Israeli soldiers admit 'shoot first' policy in Gaza
Byrnzie
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/ju ... ields-gaza
Israeli soldiers admit 'shoot first' policy in Gaza offensive
Anonymous testimonies collated by human rights group also contain allegations that Palestinians were used as human shields
Ian Black, Middle East editor
Guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 15 July 2009
'Israeli soldiers who served in the Gaza Strip during the offensive of December and January have spoken out about being ordered to shoot without hesitation, destroying houses and mosques with a general disregard for Palestinian lives.
In testimony that will fuel international and Arab demands for war crime investigations, 30 combat soldiers report that the army's priority was to minimise its own casualties to maintain Israeli public support for the three-week Operation Cast Lead.
One specific allegation is that Palestinians were used by the army as "human shields" despite a 2005 Israeli high court ruling outlawing the practice. "Not much was said about the issue of innocent civilians," a soldier said. "There was no need to use weapons like mortars or phosphorous," said another. "I have the feeling that the army was looking for the opportunity to show off its strength."
The 54 anonymous testimonies were collated by Breaking the Silence, a group that collects information on human rights abuses by the Israeli military. Many of the soldiers are still doing their compulsory national service.
Palestinians counted 1,400 dead but Israel put the death toll at 1,166 and estimated 295 fatalities were civilians. Ten soldiers and three Israeli civilians were killed.
Israel launched the attack after the expiry of a ceasefire designed to halt rocket fire from Gaza and crush the Islamist movement Hamas, which controls the coastal strip.
Witnesses described the destruction of hundreds of houses and many mosques without military reason, the firing of phosphorous shells into inhabited areas, the killing of innocents and the indiscriminate destruction of property.
Soldiers describe a "neighbour procedure" in which Palestinian civilians were forced to enter suspect buildings ahead of troops. They cite cases of civilians advancing in front of a soldier resting his rifle on the civilian's shoulder.
"We did not get instructions to shoot at anything that moved," said one soldier. "But we were generally instructed: if you feel threatened, shoot. They kept repeating to us that this is war and in war opening fire is not restricted."
Many testimonies are in line with claims by Amnesty International and other human rights organisations that Israeli actions were indiscriminate and disproportionate.
Another soldier testified: "You feel like a stupid little kid with a magnifying glass looking at ants, burning them. A 20-year-old kid should not have to do these kinds of things to other people."
The testimonies "expose significant gaps between the official army version of events and what really happened on the ground", Breaking the Silence said.
"This is an urgent call to Israeli society and its leaders to sober up and investigate anew the results of our actions."
Ehud Barak, Israel's defence minister, said: "Criticism directed at the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) by one organisation or another is inappropriate and is directed at the wrong place. The IDF is one of the most ethical armies in the world and acts in accordance with the highest moral code."
An IDF spokesman told the Ha'aretz newspaper: "The IDF regrets the fact that a human rights organisation would again present to the country and the world a report containing anonymous, generalised testimony without checking the details or their reliability, and without giving the IDF, as a matter of minimal fairness, the opportunity to check the matters and respond to them before publication."
An internal investigation by the Israeli military said troops fought lawfully although errors did take place, such as the deaths of 21 people in a house that had been wrongly targeted.'
Video: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2 ... ng-silence
Israeli soldiers admit 'shoot first' policy in Gaza offensive
Anonymous testimonies collated by human rights group also contain allegations that Palestinians were used as human shields
Ian Black, Middle East editor
Guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 15 July 2009
'Israeli soldiers who served in the Gaza Strip during the offensive of December and January have spoken out about being ordered to shoot without hesitation, destroying houses and mosques with a general disregard for Palestinian lives.
In testimony that will fuel international and Arab demands for war crime investigations, 30 combat soldiers report that the army's priority was to minimise its own casualties to maintain Israeli public support for the three-week Operation Cast Lead.
