- Blowdryer
- Jan 25, 2008
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Israel isn't committing a genocide of any kind. If they wanted to they could have done so at any time a long time ago, and probably saved themselves a lot of problems in having done it. Instead they spend extraordinary amounts of money trying to minimise casualties.
The Iron dome didn't come about through staging a genocide it is a state of the art defensive system. Staging a genocide would involve manufacturing a PR campaign against your enemy first and foremost, it would probably involve scaling up casualties on your own side. You wouldn't build an Iron dome. You would put people in the way of targets, such as what "Palestine" and their majority elected government absolutely provably has. That's a war crime.
It has been said before that if Palestine 'put down their guns' the conflict would be over. If Israel 'put down their guns' there would be no more Israel, and that's the truth.
Palestine is and has always been a region, not a country. Nobody declared themselves a state until 1988, more than 20 years after Israel was there. Didn't apply for international recognition until 2011.
There are many muslims and arabs living in Israel. There are no israelis or jews living in Gaza. There are mosques in Israel. After the 6 day war, yet another war started by its neighbours, Israel granted permanent Israeli residency to all people living in East Jerusalem. There is today a large muslim population because of that.
Before the campaign in Gaza Israel evacuated a huge area closest to the Israeli border, and the best places to launch rockets from. What did Hamas do, they moved back with everyone else. Into schools, into hospitals, and launched their rockets from there. Israel isn't new in the area, they underwent an incredible amount of restraint before ever doing anything other than diplomatic about the terrorism problem. Now it seems like whenever this country does anything everyone is willing to jump down their throats. They are surrounded on all sides by internationally recognised terrorist organisations, which ideologically and theologically demand the extinction of jews. Not Israel, but rather literally the extinction of jews, the ethnoreligious demographic.
Israel has a comprehensive set of rules that they follow in their dealings with terrorist threats. One of those rules involves the demolition of terrorist homes. That incentivises others who live in the home to turn terrorists in, to save the home. Israel has successfully reduced the threat to its citizens dramatically.
Yet they still are attacked just about daily by what else, knives now, and stones. Still they haven't gone all Donald Trump about the situation, this should be a story of virtue.
Just gonna quote some stuff that talks about this:
You talk about how Israel is trying really hard to not kill civilians.
https://parlanceprovince.wordpress.com/2014/08/07/7-things-to-consider-twice-part-3/
quote:3) “Why would Israel deliberately want to kill civilians?”
The question asked by the author here is quite logical on its surface: since killing civilians causes image problems to Israel, why would Israel voluntary kill civilians? The question is asked as if it were rhetorical, and yet there are several other answers than “But that’s impossible!”, which is implied by the article.
Several concomitant strategies by different actors could explain the murder of Palestinian civilians:
a) The first is a government strategy, whose aim is to break the Palestinians’ will to revolt, in accordance with the idea that if one exacts an intolerable price to revolt, then there will be no revolt. That principle is at the heart of the concept of collective punishment, and that’s nothing new or proper to Israel. Killing civilians – not every possible civilian, but killing some civilians – or at least not caring whether or not there are civilians during a military operation in Gaza would pertain to this strategy to the same extent as the use of Skunk in the West Bank (http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2013/03/06/idf-skunk-cannon-odorizes-west-bank/ ), or the blockade on Gaza. And a UN report ( http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/12session/A-HRC-12-48.pdf ) mentions the implementation by Israel in Lebanon of what it calls the Dahiya doctrine, which is exactly that.
b) The second strategy is more complex, it is linked to IDF military practices. The “We were caught unprepared” report (http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA477851), which is mainly about the 2006 war against Hizbullah in Lebanon but also mentions the Palestinians, exposes practices aiming at instilling a “consciousness of defeat” among the population, which could be achieved by killing civilians disproportionately.
c) The third strategy would be individual, on the level of IDF soldiers themselves, who have been shown to having killed Palestinan civilians in the name of vengeance, or to take out their frustration at losing their fellow soldiers (see the bottom of the article at: http://mondoweiss.net/2014/07/soldiers-palestinian-civilians.html
The author of this article seems to believe, in the last paragraph, that the only reason that one could invoke for which Israel would want to kill civilians would be a mere desire to kill civilians. That’s not the case. But from the fat that Israel does not kill EVERY civilian in Gaza, it does not follow that Israel or the IDF does not deliberately kill civilians.
