The Phony War Crimes Accusation Against Israel
[Double-standards]
Israel is the only democracy in the world ever accused of war crimes when
it fights a defensive war to protect its civilians.
Every time Israel seeks to defend its civilians against terrorist attacks,
it is accused of war crimes by various UN agencies, academics and some in the
media. It is a totally phony charge concocted as part of Hamas’ strategy to
delegitimate and demonize the Jewish state. Israel is the only democracy in the
world ever accused of war crimes when it fights a defensive war to protect its
civilians. This is remarkable, especially in light of the fact that Israel has
killed far fewer civilians than any other country in the world that has faced
comparable threats. Those who cry “war crime” against Israel don’t generally
care about war crimes, as such; they often support them when engaged in by
countries they like.
Any discussion of war crimes must be comparative and contextual. If Russia
did not commit war crimes when its soldiers massacred tens of thousands of
Chechnyans (not even in a defensive war), then on what basis could Israel be
accused of accidentally killing a far fewer number of human shields in an effort
to protect its civilians? If Israel alone were ever to be charged with “war
crimes,” that would mark the end of international human rights law as a neutral
arbitrator of conduct. If the laws of war and international human rights are to
endure, they must be applied to nations in order of the seriousness of the
violations, not in order of the political unpopularity of the nations.
http://www.aish.com/jewishissues/middleeast/The_Phony_War_Crimes_Accusation.asp
Did Israel Target Gaza's Civilian Population?
Rachel Neuwirth February
13, 2009... accused Israel of having
committed "war crimes" in its recent "assault" on Gaza, and of waging war
indiscriminately on its civilian population. Israel is said to have damaged
schools, hospitals, ambulances and mosques and to have inflicted an immense
number of deaths and injuries on innocent civilians. The same accusations have
been hurled at Israel by the United Nations, by many of the worlds governments,
and by numerous pseudo-do-gooder "Non-governmental organizations" (or "NGOs"),
such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. The International Criminal
Court in the Hague is considering whether to file war crimes charges against
Israeli military and political leaders, and the nations of the European
Community are debating amongst themselves whether to support such a move.[1]
But when we probe into the matter a little deeper by looking at the reports
of journalists who did some independent investigating, and who interviewed Gaza
civilians who agreed to talk with them (anonymously or using nicknames, for fear
of Hamas reprisals), we get a completely different picture: Israel took great
care to avoid hurting innocent people, while Hamas deliberately tried to cause
as many casualties among the Gazan people as possible.
Lets go through some of the biggest media lies one by one, and then expose
the truth.
The Lie: Israel waged war on Gazas civilian population; it deliberately
killed innocent civilians.
The truth: Israel exerted more care than any other country in history to
avoid inflicting casualties on civilians, even at considerable cost to the
effectiveness of its military operations.
Israels Minister of Welfare and Social Services Isaac Herzog, who is
coordinating Israels humanitarian relief efforts in Gaza, has pointed out that
"[The IDF] made 250,000 phone calls], it has sent text messages and delivered
leaflets by air. It has [made] broadcasts on television and on radio and asked
people to move away. It did whatever it could to prevent human suffering[2]."
250,000 phone calls? That is virtually every single individual household in
Gaza! (total population 1.4 million, with many large families). There is no
precedent in history for an army calling up each individual household in enemy
territory to warn them in advance to take shelter from bombing or shelling by
the army. The Israelis even went so far as to call up leading terrorists 45
minutes in advance of bombing their houses, which were used for storing weapons
and ammunition and for concealing terrorist tunnels and bunkers in their
basements, in order to give the terrorists and their innocent families time to
escape unharmed.
