The great Akiva Eldar in Haaretz is reporting that a Hebrew University Law Professor is asking Israel's AG to investigate a buried episode involving Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz now that he may replace Ehud Olmert as Prime Minister: that when he was Israel's military chief of staff in 2001, during the second intifadah, he held a briefing at which he demanded a "quota" of 70 Palestinian fatalities a day from Israeli forces. Apparently the incident came out in a 2005 book on the second intifadah (which said that Mofaz told the recording secretary at the briefing not to record his remarks), and in Haaretz. David Kretschmer, the law professor, "cautioned that if the law enforcement authorities in Israel did not investigate this incident, Mofaz could be sought for questioning in foreign countries." Mofaz denies that he made the statement.
Thanks to David Bloom, my go-to guy on the Occupation, who adds:
"Mofaz, by the way, lives in Kochav Yair, along with the rest of Israel's security elite. Now he will have a very big front yard, 1500 acres. He can enjoy the Jayyous almonds [from the Palestinian village of Jayyous] the fence will steal for him…." See here Kochav Yair "reaches out" to people making aliyah, including relatives of "fighters in the underground movements." I.e., the Irgun's descendants. For it is named after Abraham Stern of the Stern gang. sez Wikipedia.
Related posts:
- Israeli Gov’t Imposes Quota on Palestinian Students in Universities
- 11 Palestinian human rights orgs call for investigation of Palestinian violations alleged by Goldstone
- ‘Cutting the grass’: Israeli soldiers pull 63-year-old Palestinian from home in middle of night
- ‘If an Israeli woman had lost five daughters in a Palestinian attack, would Washington Post balance that image?’
- (Alleged!) Extortion at the Post
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Unfortunately Mofaz knew what was required under the circumstances. At that time P to I kill ratio was only 4 to 1. At that rate the Israelis would eventually lose. Since 2005 they have gotten it back to a more respectable 50 to 1. The rate of killing is also an important variable and since that is relatively low right now, they are back to a draw. I think anyone who seriously supports Israel as a Jewish dominated state should be willing to entertain this calculus. The alternatives are transfer or two states, which seem not at all likely given that Israel has won the West Bank.
Wow. I'll be interested to see how liberal Zionists like Richard Witty respond to syvanen's fascinating, blood curdling comment. It's the kind of thing a high ranking Nazi might have said, yet it seems cool, rational, intelligent. I'll be watching.
Captain T. was the commander of an armed high-speed reconnaissance boat. His naval commanders expected him to have a brilliant military career. But soon after Operation Defensive Shield, T. handed back his equipment and went to India. He came home for a visit, and his mother turned to the Breaking the Silence organization to have an activist talk to him. His story, from the spring of 2002, can explain what can happen to a Palestinian family that goes out for a breath of fresh air on the Gaza shore. His words are quoted with necessary cuts and editing:
"After Defensive Shield two boats went down to the area of Sudaniya in the northern Gaza Strip. We had with us representatives of the navy, of the air force, of helicopter units, and of various participating combat units, as well as people from units on the shore, intelligence, etc. One of the senior officers told us that the Israel Defense Forces was acting in very extensively and said that he wanted 'two dead every night'; 'I want at least two "terrorists" every night,' he said, from the beach front. The feeling was of a revenge mission. We waited, two boats, at a distance of about 2,000 meters from the shore.
"We spotted a patrol on the shore going to the beach outside our target area, on the beach itself. About three to four people sat there at the beach and lit a fire, and we noted some action between the (patrol) group and the fire. We had no other identification of these people, no idea who they were, whether they were armed or not.
"When Naval Task Force 13 signaled that they saw weapons at the site, all of us (on the boat) felt very excited. Night after night boats returned from nightly duty without firing a single shot, and now we had such an opportunity. Our feeling was imbued by the aura of 'Defensive Shield,' the (suicide) attacks preceding it and the tension. No wonder I wanted to shoot. I said 'legitimate target' and had the concurrence of all other ranks up to the one giving the order. And we started firing. We continued shooting, aiming at hitting as many as possible, even those carrying the wounded. The problematic issue was that we didn't really know who was sitting around the fire. It could have been the kid brother of someone there, it could have been …we don't know. This happened every night.
"Another incident occurred in the southern area of Khan Yunis. Ten people went into a building. Again there was no discrimination between the armed and the unarmed, and you didn't know exactly who was inside. People started coming from the area to help the wounded and into this chaos we fired at figures running in all directions, to take out as many as possible. Like a video game, click, click, click. I wanted to shoot. In my eyes it was legitimate, otherwise I would have refused. I was crazed.
"It is highly probably that on the beach there was a child of 12 who was waiting with the narghile for his big brother to come back from guard duty. A person like that is not a legitimate target. I think that I am a war criminal. Supposing that people come to me now, and I'm on my trip, and they put me on trial at the International Court of Justice, what can I tell them? I know that I obeyed an order that is illegal in my eyes. If a relative were to come to me now, I would tell him: I am guilty. Your child was murdered for no reason because we wanted to bring two corpses every night."