One specific allegation is that Palestinians were used by the army as "human shields" despite a 2005 Israeli high court ruling outlawing the practice. "Not much was said about the issue of innocent civilians," a soldier said. "There was no need to use weapons like mortars or phosphorous," said another. "I have the feeling that the army was looking for the opportunity to show off its strength."
The 54 anonymous testimonies were collated by Breaking the Silence, a group that collects information on human rights abuses by the Israeli military. Many of the soldiers are still doing their compulsory national service.
Palestinians counted 1,400 dead but Israel put the death toll at 1,166 and estimated 295 fatalities were civilians. Ten soldiers and three Israeli civilians were killed.
Israel launched the attack after the expiry of a ceasefire designed to halt rocket fire from Gaza and crush the Islamist movement Hamas, which controls the coastal strip.
Witnesses described the destruction of hundreds of houses and many mosques without military reason, the firing of phosphorous shells into inhabited areas, the killing of innocents and the indiscriminate destruction of property.
Soldiers describe a "neighbour procedure" in which Palestinian civilians were forced to enter suspect buildings ahead of troops. They cite cases of civilians advancing in front of a soldier resting his rifle on the civilian's shoulder.
"We did not get instructions to shoot at anything that moved," said one soldier. "But we were generally instructed: if you feel threatened, shoot. They kept repeating to us that this is war and in war opening fire is not restricted."
Many testimonies are in line with claims by Amnesty International and other human rights organisations that Israeli actions were indiscriminate and disproportionate.
Another soldier testified: "You feel like a stupid little kid with a magnifying glass looking at ants, burning them. A 20-year-old kid should not have to do these kinds of things to other people."
The testimonies "expose significant gaps between the official army version of events and what really happened on the ground", Breaking the Silence said.
"This is an urgent call to Israeli society and its leaders to sober up and investigate anew the results of our actions."
Ehud Barak, Israel's defence minister, said: "Criticism directed at the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) by one organisation or another is inappropriate and is directed at the wrong place. The IDF is one of the most ethical armies in the world and acts in accordance with the highest moral code."
An IDF spokesman told the Ha'aretz newspaper: "The IDF regrets the fact that a human rights organisation would again present to the country and the world a report containing anonymous, generalised testimony without checking the details or their reliability, and without giving the IDF, as a matter of minimal fairness, the opportunity to check the matters and respond to them before publication."
An internal investigation by the Israeli military said troops fought lawfully although errors did take place, such as the deaths of 21 people in a house that had been wrongly targeted.'
Video: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2 ... ng-silence
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/1 ... 30769.html
JERUSALEM — Britain has revoked several licenses granted to British companies to sell weapons parts to Israel because of concerns over their use in Israel's recent war in the Gaza Strip, British and Israeli officials said Monday.
Good. Hopefully this will lead to them falling in line with the rest of the world and finally abiding by international law vis-a-vis resolution 242. I'm not holding my breath though.
Barak: Criticism of IDF should be directed at me
By Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondent, and Haaretz Service
'Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Wednesday criticized an Israeli human rights organization for publishing an Israel Defense Forces soldier's testimony that troops used Palestinians as human shields during Operation Cast Lead last January, despite a 2005 High Court ruling outlawing the practice.
"Public criticism of the IDF is inappropriate," Barak said. "Any criticism, information or reservations about the army's conduct should be addressed to me as the Defense Minister of the State of Israel and to the Israeli government which instructed the IDF to reinstate peace and security in southern Israel."...'
"Public criticism of the IDF is inappropriate"
Let's all just sit back and chew on that statement for a while.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8149464.stm
• Civilians were used as human shields, entering buildings ahead of soldiers
• Large swathes of homes and buildings were demolished as a precaution or to secure clear lines of fire for the future.
