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CyberGuy
Joined: 27 Dec 2007
Location: Daejeon, Korea
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 Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2009 1:47 am Post subject: |
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IDF in Gaza: Killing civilians, vandalism, and lax rules of engagement
By Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondent
During Operation Cast Lead, Israeli forces killed Palestinian civilians under permissive rules of engagement and intentionally destroyed their property, say soldiers who fought in the offensive.
The soldiers are graduates of the Yitzhak Rabin pre-military preparatory course at Oranim Academic College in Tivon. Some of their statements made on Feb. 13 will appear Thursday and Friday in Haaretz. Dozens of graduates of the course who took part in the discussion fought in the Gaza operation.
The speakers included combat pilots and infantry soldiers. Their testimony runs counter to the Israel Defense Forces' claims that Israeli troops observed a high level of moral behavior during the operation. The session's transcript was published this week in the newsletter for the course's graduates.
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The testimonies include a description by an infantry squad leader of an incident where an IDF sharpshooter mistakenly shot a Palestinian mother and her two children. "There was a house with a family inside .... We put them in a room. Later we left the house and another platoon entered it, and a few days after that there was an order to release the family. They had set up positions upstairs. There was a sniper position on the roof," the soldier said.
"The platoon commander let the family go and told them to go to the right. One mother and her two children didn't understand and went to the left, but they forgot to tell the sharpshooter on the roof they had let them go and it was okay, and he should hold his fire and he ... he did what he was supposed to, like he was following his orders."
According to the squad leader: "The sharpshooter saw a woman and children approaching him, closer than the lines he was told no one should pass. He shot them straight away. In any case, what happened is that in the end he killed them.
"I don't think he felt too bad about it, because after all, as far as he was concerned, he did his job according to the orders he was given. And the atmosphere in general, from what I understood from most of my men who I talked to ... I don't know how to describe it .... The lives of Palestinians, let's say, is something very, very less important than the lives of our soldiers. So as far as they are concerned they can justify it that way," he said.
Another squad leader from the same brigade told of an incident where the company commander ordered that an elderly Palestinian woman be shot and killed; she was walking on a road about 100 meters from a house the company had commandeered.
The squad leader said he argued with his commander over the permissive rules of engagement that allowed the clearing out of houses by shooting without warning the residents beforehand. After the orders were changed, the squad leader's soldiers complained that "we should kill everyone there [in the center of Gaza]. Everyone there is a terrorist."
The squad leader said: "You do not get the impression from the officers that there is any logic to it, but they won't say anything. To write 'death to the Arabs' on the walls, to take family pictures and spit on them, just because you can. I think this is the main thing: To understand how much the IDF has fallen in the realm of ethics, really. It's what I'll remember the most."
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HughCl
Joined: 18 Mar 2009
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2009 10:02 pm Post subject: Re: WASHINGTON POST: Israeli Rabbis Waged "Holy War&quo |
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Good question. Perhaps the answer is because of Zionist complicity in the Holocaust as detailed by Ralph Schoenman in The Hidden History of Zionism? |
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HughCl
Joined: 18 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Sun Mar 22, 2009 8:06 am Post subject: |
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Bacasper
thanks for the link..That too is depressing to read about Israeli's foundation |
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CyberGuy
Joined: 27 Dec 2007
Location: Daejeon, Korea
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| Posted: Mon Mar 23, 2009 5:48 am Post subject: |
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/22/israel-palestinian-territories-war-crimes
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Gaza war crime claims gather pace as more troops speak out
Fresh allegations have come to light that gung-ho leadership inculcated a culture of disregard for Palestinian casualties
An investigation by a group of former Israeli soldiers has uncovered new evidence of the military's conduct during the assault on Gaza two months ago. According to the group Breaking the Silence, the witness statements of the 15 soldiers who have come forward to describe their concerns over Operation Cast Lead appear to corroborate claims of random killings and vandalism carried out during the operation made by a separate group of anonymous servicemen during a seminar at a military college.
Although Breaking the Silence's report is not due to be published for several months, the testimony it has received already suggests widespread abuses stemming from orders originating with the Israeli military chain of command.
"This is not a military that we recognise," said Mikhael Manekin, one of the former soldiers involved with the group. "This is in a different category to things we have seen before. We have spoken to a lot of different people who served in different places in Gaza, including officers. We are not talking about some units being more aggressive than others, but underlying policy. So much so that we are talking to soldiers who said that they were having to restrain the orders given."