— Not Just A Security Thing, by Akiva Eldar; Ha'aretz, 20 Jun 2006.
(linked at homepage)
Dear Father Ted
These are just the painful details. The question is how far are we willing to go to keep Israel a Jewish dominated state. Protesting the atrocities that are needed to achieve that end is all very nice, but the fact is that US and Israel policy is working toward that goal.
Now what? The dead two state solution?
syvanen: I know what you're saying but
1. they're not just "details" if that was your child dead on the beach.
2. if we don't record the painful details, some halfwit apologist will be here within the hour, explaining how there's no proof any such thing happened and Akiva Eldar, David Bloom and god knows who else is a wicked antisemite for even suggesting that such a policy might really exist.
Dear Father Ted
Do what you think is right. I am skeptical that the US can do any good at this point.
He should have demanded 700 dead terrorists/day. Then the terror would have ended immediately.
THE WAY WE LIVE NOW: ISRAEL PROVES THERE IS A MILITARY SOLUTION TO TERRORISM
…Anyone who visits Jerusalem today will not see the ghost town it was in 2002, when Israel was absorbing an average of one suicide bombing a week.
… How did things improve so dramatically, and so quickly, for Palestinians and Israelis alike? Begin by recalling Israel's assassination, in late March, of Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. At the time, the action was all but universally condemned as reckless and counterproductive. "By granting Yassin the martyrdom he craved, the Israelis have provided a motive for new suicide attacks," went an editorial in the normally pro-Israel Daily Telegraph of London. "More young Palestinians will fall in love with death, and more Israeli civilians will die with them."
Yet what followed for Israel were nearly six consecutive terror-free months. This wasn't because the Palestinian terror groups lacked for motivation to carry out attacks. It was because they lacked for means. The leaders of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Yasser Arafat's own al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades had to spend their time figuring out how to survive, not on planning fresh attacks. The Israeli army incarcerated terror suspects in record numbers–some 6,000 now sit in Israeli prisons–which in turn helped yield information for future arrests. Most importantly, the security fence has begun to make the Israeli heartland nearly impenetrable to Palestinian infiltrators. (August's double suicide bombing in Beersheba happened precisely because there is still no security fence separating that town from the Palestinian city of Hebron, from where the bombers were dispatched.)
Taken together, these measures prove what a legion of diplomats, pundits and reporters have striven to deny: that there is a military solution to the conflict.
'Yet what followed for Israel were nearly six consecutive terror-free months.'
It's a calculus the Arabs who want to 'push Israel into the sea' may wish to employ at some point in the future, when the US is too fucked up from supporting Israel to continue supporting Israel. Just kill 700 Israelis a day for a while; problem solved.
A precedent worth setting, eh Madfish?
The Arabs HAVE tried that- and have failed as a result.
In fact, that "calculus" always fails for them- and always will. Note that the more they try to employ violence, the worse it gets for them.
50,000 ARABS LEFT GAZA SINCE 2006, MANY MORE ON THE WAY
80% OF GAZA RESIDENTS CONSIDERING EMIGRATING
They could have had a state in peace. Now they will have nothing at all- except for the boot.
It's not America's fault. It's the Arabs' fault:
WHAT USE WERE ALL THE WARS? By Mona Eltahwy
How would it play in the U.S. if the MSM ever decided to run with such stories? Based on my experiences in Israel, and the people that I spoke with, I don't doubt that this story could be true.
How will ordinary Americans react after realizing that they have been purposely manipulated, and their nation bled and defrauded to support Israel? Will that day come?
It won't come because it's all a fantasy in your head; yours and a few dozen other lonely whack-jobs.
C'mon Mafish, just humor me and tell me what would happen if the day would come. I'm a lonely nutjob and it would mean a lot.
Dear Mafish, I like your style.
Tell me, is Securing The Realm sterilizing Israeli Jews?
It's just I noticed you guys sure were truckin' in a whole lot of Russians (goys!) for a while there.
Weren't those 25,000 Iranian Jews just a slightly better offer away from making aliyah? No?
With all the perks, who wouldn't want to move to stolen Palestine? I just don't get it.
MM,
Don't you worry:
JEWISH MAJORITY: STABLE NOW; GROWTH SPURT IN 2025
As Israel enters its 60th year, the American-Israel Demographic Research Group (AIDRG) provides some good news: The ground is being prepared for a major Jewish demographic boost, beginning in 2025.
The Arab birthrate is down, while the Jewish birthrate – especially in the hareidi and religious sectors – is increasing. The effects are currently merely arithmetic, but these are expected to begin multiplying geometrically within a generation.
At present, the Jewish majority is hovering around 80%, with the religious and hareidi populations each representing slightly over 10% of this amount. Latest Central Bureau of Statistics numbers show that there are 600,000 hareidi-religious Jews, and about that many who describe themselves as "religious."
By 2025, however, this sector is expected to grow to nearly 30% of the Jewish population – and to 23% of the entire country. As time passes, its growth will be faster and faster, as the most fertile sectors make up increasingly larger portions of the population….
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