
Professor Christine Chinkin, LSE
Professor John B Quigley, Ohio State University
Professor Iain Scobbie and Victor Kattan, School of Oriental and African Studies
Professor Vera Gowlland-Debbas, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva
Professor Said Mahmoudi, Stockholm University
Professor Max du Plessis, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban
Professor Bill Bowring, Birkbeck College
Professor Joshua Castellino, Middlesex University
Professor Thomas Skouteris and Professor Michael Kagan, American University of Cairo
Professor Javaid Rehman, Brunel University
Daniel Machover, Chairman, Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights
Dr Phoebe Okawa, Queen Mary University
John Strawson, University of East London
Dr Nisrine Abiad, British Institute of International and Comparative Law
Dr Michael Kearney, University of York
Dr Shane Darcy, National University of Ireland, Galway
Dr Michelle Burgis, University of St Andrews
Dr Niaz Shah, University of Hull
Liz Davies, Chair, Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyer
Prof Michael Lynk, The University of Western Ontario
Steve Kamlish QC and Michael Topolski QC, Tooks Chambers
Bunch of loony professors! What would they know about international law – they’re not even from the IDF!!
Where’s the proof of the carriage of combatants and munitions? Is it purely the word of the IDF?
So you’re conceding the Lebanon event was not a hoax?
Rob 2 190,
Very gracious in defeat there mate
But anyway, I have read that attacking Red Cross ambulances is a war crime and a violation of international law?
‘The Red Cross “is the emblem of the Convention, and therefore an emblem of protection. It allows its bearers to venture onto the battlefield to carry out their humanitarian tasks,” the ICRC said in its Commentary on the Additional Protocols of 1977. The nature of the symbol as a “protective emblem” means that an attack on vehicles and individuals carrying that emblem is a serious violation of the Geneva Conventions and a war crime.
‘The protection applies as well in internal conflicts. Additional Protocol II of 1977, which governs internal armed conflict, specifies in Article 12 that the “distinctive emblem shall be respected in all circumstances.”’
http://www.crimesofwar.org/thebook/redcross-rescrescent.html
Rob is right of course – I think I once heard the IDF say that ambulances were used to transport weapons. So Israel has not only a RIGHT, but a DUTY to protect itself by blowing every last one of these damned terrorist ambulances to smithereens! And despite it being completely legal, Israel reserves the right to call it a hoax that never happened afterwards.
“If the UN finds the IDF committed war crimes…”
Let’s re-phrase that. “If the UN alleges the IDF committed war crimes…”
That would be a fair question, Gus. I think by Israel. The Israeli Supreme Court has shown itself to be an impartial adjudicator (please suppress any foolish guffaws for a moment) and has found against the IDF on numerous occasions (the security wall, for example). The same cannot be said of the UN – I’ve linked before to their total miscalling of the facts wrt Jenin, which were, later and very reluctantly, confirmed by the UN.
PS, I can’t believe we’re actually arguing about attacking ambulances being wrong or not…
yeti, this is serious, stop making me laugh.
No, Peter, I am saying that the Lebanon incident unequivocally and without contest was a hoax. Sorry if I didn’t make myself clear. The word of the IDF is evidence, wouldn’t you agree, and as such should be tested before a proper tribunal if the issue arose? Or are you saying that the IDF evidence or testimony can be disregarded without due consideration? Not a good position for a lawyer, I would have thought.
Smokey @ 196 – no, you lost it. Sorry again if I didn’t make myself clear.
yeti
one point needs to be made clear about the professors statement. They are right of course, but it’s not just the bombardment that is at issue. The restriction on the supply of humanitarian supplies to a civilian population, even without the additional bombing, is itself a war crime
Indeed Michael, analogous to creationists fighting evolutionary theory!
WTF, the neocons and Likudniks are creationists!
“PS, I can’t believe we’re actually arguing about attacking ambulances being wrong or not…
Well, let’s appeal to the lawyer.
Peter K., if ambulances are used in a situation of armed conflict to transport weapons, munitions or combatants for one side, and are reasonably believed by the other side to be doing so, do the ambulances forfeit their protection under the LOAC and become legitimate military targets?
Rob
From your @198
I can only deduce the following
1.Israeli law is paramount-therefore Israel does NOT accept the UN having the authority to adjudicate on matters of international law. viz israel is a law unto itself
2.Ambulances are only ambulances if they are Israeli ambulances- all other ambulances are actually terrorist panelvans.
No, what you should deduce from it is that the Israeli Supreme Court has shown itself to be an impartial adjudicator of IDF actions and the UN has not.
As for 2, let’s wait for Peter’s response. Meanwhile, I’m going to bed.
Israel and the United States have already declared themselves beyond the authority of international law.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/States_Parties_to_the_Rome_Statute_of_the_International_Criminal_Court
Yes Rob, our starting assumption should be the reliability of the IDF press releases.
http://lawrenceofcyberia.blogs.com/news/2009/01/camera-never-lies-unless-its-an-idf-camera.html
So in a court of law you would automatically discount anything the IDF had to say? Some judge you would make.
IDF reliability has a great track record,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4802070-103681,00.html
Is that the same Rob that was leaving L.P.?
What are you doing back again Rob?
Brother you are a glutton for punishment! Is it true Hamas is going to rigg out ambulances with rockets, and fire them over the Israeli border? Just asking.
I was just taking a break, Marlon.
Well, let me ask you – is it?
And more to indicate the “due consideration” owed to IDF official pronouncements,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/jul/28/israel
Indeed it is Rob, it goes like this, an actual District Court sentence that I was involved in. Quite analogous to the present situation I believe, a charge of break and enter with intent to commit a seriously indictable offence, to wit assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
He got another year for that.
More relevant than oral evidence however would be the forensic evidence. With certain “Israeli” fingerprints all over the “crime” scene. (And watching Tania Evers, Julian Burnside or many other SC do the cross examination would be, well, interesting.)