Manekin described how soldiers had reported their units being specifically warned by officers not to discuss what they had seen and done in Gaza.
The outlines of the evidence gathered comes hard on the heels of the disclosure by the Oranim Academy's pre-military course last week of devastating witness accounts supplied by soldiers involved in the fighting, including the "unjustified" shooting of civilians.
The claims appear to add credence to widespread claims of Israeli soldiers firing on civilians, made by Palestinians to journalists and international investigators and lawyers who entered Gaza at the end of the conflict and in its aftermath.
With Israeli newspapers threatening new disclosures, the New York Times has weighed in with an interview with a reservist describing the rules of engagement for the Gaza operation. Amir Marmor, a 33-year-old military reservist, told the newspaper that he was stunned to discover the way civilian casualties were discussed in training talks before his tank unit entered Gaza in January.
"Shoot and don't worry about the consequences" was the message from commanders, said Marmor. Describing the behaviour of a lieutenant-colonel who briefed the troops, Marmor added: "His whole demeanour was extremely gung-ho. This is very, very different from my usual experience. I have been doing reserve duty for 12 years, and it was always an issue how to avoid causing civilian injuries. He said that in this operation, we are not taking any chances. Morality aside, we have to do our job. We will cry about it later."
These are not the first allegations of war crimes levelled at the Israeli military. Last Thursday, the special rapporteur to the UN Human Rights Council, Richard Falk, said that the assault on Gaza appeared to be a "war crime of the greatest magnitude" and called on the UN to establish an experts' group to investigate potential violations.
Attempts by the Israeli media to publish the rules of engagement for the Gaza campaign have been blocked by the military censor, but in the past couple of weeks the contents of those rules have begun to to emerge in anecdotal evidence - suggesting strongly that soldiers were told to avoid Israeli casualties at all costs by means of the massive use of firepower in a densely populated urban environment.
Worrying new questions have also been raised about the culture of the Israeli military, indicating a high level of dehumanisation and disregard for Palestinians among the chain of command and even among the military rabbinate.
An investigation by reporter Uri Blau, published on Friday in Haaretz, disclosed how Israeli soldiers were ordering T-shirts to mark the end of operations, featuring grotesque images including dead babies, mothers weeping by their children's graves, a gun aimed at a child and bombed-out mosques.
Another T-shirt designed for infantry snipers bears the inscription "Better use Durex" next to a picture of a dead Palestinian baby, with his weeping mother and a teddy bear beside him. A shirt designed for the Givati Brigade's Shaked battalion depicts a pregnant Palestinian woman with a bull's-eye superimposed on her belly, with the slogan, in English, "1 shot, 2 kills".
The claims have sparked a bitter debate within Israel's defence forces and wider society over the "morality" of the IDF and its behaviour in Gaza.
Since the first claims appeared, other Israeli media have run articles criticising the head of the military academy who revealed the soldiers' testimony, while others have run interviews with soldiers denying that the IDF had been involved in any wrong-doing and questioning the motives of those who had come forward.
"I don't believe there were soldiers who were looking to kill [Palestinians] for no reason," 21-year-old Givati Brigade soldier Assaf Danziger was quoted by Yedioth Aharonot. "What happened there was not enjoyable for anyone; we wanted it to end as soon as possible and tried to avoid contact with innocent civilians."
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2009 7:53 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
Gaza war crime claims gather pace as more troops speak out
Fresh allegations have come to light that gung-ho leadership inculcated a culture of disregard for Palestinian casualties |
This is even being reported in Ha'aretz. I don't think the apologists will be coming to try to justify this one anytime soon.
Time to believe Gaza war crimes allegations
By Amira Hass
Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi has difficulty believing the soldiers' testimonies that they intentionally harmed Palestinian civilians, because the Israel Defense Forces is a moral army, he said on Sunday.
On the other hand, he believes the soldiers because they "have no reason to lie." Then again, Ashkenazi is convinced that if what they said is true, these are isolated incidents.
Ashkenazi reacted like most Israelis - as though the reports, including those in Haaretz and Maariv, were the first about the Gaza offensive that were issued by someone other than the military spokesman or the military reporters, who rely on him for their information.
But ample information was available from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch reports, based on statements collected from hundreds of people in the Gaza Strip in January and February.
Ashkenazi, like other Israelis, could have read the Red Cross' protest during the offensive, that the IDF prevented medical teams from reaching wounded Palestinians by shooting at them. He or his aides could have gone to the Web site set up by Israeli human rights organizations, which was full of reports and testimonies.