• Some of the troops had a generally aggressive, ill-disciplined attitude
• There was incidents of vandalism of property of Palestinians
• Soldiers fired at water tanks because they were bored, at a time of severe water shortages for Gazans
• White phosphorus was used in civilian areas in a way some soldiers saw as gratuitous and reckless
• Many of the soldiers said there had been very little direct engagement with Palestinian militants.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/ma ... ory-byline
An IDF squad leader is quoted in the daily newspaper Ha'aretz as saying his soldiers interpreted the rules to mean "we should kill everyone there [in the centre of Gaza]. Everyone there is a terrorist."
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... s-disapora
A disaster for Jews and Israel
Antony Lerman - guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 15 July 2009
An extreme Zionist like Natan Sharansky is the last thing the world's largest Jewish organisation needs
'Israel's current disastrous policy direction and the responsibility for it shared by American Jewish leaders are exemplified in the recent appointment of Natan Sharansky, the former Soviet dissident and western human rights icon, as chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel (Jafi), the quasi-governmental, $640m-a-year body that promotes Zionism and encourages Jewish migration to Israel. The pairing of Sharansky and Jafi, engineered at the behest of Israel's prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and, after a fight, supported by the American Jewish organisations that provide a very big proportion of Jafi's funds, shows a fatal degree of obliviousness to what's needed to bring peace to Israel-Palestine and secure recognition of the autonomy of diaspora Jewish life. The largest Jewish institution in the world, Jafi is an important vehicle through which the Israeli government partially manages relations with Jews worldwide.
It's becoming hard to remember that today's Sharansky – an avowedly rightwing, neocon ideologue – is the same man as yesterday's Anatoly Shcharansky, "prisoner of conscience" and "prisoner of Zion", spokesman for the Helsinki human rights group in the USSR in the 1970s, who served nine years in the gulag. Once the world's most famous incarcerated Soviet dissident, he became a symbol of the struggle of Soviet Jews to emigrate to Israel and an inspirational human rights figure for millions in the west. After an international campaign headed by his wife, Avital, Shcharansky finally walked across the Glienicke bridge to West Berlin in 1986, a free man. He changed his name to Natan Sharansky and emigrated to Israel, where he eventually entered politics and rose to become deputy prime minister. In 2006 he resigned from the Knesset to become chairman of the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies at the Shalem Centre. Two weeks ago he was appointed chairman of Jafi.
There are two deeply troubling problems signified by this appointment. First, when even chief rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks, the spiritual voice of Britain's mainstream Orthodox Jews, admits that Jews wrongly believe that it's the Jewish fate to be "a people that dwells alone", can it make any sense to appoint this man to a powerful position through which he is likely to increase Jews' isolationism? Second, Jafi is an institution past its sell-by date. Its very existence reflects an outmoded image of the Jewish world. It needs to be disbanded and not shored up to benefit a prime minister leading his country nowhere.
Since entering Israeli politics, Sharansky's career has been marked by "moral ambiguity and inconsistency in his advocacy of democracy and human rights, particularly in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict", argued Professor Michael C Desch in a comprehensive 2005 exposé. Sharansky fails to show any concern for Palestinian rights and says democratic political reform of Palestinian institutions must come before peace is possible. Yet he's happy to endorse peace with autocratic Arab regimes. Even in Israel he has not been a consistent advocate of democracy and the rule of law.
Sharansky undermined the then prime minister Ehud Barak at the Camp David negotiations with Yasser Arafat in 2000. He rejected the "road map" devised by the Quartet for ending the conflict and creating an independent Palestinian state. He opposed Sharon's proposal for a unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, not out of concern for the Palestinians but because he said it rewarded suicide bombing. In June 2004 he and another minister secretly declared large tracts of Arab land in Jerusalem abandoned and therefore subject to confiscation, a move ultimately declared illegal by Israel's attorney general and described as "theft".
When he was minister for diaspora affairs, he consistently exaggerated the problem of antisemitism worldwide and demonised leftwing Israelis as "collaborators" with the "new antisemitism" when they criticised Israeli policies. He has adopted extreme nationalist positions and together with Avigdor Lieberman, now Israel's far-right foreign minister, formed the National Union bloc in 2003. His Zionism is uncompromising. He is dismissive of Palestinian claims to the country and would rather continue fighting with the Arabs than share sovereignty with the Palestinians over Jerusalem.