Michael @ 210 – a Guardian article from 2003 – that’s really germane to the issues under discussion here. But you knew that.
“The pattern of impacts is inconsistent with a normal overshooting of the declared target (the mortar site) by a few rounds, as suggested by the Israeli forces.”
Speaking of hoax…
“Contrary to repeated denials, two Israeli helicopters and a remotely piloted vehicle were present in the Qana area at the time of the shelling.”
“While the possibility cannot be ruled out completely, it is unlikely that the shelling of the United Nations compound was the result of gross technical and/or procedural errors.”
And that’s from the “softened” version of the report.
Forget the 102 civilian dead in the UN compound. They provoked the attack just to make Israel look bad. Or something.
The International Court of Justice also has no jurisdiction in the West Bank, according to Israel.
World court tells Israel to tear down illegal wall (Guardian, 2004)
But the ruling turned out to be just another hoax of course! The World Court is obviously LYING about the Wall – their ruling was actually nothing but a pre-existing circular air-vent. Only Israel’s High Court is right:
The Israeli MFA website link http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA posted by Yeti has some interesting and revealing PR, including:
FM Livni:
This reads just like Bush’s “war on terror” in Iraq. The same plot, the same modus operandi.
And PM Olmert:
So the whole thing is carefully planned and orchestrated. Civilian casualties have been accepted as necessary and justified. They even have a media release saying how “IAF aborts strike to protect Palestinian civilians”
And what would be the ratio of aborted strikes to delivered ones? 100 to 1?
And how many strikes have injured or killed civilians?
How may Israeli dead compared to Palestinians? 1 to 100?
This is not war, its extreme aggression and violence against a largely unprotected civilian population – trapped and murdered.
Yeti
thanks for the links you have provided. It certainly is not how the MSM would like Israel portrayed
whereas before I considered israel the “bastard child’ of the west,deserving guidance and ahem a little leeway.
I now feel it is more akin to “chuckie”-meglomaniac,paranoic and a tad too scary for this little black duck.
May saner minds in Israel come to the fore-before its name is totally mud
R
I haven’t researched this finer point but “reasonably believed” is too problematic. It would have to be a case by case analysis with proof each time IMO. For example, if one ambulance carried munitions, others could not be attacked with impunity on the assumption that they also carried munitions. Because attacking protected things like ambulances, is a serious serious war crime, logic dictates that the attacker be 100% sure, and be prepared to offer that 100% proof.
In the case of a hospital, it would be even more problematic. The proportional response factor would be highly relevant here to the quantity of munitions, eg. attacking in the sure knowledge of 100 rifles stored would be disproportionate to killing potentially hundreds of people. A rifle factory within the hospital might well qualify, but in all of this, extreme caution would have to be exercised.
Well Well the man from the Ministry returns,Hi Rob I thought seeing as how you are such a good yarn spinner you would have gone and volunteered to show all those journalists about,you know the ones the IDF wont let any near GAZA,or better still been called up.
Still seeing how you gracing us with your presence,along with the rather juvenile MarkL (you two still wave to one another over the partition)at the Ministry,are we on the good cop bad cop again.
See, if you let the worlds press in Rob maybe you might get some credibility,but at the moment both you and the men from the Ministry are just making (if you will let me descend to MarkLs level) arses of yourselves.
You keep referring to stuff thats put out by the IDF (the honest army which never lies,or covers up no no never)or a bunch of sites full of right wing ratbags whose brainpower is on a par with MarkL on a good day,I assume from reading MarkL is about 14 yrs old.
Well nice to have you back Rob, you will still be spinning away in 60yrs as you may win the battle but you as sure as hell will lose the war,next time you decide to go please do,maybe you can send us all messages from the front,your a bit like the man who isn’t there but don’t let us stop you.
Yeah, right, John.
Now Peter, I know we’re on opposite sides of this debate, and I don’t want to put words in your mouth. But what I’m reading from what you’re saying is this:
If the IDF, based on observations in theatre and the best intelligence available to it (such to be tested post facto, if need be), wittingly fires on an installation otherwise immune in terms of the LOAC, in the honest belief that it is being used as a military platform, it is lawful in doing so.
Is this correct at law?
You seem very interested in the LOAC Rob. You must certainly agree that it is entirely lawful under LOAC for Hamas to attack uniformed IDF soldiers both in the occupied territories and in Israel itself? No ambiguity there.
Okay, maybe that question is too easy – it doesn’t involve any of the complexity that you’re discussing. Well do you think it would be lawful for Hamas – in the course of an invasion and occupation of Israeli territory – to attack Israeli hospitals and schools – not just out of the desire to terrorize – but because they honestly believed that these non-military targets were being used as a military platform?
As for what constitutes an honest belief – I assume that you would regard Hamas statements as evidence admissible in court. After all – why would they lie? Before dismissing their honest beliefs, the onus would be on the Israelis to prove that they hadn’t been using these facilites for military means.
I mean, what’s okay for one side is okay for both, right? And if Israel was under occupation, I’m sure you’d be rationalising a massive bombing campaign to smash the Israeli resistance – civilian casualties being unfortunate of course, but unavoidable, and legal, given the honest beliefs of those doing the bombing.
Rob
When will you attempt to justify continud Israeli occupation of West Bank
@173: “BUT the same should apply to the IDF. Dont you agree?…[edit] If Hamas’s military arm is found guilty of war crimes most definitely they should tried”
Of course, that was my point in suggesting you apply the question in reverse. How could that be a subject of dispute amongst reasonable people? What, then is your point, since we both agree anyone found guilty of war crimes should face justice?
Considering that Zombietime is a blog devoted to exposing loony Left-wing group think (as opposed to the moderate Left), no I don’t suppose there has ever been a better name.
Peter Kemp @184: I see you’re following my advice, old chum. Good tactics.
“Michael @ 210 – a Guardian article from 2003 – that’s really germane to the issues under discussion here. But you knew that.- Rob
Yep – a long and proven track record of mendacity.
