Incriminating Evidence Of Israeli War Crimes
By Stephen Lendman3-25-9
Throughout its history, Israel has willfully and repeatedly committed crimes of war and against humanity, always with impunity. Yet under customary legal standards and norms (including Geneva, Hague, the UN Charter, S.C. and G.A. resolutions), it's lawless, a serial abuser, a threat to the region and humanity, mostly as an oppressive occupier. Attacking Gaza is the latest episode in its six-decade reign of terror satisfying the definition of genocide against defenseless Palestinian civilians. This article covers more evidence from some disturbing but unsurprising newly published information.
On March 19, in the first of a series of articles, Haaretz headlined: "IDF killed civilians in Gaza under loose rules of engagement." Military correspondent Amos Harel revealed Israeli soldier and pilot ("dirty secret") testimonies of being ordered to kill unarmed civilians and destroy their property - accounts at variance with official claims that only military targets were attacked and that "Israeli troops observed a high level of moral behavior during the operation." Defense Minister Ehud Barak calls the IDF "the most moral army in the world."
"Moral" examples included an infantry squad leader recounting the shooting of a 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....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," after which a rooftop sniper "shot them straight away....I don't think he felt too bad about it, because after all, as far as he was concerned, he (followed orders, and, besides, Palestinian lives are) less important" than our own soldiers.
Other incidents included:
-- a squad leader telling of a company commander ordering an elderly Palestinian woman to be shot and killed;
-- soldiers saying "we should kill everyone (in the center of Gaza); everyone there is a terrorist;"
-- soldiers writing "death to the Arabs on walls" and spitting on family pictures;
-- a squad leader saying: "At the beginning, the directive was to enter a house with an armored vehicle, break the door down, (and) start shooting inside - I call it murder - to shoot at everyone we identify;" commanders called it OK "because everyone left in the city is culpable because they didn't run away;"
-- soldiers ordered to indiscriminately destroy property and farmland;
-- orders given to enter a house, "switch on loudspeakers and tell (occupants) you have five minutes to run away and whoever doesn't will be killed;"
Click here: http://www.rense.com/general85/incrim.htm to read more.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Will Israel Be Brought To Book?
The evidence of war crimes in Gaza is a challenge to universal justice: will western-backed perpetrators ever stand trial?
By Seumas Milne
March 23, 2009 "The Guardian" -- - Evidence of the scale of Israel's war crimes in its January onslaught on Gaza is becoming unanswerable. Clancy Chassay's three films investigating allegations against Israeli forces in the Gaza strip, released by the Guardian today, include important new accounts of the flagrant breaches of the laws of war that marked the three-week campaign – now estimated to have left at least 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and 13 Israelis dead.
The films provide compelling testimony of Israel's use of Palestinian teenagers as human shields; the targeting of hospitals, clinics and medical workers, including with phosphorus bombs; and attacks on civilians, including women and children – sometimes waving white flags – from hunter-killer drones whose targeting systems are so powerful they can identify the colour of a person's clothes.
Naturally, the Israeli occupation forces' spokesperson insists to Chassay that they make every effort to avoid killing civilians and denies using human shields or targeting medical workers – while at the same time explaining that medics in war zones "take the risk upon themselves". By banning journalists from entering Gaza during its punitive devastation of the strip, the Israeli government avoided independent investigations of the stream of war crimes accusations while the attack was going on.
But now journalists and human rights organisations are back inside, doing the painstaking work, the question is whether Israel's government and military commanders will be held to account for what they unleashed on the Palestinians of Gaza – or whether, like their US and British sponsors in Iraq and Afghanistan, they can carry out war crimes with impunity.
It's not as if Clancy's reports are unique or uncorroborated by other evidence. Last week, the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reported that a group of Israelis soldiers had admitted intentionally shooting dead an unarmed Palestinian mother and her two children, as well as an elderly Palestinian woman, in Gaza in January. As one explained: "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".
Click here: http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22285.htm to read more.
The evidence of war crimes in Gaza is a challenge to universal justice: will western-backed perpetrators ever stand trial?
