Today - front page, above the fold - the New York Times helped build the case that Israel committed war crimes in Gaza. The article "In Shattered Gaza Town, Roots of Seething Split" includes stories of schools and houses Israel destroyed without cause and contains horrifying passages such as this:
Omar Abu Halima and his two teenage cousins tried to take the burned body of his baby sister and two other living but badly burned girls to the hospital on that Sunday.
The boys were taking the girls and six others on a tractor, when, according to several accounts from villagers, Israeli soldiers told them to stop. According to their accounts, they got down, put their hands up, and suddenly rounds were fired, killing two teenage boys: Matar Abu Halima, 18, and Muhamed Hekmet, 17.
An Israeli military spokeswoman said that soldiers had reported that the two were armed and firing. Villagers strongly deny that. The tractor that villagers say was carrying the group is riddled with 36 bullet holes.
The villagers were forced to abandon the bodies of the teenage boys and the baby, and when rescue workers arrived 11 days later, the baby’s body had been eaten by dogs, her legs two white bones, captured in a gruesome image on a relative’s cellphone. The badly burned girls and others on the tractor had fled to safety.
Matar’s mother, Nabila Abu Halima, said she had been shot through the arm when she tried to move toward her son. Her left arm bears a round scar. Her son came back to her in pieces, his body crushed under tank treads.
In their defense, the Israeli commanding officer in that part of Gaza responded, “I can promise you that throughout the war, there were many times that civilians walked by us and we never shot at them.”
The above quote is from Major E. In the article we also hear from Captain E. and Captain Y. These commanding officers are going incognito as part of an Israeli policy to not publicize the names of Israelis who fought in Gaza out of fear of war crimes prosecution. Doesn't this tell us all we really need to know?
The article notes, "human rights groups are crisscrossing Gaza, documenting what they believe will form the basis for war crimes proceedings aimed at demonstrating that Israel used disproportionate force." Remember, the US State Department has an office to investigate war crimes. Contact them to tell them to get involved in the growing international effort to hold Israel accountable. (Adam Horowitz)
“I can promise you that throughout the war, there were many times that civilians walked by us and we never shot at them.”
Intentional ambiguity introduced in translation, by insertion of the syntactically inappropriate word 'never'.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1061426.html
UN: Hamas seized food and blankets from needy Gazans
By Haaretz Service and The Associated Press
Tags: israel news, humanitarian aid
A United Nation spokesman on Wednesday accused Hamas police in Gaza Strip of seizing thousands of blankets and food parcels meant for needy residents.
Christopher Gunness, spokesman for the UN's Relief and Works Agency, said Hamas police raided a UN warehouse in Gaza City late Tuesday, snatching 3,500 blankets and over 400 food parcels.
"Members of the Hamas police seized by force 3,500 blankets and 406 food packages ready to be delivered to hundreds of poor Gaza families," the statement said.
Maybe it's just me, but I was expecting, cynically, from the title, that this would be an article about splits among the Palestinians regarding support for/blame on Hamas among Gazans. It's just the opposite, especially the conlcusion. So I don't know whether the title is intentionally deceptive or not. In any event, the article still accepts as its assumption that Israel would be justified if it had evidence of stored munitions, rockets, etc.
Come on, Rowan, that phrase is pure, crystalline wittycism.
After reading this I thought to myself..I wish I had my finger on a nuclear warhead missile easy button.
Israel has to be destroyed, that's all there is to it. Calling them animals is a insult to animals.
They are pure evil.
Justice needs to find these anonymous Israeli military officers.
Dear Mr. Green:
the title is intentionally deceptive, because I also thought that's exactly what the article was about. That deceptive strategy made me not even read the article.
Every American citizen is complicit in these crimes. We may not be able to find those Israeli generals, but look out of your window tommy, you'll find plenty of war criminals.
The article notes, "human rights groups are crisscrossing Gaza, documenting what they believe will form the basis for war crimes proceedings aimed at demonstrating that Israel used disproportionate force."