When Israeli planes tracked trucks carrying weapons and ammunition to
Hamas, they sometimes deflected the missiles in mid-flight, causing them to fall
harmlessly in open spaces, if the trucks happened to pass by civilians on a
crowded street. In deflecting their own missiles by remote control, the Israeli
pilots and ground controllers passed up the opportunity to destroy enemy weapons
and ammunition, solely in order to protect Arab civilians. These humanitarian
measures by the Israeli forces have been abundantly documented by "live" video
cameras, and the resulting video records have been broadcast by the IDF on
YouTube.[3]
These unprecedented humanitarian precautions in time of full-scale war must
have enabled thousands of terrorists to escape from Israeli bombing and shelling
attacks by forewarning them. Israel was willing to undermine the effectiveness
of its anti-terrorist operation solely in order to save the lives of "innocent"
(and in some cases not-so-innocent) civilians. No other army -- not the
Americans, nor the British, nor French or much the less the Russian ,Chinese,
Japanese or German armies -- has ever exercised even comparable restraint and
care to protect noncombatants on the "enemy" side of a war zone as the Israel
Defense Forces routinely does.[4]
The Lie: Israel killed six hundred or more civilians in Gaza. More than
half of those killed by Israel were innocent civilians.
If Israel took such extraordinary measures to protect noncombatants, why
then, you will surely ask, were so many civilians killed or injured during
Israels "Operation Cast Lead" counter-terrorism operation? One part of the
answer is that relatively few civilians actually were killed or injured. Lorenzo
Cremonesi, a correspondent reporting from Gaza for the Italian "newspaper of
record" Corriere della Serra, writes:
there is [a] fact coming to light ever more obviously, visiting the
hospitals, clinics and families of the victims of Israeli fire: In reality their
numbers appear much lower than 1300 dead and another 5000 injured, as reported
by the men of Hamas and repeated by the UN officials and the local Red Cross.
"The dead cant be more than 500 or 600. There are many youths between 17 and
23, recruited by Hamas, who sent them quite literally to the slaughter." Said
the doctor from the Shifah hospital who under no circumstances wanted to be
quoted for he risked his life.
This data has been confirmed by [a] local journalist. "We already pointed
this out to the heads of Hamas. Why do they insist on inflating the number of
victims? Its strange on the other hand that the NGOs, also the western ones,
report them without any verification. In the end the truth may come to light. It
could be like Jenin in 2002. Initially we spoke about 1500 dead. Then it came
out that there were only 54, of whom at least 45 were militants who died in
battle. "
Its sufficient to visit a few hospitals to understand that the numbers
dont add up. There are many empty beds in the European Hospital in Rafah, one
of the [hospitals] that should be most involved with the victims of the Israeli
"war of the tunnels." The same goes for the "Nasser" of Khan Yunis. Only 5 out
of the 150 beds in the private hospital of Al-Amal are occupied.[5]
Analysts who regularly monitor the Palestinian Arab media have come upon
much information that corroborates Cremonesis report. These media monitors have
discovered that over 75% of the individuals whom the Arab media have identified
as having been killed in the fighting were males between the ages of 15 and
50the ages, and gender, of the overwhelming majority of Hamas and other
Palestinian fighters. They have also found that the names of many Palestinians
who turn up on lists of "civilians" killed in the Gaza war published by
Palestinian "human rights" organizations are identified as Hamas fighters by
other Palestinian news publications. The "human rights" organizations also
omitted from its casualty reports the names of Hamas fighters who are known from
other sources to have been killed in the fighting. This misreporting and
selective reporting result in a sizable overstatement of the percentage of
civilians killed in the fighting. Yet much of the news media relies on these
organizations, such as the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), for their
data on civilian casualties in Gaza.[6]
The second part of our answer to the question, "why were Gazan civilians
killed or injured during Israels Gaza operation?" is that Hamas deliberately
forced its "own" Gazan civilians to serve as hostages and "human shields,"
behind which the terrorists conducted their assault. Hamas regularly sent its
troops to occupy schools, hospitals, mosques and office buildings, their grounds
and adjacent streets, as well as many private Palestinian houses and business,
and used them to fire at Israeli soldiers and to launch rockets against Israeli
civilians. The Hamas men used mosques as weapons and ammunition storage
facilities, and fired anti-aircraft guns from them The Israelis have even caught
on camera, and have subsequently broadcast on YouTube, videos of Hamas fighters
launching rockets and mortars from the courtyards of schools, or streets
directly adjoining them [8] On at least one occasion, Hamas operatives even
launched a rocket from a building used by foreign journalists; a reporter from
an Arab television and radio station reported on the incident "live" as she
viewed the rocket launching from her office window, in a bizarre sequence that
has subsequently been broadcast in a YouTube video![7] Hamas gunmen hijacked
ambulances, and sometimes even fired at Israeli soldiers from them.