By Seumas Milne
March 23, 2009 "The Guardian" -- - Evidence of the scale of Israel's war crimes in its January onslaught on Gaza is becoming unanswerable. Clancy Chassay's three films investigating allegations against Israeli forces in the Gaza strip, released by the Guardian today, include important new accounts of the flagrant breaches of the laws of war that marked the three-week campaign – now estimated to have left at least 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and 13 Israelis dead.
The films provide compelling testimony of Israel's use of Palestinian teenagers as human shields; the targeting of hospitals, clinics and medical workers, including with phosphorus bombs; and attacks on civilians, including women and children – sometimes waving white flags – from hunter-killer drones whose targeting systems are so powerful they can identify the colour of a person's clothes.
Naturally, the Israeli occupation forces' spokesperson insists to Chassay that they make every effort to avoid killing civilians and denies using human shields or targeting medical workers – while at the same time explaining that medics in war zones "take the risk upon themselves". By banning journalists from entering Gaza during its punitive devastation of the strip, the Israeli government avoided independent investigations of the stream of war crimes accusations while the attack was going on.
But now journalists and human rights organisations are back inside, doing the painstaking work, the question is whether Israel's government and military commanders will be held to account for what they unleashed on the Palestinians of Gaza – or whether, like their US and British sponsors in Iraq and Afghanistan, they can carry out war crimes with impunity.
It's not as if Clancy's reports are unique or uncorroborated by other evidence. Last week, the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reported that a group of Israelis soldiers had admitted intentionally shooting dead an unarmed Palestinian mother and her two children, as well as an elderly Palestinian woman, in Gaza in January. As one explained: "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".
Click here: http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22285.htm to read more.
Israel’s War Crimes
Israel blamed its earlier wars on the threat to its security, even that against Lebanon in 1982. However, its assault on Gaza was not justified and there are international calls for an investigation. But is there the political will to make Israel account for its war crimes?
By Richard Falk
March 21, 2009 "Le Monde diplomatique" -- -For the first time since the establishment of Israel in 1948 the government is facing serious allegations of war crimes from respected public figures throughout the world. Even the secretary general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, normally so cautious about offending sovereign states – especially those aligned with its most influential member, the United States – has joined the call for an investigation and potential accountability. To grasp the significance of these developments it is necessary to explain what made the 22 days of attacks in Gaza stand shockingly apart from the many prior recourses to force by Israel to uphold its security and strategic interests.In my view, what made the Gaza attacks launched on 27 December different from the main wars fought by Israel over the years was that the weapons and tactics used devastated an essentially defenceless civilian population. The one-sidedness of the encounter was so stark, as signalled by the relative casualties on both sides (more than 100 to 1; 1300-plus Palestinians killed compared with 13 Israelis, and several of these by friendly fire), that most commentators refrained from attaching the label “war”.The Israelis and their friends talk of “retaliation” and “the right of Israel to defend itself”. Critics described the attacks as a “massacre” or relied on the language of war crimes and crimes against humanity. In the past Israeli uses of force were often widely condemned, especially by Arab governments, including charges that the UN Charter was being violated, but there was an implicit acknowledgement that Israel was using force in a war mode. War crimes charges (to the extent they were made) came only from radical governments and the extreme left.The early Israeli wars were fought against Arab neighbours which were quite literally challenging Israel’s right to exist as a sovereign state. The outbreaks of force were of an inter-governmental nature; and even when Israel exhibited its military superiority in the June 1967 six day war, it was treated within the framework of normal world politics, and though it may have been unlawful, it was not criminal.But from the 1982 Lebanon war this started to change. The main target then was the presence of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in southern Lebanon. But the war is now mainly remembered for its ending, with the slaughter of hundreds of unarmed Palestinian civilians in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila. Although this atrocity was the work of a Lebanese Christian militia, Israeli acquiescence, control and complicity were clearly part of the picture. Still, this was an incident which, though alarming, was not the whole of the military operation, which Israel justified as necessary due to the Lebanese government’s inability to prevent its territory from being used to threaten Israeli security.
Click here: http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22264.htm to read more.