In any case Israel does not own up to these strategies, and that is why it produces a lot of propaganda in order to either whitewash or relativize the fact that far too many civilians are killed. Israel has found another way to counter the stain to its image caused by the deaths of civilians: its immense PR effort.
So that’s why the author’s question/answer #3 is a diversion, and it is falsely naïve.
And you accuse Palestinians of using human shields.
https://parlanceprovince.wordpress.com/2014/08/07/7-things-to-consider-twice-part-4/
quote:4) “Does Hamas really use its own civilians as human shields?”
Ah, human shields. This is an accusation that is leveled at Hamas by Israel all the time, and it has ingrained itself into the collective unconscious. And it’s quite grating, to be honest.
I’d like to question something that is almost axiomatic in the public discourse, that is that Hamas uses human shields. And here I am asking you: have you ever seen any evidence – not accusations, not claims, concrete evidence – that Hamas uses Human shields?
For starters, here is a document by Amnesty International that investigates these claims in its chapter 4.2.2: http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE15/015/2009/en/8f299083-9a74-4853-860f-0563725e633a/mde150152009en.pdf The document raises a few questions – first, what is the definition of a “human shield”? Hamas does indeed fire rockets from civilian areas, but that is something they are forced to do, given the fact that the Gaza strip is almost entirely an urban area. No one in their right mind would ask that Hamas gather its divisions and fight against the IDF head on on a neutral piece of land: Hamas is an insurgency, not a conventional army. It is therefore normal that it would fight from urban areas.
So while Hamas fights from urban areas, does it drag civilians into the fight? Amnesty International’s report on Cast Lead is clear: they have found no Palestian to bear witness to the claim that Hamas militants sheltered behind them to fire rockets ot to attack IDF ground troops – even though Palestinian civilians have openly and freely testified against Hamas to humanitarian organizations about a variety of other claims of abuse. Amnesty International has found no proof that Hamas ever forced civilians to remain in a zone where fighting took place. And among all the inquiries led by Amnesty International in cases where civilians were hit by IDF shelling of bombing, NONE revealed that Hamas fighters were hiding among the victims.
We have seen a few claims of evidence that Hamas leaders have asked Gazans to act as human shields: one interview of Sami Abu Zuhri who praises Palestinian civilians who are courageous enough to stand on top of their homes in order to try to deter IAF planes from bombing them – but that’s people trying to protect their property and homes, not Hamas using human shields – and an intervention by the Hamas minister of the Interior, resquesting that Gazans do not listen to calls to evacuate their homes (which still would not make them human shields for Hamas). An intervention which in any case went totally unheeded according to the link the author used as evidence itself – http://www.smh.com.au/world/thousands-of-gaza-civilians-flee-ignoring-hamas-advice-to-stay-20140714-zt6cs.html
So in any case, Gazans’ will to put themselves in danger, hoping that their presence would deter the bombing of their homes or vital infrastructures, does not mean that Hamas uses human shields for its militants.
“Human shields” are a convenient excuse for civilian casualties, but in reality, Hamas does not use them. And I’ll only incidentally mention that on the contrary, the use of civilian Palestinian human shields by IDF soldiers during IDF interventions has been demonstrated – see the Amnesty International report I mentioned earlier, chapter 2.1.
The IDF targeting civilian buildings does not make the people who live or work there human shields, especially not when the IDF’s reasons are so spurious. For instance: in the beginning of Protective Edge, a good deal of the IDF’s targets were individual homes of Hamas leaders – not necessarily military commanders, but also police chiefs or civilian leaders. Wikipedia has an excellent list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Israeli_strikes_and_Palestinian_casualties_in_Operation_Protective_Edge. These homes were where these people lived with their families. There is no reason to call the family of a Hamas member not currently engaging in military operations and yet targeted for assassination a human shield.