These Hamas tactics" put Israeli soldiers in the invidious position of
having either to allow the Hamas terrorists to keep firing at them and/or at the
Israeli civilian population,; or to return fire, and risking killing or injuring
civilians. Israel sometimes has had no choice but to permit its soldiers to
return fire in self-defense. This return of fire has sometimes resulted in
civilian casualties and/or damage to civilian buildings; but in view of Hamas
of use of Arab civilians as human shields, blaming Israel for these casualties
and calling them Israeli "war crimes," seems to us almost as vicious and unjust
as the actual war crimes perpetrated by Hamas. Apropos this situation, Cremonesi
reports:
"Get away! Get away from here! Do you want the Israelis to kill everyone?
Do you want our children to die under the bombs? Take your missiles and weapons
away," the inhabitants of the Gaza strip yelled at the Hamas militants and their
allies in Islamic Jihad. The more courageous were organized and blocked the
entrances to their courtyards and locked the doors to their buildings,
barricading quickly and furiously the stairs to the highest rooftops.
But for all of that the guerrillas didnt listen to anyone. "Traitors,
collaborators with Israel, spies of Fatah, cowards! The soldiers of the holy war
will punish you. And in any case you will all die, like us. Fighting the Zionist
Jews we are all destined for paradise. Do you not wish to die with us?" This is
what they yelled furiously as they broke down doors and windows, hiding
themselves on high floors, gardens, using ambulances and barricading themselves
near the hospitals, schools and buildings of the UN.
In extreme cases the [Hamas militants] shot those who sought to block them
from their streets and houses to save their own families, or they beat them
savagely. "The Hamas Militants looked for good places to provoke the Israelis.
They were usually youths, 16 or 17 years old, armed with submachine guns. They
couldnt do anything against a tank or jet. They knew they were much weaker. But
they wanted the [Israelis] to shoot at the [the civilians] houses so they could
accuse them of more war crimes" asserted Abu Issa, 42, resident of the Tel Awa
neighborhood.[9]
Another Gaza civilian, calling herself Umm Abdallah, told Mr.Cremonesi that
"Practically all of the tallest buildings in Gaza that were hit by Israeli
bombs, like the Dogmoush, Andalous, Jawarah, Siussi, and many others, had rocket
launching pads on their roofs, or were observation decks for the Hamas. They had
also put them near the big UN warehouse, which went up in flames. The same goes
for the villages in the valley along the border that were more devastated by the
mad fury and punishment of the Zionist[10]."
A third part of the answer is that the Hamas terrorists may have directly
caused some of the civilian casualties themselves. Numerous Gaza residents and
foreign reporters confirm that Hamas took the occasion of Israels Gaza
operation to kill Palestinians whom it claimed were collaborators with Israel.
Many, although not all of these alleged collaborators were actually members of
the rival Palestinian terrorist group Fatah, with whom Hamas has long been at
loggerheads.[11]
We have already seen the Corriere della Serra report that Hamas sometimes
killed Gazan civilians who tried to refuse to allow themselves and their
families to be used as human shields, declaring them to be "collaborators"
worthy of death. Gazan ambulance drivers told a reporter for the Sydney Morning
Herald ( Australia ) of similar experiences with Hamas gunmen: these sometimes
attempted to hijack ambulances for their own use, and threatened the drivers
with their guns if they resisted surrendering them.[12] While the particular
ambulance drivers interviewed by Sydney Morning Heralds reporter Jack
Koutsoukis survived their ordeal, others may not have been so lucky.