Israel blamed its earlier wars on the threat to its security, even that against Lebanon in 1982. However, its assault on Gaza was not justified and there are international calls for an investigation. But is there the political will to make Israel account for its war crimes?
By Richard Falk
March 21, 2009 "Le Monde diplomatique" -- -For the first time since the establishment of Israel in 1948 the government is facing serious allegations of war crimes from respected public figures throughout the world. Even the secretary general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, normally so cautious about offending sovereign states – especially those aligned with its most influential member, the United States – has joined the call for an investigation and potential accountability. To grasp the significance of these developments it is necessary to explain what made the 22 days of attacks in Gaza stand shockingly apart from the many prior recourses to force by Israel to uphold its security and strategic interests.In my view, what made the Gaza attacks launched on 27 December different from the main wars fought by Israel over the years was that the weapons and tactics used devastated an essentially defenceless civilian population. The one-sidedness of the encounter was so stark, as signalled by the relative casualties on both sides (more than 100 to 1; 1300-plus Palestinians killed compared with 13 Israelis, and several of these by friendly fire), that most commentators refrained from attaching the label “war”.The Israelis and their friends talk of “retaliation” and “the right of Israel to defend itself”. Critics described the attacks as a “massacre” or relied on the language of war crimes and crimes against humanity. In the past Israeli uses of force were often widely condemned, especially by Arab governments, including charges that the UN Charter was being violated, but there was an implicit acknowledgement that Israel was using force in a war mode. War crimes charges (to the extent they were made) came only from radical governments and the extreme left.The early Israeli wars were fought against Arab neighbours which were quite literally challenging Israel’s right to exist as a sovereign state. The outbreaks of force were of an inter-governmental nature; and even when Israel exhibited its military superiority in the June 1967 six day war, it was treated within the framework of normal world politics, and though it may have been unlawful, it was not criminal.But from the 1982 Lebanon war this started to change. The main target then was the presence of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in southern Lebanon. But the war is now mainly remembered for its ending, with the slaughter of hundreds of unarmed Palestinian civilians in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila. Although this atrocity was the work of a Lebanese Christian militia, Israeli acquiescence, control and complicity were clearly part of the picture. Still, this was an incident which, though alarming, was not the whole of the military operation, which Israel justified as necessary due to the Lebanese government’s inability to prevent its territory from being used to threaten Israeli security.
Click here: http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22264.htm to read more.
Cut to pieces: the Palestinian family drinking tea in their courtyard Israeli unmanned aerial vehicles – the dreaded drones – caused at least 48 deaths in Gaza during the 23-day offensive
Clancy Chassay
Mounir al-Jarah slowly takes down the bricks he used to wall up the entrance to his sister's courtyard. Inside, flesh still clings to the walls; blood-soaked furniture and family items lie broken and mangled.
Mounir's eyes search around the old house as he recounts the events of 16 January, when a rocket fired from an unmanned aerial vehicle killed his sister, her husband and four of her children.
Sitting around drinking tea with the family in their small courtyard, Mounir heard the loud buzzing of an Israeli drone, clearly visible in the sky above.
He went inside for a moment and, as he returned, he saw a ball of light hurtling down toward him. There was a loud explosion and he was thrown backward. He gathered himself and stumbled out into the courtyard, where he saw the scene he says will never leave him.
"We found Mohammed lying there, cut in half. Ahmed was in three pieces; Wahid was totally burnt – his eyes were gone. Wahid's father was dead. Nour had been decapitated. We couldn't see her head anywhere."
All six members of the family had been blown to pieces, coating each wall of the narrow enclosure with blood and body matter.
"You cannot imagine the scene: a family all sitting around together and then, in a matter of seconds, they were cut to pieces. Even the next day we found limbs and body parts on the roof, feet and hands," Mounir says.
Civilian casualties from Israeli drones Link to this video
Click here: http://uruknet.info/?p=m52863&hd=&size=1&l=e to read more.
'1000% rise in attacks on Palestinians'
A research by an Arab human rights group shows a ten-fold increase in Jewish attacks on the Arab population in Israel over the last year.