The IDF also claims that their targeting of civilian buildings is motivated by the fact that Hamas stores ammunition or rockets there. Two things: according to the UN itself, when they found rockets stored in their buildings, these buildings were always empty and not occupied by civilians. Second, in virtue of the principle of proportionality in war, mere weapons or ammunition cannot be used as a justification to destroy a civilian building, much less a UN building.
All these problems are compounded by the fact that the IDF produces very little proof of each of its claims. When hospitals or schools are targeted, and the reason invoked is that a rocket was launched “in the vicinity”, that’s not good enough, because a) the IDF produces no material proof, b) IDF weaponry is precise enough that it should be able to handle “in the vicinity” of a building, and not the building itself, c) a militant launching rockets has enough time to evacuate his firing position before the counter-attack anyway and most importantly, d) the strategic advantage gained by killing a single militant launching rockets is minimal, almost non-existent, and therefore targeting such an important building as a hospital, or a UN school used for sheltering ciivilians, cannot be justified and is in clear contradiction with the principle of proportionality – for everyone, including Israel and Hamas, know that the military threat of one Qassam rocket is minimal.
I reject both arguments presented in the paragraph starting by “Why launch rockets…” and the next one. For starters, Hamas does not launch rockets without reason, and has shown in the past that it would not fire any rockets into Israel while ceasefires are in effect, going so far as to stopping other militant groups from firing rockets: http://i.imgur.com/LseCaqZ.png. While the graph in itself does not show explicit efforts by Hamas to stop other militant factions from firing rockets into Israel, these two articles do: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/03/hamas-islamic-jihad-gaza-israel-rockets-siege-egypt.html http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3683385,00.html
I am also quite critical of the idea that launching rockets “invites great damage to your own people” when Israel always has the option of treating these rockets as what they really are, that is, pretty harmless pieces of rocketry – and therefore the option not to escalate. In fact, the reasons given by Hamas for their launching of rockets into Israel are well known, and are listed in the Amnesty International report in section 4.1.3: they are launched in response to the death of Palestinians, and are the symbolic representation of Hamas’ and other groups’ resistance to the occupation – i.e. they are themselves retaliatory, and they embody Hamas’ commitment to resistance.
These two paragraphs paint Hamas as a cold and calculating organization that try to get Palestinians to die in order to boost their own international image. This is pretty baseless and vile, as far as accusations go: would anyone pretend that Israel deliberately sent its 60 or so soldiers who have died so far in Protective Edge to die in order to get an image boost?
So that’s why the author’s question/answer #4 is an outright lie.
More fun stuff about Israel using human shields:
https://parlanceprovince.wordpress.com/2014/08/05/israel-using-human-shields/
quote:quote:4.2.2 ISRAELI ALLEGATIONS ABOUT USE OF “HUMAN SHIELDS”
The allegation that Hamas was using “human shields” was repeatedly made by Israeli government and army officials and spokespersons. In response to any questions about attacks by their own forces against Palestinian civilians or civilian objects or about the impact of their forces’ operations on the civilian population of Gaza, Israeli officials invariably responded that Hamas must be held responsible for any harm caused to civilians by Israeli attacks. Specifically, they accused Hamas of intentionally using the civilian population as “human shields” for their military activities by being based within towns and villages; storing rockets and other weapons in populated areas; firing rockets from close proximity to civilian buildings; and taking cover in civilian buildings after firing. Amnesty International asked the Israeli authorities on several occasions to provide information to substantiate its allegations about the use by Hamas of Gaza’s civilians, but has yet to receive a response.
Hamas, on the other hand, makes the argument that, as a political party, a social organization and an armed group, it is based among the population throughout Gaza. Militants affiliated to other armed groups do not dispute this and indeed make similar claims for themselves. They point out that any fighting which took place in Gaza was at the behest of Israeli forces which invaded Gaza, moving with tanks and troops into residential areas, occupying civilian homes and launching attacks from these homes. They maintain that the
armed confrontations in or near residential areas were aimed at resisting Israeli ground attacks and deny any policy of endangering civilians or using civilians as cover.