His aides, had they wanted to, could have found the many questions foreign reporters sent to the IDF spokesman, seeking Ashkenazi's comments before they filed their stories. They had details about families killed by IDF shells and bombs in their homes, about the lethal white phosphorus shells and about the shooting of civilians waving white flags. The had cataloged the massive destruction of plants, orchards, fields, cowsheds and apartment buildings. Much evidence of these outrages was also published inside Haaretz.
The IDF's legal advisers must have read it all. Including, perhaps, that judges who participated in investigation committees into crimes in Darfur, the former Yugoslavia and East Timor want to set up a similar international committee to investigate "all the parties" in the IDF offensive on Gaza. These people have concluded that the events go beyond isolated incidents and that the problem is not only in the soldiers' conduct, but the instructions from the senior military ranks and the ministers in charge.
It's hard to believe that the chief of staff, defense minister and their aides haven't read at least some reports that were not issued by the IDF. But even if they did, why should they let on? After all, they are the ones who gave the orders.
Ashkenazi chose to look surprised, as though he were an ordinary Israeli citizen disregarding reports from parties other than the IDF, because they were based on Palestinian testimonies. Most Israelis "know" Palestinians lie, so their statements should not be taken seriously |
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arjuna
Joined: 31 Mar 2007
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2009 7:57 am Post subject: |
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Compelling Evidence of Israeli War Crimes in Gaza
Posted: 2009/04/15
The extent of the harm to the civilian population during Operation Cast Lead is unprecedented. Human rights groups and others demand full accountability `for the gravest of crimes.`
by Stephen Lendman
Independent investigations and convincing testimonies, on both sides, provide compelling evidence of Israeli war crimes in Gaza. It's time to hold the guilty accountable.
In February, the Adalah Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights showed conclusively how Israel violated core international law principles by indiscriminately attacking civilians in spite of IDF claims such instances were justified.
Amnesty International accused Israel of war crimes and called on the UN Security Council to impose an arms embargo.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has a long record of acting as an imperial agent even while at times fulfilling its mandate "to protect the human rights of people around the world....stand with (them) and uphold political freedom (by) bring(ing) offenders to justice."
It partly did this in a report titled "Rain of Fire" by citing "Israel's Unlawful Use of White Phosphorous in Gaza....over populated areas, killing and injuring civilians, and damaging civilian structures, including a school, a market, a humanitarian aid warehouse and a hospital."
The IDF also used "missiles, bombs, heavy artillery, tank shells, and small arms fire in densely populated neighborhoods, including downtown Gaza City (in violation of) international humanitarian law (and laws of war) which require taking all feasible precautions to avoid civilian harm and prohibits indiscriminate attacks."
HRW called the use of white phosphorous "indiscriminate, deliberate (and) reckless." It said America supplied the weapons and needs to answer for its actions. It called on the UN Security Council or Secretary-General to appoint an independent international commission to investigate credible war crimes allegations, including use of illegal weapons.
Omitted from the report were over six decades of mass slaughter and destruction, a process amounting to genocide. Also not mentioned was the full impact of 22 days of attacks, Gaza still under siege, and the West Bank under military occupation. Unlisted was the death and injury toll; civilian shootings in cold blood; the vast number of homes, government buildings, hospitals, ambulances, fishing boats, crops, schools, mosques, businesses, UN buildings and shelters, entire infrastructure and neighborhoods, and all other wanton destruction. Silence as well on the incalculable toll on 1.5 million Gazans and continued assaults against them.
On April 6, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHRI) and the Palestinian Medical Relief Society (PMRS) compiled detailed evidence of war crimes in a lengthy report - from Gazan and medical staff testimonies of wounded being denied care, shot in cold blood at close range, prevented from being evacuated, and being terrorized "without mercy." A team of international independent legal, health, and medical experts conducted the investigation.
PHRI executive director Hadas Ziv said: "One of the difficult things in the report is clear harm to innocent people....(the unleashing of) such fire power among the population." It documented 44 civilian testimonies and took samples of tissue, soil, water, swamp grass, suspected infected ammunition, and chemical weapons, then sent them to the UK and South Africa for testing and evaluation.
Al-Haq on Operation Cast Lead
Al-Haq is an independent Palestinian NGO based in Ramallah, West Bank, established in 1979 to "protect and promote human rights and the rule of law" in Occupied Palestine.
In April, it issued a position paper titled: "Operation Cast Lead and the Distortion of International Law - A Legal Analysis of Israel's Claim to Self-Defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter." The justification is preposterous by a nation absolving itself of compelling war crimes evidence.