Except that is not a war crime. What 'american' so vehemently suggests is a war crime. What tommy does not realize is that 'Justice' holds the Israelis in high esteem. 'Justice' knows the crimes committed by the Palestinians.
American war criminals can be found just looking in the mirror. The impotence to prevent American war crimes is very distressing.
Ethan Bronner's objectivity as a journalist is suspect at best. Despite his apparent expertise on the ME, his responses in a recent interview with Terry Gross on 'Fresh Air' were riddled with crude factual inaccuracies and omissions. For example, during the January 27th interview he equivocates on the question of Israeli use of white phosphorus munitions, when photographic and medical evidence available in the main stream press prior to that date was conclusive on the issue. (Photographs of the airborne spider-like plumes were sufficient confirmation for most experts.) Although Ms. Gross does not purport, so far as I know, to have any special insight into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, her failure to challenge Bronner on the most simple of flaws in his analysis was dismaying.
The split that the New York Times refers to is between good (condemning the war crimes) and evil (calling for more war crimes) battling it out on the USA soil?
American,
Your nuclear "easy button" will kill up to 1.5m Israeli-Palestinians, 2.5m OPT Palestinians, and .75m Holy Land Christians.
Or are you so racist that you fantasize about Jew-seeking nuclear missiles?
Phil, your site acts is a reminder to Jews of exactly WHAT is out there, waiting to slit throats at the drop of a hat, and any weakening of Israel is complicity. And intermarriage only save a few thousand men in Berlin.
"Palestinians almost never question the legitimacy of firing rockets at Israeli civilians as a form of resistance, and seemed shocked that Israel would go to war over it."
The Palestinians felt they could send an endless barrage of missiles at Israel and there would be no price to pay.
I hope for their sake they learned they were wrong.
>> What tommy does not realize is that 'Justice' holds the Israelis in high esteem. 'Justice' knows the crimes committed by the Palestinians.
Shooting unarmed civilians in cold blood and then driving tanks over their bodies — "Justice", Israeli-style!
You keep digging that hole, Chris.
In the words of Robert Plant: "Your time is gonna come…"
"I can promise you that throughout the war, there were many times that civilians walked by us and we never shot at them."
I love that line. "The proof of my innocence is that there are lots of other people I didn't kill."
'Justice' knows the crimes committed by the Palestinians.
I missed that little delusional tidbit. I will likely regret asking the questions, but who or what is 'Justice', and how did he/she/it acquire such myopic insight? Does 'Justice' have any knowledge of crimes committed by others, or is his/her/its judicial inquiry limited to Palestinian misdeeds?
Eurosabra
Of course I exaggrate for effect ..but it is my intention to ratchet up the emotion till it decapitates your slimy nazi head.
If you happen to be both jewish and nazi, the jewish part isn't going to give you a pass.
You are a filthy nazi, that's all there is to it.
Justice seems to be blind to Israeli crimes, just as it seemingly was blind to Nazi crimes. The spiral of history continues however, and justice will someday finds its way to Palestine and America, just as it found its way to S. Africa.
Sammy, unlike you, 'Justice' deals with facts. You, on the other hand, deal in allegation, rumor, and lies.
Would you like me to cover the hole you're in, or would you like to continue embarrassing yourself?
>> Sammy, unlike you, 'Justice' deals with facts. You, on the other hand, deal in allegation, rumor, and lies. <<
Chris,
First off, having an actual discussion with you is like having a discussion with a sponge or some other barely animate sea creature. But here goes…
It was you who made assertions based on, well, nothing. You asserted that no war crimes were committed in Gaza. (And then topped it off by a real hummer, this after a corroborated allegation of the murder and the desecration of a corpse: 'Justice' knows the crimes committed by the Palestinians.)
Based on what facts do you make these assertions? Based on what facts do you exonerate the IDF, in light what appears to be a pretty good primie facie case against them? Based on what facts do you base your accusation that Gazan civilians have committed crimes?
In the very least, there appears to be enough evidence to pursue an investigation. Would you support an investigation to get to the bottom of these allegations? And, if certain members of the IDF are found guilty, would you support them being brought to justice according to the norms of international law?