Then there is the question of "work accidents." The Israel defense and
intelligence forces have documented numerous cases in which explosives that
Hamas was storing or that its operatives were manufacturing exploded
accidentally, inflicting deaths and injuries on nearby civilians. In nearly all
such cases, Hamas first tried to blame Israel for the civilian casualties,
although it sometimes eventually admitted to the truth. How many of the civilian
casualties reported during the Gaza operation were similar "work accidents?"[13]
In addition, when Hamas chose to fight the Israeli counter-terrorist
forces in densely populated urban streets, rather than in open country, as the
Israelis much preferred, Hamas operatives as well as Israeli soldiers fired off
numerous rounds of bullets, mortars and rockets in areas crowded with civilian
residents. As a result, many of the civilian who were killed or wounded in the
fighting are just as likely to have been hit by Hamas gunman as by Israeli
soldiers. [14]
How many civilian deaths and injuries inflicted by Hamas gunmen, one
wonders, found their way into the civilian casualty statistics released by the
United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), various NGOs, and the media? Yet
the press and the "humanitarian" agencies have attributed all of the civilian
casualties to Israel.
The Lie: Gaza has been utterly devastated and left in ruins by the Israeli
"assault."
The Truth: The Israelis targeted buildings very carefully and selectively,
aiming at buildings used for military purposes by Hamas, and rarely hitting
other buildings.
While much of the media has claimed that Gaza suffered universal and
complete devastation during Israels "Operation Cast Lead," a few journalists
who were on the scene have admitted that Israels air and ground forces in Gaza
were almost incredibly precise and careful in their selection of targets, and
that as little damage as possible was caused to civilian buildings. Tim Butcher,
in a report on the war for Londons Daily Telegraph, wrote that:
One thing was clear. Gaza City 2009 is not Stalingrad 1944. There had been
no carpet bombing of large areas, no firebombing of complete suburbs. Targets
had been selected and then hit, often several times, but almost always with
precision munitions. Buildings nearby had been damaged and there had been some
clear mistakes, like the firebombing of the UN aid headquarters. But, in most
the cases, I saw the primary target had borne the brunt. . .
But, for the most part, I was struck by how cosmetically unchanged Gaza
appeared to be. It has been a tatty, poorly-maintained mess for decades and the
presence of fresh bombsites on streets already lined with broken curbstones and
jerry-built buildings did not make any great difference. And the same can be
said for the mindset of many of Gazas 1.5 million residents. Outsiders might
have expected some sort of collective anger at the loss of life, or mass outrage
at the Hamas authorities whose policy of firing rockets against Israel had
brought down the wrath of the Israeli armed forces.[15]
The Lie: Israel has been blockading Gaza for years and denying its people
access to vital humanitarian supplies, creating great suffering among its
population. THIS BLOCKADE WAS INTENSIFIED DURING THE RECENT GAZA WAR.
Of all of the medias lies about Israels relationship to Gaza, this is the
most brazen and absurd. There has never been an Israeli blockade of Gaza. In
reality, Israel has allowed thousands of truckloads of supplies into Gaza in the
past eight years, despite the almost continuous armed attacks on Israeli
civilians and soldiers originating in Gaza. It continued to supply Gaza with
food, medicine and all other needed civilian goods even during the three weeks
of intense fighting during the recent war (December 27, 2008 - January 19,
2009). It has supplied Gaza with electricity, fuel, and water and even money to
pay its officials, (who of course work for Hamas) throughout the long years of
Gazan aggression against Israel. Israel continued to supply all of these things
to Gaza, except the money, even during the three weeks of intense fighting
during its "Operation Cast Lead." Since the "cease fire" on January 19 of this
year and even at the height of the fighting in January, Israel observed three a
hour truce daily to allow supplies to get through to the Gazan civilian
population (Hamas violated even these brief truces by using them to fire rockets
at Israeli civilians). Israel has continued to send massive humanitarian
supplies to Gaza and to allow the UN relief organizations to do so as well, even
though Hamas has been hijacking the relief shipments for its own fighterswhich
is a serious war crime. It has even resumed its money payments to the Hamas
government, despite Hamas daily violations of the cease-fire with rocket
attacks on, and terrorist raids into, Israel .[16]
No other nation in history has treated the people of a country that was
committing armed aggression against their own with the kindness, compassion,
humanity and forbearance that Israel has lavished upon the people of Gaza. But
none of Israels extraordinary humanitarian efforts have prevented the
international press, United Nations officials and the "NGOs" from portraying
Israel as guilty of monstrous war crimes and crimes against humanity. That they
have done so does not speak well for the "international community," or indeed
for the human species as a whole.