Yeti…You seem very interested in the LOAC …. must … agree that it is entirely lawful under LOAC for Hamas to attack uniformed IDF soldiers both in the occupied territories and in Israel….
Yeti, if Hamas are part of a formal military or tribal army, wear distinctive uniforms or signs readily identifiable at a distance and carry their arms openly, then you are right. They also have to obey the LOAC themselves.
If they fail in even one of these things, then no, they are not lawfully entitled to oppose the Israelis because they are, in effect merely armed bandits.
The Red Army, in suppressing the imperialist counter-revolution in the Ukraine in 1945-48, was faced with exactly this same situation from Ukrainian self-styled “nationalists”. Of course, they were really just terrorists and bandits who acted exactly like Hamas does today. The Red Army ended the counter-revolution by very robust measures including internal relocation of population of large areas of Ukraine to Siberia. That restored peace to these areas.
So no, Yeti, the feudal ultra-reactionaries of Hamas are mere bandits. What can you expect from the rabidly religious?
Only a false-flag socialist could actually support rabidly religious reactionary bandits like Hamas. Socialism cannot grow from their sort of primitive religious superstition, which locks them into feudalism. Any socialist even mildly interested in our ideology knows that it can grow from a bourgeoise society.
So smashing the reactionary bandits and getting Palestinians further along the socialist path should be the aim here, certainly? The Israelies should be used as a TOOL of international socialism in furthering this aim, and they are acting like such a tool, trying to break the reactionaries for us. Yet the anti-semitism of too many progressives blinds them, and they are then manipulated by Imperialists and neocons into supporting primitive feudalist reactionaries like Hamas!
Have none of you studied Lenin or Mao on this? A huge opportunity for Marxism-Leninism is being wasted here by anti-semitic false-flag socialists.
Integer Tone
Is that comment meant to be witty?
As we saw with Lebanon, Israel, despite apparently planning this operation for a long time, seemingly doesn’t know how to end it or what its aims are:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jlCTD6Eai5Q5VNoFWA06vGYqI2ygD95LQPK00
For Rob’s benefit, there was the April incident last year in Gaza when the IDF killed a Reuters cameraman. The IDF issued the usual double-barrell approach of, a. justifications, and b. promises of some sort of an investigation.
a. The immediate response was that the ‘incident’ occured in “the same area in which three IDF soldiers were killed”. The ‘same area’ was 12 hours earlier and 1.5 km away.
b. the IDF investigations are typically military field inquires, ie they ask the soldiers what they did. The courtroom equivalent would be a defence lawyer asking the defendant for his version of events. Naturally, the IDF cleared its soldiers of any wrong-doing.
So, a tank fires a flechette shell (basically an anti-personell device) at a target that the soldier admitted they couldn’t identify, the ‘target’ being a TV camerman standing next a car clearly identified as such, killing him and 3 by-standers including a child.
That this is what the IDFs considers, upon sober reflection, to be OK, is what one should keep in mind as one listens to the official IDF statements in the current conflict in Gaza
There’s nothing especially unusual about this in terms of armed forces and how they behave. But it takes a heady does of credulity to take their self-serving statements at face value, more so when the armed force in question has such a proven track-record in this regard.
#230, hard to tell isn’t it Mark? Could be that not only does Israel have the Nazis like Rob and AC in its corner, but also the world’s last surviving Stalinist!
Mark, does your comments policy extend to allowing a commenter call other commenters Nazis?
Indeed it does not, GregM. Thanks for drawing my attention to the comment. Yeti, please refrain from using such epithets. I haven’t been following this thread to the same degree as some of the earlier ones, but if when I come back from the library later on today it’s not being conducted civilly, I’ll close it off.
Greg the comments policy forbids “vexatious and purely abusive comments”. I am not trying to abuse, I am using a term that I think honestly reflects the belief-system on display, particularly as expressed on their blog which I linked to. It’s not “purely abusive” if the jackboot fits.
Many people for example have an “honest belief” in God’s existence, but that is not proof of God’s existence (nor BTW is it justification for committing a crime in God’s name and calling it lawful, a thumbsdown for Jihadists)
In criminal law, mistake of fact (as against mistake of law–Ignorantia juris non excusat) can be exculptory ie it can and often includes a test of “reasonable belief” but in cases of war crimes, that test would have to be an objective one not subjective, IMO.
On that point, the defence of self defence in NSW illustrates the subjective/objective tests: s418(1) “A person is not criminally responsible for an offence if the person carries out the conduct constituting the offence in self-defence. (2)A person carries out conduct in self-defence if and only if the person believes the conduct is necessary: to defend etc etc” but “the conduct is a reasonable response [objective] in the circumstances as he or she perceives them.[subjective]
Even then, assuming there was unassailable proof that an ambulance was carrying a ton of ordinance, blowing it up as it passed through a gathering of say 100 people would attract further LOAC sanctions due to the protection afforded civilians, if an option was that it could be attacked away from civilians.
Ultimately, an “honest belief” that a particular ambulance carried ordinance would be subjected to a legal test, “was that belief reasonable in all the circumstances.”
It would not be reasonable, for example I’d suggest, to attack other ambulances in a convoy when knowing for sure that only one carried the ordinance.
(On the standard of liability the trial of General Yamashita approached a strict liability application of the LOAC but in later cases “a commander’s knowledge of widespread atrocities within the command area was rebuttably presumed rather than irrebuttably presumed.”)
law.jrank.org/pages/2173/Strict-Liability-Arguments-strict-criminal-liability.html
It doesn’t stop at ‘Nazi’,GregM:
According to yeti, I’m ‘a revolting, loathsome apologist for the most sickening crimes, a complete racist …..an enabler of their murder….the most repulsive species of Nazi.’
I think that says more about yeti than it does about me.
Yeti @ 236, your intention isn’t strictly relevant here, as the comment is bound to be inflammatory no matter what inspired you to make it. Please note that I’m the arbiter of the comments policy on this thread, and I’d ask you to refrain from using language which is likely to give offence and see the thread degenerate into a personalised stoush. Thanks very much in advance.