I doubt you will anser those direct questions because, based on your postings here so far, you, Bubba, appear to prefer life in a fact-free universe, just as a sponge preferes life in the slow undulating currents of a shallow bay.
I am relatively emotionless about the conflict, since this is my 8th war, and it's classic reversion to type on both sides. Once again, "far" Islamists send rockets against Israel, threatening the Jews and "near" Arabs of Eretz Israel indiscriminately. I suppose the "Nazi" slur is simply because I'm not an anti-Zionist, since I always lived among Palestinians in Israel and my house was post-war construction, non-Jewish property still in the hands of the original owner, rent paid in due form. You can live there and make personal choices NOT to oppress, to deny inhuman claims made on you. Every day thousands of Palestinian schoolchildren in Jerusalem sing "Biladi" under a Palestinian flag, ignoring the blue-and-white fluttering over the police station in Omar ibn al-Khattab square. They are not being taught to become suicide bombers, their parents simply won't allow it. People make real choices to live together every day, in all sorts of subtle ways.
Unsubtle outsiders like you aren't really going to impact the way people live (I hope) and die (God forbid!) with each other in Eretz Israel-Palestine.
Politically, Hamas May Have Won
by Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani, February 4, 2009
CAIRO – Despite declarations of victory by Israel, the military assault on the Gaza Strip failed to achieve its stated aims, many analysts say. The assault, and even its exceptional brutality, may only have vindicated the notion of resistance among the Arab public.
"The steadfastness of the resistance in Gaza in the face of Israeli military power has resuscitated the idea of armed resistance," Gamal Fahmi, political analyst and managing editor of opposition weekly Al-Arabi al-Nassiri, told IPS……
ENTIRE ARTICLE – link to antiwar.com
So, Eurosabra, I presume then you oppose the seige of Gaza, the veritable source of the rockets and unrest. What are you doing about it?
Nasser also believed he won. Big deal.
Sammy, First, you have to stop digging that hoe, I can barely see you.
Second, you have to do more then post allegation, rumor, and proven lie.
Third, firing missles, undirected, into civilian population centers, with the expressed hope and goal of killing civilians, is a war crime. The palestinians of Gaza are committing war crimes. Period.
You need to put your sponge back up there as a birth control method. You are creating too many lies in your womb.
Unsubtle outsiders like you aren't really going to impact the way people live (I hope) and die (God forbid!) with each other in Eretz Israel-Palestine.
But we do, EuroSabra, we do. We bankroll it. 100%.
So how many names do you think Yisrael Medad, the American settler in the settlements, has on this blog? Berel? Eurosabra? Suzanne?
The rockets began when there was no siege.
The rockets are what Palestinian militants really want.
The border will open when the rockets stop.
There is still some transit of patients, despite the planned suicide bombing of Soroka Hospital by a former patient.
Gazans need to be less dependent on the people they want to destroy.
>> Third, firing missles, undirected, into civilian population centers, with the expressed hope and goal of killing civilians, is a war crime. The palestinians of Gaza are committing war crimes. Period.
No, one is allowed to resist an act of war, namely, the seige of Gaza, by any means available. Gazans have a right to defend themselves. I am sure if they had military hardware imported from the US, they would undertake "targeted assasinations" and what not. But for now, they're lobbing homemade rockets. Good on them. Don't like it? Then end the seige.
You still have not told me what facts you have supporting your untethered assertion that Gazan civilians have committed crimes to warrant assasination and their corpses' desecration.
And you still have not told me — upon a direct question — if you would support an investigation into the allegations of war crimes committed by members of the IDF. I will ask again:
Do you support an investigation into allegations of war crimes committed by the IDF?
I fully expect you to dodge this question.
The rockets began when there was no siege.
Huh? The seige began the moment the occupation ended. All Gazans have ever known is seige and occupation.
The border will open when the rockets stop.
WTF? The rockets, save for a very few launched in retaliation for Israel ceasefire violations, DID stop over the summer and the seige, contrary to their word, did NOT end. So you are manifestly full of shit, Eurosbra. And even now, Hamas has a deal on the table: lift the seige, and the rockets will end. Israel has said no to this.