In subsequent columns we look at a few of the specific atrocity allegations
made against Israel during the Gaza war, and consider the question of who gave
the press so much misinformation about Gaza, and why?
John Landau contributed to this article
FOOTNOTES
________________________________________
1]Avraham Zuroff ,"EU Leaders Debate whether to Condemn Israel for UN
Bombings,"
FrontPageMagazine.com.
2]Haviv Rettig Gur, "UNWRA: Hamas didnt fire from Un Compounds." Jerusalem
Post, Jan. 18, 2009,
http://www.jpost.com
/servlet/Satellite?cid=1232292898771&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull.
9] Cremonesi, "Doubts on the Number of Victims," op. cit.
10] Cremonesi, op. cit.
11] Khaled Abu Toameh, "Hamas Moves on Fatah Collaborators," Jerusalem
Post, Jan. 4, 2009,
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1230733155685&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
; Nissan Ratzlav-Katz, "PA Internecine Killings Continued as War Raged,"
IsraelNationalNews, January 19, 2009,
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/129517;
and "Gaza War Crimes: Hamas Terrorists Tried To Hijack Ambulances,"
:IsraelNationalNews, January 26, 2009,
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/129608.
and the Fighting in Gaza," Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs,
http://www.jcpa.org/text/puzzle1.pdf
; Rani Sneh, "IDF Opens Border Crossing for Humanitarian Aid Transfer to Gaza,"
December 28, 2008,
http://dover.idf.il/IDF/English/News/today/2008n/12/2803.htm;
and numerous other articles on the Israel Defense Forces web site,
http://dover.idf.il/IDF/English/;
Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs," Humanitarian aid to Gaza during IDF
operation," Jan. 18 2009,
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Government/Communiques/2009/Humanitarian_aid_to_Gaza_following_6_month_calm.htm
, and numerous other articles on the Israel ministry of Foreign Affairs web
site,
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA;
Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), "Continual
humanitarian aid to Gaza despite grad rocket launched at Ashkelon," February 4,
2009,
http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=42670;
"Humanitarian aid continues under intense mortar and rocket fire," Feb. 2, 2009,
http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=42645,
and numerous other bulletins from COGAT, as well as other articles, on the on
the Independent Media Review Analysis web site ,
http://www.imra.org.il/; Tamar Yonahs
interview with David Bedein about Gaza, UNRWA, and Hamas. Israel National
Radio's "Weekend Edition," Feb 8, 2009;
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Radio/News.aspx/623;
Walter Bingham, "A Different View of Israel," November 11, 2007,
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/7471,
and numerous other articles on the IsraelNationalNews,
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/;
Rachel Ehrenfeld, "Israel's suicidal choice,"
http://www.israelunitycoalition.org/news/article.php?id=3089,
Reprinted from the Washington Times, Aug 27, 2008, and many other article on the
Unity Coalition for Israel site,
http://www.israelunitycoalition.org/;
Israel Insider staff, "Olmert admits transferring hundreds of millions of
shekels to Hamas," June 26, 2008,
____________________
War Crimes, Human Shields, and the Real Bad Guys in Gaza
By Marty Nemko
Posted February 3, 2009
Marty Nemko is producer & host of Work with
Marty Nemko on KALW-FM, a National Public Radio affiliate in San Francisco.
Imagine that the head of the neighborhood adjacent to your own hated your
neighborhood so much that its charter said that its goal is to destroy your
neighborhood.
To that end, over the last year, the mayor of that neighborhood had
his police force fire ever more bombs into your neighborhood.