The groups openly acknowledge that their fighters and military facilities are present in towns and villages in Gaza, but argue that their role is to defend their communities against Israeli attacks and invasions. They said that they have no choice as to where they operate from and point to frequent Israeli attacks against civilian homes and targets where there was no presence of fighters or weapons as evidence that Israeli forces do not distinguish between military and civilian targets.
Some of the armed groups deny having fired rockets from populated areas or having stored them there, while others argue that they were merely defending their communities and that Israeli forces targeted civilians not involved in military activities and locations from which no attacks had been launched.
Amnesty International, for its part, did not find evidence that Hamas or other Palestinian groups violated the laws of war to the extent repeatedly alleged by Israel. In particular, it found no evidence that Hamas or other fighters directed the movement of civilians to shield military objectives from attacks. By contrast, Amnesty International did find that Israeli forces on several occasions during Operation “Cast Lead” forced Palestinian civilians to serve as “human shields”. In any event, international humanitarian law makes clear that use of “human shields” by one party does not release the attacking party from its legal obligations with respect to civilians.
Amnesty International delegates interviewed many Palestinians who complained about Hamas’ conduct, and especially about Hamas’ repression and attacks against their opponents, including killings, torture and arbitrary detentions, but did not receive any accounts of Hamas fighters having used them as “human shields”.
In the cases investigated by Amnesty International of civilians killed in Israeli attacks, the deaths could not be explained as resulting from the presence of fighters shielding among civilians, as the Israel army generally contends. In all of the cases investigated by Amnesty International of families killed when their homes were bombed from the air by Israeli forces, for example, none of the houses struck was being used by armed groups for military activities. Similarly, in the cases of precision missiles or tank shells which killed civilians in their homes, no fighters were present in the houses that were struck and Amnesty International delegates found no indication that there had been any armed confrontations or other military activity in the immediate vicinity at the time of the attack.
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“Throughout Operation “Cast Lead” Israeli forces frequently obstructed access to medical care and humanitarian aid for those wounded and trapped. They prevented ambulances and medical staff from attending to the wounded and transporting them to hospital and in several cases targeted ambulance and rescue crews and others who were trying to evacuate the wounded. As a result people who could have been saved died and others endured needless suffering and a worsening of their injuries. Children, women and elderly people were among those trapped and refused access to medical care and/or passage out of areas which had been taken over by Israeli forces. Medical and humanitarian vehicles and facilities were also destroyed or damaged as a result of both targeted and indiscriminate Israeli attacks.
In several cases Israeli soldiers also used civilians, including children, as “human shields”, endangering their lives by forcing them to remain in or near houses which they took over and used as military positions. Some were forced to carry out dangerous tasks such as inspecting properties or objects suspected of being booby-trapped. Soldiers also took position and launched attacks from and around inhabited houses, exposing local residents to the danger of attacks or of being caught in the crossfire.”
“Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups also violated international humanitarian law in their conduct within Gaza. They launched rockets and located military equipment and positions near civilian homes, endangering the lives of the inhabitants by exposing them to the risk of Israeli attacks. They also used empty homes and properties as combat positions during armed confrontations with Israeli forces, exposing the inhabitants of nearby houses to the danger of attacks or of being caught in the crossfire.
However, contrary to repeated allegations by Israeli officials of the use of “human shields”, Amnesty International found no evidence that Hamas or other Palestinian fighters directed the movement of civilians to shield military objectives from attacks. It found no evidence that Hamas or other armed groups forced residents to stay in or around buildings used by fighters, nor that fighters prevented residents from leaving buildings or areas which had been commandeered by militants.”
Al Mezan Center for Human Rights report on the IDF’s use of human shields in Beit Hanun in 2003: http://www.mezan.org/upload/2619.pdf
Human Rights Watch report on the IDF’s use of human shields in Jenin in 2002: http://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/israel3/israel0502-06.htm
B’Tselem report on on the IDF’s use of human shields in Beit Hanun (again), this time in 2006: http://www.btselem.org/human_shields/20060720_human_shields_in_beit_hanun
New York Daily News report on the Goldstone Report mentioning its conclusion that Israel used human shields: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wor...rticle-1.382138
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Dec 17, 2015 15:53