Gazans need to be less dependent on the people they want to destroy.
THEN LIFT THE SEIGE!!
Sammy, did I get this right? Did you actually say this from down in your deep dark hole?
"The commission of war crimes are allowed if there is a seige"
I thought only illiterate morons could state something like that. But I was wrong.
Sure you don't want a cover for that hole?
The rockets, save for a very few launched in retaliation for Israel ceasefire violations, DID stop over the summer and the seige, contrary to their word, did NOT end.
Precisely the facts as they were. According to Israeli government statistics, during the four full months of the ceasefire, from July 2008 to the end of October 2008, rocket and mortar fire had decreased in excess of 98%, the few attacks being attributed to Fatah or Hizbollah. No Israeli deaths or injuries resulted during the ceasefire. On November 4, 2008, election day in the United States, Israeli troops entered Gaza at Deir al-Balah killing several members of Hamas, thereby breaking the ceasefire. Predictably, after one mortar shell and one rocket were fired in October, 2008, 125 rockets and 68 mortar rounds were fired in November after the Israeli incursion.
Moreover, as reported in Haaretz on December 31, 2008, the December ‘war’ had been planned months in advance, and was not a response to the military activities of Hamas.
Sources in the defense establishment said Defense Minister Ehud Barak instructed the Israel Defense Forces to prepare for the operation over six months ago, even as Israel was beginning to negotiate a ceasefire agreement with Hamas.
Consistent with the public statements of Israeli officials, the ‘war’ was intended to be an object lesson to Iran and Iranian proxies.
In what passes for critical analysis amongst NYT columnists, in his interview with Terry Gross, Ethan Bronner scratches his chin in puzzlement over the Israeli imposed press ban in Gaza. In response to Gross’s question, Bronner expresses his outrage at the decision. He was so “outraged . . . in fact . . . I spoke with Danny Seaman, the director of the [Israeli] government press office.” (Ah, good ol’ Danny. Apparently they are on a first name basis.) In any event, Bronner lets us in on a little secret. In fact the secret is so deep and dark, he seemingly doesn’t know what the fuck he is talking about himself. “Now, I don’t want to get into too much detail, but this ban began before the [December 27th] war. It began about six weeks before the war. We don’t really know why. But it’s possible that they were already thinking that a war was coming.” You mean, Ethan, that on or about November 4, 2008, (six weeks before the official war began, more or less) when the Israelis sent in troops to assassinate members of Hamas in contravention of the ceasefire, “it’s possible that they were already thinking that a war was coming”? Now really, how fucking stupid can you be?
Hibullah was accused of launching missles from Gaza? Really?
You still fail to realize that israel, on Nov 4th, stopped Hamas from launching an attack. So, how stupid can we be? Not as stupid as you are.
Hizbollah was accused of launching missles from Gaza? Really?
You still fail to realize that israel, on Nov 4th, stopped Hamas from launching an attack. So, how stupid can we be? Not as stupid as you are.
Not as stupid as you are.
I can see why you would want to post that comment twice. Very clever.
1. Israel has accused the armed wing of Fatah of firing rockets from Gaza, both before and since the December war started.
2. Israel has accused Hizbollah of providing personnel, logistical support, and weapons training, including in the use of rocket making, to Hamas, in Gaza, such support increasing in the wake of Hizbollah's perceived success in 2006 in Lebanon against the IDF.
3. The Israelis stated rationale for the November 2008 incursion was the construction of a tunnel. At no time, that I am aware of, did the Israelis allege that their attack was in response to the threat of an imminent attack from Hamas. The incursion, coincidentally, occured "shortly before a key meeting . . . in Cairo when Hamas and its political rival Fatah [were to] hold talks on reconciling their differences and creating a single, unified government", according to reports in the mainstream press.
4. I don't know the 'we' that you refer to when you ask, "So, how stupid can we be?" I assume that you must be a very ambitious person, because you could not have been born this stupid.