One bomb has already destroyed your neighbor's house, injuring one of your
child's friends. From her bedroom, your terrified daughter can hear the bombs
exploding.
To help prevent your neighborhood from retaliating, the head of the
adjacent neighborhood placed bomb launchers and gunmen near your neighborhood's
schools and in densely populated residential areas so that those civilians could
serve as human shields for its bombers.
That neighborhood's police force has now fired over 8,000 rocket bombs at
your neighborhood and warns that even stronger bombs will soon be fired.
Let's say you were the head of your neighborhood. What would YOU do?
Wouldn't you try to dismantle those terrorist cells even if innocent
civilians were killed? Even if some innocent civilians were hurt, wouldn't you
use white phosphorus smokescreens, which is NOT deemed a chemical weapon by the
Geneva Conventions, to try to penetrate into their terrorist installations so
your policemen would be less likely to be killed and more likely to disarm the
bombers?
Now let's add this: To minimize civilian injury, you decided to incur the
liability of tipping off the enemy to your impending attack so you could try to
save their neighborhood's civilians' lives: You made hundreds of cellphone calls
and E-mails to the civilians and put large speakers out in the area begging the
civilians to leave.
Let's add one more thing: After dismantling the terrorist encampment, you
paid for and sent over 300 trucksful of humanitarian aid to the people of the
enemy's neighborhood, so much so that an independent agency said all needed food
had been supplied.
Now let's say that the attacking neighborhood's director of PR and a
representative of a damaged school building accused YOU(!) of war crimes because
in your attempts to quash their bombing, innocent civilians were killed or
injured. Remember that the adjacent neighborhood deliberately placed its attack
encampments near schools and densely populated residential neighborhoods so it
could use civilians, including children, as human shields, which is a clear war
crime according to the Geneva Conventions. If you were a judge, which
neighborhood would you judge to be the war criminal?
Of course, this is what is occurring in the Middle East, with Israel
responding to the Hamas attacks launched from within residential neighborhoods,
yet amazingly, some people are accusing Israel of war crimes for the response
described above. I am still trying to figure out why. Is it really, ultimately,
at its root anti-Semitism? I really don't know.
What I do know is that a double standard is being applied: one standard for
the rest of the world, one standard for Israel. For example, America bombs
Afghanistan from 30,000 feet, having done far less to protect innocent Afghanis
than Israel has done to protect Gazans.
[Palestinians] Hamas' war crimes
In Gaza, it targets Israeli citizens
with rockets, then shields its fighters behind Palestinian civilians.
By Alan
M. Dershowitz
January 10, 2009
Atemporary cease-fire in Gaza that simply
allows Hamas to obtain more lethal weapons will assure a repetition of Hamas'
win-win tactic of firing rockets at Israeli civilians while using Palestinian
civilians as human shields.
The best example of Hamas' double war crime tactic was Tuesday, when it
succeeded in sending a rocket to a town less than 20 miles south of Tel Aviv and
injuring a child. At the same time, it provoked Israel to attack a United
Nations school from which Hamas was launching its rockets. Residents of the
neighborhood said two Hamas fighters were in the area at the time, and the
Israeli military said they had been killed, according to the New York
Times.
The Hamas tactic of firing rockets from schools, hospitals and mosques
dates back to 2005, when Israel ended its occupation of Gaza. Several months
ago, the head of the Israeli air force showed me a videotape (now available on
YouTube) of a Hamas terrorist deliberately moving his rocket launcher to the
front of a U.N. school, firing a rocket and then running away, no doubt hoping
that Israel would then respond by attacking the rocket launcher and thus killing
Palestinian children in the school.
This is the Hamas dual strategy: to kill and injure as many Israeli
civilians as possible by firing rockets indiscriminately at Israeli civilian
targets, and to provoke Israel to kill as many Palestinian civilians as possible
to garner world sympathy.