This is the man being placed in charge of what many regard as "a corrupt, bureaucratic dinosaur", but one with such financial clout that it can have a very significant impact when it throws its weight around. While it's true that pressure over the last 20 years has produced some significant change in Jafi, there are two fundamental reasons why it should cease to exist. First, while every state is entitled to control immigration policy, to do this through an organisation operating on the basis of an exclusivist Zionism and bolstered by the law of return, which allows only Jews and their immediate family members to become citizens by right, is unacceptable in the 21st century. The fact is that Jafi is anyway no longer any good at the task of encouraging Jewish immigration. It's been eclipsed by private organisations that do this far more efficiently, though immigration remains at very low levels and is well below the numbers leaving the country.
Second, because it exists to further the ideological objectives of the Jewish state, Jafi finds it almost impossible to draw the right conclusions from the growing diversity of the world Jewish population. It fears the loss of common ground between Jews worldwide, yet it is not unaware that classical Zionist rhetoric can no longer play a unifying role. Nevertheless, since it still clings to the fundamentals of Zionist ideology, it searches desperately for an Israel-centric reformulation of the character of the Jewish people that it can foist on the Jewish world in order to maintain Zionist hegemony. But if Jews do have something in common, they need to work out what this is themselves, not be shoehorned into restrictive collective categories that mirror the Zionist narrative of the unity of the Jewish people.
Earlier this year Sharansky said that if appointed head of Jafi, he would close down 90% of the organisation. But this was when it still rankled that he lost out the last time the appointment was made. Now in post, it seems unlikely that he will relinquish control over so much cash when he can use it to promote his extreme Zionism. Jews worldwide will suffer by being even more tightly yoked to notions of Jewish victimhood and "the world is against us". Israel will suffer because a Sharansky-led Jafi will provide cover for Netanyahu's policies. American Jewish leaders could have pulled the plug on both Sharansky and Jafi. That they didn't shows just how complicit the diaspora Jewish leadership is in condoning Israel's mistaken policies and in aggravating the tensions that Jews elsewhere experience.'
What are you the neighborhood Jew obsessor? Something you need to tell us about?
Ah, let me guess, I'm an Anti-Semite because I have an interest in Israel's crimes, right?
Let me know if you can think of something intelligent to say.
So anyone who mentions American Jews is an Anti-Semite? Sorry, but you've lost me. Care to elaborate?
Pretty much. He is a guy who cares passionately about what happens to Palestinians at the hands of the Israeli government. Has nothing to do with their religion. Go troll a KKK website or something.
Did i say anti-semite anywhere? Sorry must have missed something. Perhaps your just feeling the need to confess. Let me ask you this Mr. Jew obsessor. How many Jewish friends do you have? Name one.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-blo ... 2243/posts
Is this how you justify 100 years of ethnic cleansing and land grab?
Your selective use of history doesn't wash with me. The Zionists had already made clear their intention to make Palestine a Jewish National state. And mass emigration into Palestine had already begun. The Palestinians rightfully saw this as a threat to their existence. And history has since shown that they were right.
http://israelipalestinian.procon.org/vi ... nID=000502
'In Palestine mass Jewish immigration commenced in accordance with the British policy of establishing a Jewish national home. Palestinians perceived the arrival of 10,000 Jewish immigrants between December 1920 and April 1921 as a harbinger of the future. A riot that started in Jaffa between radical leftist and centrist Zionist groups quickly involved the Palestinians, who also attacked the immigration hostel, a symbolic target of their hostility. Forty-eight Palestinians and forty-seven Jews were killed and 219 people wounded. From Jaffa, Palestinian rioting spread to rural areas, fueled by wild rumors of Jews killing Arabs. Several Palestinians were killed by British soldiers in an effort to defend Jewish settlements."