Yeti, I don’t know if you’re being sincere or totally disingenuous, but that’s a deeply offensive thing to say. (It’s also stoush FAIL).
I disagree with almost everything Rob has been arguing here but frankly, I’ve been awed by his patience and civility in these Gaza threads.
Yes Mark, this seems to be the Lebanon scenario all over – rusihng in without a realistic idea of what victory will look like and then not knowing how to find the exit.
Israeli politicians have painted themsleves into a corner with all the bluster about finishing Hamas and ending the rocket fire for good. Plays well to a scared public at the rhetorical level, but is very likely to bite them on the behind.
Peter @ 237 – thanks. ‘Honest belief’ was entirely the wrong construction, I agree. ‘Reasonable in all the circumstances’ is the test that should apply, as you suggest.
Thanks, Laim.
Perhaps it’s just re-reading Mikhail Gorbachev’s memoirs which has prompted this thought, but it’s sobering to reflect that any realistic prospect of an eventual peace settlement leading to a two-state solution will have to involve, as negotiating partners, Hamas along with Fatah on the Palestinian side, and at least some elements of the current Israeli government on the other. As much as I have a strong political preference for other, more democratic and progressive political tendencies amongst both the Israelis and the Palestinians, I keep having to remind myself, by way of historical analogy, of just how long (if ever) it would have taken to achieve US/Soviet agreement on disarmament if a necessary condition for its achievement had been the election of Noam Chomsky and Boris Kagarlitsky as the presidents of their respective countries.
Liam, if you think what I said was “deeply offensive”, wait til you read this. Make sure you have a bucket handy.
Yeti 233
“he world’s last surviving Stalinist!”
That is grossly offensive to a Marxist-Leninist. Stalin was a totalitarian who destroyed Lenin’s work and spat on Marx. And as for ‘last surviving’ – hardly.
Withdraw the slur. I have not attempted to grossly insult you for no cause.
IT
Yeti, for future reference, the statement that “I find your political position repugnant” is not equivalent with the statement that “you, personally, are a Nazi”.
That’s all I think there is to say on that matter.
Ok, this thread can have a break to calm down.
Yeti, you’ve failed to acknowledge my interpretation of the comments policy and to indicate that you’ll abide by it. Your comments will remain in moderation until you do so. I recognise that people have strong feelings about this issue, but being able to discuss them civilly is itself a welcome step in this context for broader reasons than the tone of this blog and its accessibility to a range of commenters.
Please note also that I’m not going to back in front of a computer for some time.
Comments are now open again.
Please be civil. I’ll be looking in later on and deleting any comments which breach the comments policy. No correspondence on or off thread will be entered into.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/01/2009112165350696500.html
“Two Arab political parties have been disqualified from running in Israel’s parliamentary elections on February 10 after they were accused of not recognising the country’s right to exist.
The panel voted on Monday to back a motion filed by two right-wing parties which also accused the National Democratic Assembly (also known as Balad) and Ra’am-Ta’al of incitement and supporting “terrorist” groups.”
I think we can ironically call the election that Hamas one far more democratic then the upcoming Israeli election.
This is not a healthy development: Israel bans Arab parties from running in upcoming elections.
I expect the Supreme Court will remove this ban. It’s done it twice before with other CEC bans on Arab parties. But then that makes this ban both offensive and pointless.
Like some others, I’ve found these threads rather depressing.
In developing the debate on this thread, perhaps it would be useful for Rob and Yeti to summarise what they believe is necessary for a cease-fire to occur and what is needed for a long term peace. For both cases what commitments they believe the side they are supporting would be willing to make and what they would require the other side to commit to and importantly what sort of things they don’t believe are negotiable – eg is an international force monitoring Gaza borders acceptable? Is the building of the wall acceptable if it is entirely on Israeli land? etc…
I think the first thing is for Rob to admit he is a paid member of the Israeli Propaganda Dept,something he is very reluctant to admit,he has endless faith in the IDF when one else believes a word that military officials say.
Remember the follies in Vietnam,both world wars and right through to the present day,instead we get the same old same old from Rob and the other Ministry Men,I just wish the bludger would admit it.
[cough]
If he was paid by the Israeli Government, then he wouldn’t be bludging like the rest of us, would he?
[cough]
Chris @ 251. I’ve posted what I think would be the framework for a lasting settlement at BPOV. It’s a long post, but people are welcome to go and read it and comment either here or over there.
As for a ceasefire in the current war, I don’t know. In the days before the ground invasion, I think a truce could have been achieved if Hamas committed to ending the rocket fire, ceasing terrorism and stopped incursions over or under the security barrier with Israel to kidnap and/or kill IDF soldiers. I think the situation is beyond that now.
I think it is unbecoming to impugn Rob’s motives.
While I disagree with some of the important premises from which he begins his argument, I admire his stoicism and politeness.
“think a truce could have been achieved if Hamas committed to ending the rocket fire, ceasing terrorism and stopped incursions over or under the security barrier with Israel to kidnap and/or kill IDF soldiers.”
Do you Israel lifting the blockade, like they initially said they would, stopping their own incursions, bombings and shellings killing many times more Palestinians is a legitimate call before any new ceasefire?
Or does Hamas have to put down all its guns and bend over while the Israeli’s are allowed to breach the ceasefire they agreed too and terrorise Palestinian civilians? Serious question.
An unsnarky question for you Rob. All governments lie from time to time to protect their national security, especially when they’re at war. Y’know – the first casualty of war is truth. And all sides want to win the propaganda war. So, why do you accept the IDF’s propaganda completely uncritically? Surely they must also lie when they thinks it’s necessary for their nation’s good? I’m sure Hamas lies at times, so why not the IDF?
