Slaughter in Gaza

[garo]

Don;t mean to beat a dead horse but a trio of reports substantiate allegations of war crimes I made in this thread. Wonder if cheesehead, tha or the other have any comments apart form the usual ones that denigrate the source.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009...rimes-guardian
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090323/...ights_israel_1
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7952603.stm

[tha]

Originally Posted by garo

Don;t mean to beat a dead horse but a trio of reports substantiate allegations of war crimes I made in this thread. Wonder if cheesehead, tha or the other have any comments apart form the usual ones that denigrate the source.

After the flurry of reports debunking the myths about Israeli war crimes in the general media, including the UN declaring that their school never got bombed in the first place, a nearby field that did get bombed got bombed after there was fired from that field, the number of victims was only a fraction of previously reported, and they happened to be fighters rather than schoolchildren and refugees, I don't care to draw up a complete list of reports here. Bottom line: In a war the truth is the first casualty and that was especially so in this conflict. War crimes were structurally on the side of Hamas and avoided by the Israeli army at all costs.

Actually, Hamas never concentrated on fighting Israel. The rocket attacks on Israel were there to distract the European and American public. The real war is Iran versus Egypt and Saudi-Arabia. Hamas is first and foremost trying to overthrow the regimes in Cairo and Riyad. The operation 'Cast Lead' was to show the people in Gaza that Hamas can be defeated. The actual defeat now will have to be done by Egypt and Saudi-Arabia. They are setting up new terror groups in Gaza to counter Hamas. Officially they also fight Israel just like Hamas, but the real target is limiting Iran's terror infrastructure. So basically, the Palestinians die because Iran fights a war against Sunni muslim countries and uses them as foot soldiers. Israelis die because the foot soldiers and the public in the west must be lured into believing this is not an inter islamic war.

The Arab people of former British mandate Palestine and the Israeli's have no real conflict, they get along pretty well in daily life. One day when Arabs will have democracy and its institutions peace will break out. And not a day before.

[garo]

Oh come on. Did you even bother to read the links? The debunking of the myths is in your head. Among the reports are accounts published by an Israeli college of Israeli soldiers talking about the atrocities they committed. I must commend the sections of Israeli society that allowed these reports to come out but it is quite clear that those "debunking myths of Israeli war crimes" have their heads in the sand or up where the sun doesn't shine.

Even a cursory examination of these reports makes clear that your claim "War crimes were structurally on the side of Hamas and avoided by the Israeli army at all costs." is utterly and totally ludicrous and worthy of Orwell's Newspeak.

I have presented evidence to support my claims, you have provided some hand-waving. Show me some credible evidence that the UN refugee centre was not bombed using white phosphorus. Video evidence would be really nice.

[S00113]

Originally Posted by tha

After the flurry of reports debunking the myths about Israeli war crimes in the general media

tha, what kind of media do you read? I can't find support for any of your claims anywhere. (Except the usual sites full of fanatic conspiracy theories, which I wouldn't classify as "general media".) This is pure fiction, or probably just trolling.

Btw, I searched for your claim about (one of or all?) the UN schools in Gaza at the UN official web site. I only found this rebuttal of a series of claims by Abraham Rabinovich, which was printed i a few papers.

[M29]

Originally Posted by S00113

Btw, I searched for your claim about (one of or all?) the UN schools in Gaza at the UN official web site. I only found this rebuttal of a series of claims by Abraham Rabinovich, which was printed i a few papers.

On the website of the OCHA oPt UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs - occupied Palestinian territory

Clarification: While correctly reported on 6 January that Israeli shells landed outside an UNRWA school in Jabalia, resulting in an initial estimate of 30 fatalities, the Situation Report of 7 January referred to ‘the shelling of the UNRWA school in Jabalia.’ The Humanitarian Coordinator would like to clarify that the shelling, and all of the fatalities, took place outside rather than inside the school. According to UNRWA, the number of fatalities is over 40, many of them among the 1,368 people who had taken refuge in the school.

http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/och...02_english.pdf

[garo]

South African judge Richard Goldstone presented his report on the Gaza war. The first "independent" report by a internationally respected jurist. Maybe gives some food for thought for all those here who denied that Israel committed any war crimes, called them myths and so on and so forth.

lists numerous violations by Israel during its January offensive, including the targeting, with white phosphorus shells, of Gaza’s Al Quds and Al Wafa hospitals, and a UN compound sheltering 600 refugees.It lists complaints that Israeli troops used Palestinian civilians, often blindfolded, as “human shields” while searching suspect buildings.

And it says Israeli forces also struck at non-military targets such as water plants and Gaza’s only flour mill, along with a sewage treatment plant, which led to 200,000 cubic metres of raw sewage flooding nearby farmland.
Most bizarre was the destruction of a giant chicken farm which supplied Gaza with 10 per cent of its eggs.

“Armoured bulldozers systematically flattened the chicken coups, killing all 31,000 chickens inside,” it reports. “The destruction of food supply installations, water sanitation systems, concrete factories and residential houses was the result of a deliberate and systematic policy by the Israeli armed forces,” says the report.

Justice Goldstone writes that the evidence, collected over several visits to Gaza, indicates that civilian targets were deliberately hit, a violation of the rules of war.

“There were almost no mistakes made according to the government of Israel,” the report says, describing the attacks as “a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorise a civilian population”.

The report also condemns attacks from Palestinian territory in the form of unguided missiles that fell on Israeli settlements shortly before Israel launched its campaign. It says that besides the three Israeli civilians and one soldier killed in these attacks, trauma was spread among the entire population as rockets fell among them.

A similar report led the security council to create its first war crimes court, for former Yugoslavia, in 1993, with Justice Goldstone appointed as its prosecutor. More courts followed for Rwanda, Sierra Leone, East Timor and Sudan. But somehow I sense that we shouldn't count on one being set in this case.

[Xyzzy]

http://www.afsc.org/story/ending-opp...lation-context

[kladner]

Tough read there, Mike. I have the greatest respect for the AFSC. The descriptions are not a surprise, but horrifying all the same.

[Xyzzy]

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...-conflict.html

[kladner]

Originally Posted by Xyzzy

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...-conflict.html

The Gaza body count is now considerably over 200.

[tha]

Opinion piece in the Washington Post. Relevant to the mentioned body count.