Lest there be any doubt about this, recall the recent case of Nizar Rayan,
the Hamas terrorist and commander killed in Gaza by an Israeli missile strike
Jan. 1. Israeli authorities had warned him that he was a legitimate military
target, as was his home, which was a storage site for rockets. This is the same
man who in 2001 sent one of his sons on a suicide mission to blow himself up at
a Jewish settlement in Gaza. Rayan had the option of moving his family to a safe
area. Instead, his four wives and children remained with him and became martyrs
as Israel targeted his home for destruction.
Hamas leaders have echoed the mantra of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of
Hezbollah, that "we are going to win because they love life and we love
death."
It is difficult to fight an enemy that loves death in a world that loves
life. The world tends to think emotionally rather than rationally when it is
shown dead women and children who are deliberately placed in harm's way by
Hamas. Instead of asking who was really to blame for these civilian deaths,
people place responsibility on those who fired the fatal shots.
Consider a related situation: An armed bank robber kills several tellers
and takes a customer hostage. Hiding behind his human shield, the robber
continues to kill civilians. A police officer, trying to prevent further
killings, shoots at the robber but accidentally kills the hostage. Who is guilty
of murder? Not the police officer who fired the fatal shot but the bank robber
who fired from behind the human shield.
The international law of war, likewise, makes it a war crime to use human
shields in the way Hamas does. It also makes it a war crime for Hamas to target
Israeli civilians with anti-personnel rockets loaded with ball bearings and
shrapnel designed to kill as many civilians as possible.
In Lebanon in 2006, Hezbollah used this same tactic in its war with Israel,
setting up civilians to be in harm's way of Israeli responses to rocket fire.
When Israel accidentally killed civilians, Hezbollah celebrated them as martyrs.
Similarly, the Hamas leadership quietly celebrates the deaths they provoke by
causing Israel to fire at its rocket launchers, treating the dead Palestinian
civilians as martyrs. The New York Times reported Friday that a wounded fighter
was smiling at the suffering of civilians, saying "they should be happy" because
they "lost their loved ones as martyrs."
The best proof of Hamas' media strategy of manipulating sympathy is the way
it dealt with a rocket it fired the day before Israel's airstrikes began. The
rocket fell short of its target in Israel and landed in Gaza, killing two young
Palestinian girls. Hamas, which exercises total control of Gaza, censored any
video coverage of those deaths. Although there were print reports, no one saw
pictures of these two dead Palestinian children because they were killed by
Palestinian rockets rather than by Israeli rockets. Hamas knows that pictures
are more powerful than words. That is probably why Israel has -- mistakenly in
my view -- kept foreign journalists from entering the war zone.
Israel must continue to try to stop the Hamas rockets that endanger more
than a million Israeli civilians. It also must continue to do everything in its
power to avoid Palestinian civilian casualties, not only because that is the
right thing to do but because every Palestinian death plays into the hands of
Hamas' leaders.
A bad day for Hamas is a day in which its rockets fail to kill or injure
any Israeli civilians and Israel kills no Palestinian civilians. That is what
Israel and the world must strive for. Hamas knows that the moment it ends its
policy of firing rockets at Israeli civilians from behind the shield of
Palestinian civilians, Israel will end its military activities in Gaza. That is
precisely the result Hamas does not want to achieve.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-dershowitz10-2009jan10,0,2587090.story
__________
UN Admits: IDF Didn't Hit School
by Maayana Miskin
During the Cast Lead operation in Gaza, IDF tank fire near a United Nations
school in Gaza was blamed for the deaths of dozens of civilians who had taken
refuge in the building. The incident became one of the most highly publicized
attacks in the war, and led to heavy international criticism.
Recent reports suggest that the incident was not accurately portrayed by
senior U.N. officials. John Ging, the director of the U.N. Relief and Works
Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza, spoke to the Toronto Globe and Mail last week and agreed
that no shell had actually struck the school building. Ging said he had never
claimed that the school itself was hit, and he blamed Israel for confusion over
where the strike took place.
Shortly after the alleged attack, Ging harshly criticized Israel for firing
near the school, saying he had given the exact coordinates of the compound to
the IDF. He charged that the IDF had failed to avoid hitting the building.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/129696
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