Nonetheless, on March 30 (after 11 days), the IDF closed its inquiry into military misconduct allegations with judge advocate general, Avichai Mendelblit, dismissively calling them "heresay" based on no substantiating evidence. "They were based on rumors (and) did not reflect the operational circumstances which had actually taken place on the ground." This is typical Israeli stonewalling whenever it's caught red-handed along with blaming victims for its own crimes.
On March 31, a Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) press release stated:
PCHR "believes that the speed with which this inquiry was concluded illustrates the consistent failure of the (IDF) to genuinely investigate crimes (its soldiers regularly commit) against Palestinian civilians. Investigations of this nature do not meet international standards of independence and transparency, and obstruct justice."
Al-Haq reviewed 22 days of "unrelenting aerial attacks coupled with intensive ground incursions" as well as the deaths, injuries, and destruction they caused. Yet, incredibly, in the morning before the attack, Israel's UN ambassador, Gabriela Shalev, informed the Secretary-General:
"After a long period of utmost restraint, the government of Israel decided to exercise, as of this morning, its right of self-defense....as enshrined in Article 51 of the (UN) Charter."
Its basis was legally untenable on at least two counts:
-- that Gaza remains effectively occupied and Israel bears full responsibility for it; and
-- Israel's attack was unprovoked, preemptive, and related to the broader occupation and conflict matching the world's fourth most powerful military against a defenseless civilian population with only small arms and homemade weapons for defense.
article continues at link |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2009 2:36 am Post subject: |
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| Vanity Fair wrote: |
| U.S. officials... backed an armed force under Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan, touching off a bloody civil war in Gaza |
The Gaza Bombshell
After failing to anticipate Hamas�s victory over Fatah in the 2006 Palestinian election, the White House cooked up yet another scandalously covert and self-defeating Middle East debacle: part Iran-contra, part Bay of Pigs. With confidential documents, corroborated by outraged former and current U.S. officials, the author reveals how President Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and Deputy National-Security Adviser Elliott Abrams backed an armed force under Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan, touching off a bloody civil war in Gaza and leaving Hamas stronger than ever.
The Al Deira Hotel, in Gaza City, is a haven of calm in a land beset by poverty, fear, and violence. In the middle of December 2007, I sit in the hotel�s airy restaurant, its windows open to the Mediterranean, and listen to a slight, bearded man named Mazen Asad abu Dan describe the suffering he endured 11 months before at the hands of his fellow Palestinians. Abu Dan, 28, is a member of Hamas, the Iranian-backed Islamist organization that has been designated a terrorist group by the United States, but I have a good reason for taking him at his word: I�ve seen the video.
It shows abu Dan kneeling, his hands bound behind his back, and screaming as his captors pummel him with a black iron rod. �I lost all the skin on my back from the beatings,� he says. �Instead of medicine, they poured perfume on my wounds. It felt as if they had taken a sword to my injuries.�
On January 26, 2007, abu Dan, a student at the Islamic University of Gaza, had gone to a local cemetery with his father and five others to erect a headstone for his grandmother. When they arrived, however, they found themselves surrounded by 30 armed men from Hamas�s rival, Fatah, the party of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas. �They took us to a house in north Gaza,� abu Dan says. �They covered our eyes and took us to a room on the sixth floor.�
The video reveals a bare room with white walls and a black-and-white tiled floor, where abu Dan�s father is forced to sit and listen to his son�s shrieks of pain. Afterward, abu Dan says, he and two of the others were driven to a market square. �They told us they were going to kill us. They made us sit on the ground.� He rolls up the legs of his trousers to display the circular scars that are evidence of what happened next: �They shot our knees and feet�five bullets each. I spent four months in a wheelchair.�
Abu Dan had no way of knowing it, but his tormentors had a secret ally: the administration of President George W. Bush.
A clue comes toward the end of the video, which was found in a Fatah security building by Hamas fighters last June. Still bound and blindfolded, the prisoners are made to echo a rhythmic chant yelled by one of their captors: �By blood, by soul, we sacrifice ourselves for Muhammad Dahlan! Long live Muhammad Dahlan!�
There is no one more hated among Hamas members than Muhammad Dahlan, long Fatah�s resident strongman in Gaza. Dahlan, who most recently served as Abbas�s national-security adviser, has spent more than a decade battling Hamas. Dahlan insists that abu Dan was tortured without his knowledge, but the video is proof that his followers� methods can be brutal.