Another propaganda comment. If the Israeli government were paying me to do their PR, the first thing I’d do is sack Mark Regev. Whenever he runs the ‘we’re very sorry that civilians are being killed, but it’s all the fault of Hamas’ line, he reminds of the sort of father who tells his child that ‘it’s going to hurt me more than you’, before he gives the kid a thrashing. I shudder at his creepiness. Do they use him for all the world, or just us because he used to live in Melbourne? They need a much more charming actor to sell that line. I’d suggest George Clooney, but I don’t think he’s up for the job.
That’s a fair question, Fine. So far, despite a lot of the fire and noise on these LP threads, Israel’s account of what is going on has not been refuted. The incident at the Jabiliya school was not, AFAICS, a deliberate attack on civilians. On the IDF’s account, they fired on a rocket crew, one of their mortar shells went astray, and ignited the cached munitions. If it can be demonstrated that the IDF wittingly fired at civilians, that the school was not weaponised, that there were no Hamas terrorists present, that the IDF had not come under fire, I’ll condemn the IDF as readily as any (or most).
As for Regev (who of course is my employer), I agree with you. I think he is a singularly ineffective and unappealing spokesman for Olmert, as he was for the IDF during the summer war in Lebanon.
The problem with that position Rob, is that it’s not the one you’ve actually been taking. If you’re now saying ‘let’s fence-sit and assume that nobody (or everybody) is lying until we have definitive proof’, then that’s quite an about-face isn’t it?
But I’m not saying that. I’m saying I will believe the IDF’s account of such incidents unless there is persuasive evidence to the contrary. The IDF is a highly effective, well trained and disciplined army. On the evidence so far, I believe it is scrupulously abiding by the Law of Armed Conflict, and is taking every precaution to reduce the risk of civilian casualties to the minimum. Because of Hamas’ tactics of effectively using the whole population of Gaza as human shields, a high level of civilian casualties is unavoidable, but, according to the LOAC, the responsibility for such deaths lies with the people who use them for that purpose.
The IDF is a highly effective, well trained and disciplined army.
So is Hamas? So is Hezbollah? Not as well equipped or funded though. The point is, that sentence means nothing. Especially when this “disciplined army” has a record of lying and killing thousands of civilians.
Wouldn’t mind a response to #256, though of course, you are under no obligation.
Sorry, I overlooked #256. I think that as the aggressor – and I realise we won’t agree on that – Hamas must cease fire first. If it abides by a commitment to halt hostilities, Israel should ease the restrictions it maintains on the movement of people and material through the border. What Egypt allows or does not allow through the Rafah crossing is of course a matter for Egypt.
It is in any case over-stating the case to say Gaza is or was under blockade. Even yesterday, Israel sent 165 trucks full of humanitarian aid into Gaza. 100 of the trucks were seized by Hamas and the goods sold.
So your suggesting that if Hamas had ceased firing the pitiful amount of rockets into Israel during this campaign then the IDF would have halted their shellings, bombings and ground invasion just like that? That’s rubbish and you know it.
“What Egypt allows or does not allow through the Rafah crossing is of course a matter for Egypt.”
Not when you have US soldiers patrolling the Egyptian border and the Israeli’s shelling it.
You focussed too much on the blockade and completely neglected the other activities being undertaken by Israel that damage the chances for a ceasefire, mentioned above. So it’s ok for Israel to fire bombs and shells into Gaza but it’s Hamas’ fault that ceasefires don’t seem to work out.
Actually, I think the IDF show the sort of sloppiness that comes from three sources” 1. routinely attacking civilians or militia, 2. having very unclear terms of engagement (eg quasi-policing roles at checkpoints, lack of clarity over wheher westbank is a territorial role or otherwise) and 3. having a high proportion of conscripts.
Classic problems with standing armies, and the used-to-beating-up-civilians aspect is one of the reasons ABRI is not much chop in a real fight.
For the record, I also admire Rob’s unflappable courtesy. Occasional tanty, sure, but no rudeness.
Chris, there are two issues, one relating to a ceasefire, and one to a lasting settlement. Regarding a ceasefire, I think the terms of this year’s June ceasefire were perfectly reasonable. The ceasefire was largely effective until November 4th, despite its terms including a lifting of the blockade of Gaza, which never actually occured. A new ceasefire at this stage must involve the lifting of this blockade. Given the dysfunctional state of Gaza, a society in which no authority holds a monopoly of violence, it would be desirable for there to exist some sort of neutral, international peacekeeping presence there.
But the situation in Gaza cannot be divorced from the broader question of occupied Palestine, of which it is but a part. My personal preference is for the creation of a single secular state that does not discriminate on the basis of race or religion – however I understand that this is impossible, and the international consensus – a two-state settlement – is the only realistic prospect.
Rob has linked to his “platform for a lasting peace”. Much of it is surprisingly reasonable, compared with the rest of that stomach-turning blog. Let’s review it:
“Acceptance of Israel’s existence.”
The entire Arab world, as well as Fatah has agreed that it will grant diplomatic recognition of Israel within the 1967 borders. Hamas has agreed to make peace with Israel if it withdraws from all territories occupied in 1967, which effectively amounts to an “acceptance of its existence”. In fact, 2008 was a critical year in that negotiations with Hamas, with Jimmy Carter, the Egyptian government and others, had been moving it closer to the international consensus position, and there is a strong case to be made that Israel’s current actions were aimed at averting the threat of a “peace offensive”, in the same way that their campaign against the PLO in Lebanon in the 80s intensified when Arafat began to make his first suggestions to accepting a two-state solution.
Obviously, a fair settlement will involve not just “Acceptance of Israel’s existence” on the part of the Palestinians, but also “acceptance of Palestine’s existence” on the part of Israelis, and by “Palestine” I mean a perfectly sovereign state, with the right to exist within secure, internationally recognised borders. The Israeli Right may believe that the Jews have an inherent, racial right to all of ‘Yesha’. I personally see nothing wrong with either Palestinian or Israeli parties being allowed to hold a political – as opposed to military – objective of uniting all of historical Israel/Palestine in a single state – as long as violent and illegal means are never employed to this end. Sinn Fein still hopes for a united Ireland, that is no reason why they should be an illegal political party.