Firstly, How many Palestinian friends do you have? Name one.
Secondly, tell me how this is relevant.
Sure, just keep ignoring the past 100+ years of Zionist land grab, illegal settlement building, war crimes, human rights abuses - house demolitions, extra-judicial assassinations, use of civilians as human shields, directly targeting unarmed civilians, imprisoning the population of Gaza and reducing them to abject poverty and severe malnutrition, dropping phosphorous on heavily populated residential areas, shooting at medical personnel, e.t.c, e.t.c.
Hayley James. Jewish. Ex-girlfriend. Still good friends today.
Now explain what point you're trying to make with this juvenile playground bullshit.
Figure it out yourself. You know what im saying.
No, I don't. And neither does anyone else on this message board. So go ahead and tell us what point you're trying to make.
Here's a question for you. Were you happy when over 400 Palestinian children were massacred by Israel in January of this year?
And does it please you that Gaza is currently a prison in which the population has been reduced to abject poverty and malnutrition as a form of collective punishment for having elected the wrong people?
I dont particularly see much of anyone else paying any attention to you. I have no facts to support the assertions in your loaded question. Do I think its right to target civillians on either side. Clearly no. Both sides do it. Make it right? No. But the atrocities are on both sides. And if you excuse that than you are just a biased apologist for palestinian violence, no matter what the cost.
Every major report whether it be about the recent blockade and invasion on Gaza or anything else Israel has done by every interntational body has said that their response has ALWAYS been disproportionate to anything coming from the other side.
How can anyone justify what Israel did this year and continue to do so??? If you have any ounce of respect for humanity or a belief in human rights - you should be sickened by the conditions they are making people live in.
que HUGE cut and paste, stage right.. you are even going to get some color included.
its works like this around here....if you do not fully unequivocally support Hamas and their targeting of civilians then you automatically, without discussion, support the Zionists and applaud genocide.
should i give you 2 the link of that Israeli government website that says from '05-'08 less than 30 Israeli's were killed with maybe 10 attacks total in those 3 years while Israel killed hundreds?
oh, right, links and information are no good, let's just make baseless claims like BRMLAW when he said they attack Israel with rocket attacks by the hundreds :roll:
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
I don't see anyone excusing it, i hate it, i wish they would both stop, but that''s not going to happen anytime soon is it? And why's that? You have to look at the bigger picture. Targeting and killing Israelis has become part of the problem. Yes. Of course it has. But that seems to overshadow the original problem. Why are they even doing that? Because Israel is brutally occupying them.
And lets not kid ourselves here. Hamas is not the only Israeli target. The target is the same target it has been for 60 years. Ordinary Palestinian people who have first suffered the indignity of having their land stolen from them, then endured 60 years of appalling conditions within Palestine or exile outside it. Sixty years of physical and psychological violence and oppression.
Gaza is one of the world's most densely populated areas, there are 4,000 people per square kilometre and not one of them can escape. Imagine living like that. What right does Israel have to continue with this brutal occupation? Israel continually violates their basic rights, every freaking single day. Why? How many palestinian children die? How many of them were never at war with Israel, never pointed a gun at them, never fired rockets at them. Their crime? They were a child born in Gaza.
If Israel chooses to continue punishing a whole nation of people for the actions of a few, the conflict will never end. Instead, Israel should defuse the extremism by working to build the Palestinian economy. They need to reopen Gaza borders and not only allow aid from other countries to go to Gaza, but also work to provide aid on their own. They need to immediately give them their land back and stop violating their basic human rights.
If they are not prepared to do that, then fuck the Israeli Government, and fuck the US support of Israel.
part of the problem is many on this board completely disagree with you.
of course not. but it would be nice if they can agree with all of it. but that will never happen, thus the problems continue.
do you agree with triumphantangel's assertion that the crux of the problem is israel's brutal occupation?