On Saturday, the Mossawa Advocacy Center for Arab Citizens reported the 1000 percent rise in 2008 crime rates compared with 2007, citing the recent Israeli war on Gaza and the Israeli elections in February as a reason, said Israeli website Ynetnews. The report said that the Israeli-occupied western Jerusalem (Al-Quds) in the West Bank witnessed the highest rate of racist crimes with 32 counts of anti-Arab violence. Akka [Akko] in northern Israel came second with 22 instances of such crimes. It also noted that 42 Arab citizens had been killed since 2000 at the hands of the Israeli security forces. "What we are witnessing is a moral collapse, and it's time to shout out against racism," said Jafar Farah, the head of the group adding that "the data is especially worrying in regards to civilian violence."
Mossawa decries Tel Aviv's decimation of the Palestinian population, embodied by December 27-January 18 military operations in the Gaza Strip which claimed more than 1,300 Palestinians. The body also regrets Israel's "constant political de-legitimization and marginalization of Arab citizens." The group holds senior Israeli officials such as Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the founder and spiritual leader of Shas party, and Avigdor Lieberman, the chairman of the far-right Yisrael Beitenu, responsible for spreading anti-Arab sentiment. Yosef is known for making controversial remarks such as referring to Arabs as 'snakes'. "The Arabs are like snakes, and you should destroy the head of a snake," the Rabbi, himself of Arab descent, is famed to have said. Lieberman also insists that Arabs residing in the occupied territories should prove their loyalty to Tel Aviv. Mossawa contends that "Lieberman's threats and incitement against Arabs ... are paving the way for a racist Israeli society." Blaming such controversial stances for the surge in racist crimes, Mossawa's director said the Saturday report "definitely" proves that an "extremist message" by an Israeli parliamentarian "permeates and leads to the involvement of more and more citizens." "These attacks are not the hand of fate, but a direct result of incitement against the Arab citizens of this country by religious, public, and elected officials," the report concluded.
A research by an Arab human rights group shows a ten-fold increase in Jewish attacks on the Arab population in Israel over the last year.
On Saturday, the Mossawa Advocacy Center for Arab Citizens reported the 1000 percent rise in 2008 crime rates compared with 2007, citing the recent Israeli war on Gaza and the Israeli elections in February as a reason, said Israeli website Ynetnews. The report said that the Israeli-occupied western Jerusalem (Al-Quds) in the West Bank witnessed the highest rate of racist crimes with 32 counts of anti-Arab violence. Akka [Akko] in northern Israel came second with 22 instances of such crimes. It also noted that 42 Arab citizens had been killed since 2000 at the hands of the Israeli security forces. "What we are witnessing is a moral collapse, and it's time to shout out against racism," said Jafar Farah, the head of the group adding that "the data is especially worrying in regards to civilian violence."
Mossawa decries Tel Aviv's decimation of the Palestinian population, embodied by December 27-January 18 military operations in the Gaza Strip which claimed more than 1,300 Palestinians. The body also regrets Israel's "constant political de-legitimization and marginalization of Arab citizens." The group holds senior Israeli officials such as Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the founder and spiritual leader of Shas party, and Avigdor Lieberman, the chairman of the far-right Yisrael Beitenu, responsible for spreading anti-Arab sentiment. Yosef is known for making controversial remarks such as referring to Arabs as 'snakes'. "The Arabs are like snakes, and you should destroy the head of a snake," the Rabbi, himself of Arab descent, is famed to have said. Lieberman also insists that Arabs residing in the occupied territories should prove their loyalty to Tel Aviv. Mossawa contends that "Lieberman's threats and incitement against Arabs ... are paving the way for a racist Israeli society." Blaming such controversial stances for the surge in racist crimes, Mossawa's director said the Saturday report "definitely" proves that an "extremist message" by an Israeli parliamentarian "permeates and leads to the involvement of more and more citizens." "These attacks are not the hand of fate, but a direct result of incitement against the Arab citizens of this country by religious, public, and elected officials," the report concluded.
Racist and sexist Israeli military shirts show the mindset that led to war crimes in Gaza
Ha'aretz is continuing to divulge soldier testimonies from Gaza. You can find the fullest report yet here. The messianic fervor that fueled the Israeli policy of collective punishment is laid bare.I'm not going to comment on it yet, just go read it.