The border was open before and after the Israeli withdrawal, until the election of Hamas. The rockets came in any case. If Israel cedes to blackmail while the threat is so minor, there is no hope of maintaining the state. Even today, all Israel would have to do to end any threat from Gaza is cut off the supply of electricity and water from Israel, and be willing to use the normal amount of force Arab governments use against their rightless citizens.
Hamas is thus attempting to get Israel to destroy itself, to supply Gaza with food, water, fuel and electricity, while they prepare the destruction of the Israeli state through the importation of longer-range rockets.
The Israeli hard right laughs and laughs, knowing that only Jewish morality restrains the final solution, and mourns in advance the thousands of Jews who will probably die from Israel's weakness on the road to solving the problem Hamas-style, in desperation, with the acquiescence of America, as Croatia did.
There are those in Israel who dream of using Hamas's methods, to reach everyone who can be reached with Israel's equipment. Israeli weakness now makes their empowerment more likely, not less. Oddly, stopping the transition to long-range rockets on Tel Aviv is Israel's and Gaza's last best hope for preserving Palestinian society in Gaza.
"Even today, all Israel would have to do to end any threat from Gaza is cut off the supply of electricity and water from Israel, and be willing to use the normal amount of force Arab governments use against their rightless citizens."
Isn't this historically pretty much how many groups of people have fought and ended a war they're involved in?
In effect, to bring the other side 100% to its knees?
I haven't studied different strategies of how battles are fought and won. Not really my thing.
Without getting too deep about this, it seems to me that democratic societies are in conflict with themselves when it comes to this kind of struggle. And while it may be a noble and moral thing…it prolongs the agony on both sides.
War can't be a halfway thing.
Bracing myself for the all the screeching this post elicits…
Eurosabra: "Oddly, stopping the transition to long-range rockets on Tel Aviv is Israel's and Gaza's last best hope for preserving Palestinian society in Gaza."
If a couple thousand precision F-16 and helicopter attacks didn't destroy Gaza, why would a few homemade and unguided rocket attacks destroy Tel Aviv?
They won't, just an attack on Tel Aviv ensures a response that very well may take out hugh swathes of Gaza.
One of the conceits of the IDF and (more importantly) AMAN, military intelligence, is that Hamas is separable from the Gazan public to the extent that senseless, indiscriminate destruction is to be avoided, in the hopes of luring Gazans away from Hamas. One of the most important aspects of this concept is the relative flexibility and moderation of the Israeli Islamic Movement, and reading the specific experience of Israeli Islamists in the Triangle back into Gaza.
I am going to go out on a limb and argue that Shulamith Har-Even was somewhat right when she said, "So what if 'they want'? They CAN'T", meaning that extremists could be denied the capacity to harm Israel under an open-borders regime coupled with minimal force, if only because of their own (relative) incompetence. The rejoinder to that is that because of Iran, they will, as soon as they can. However, sophisticated isolation and non-escalation haven't been done in Gaza since 1970, and such strategies may have been dependent on the lack of long-range rockets in Gaza. I imagine given the failure of Cast Lead, the Israeli security sector is hearing from planners who want to either go really big, or scale back and try negotiating.
The next strategic leap is a missile in Tel Aviv, and Iran has to finesse the level of damage, perhaps with chemical weapons, enough to threaten the destruction of Israel through attrition without actually using a nuke, which would expose Iran to a nuclear counter-strike.
I am fairly convinced that they are using the dissolution of Algeria and Lebanon as models, trying to produce enough chaos in Israel that the state will atrophy sufficiently despite its overwhelming conventional and nuclear advantage to leave the Islamists as the real political actor on the ground. That strategy ends, however, the first day that an IDF battalion expends all its ammo against Islamists, picking targets according to the logic of conventional war rather than a press-critiqued police action.
Tel Aviv's pre-'36 quarters, the Yemenite Quarter, Ahuzat Bayit, the original city built on sand have a specific symbolic charge because they were on land free-and-clear of Palestinian claims in the pre-WW1 period. Moreover, at that distance the missiles are going to be large and guided, possibly producing 9/11-scale destruction. (One Israeli simulation on YouTube "Distance is only a matter of Time" in fact assumes a 9/11-scale strike on the Azrieli Towers.)