“The renunciation of terror.”
Palestinians must renounce the use of violence against Israel. Israel must also renounce the use of violence against the Palestinians. Since Israel is inarguably the occupying power in this case, the onus is on Israel, not on those resisting its illegal colonial regime. To expect the Palestinian resistance to disarm before negotiating a final settlement is no more reasonable than to expect the IDF disarm. As long as the Israeli military remains an illegal and violent presence in occupied territory, the use of violence to remove their occupation is, I believe, a legitimate use of force that accords with international law. Obviously this does not extend to the targeting of Israeli civilians, that is a war crime However it is impossible to argue that the appropriation of Palestinian land for the construction of thousands of settlements is in some way an effect, rather than a cause – of Palestinian terrorism. Again, the comparison with the Irish situation is useful. The fact that the IRA committed acts of terror did not mean that Britain was within its rights to bulldoze the homes, steal the property or bomb the neighbourhoods of Catholics in Northern Ireland – let alone the Irish Republic. A simple mental exercise should suffice to determine whether what I’m saying is reasonable – if Israel was under an illegal Arab occupation, with Israeli homes being bulldozed to make way for Arab-only settlements connected by Arab-only roads, with the Israelis confined to walled ghettos, forced to queue at Arab military checkpoints holding ID cards to travel between their towns, with the Arab military controlling their food, water and medical supplies and denying them access to the outside world, and routinely shelling any neighbourhoods believed to contain resistance fighters, would anybody here seriously be arguing that the situation was the fault of the resistance? I doubt it.
“Security guarantees.”
Any independent state must its security guaranteed. But read this paragraph:
In support of security guarantees, some adjustment to the borders will have to occur. It may be over-emotive to describe the 1967 status quo ante as the ‘Auschwitz borders’, but Israel must have a territorial boundary capable of being defended. There will have to be compromises and perhaps some population transfers to affect this.
I think this is unacceptable, and the reference to Auschwitz borders is more than just ‘maybe over-emotive’, but totally absurd. Why Israel should be incapable of defending the 1967 borders, but capable of defending some illegal borders of its own making are not given. Israel is no more within its rights to annex Palestinian land, move the border or transfer population within Palestine in aid of its “security” than the Palestinians should be allowed to adjust the border as they see fit, and transfer Israeli populations inside Israel if they believe they need it for their security. And given that it has been the Israelis occupying the Palestinians, and not the other way around, it is in fact the Palestinians who are in need of iron-clad security guarantees at least as much as the Israelis are. In this case there is no option but to a recourse to international law, and as the World Court ruled in 2004, international law is perfectly clear on this issue. Israel must withdraw to the 1967 borders. Any inch beyond that is illegal. The mutual distrust between the two sides is a good reason why the border area should be made a de-militarised zone policed by a neutral international peacekeeping force. It is really no secret which side at present supports, and which opposes, such a force.
“Complete withdrawal.”
This one is obvious. Under international law, Israel must withdraw every settler and every soldier from every inch of land occupied in 1967. Needless to say, no Israeli government of any political stripe has ever been willing to countenance this – and I believe this is the reason that there is still no peace. But “withdrawal” does not mean the creation of an enclosed animal-pen like Gaza. Ariel Sharon was quite clear that “disengagement” is a different thing from “withdrawal”, as it involves all of Gaza’s imports, exports, entry and exit totally controlled by the Israeli military, which, even before the election of Hamas, had imposed a strangulating economic blockade. Israel is perfectly within its rights to control who and what go in and out of Israel. That’s where its legal authority ends. That is not controversial, it is simply international law.
“The creation of a new state.”
I agree with what Rob says here, except I do not believe it is acceptable for Israel to retain control over the airspace of Palestine, its access to the sea and its borders with Jordan. A sovereign state controls its own airspace, waters and borders. Israel has no right to control these aspects of a new Palestinian State any more than Palestine has the right to control these aspects of the Israeli State. That is not a matter of opinion, it is simply international law. A two-state settlement means two sovereign states.
“No general right of return.”
Although international law is also unequivocal on this issue – Palestinians DO have a right to return – it is obviously politically impossible for Israel to absorb 5 million Palestinians so long as it wishes to remain a “Jewish State” (whether the sort of racism that grants the “Right of Return” to Jews from anywhere in the world, but not the Palestinians who lived there just 50 years ago is morally acceptable is another matter). Palestinians will obviously have to concede the a general right of return, although they should be entitled to reparations. And those Palestinians living in other Arab countries would clearly have a right of return to the new Palestinian State.
“The settlements.”
Here Rob contradicts his earlier statements regarding “complete withdrawal”. The Palestinian Authority has been willing to negotiate on allowing Israel to keep the larger settlement blocks (up to 60 percent of the settlements containing 80 percent of the settlers in the West Bank) as part of Israel. However international law is clear on this issue. Every settlement is illegal, their construction constitutes a war crime under the Geneva Convention. The property of the settlers was illegally acquired in war. They may wish to remain residents of a Palestinian State, but the lands that they stole should be returned to its rightful owners. The settlers have zero entitlement to this stolen property. That is not a matter of opinion, it is international law.
“Jerusalem.”
Again, international law is clear on the issue. It is inadmissible for territory to be acquired in war. That includes East Jerusalem.
“Israel to assist Palestine achieve statehood.”
In this section Rob appears well-intentioned but unrealistic, given the track record of Israeli governments in doing everything they can to prevent the creation of a viable, independent state in Palestine. I believe that a transitional United Nations authority in the territories may be necessary to allow Palestine to recover from its decades of violent subjugation and brutalisation and establish the institutions necessary for the creation of a civil society.
So we’re mostly in agreement on a final settlement. The disagreement is on how to get there. I think the starting point should be acceptance of international law. The problem thus far has been that under international law, the Israelis are not entitled to what they want – ongoing control over the territories captured in 1967.