There is another report in today's Ha'aretz that I do want to comment on. Uri Blau's article "'No virgins, no terror attacks'" describes the practice of Israeli soldiers getting custom clothing printed with their unit's insignia along with graphics and text. Below are some examples of shirts that were printed, along with some of the images. These images only appeared on Ha'aretz's Hebrew-language website:
A T-shirt 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 sharpshooter's T-shirt from the Givati Brigade's Shaked battalion shows a pregnant Palestinian woman with a bull's-eye superimposed on her belly, with the slogan, in English, "1 shot, 2 kills."
After Operation Cast Lead, soldiers from that battalion printed a T-shirt depicting a vulture sexually penetrating Hamas' prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh
A "graduation" shirt for those who have completed another snipers course depicts a Palestinian baby, who grows into a combative boy and then an armed adult, with the inscription, "No matter how it begins, we'll put an end to it."
There are also plenty of shirts with blatant sexual messages. For example, the Lavi battalion produced a shirt featuring a drawing of a soldier next to a young woman with bruises, and the slogan, "Bet you got raped!"
A few of the images underscore actions whose existence the army officially denies - such as "confirming the kill" (shooting a bullet into an enemy victim's head from close range, to ensure he is dead), or harming religious sites, or female or child non-combatants.
"Let every Arab mother know that her son's fate is in my hands!" had previously been banned for use on another infantry unit's shirt. A Givati soldier said this week, however, that at the end of last year, his platoon printed up dozens of shirts, fleece jackets and pants bearing this slogan.
"It has a drawing depicting a soldier as the Angel of Death, next to a gun and an Arab town," he explains. "The text was very powerful. The funniest part was that when our soldier came to get the shirts, the man who printed them was an Arab, and the soldier felt so bad that he told the girl at the counter to bring them to him."
Click here: http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/03/racist-and-sexist-military-shirts-show-the-fruits-of-israeli-militarism.html to read more.
Ha'aretz is continuing to divulge soldier testimonies from Gaza. You can find the fullest report yet here. The messianic fervor that fueled the Israeli policy of collective punishment is laid bare.I'm not going to comment on it yet, just go read it.
There is another report in today's Ha'aretz that I do want to comment on. Uri Blau's article "'No virgins, no terror attacks'" describes the practice of Israeli soldiers getting custom clothing printed with their unit's insignia along with graphics and text. Below are some examples of shirts that were printed, along with some of the images. These images only appeared on Ha'aretz's Hebrew-language website:
A T-shirt 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 sharpshooter's T-shirt from the Givati Brigade's Shaked battalion shows a pregnant Palestinian woman with a bull's-eye superimposed on her belly, with the slogan, in English, "1 shot, 2 kills."
After Operation Cast Lead, soldiers from that battalion printed a T-shirt depicting a vulture sexually penetrating Hamas' prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh
A "graduation" shirt for those who have completed another snipers course depicts a Palestinian baby, who grows into a combative boy and then an armed adult, with the inscription, "No matter how it begins, we'll put an end to it."
There are also plenty of shirts with blatant sexual messages. For example, the Lavi battalion produced a shirt featuring a drawing of a soldier next to a young woman with bruises, and the slogan, "Bet you got raped!"
A few of the images underscore actions whose existence the army officially denies - such as "confirming the kill" (shooting a bullet into an enemy victim's head from close range, to ensure he is dead), or harming religious sites, or female or child non-combatants.
"Let every Arab mother know that her son's fate is in my hands!" had previously been banned for use on another infantry unit's shirt. A Givati soldier said this week, however, that at the end of last year, his platoon printed up dozens of shirts, fleece jackets and pants bearing this slogan.
"It has a drawing depicting a soldier as the Angel of Death, next to a gun and an Arab town," he explains. "The text was very powerful. The funniest part was that when our soldier came to get the shirts, the man who printed them was an Arab, and the soldier felt so bad that he told the girl at the counter to bring them to him."
Click here: http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/03/racist-and-sexist-military-shirts-show-the-fruits-of-israeli-militarism.html to read more.
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