At that point it simply becomes a question of who can bomb more efficiently, which is why I would suspect that the first missiles that hit Tel Aviv will be gas-tipped, for maximum destruction while the US and UN will force Israeli restraint, curtailing strikes against Gaza while providing Israeli society with the maximum psychological trauma of a symbolic Holocaust repetition. Ironically, Israel will NOT be allowed to respond on a comparable scale precisely BECAUSE of Holocaust trauma.
Again, the situation presents an insoluble security dilemma, which is why I am convinced that Hamas is sincere in its goals. If they do not believe Israel can be indefinitely restrained, they will not escalate to gas or explosives on Tel Aviv, but then the issue becomes a "balance-of-terror" that definitely precludes the realization of their stated goals, an Islamic state from the river to the sea. I suppose they are betting that Israel will be forcibly restrained on the road to its destruction or happy enough to die in pursuit of their goals that a two-state solution remains an impossibility.
Eurosabra—thanks…and whoa! I don't know how you did that, but you packed a TON of information into one concise paragraph.
I had to read that 3 times to make sure I got all the details. In any case, it totally answered my question.
actually a few paragraphs, but still…
Haneyya gov't denies UNRWA allegations of seizing relief aid from its depots
GAZA, (PIC)– The Palestinian government headed by premier Ismail Haneyya on Wednesday categorically denied the UNRWA accusations that the police in Gaza seized relief aid from its warehouses and called on the UN agency to apologize immediately for spreading false news.
For its part, the interior ministry said, in a statement received by the PIC, that the UNRWA allegation is baseless and unacceptable, stressing that the agency's role is limited to distribution of relief aid to "Palestinian refugees" and not to civil institutions because this act is against the law.
The PIC reporter was informed that amounts of relief aid in a storage depot belonging to a Fatah-affiliated society were held in police custody after learning that this society was distributing the aid to Fatah members only and not to the needy.
Informed sources said that UNRWA was distributing part of the humanitarian aid granted to the Palestinian people to a society belonging to the Fatah faction, which in turn distributed them to Fatah members prompting police action.
Haneyya gov't denies UNRWA allegations of seizing relief aid from its depots
UNRWA: Palestinian Police in Gaza confiscated aid supplies
Yihia Mussa, A Hamas MP, told IMEMC that the deposed government in Gaza is not willing to put obstacles in the way of delivering aid supplies to Gazans. He added that the Ministry of Social Affairs told the Palestinian Parliament that UNRWA has been using local NGOs that have political affiliations to deliver the aid to the people, which contradicts the political neutrality of UNRWA.
UNRWA: Palestinian Police in Gaza confiscated aid supplies
Sounds like they were doing exactly as I previously described. Hamas is trying to ensure that Fatah supporters starve to death.
Gazans need to be less dependent on the people they want to destroy.
Zionist Jews need to be less dependent on military domination if they want to continue to be the world's preeminent victims.
And Eurohasbara needs to find a blog where people actually want to hear a bunch of pseudo-historical Zionist horseshit.
Tell us, Eurohasbara–who was it that bombed the transportation infrastructure of Gaza, the train stations, seaport, and airport?
MM,
Gaza hasn't had a train station since it was bombed in '67 because Egyptian troops were based there. And the seaport is unused because of the Iranian weapons ships, and the airport because a 9/11 attack on Tel Aviv cannot otherwise be prevented. The Palestinians made all their infrastructure tools of war, which is why Israel took extraordinary steps which (in a normal conflict) would be considered war crimes.
Consider that: The Palestinians mobilized all their civilian infrastructure for war such that the only Israeli recourse was to disassemble it a bit. That's the usual excuse that Palestinians use for the suicide bomber in the train station.
If you think I'm going to let an uninformed anti-Semitic idiot influence the future of my homeland, you're delusional.
Future of Eurosabra's Vaterland cannot be influenced by the considerations afforded to the occupied natives, obviously.