I just think that Rob is a liar,Yeti has had the better of him all he does is quote the Ministry line, and produce the IDF as being the all knowing always honest never fib apple pie army we all love,but it just ain,t true Rob
Tony Karon: The Battle Isn’t Over But Israel Has Lost the War
Thanks, yeti, a very considered response. Obviously I don’t agree with all of what you say with regard to Israeli intentions or actions, but there’s not need to go round those buoys again.
Oz @ 263:
Do you have any links to reports of this? I’d read that the US gives technical help, but hadn’t seen that they were actually doing patrols.
From news reports, one of the issues around a ceasefire is who and where patrols of the border should occur. Egypt doesn’t want foreign troops to patrol on their side of the border and international troops are rather wary about patrolling on the Gaza side. Also Hamas wants to be involved with the patrols as well which I’m guessing Israel would not like since presumably the patrols are all about stopping weapon smuggling into Gaza.
Rob @ 260:
Are you sure?
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/991542.html
More information about the US threatening to put financial pressure on Egypt regarding the tightness of borders themselves.
Also:
“The Bush administration also sent a Pentagon delegation to the Egypt-Gaza border, and they submitted a report recommending that the U.S. help the Egyptians halt the smuggling and ask Israel to agree to an increased Egyptian border force in Sinai.”
That sentence alone demonstrates that it’s not simply Egypt who gets to play on their border.
Israeli’s killing Egyptian border police:
http://www.redorbit.com/news/international/524652/israeli_soldiers_kill_2_egyptian_border_policemen/index.html
More:
http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2008/ss_israel0167_05_23.asp
That’s simply not true. You need to read his posts across all the threads here and on his blog, rather than make such a simplistic assertion.
Peter Kemp @ 220,
I’d be extremely interested in your take on this incident, a first hand account of an ambulance driver being shoot by Israeli sniper fire whilst trying to collect bodies. Is there any reason to doubt what is written here? And therefore in your opinion is this a war crime? (the link has pics and a video that caught what was happening)
http://ingaza.wordpress.com/2009/01/12/they-shot-hassan/
‘On January 7, as I and a Spanish human rights advocate and documentary film-maker, Alberto Arce, accompanied Palestinian medics to retrieve the body of a man shot earlier by invading Israeli forces, we were also shot at as the medics carried the body towards the ambulance. It was in Dawwar Zimmo, eastern Jabaliya, near the area which has been occupied by Israeli soldiers since the land invasion began. It’s an area where 10s are thought to have been seriously injured by bombing and shooting from the Israeli army, and where many, many more will lie dead, uncollected for days, or weeks, out of reach of the medics whose duty is to retrieve them.
‘Hassan al-Attal and Jamal had gotten out of the ambulance, a clearly-marked 101 ambulance, and approached the corpse lying in the middle of the street. They wore their PRCS uniforms –Hassan’s was bright red with reflective tape, Jamal’s bright orange and white, also with reflective tape –and approached slowly, hands free of all but a stretched to take away the body. Arce filmed as the medics picked up the dead man, put him on the stretcher and began the retreat towards the ambulance. Arce was still filming when the shots cracked out, rapidly but evidently a targeted sniper’s shot, not a machine gun. Incredibly, Hassan and Jamal continued to try to evacuate the body, running with the dead man, before finally dropping the stretched and fleeing for their lives.
‘It was about 1:30 pm, it was the first day of Israel’s self-declared “cease-fire” and the sniper was aiming at the medical personnel. The ambulance’s siren was still screaming, the driver had been moving quickly away from the sniper, to avoid further hits on us or himself, and we were frantically scouring to see Hassan and Jamal. In the days prior to this attack, 7 medics had been killed since the start of Israel’s air and ground assault on Gaza’s population. Tens more had been injured, and Hassan was to join their ranks. A sniper’s bullet caught his thigh, and as he scrambled into the ambulance, the blood seeping through his pants alerted us to his injury.
‘These medics are all too aware of, many all too familiar with, the mortal risks of their job in the face of invading Israeli soldiers with, apparently, no regard for the Geneva Conventions which should allow and oblige medics to reach the injured and the dead, without fire from the invading army.’
Comments from anyone else?
“Comments from anyone else?”
Is that really worse than aiming rockets at a city trying to kill “anyone” ? This is getting ridicilous. It’s like schoolkids arguing about who’s dad would win a fight.
And it will bever get better while people concentrate on deciding who started it or which side has been the nastiest.
Darin @ 275
(about a media report on ambulances and stretcher-bearers being targeted by snipers):
“Is that really worse than aiming rockets at a city trying to kill ‘anyone’?”
John 11:35.
PSALM 137…. and read it to the end.
Don’t give me the bible if you want to talk about killing children..
“Is that really worse than aiming rockets at a city trying to kill “anyone” ?”
The thing is, you won’t get anyone like Rob admitting that it isn’t the same, let alone worse. Admitting it is even the same is a huge deal since you’re effectively saying that the precious democratic state of Israel propped up and supported by the West is as bad a two-bit terrorist organisation.
Oh please people don’t start quoting the bloody Bible!
Darin, no it’s not worse than the rockets. The point is though that Israel should know better.
If we are to accept and support Israel’s cause, then we should surely demand they don’t commit war crimes, would you agree?
At the moment Israel is making history. This is the most intense bombardment and violation of law committed by them that many can remember. It is also the most abhorred the West has felt about Israel since many can remember.
They’re doing their cause no favours, quite the reverse. IMO a lot of Western democracies will after this slaughter rethink their support of Israel. And deservedly so.
Correction, yes it is worse than the rockets, like 100 to 1 worse.
“Comments from anyone else?”
Yes. Accepting for a moment the truth of the story and the accompanying video, what evidence is there that it was the Israelis fired on the medical team? And why would they have done so?