Bush has met Dahlan on at least three occasions. After talks at the White House in July 2003, Bush publicly praised Dahlan as �a good, solid leader.� In private, say multiple Israeli and American officials, the U.S. president described him as �our guy.�
The United States has been involved in the affairs of the Palestinian territories since the Six-Day War of 1967, when Israel captured Gaza from Egypt and the West Bank from Jordan. With the 1993 Oslo accords, the territories acquired limited autonomy, under a president, who has executive powers, and an elected parliament. Israel retains a large military presence in the West Bank, but it withdrew from Gaza in 2005.
complete article at lnk |
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Summer Wine
Joined: 20 Mar 2005
Location: Next to a River
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| Posted: Sun May 31, 2009 10:56 pm Post subject: |
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BB, (I am not reading all those pages)
How many died in the last major attack By Israel against Gaza and how many (may) have died in the last attack by the Singalese against the tamils?
Which they started at the same time that Israel attacked Gaza (as if they knew something we didn't).
LOL. Oh joy for us. We love it when our killers kill those we hate and cry when our enemies killers kill those we love.
 Our hearts are torn, our lives are lost, we are nothing |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2009 12:01 am Post subject: |
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| Summer Wine wrote: |
BB, (I am not reading all those pages)
How many died in the last major attack By Israel against Gaza and how many (may) have died in the last attack by the Singalese against the tamils?
Which they started at the same time that Israel attacked Gaza (as if they knew something we didn't).
LOL. Oh joy for us. We love it when our killers kill those we hate and cry when our enemies killers kill those we love.
Our hearts are torn, our lives are lost, we are nothing |
If you need to talk about Sri Lanka, why not post on the appropriate thread?
Big_Bird's Sri Lanka thread |
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Summer Wine
Joined: 20 Mar 2005
Location: Next to a River
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| Posted: Thu Jun 04, 2009 10:05 pm Post subject: |
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If you need to talk about Sri Lanka, why not post on the appropriate thread?
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Its not about a need to talk about thier dispute as to provide an example of the difference between how the two conflicts are viewed by our societies and by our media.
Both actions have continued for approx. the same time _ (arguments based on the 1967 war for Israel) and ( the 1970's war for Tamil rights).
I just tried to give you an example of how to look at the issue, other than a single minded persepctive. Thats all. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Fri Jun 05, 2009 1:59 am Post subject: |
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| Summer Wine wrote: |
| I just tried to give you an example of how to look at the issue, other than a single minded persepctive. Thats all. |
In other words, you are so unbelievably conceited, you believe yourself to have some inkling of my persepctive (sic) and imagine you know what I think on these matters. Your conversations with me in the past have shown me quite the opposite. You don't have a clue what I think, and haven't the wit to have a coherent discussion about it.
Still to hanging out at your church group. |
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Summer Wine
Joined: 20 Mar 2005
Location: Next to a River
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| Posted: Fri Jun 05, 2009 3:40 am Post subject: |
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| Still to hanging out at your church group. |
Yes, you are so right, how didn't I see it? 
You accuse me of being ignorant of your perspective, while totally misconstruing my own.
This isn't and has never been a religious argument.
Its about land and politics and the use of violence. I have no sympathy for terrorists.
Terrorism: the use of violence or terror to determine a political result.
Israel/Palestine is a political issue.
Religion is not the issue or the answer.
(editted)
Last edited by Summer Wine on Fri Jun 05, 2009 4:03 am; edited 3 times in total |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Fri Jun 05, 2009 4:01 am Post subject: |
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| Summer Wine wrote: |
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| Still to hanging out at your church group. |
Yes, you are so right, how didn't I see it?
You accuse me of being ignorant of your perspective, while totally misconstruing my own. |
I don't even bother to listen to your perspective because you can not even write coherently. You always talk like you are part batty. I do not seek you. You seek me. I'm not interested in talking with you. You never talk to me. You talk to some imaginary person you've conjured in your mind, and who you've made up views for. I don't see any of me in what you've written below. You don't have a clue summerwine, not a bloody clue.
| the bewildered S-wine wrote: |
This isn't and has never been a religious argument.
Its about land and politics and the use of violence. I have no sympathy for terrorists.
Terrorism: the use of violence or terror to determine a political result.
Israel/Palestine is a political issue.
Religion is not the issue or the answer.
(editted) |
I don't understand where this is coming from. It's stuff you are pulling out your arse. Some discussion you thought you once had with me.
Why do you keep talking to me? I haven't got the energy to talk to someone so dizzy. |
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