Oz @ 271 – yes, so its just training and equipment that the US have been supplying, not actually patrolling and stopping the smuggling of weapons themselves. I rather doubt that US troops would be seen as acceptable as part of a cease-fire – they would look for UN soldiers from a more neutral disinterested country.
they would look for UN soldiers from a more neutral disinterested country.
.
Yeah that’s another one of those obvious solutions. But it’s hard to do. Nations won;t give up their sovereignty to the UN. And they’re understandably reluctant to expend the lives of their soldiers trying to get Israel/Palestine’s shit together.
.
Of nations do contribute peacekeepers for UN missions. But the anecdotes from the field are of muddles in inter-military communications, who’s in command issues etc.
.
Still at least it’s happening so it might develop into something that actually works one day.
.
But given how someone in the region, of wither side, always insists on creating war on the verge of impending peace I don’t blame anyone who doesn’t wanna touch it.
Chris, my initial point was to refute Rob’s assertion that it’s simply up the Egyptians what happens on the border. The fact that US soldiers are on the ground on the border helping look for tunnels and smugglers as well as making routine checks on the border crossings PLUS the threat of financial sanctions PLUS the fact that the Egyptians need to clear any change of personnel numbers with the Israeli’s show that to be an incorrect assertion.
“The fact that US soldiers are on the ground on the border….”
But you have not established that they are. That’s Chris’ point, I think.
Rob @ 281
Maybe it was a squad of Tamil Tigers with a very poor sense of direction?
You even read the links, Rob?
“The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has conducted a series of tours along the eastern Sinai Peninsula.”
“”The U.S. military has been determining manpower and equipment needs to protect these borders from infiltration and terrorism,” an Egyptian source said.”
“On May 21, officers, headed by the U.S. Air Force attache in the U.S. embassy in Cairo, toured Egypt’s borders and inspected the Rafah terminal and Israel’s Keren Shalom facility.”
“Earlier in May, the same delegation visited the Gaza and Israeli borders. At the same time, the U.S. Army was said to have begun training Egyptian officers to stop weapons smuggling and infiltration into Israel and the Gaza Strip.”
“Over the past year, the U.S. has put much pressure on Egypt to improve how it deals with the arms-smuggling into Gaza, an Israeli diplomatic source said. “
But @ 263 you said this:
“Not when you have US soldiers patrolling the Egyptian border …. ”
– which implies the US had soldiers in theatre a la UNIFIL. None of your quotes indicates as much.
Israel using Gaza as ‘test laboratory’ for new weapon: medics (AFP)
Gaza: the logic of colonial power (Nir Rosen, Guardian)
Demands grow for Gaza war crimes investigation (Guardian)
yeti @ 289. Yes, indeed:
“A new Israeli weapon, meanwhile, is tailored to the Hamas tactic of asking civilians to stand on the roofs of buildings so Israeli pilots will not bomb. The Israelis are countering with a missile designed, paradoxically, not to explode. They aim the missiles at empty areas of the roofs to frighten residents into leaving the buildings, a tactic called “a knock on the roof.””
Israeli forces close in on Gaza City (Guardian)
Rob @ 281.
Perhaps it was a Hamas missile gone astray?
Really mate, you’re grabbing at straws. If this was one story on it’s own, you might have a point in suggesting it wasn’t an Israeli sniper. Given the very recent history however of multiple reports of ambulances being fired on by Israel, the fact that the first hand witness there said it was an Israeli sniper, and that it was “near the area which has been occupied by Israeli soldiers since the land invasion began”, I’d be putting the doubt on the IDF.
Smokey @ 274.
In answer to your question, one operative law (but not exclusively so) is Common Article 3 in the 4th Convention “relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. Geneva, 12 August 1949.”
http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/FULL/380?OpenDocument
(Note that in Hamdan v Rumsfeld, the US Supreme Court held that Common Article 3 could not be derogated from and Gitmo inmates were entitled to those minimum protections.)
*Murder of all kinds includes attempted murder. On the material presented,and if correct, the perpetrators have a prima facie case to answer for a war crime under common article 3.
Note that common article 3 is so universally accepted that it is now regarded as customary international law
Such an attempted murder, if proven, would be in breach of customary international law (CIL) and also within the remit of the International Criminal Court which has adopted in its charter CIL. (But I don’t believe Israel is a signatory member- not that that would stop a prosecution for Israelis {or Hamas members for that matter}, in ICC member nations.)
Article 20 in the 4th Convention also applies:
By that evidence, if correct, such an attempted murder specifically of legitimate ambulance workers would also place the perpetrators in a position of having a prima facie case to answer for a war crime under Art 20.
smokey @ 294. This is just a propaganda video. Nowhere in the text you cited, nor in the accompanying video footage, does anyone claim the Israelis were responsible for the firing (if any in fact occurred – informed observers are well are aware of the phenomenon of ‘Pallywood’). Nor is there any evidence of such Israeli fire. All there is actual evidence of is that there was gunfire. If I’m wrong, please correct me.
I would also point out that this video is sourced from the International Solidarity Movement, a virulently anti-Israeli NGO.
I just wanna echo other comments here that, regardless of what you think of his arguments, Rob has been consistently calm and collected in the face of some serious provocation.
Am I the only the only person on the blogosphere who has actually goaded Rob into losing it? Not that I particularly sport that as a badge of pride but more to point out to the likes of yeti that your crude abuse is well…crude. And abusive. Neither cool or subtle. Or effective.
Yes, ok, thanks, Nabs, but I don’t know that meta-commentary is all that helpful either.
Just to clarify that, while I’m glad that we’ve been able to discuss all this without too much acrimony, I’m not sure that reflecting on the contribution of particular commenters does anything other than encourage people to personalise the discussion, which I’d like to avoid.
Anyway, 300 comments probably means time for another thread.
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2009/01/13/eyeless-in-gaza-vi/
I reckon so, Nabakov. Your gift for invective far outreaches mine, and that’s a compliment. Honour is due.